You may remember the story Jacques Hopkins first shared on the Side Hustle Show in 2017 about his online piano course.

Over the past decade, he systematically scaled Piano in 21 Days, into a powerhouse brand that generated over $4 million in sales.

Now in 2024, I connected with Jacques again to get an update on his current projects and perspective looking back on his entrepreneurial wins and lessons learned over the past years.

Like all savvy business owners, his approach and focus has evolved quite a bit during that timeframe.

Tune in to Episode 596 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

Jacques’ online piano course business after 11 years and over $4 million in sales
Elements of building a successful online course business
How Jacques’ passion has shifted after doing this side hustle for over a decade
What Jacques is focused on next with his coaching program and podcast

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Piano in 21 Days Over the Past Decade

Jacques launched his first version of Piano in 21 Days while still in college after reading Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek. The book opened his mind to the possibilities of generating income online.

Teaching piano wasn’t Jacques’ background or passion.

As he puts it, the course he created was actually the 7th project he attempted after graduating. But this one ended up resonating for a few key reasons:

His beginner-friendly piano learning method was quick and simple
The name Piano in 21 Days set clear expectations about the speed of the learning system

In the beginning, it was tough because Jacques had to work hard to learn about marketing, sales strategies, and how to grow an online audience.

Jacques weathered the storm and now makes $10k-$30k a month semi-passively from the business after expenses. 2020 was his best year ever at over $145k in one month largely thanks to a pandemic boost.

However, he openly admits his passion for piano itself has waned recently as his interests have shifted to helping others build successful course businesses through theonlinecourseguy.com and his podcast The Online Course Show (which he told me was inspired by the Side Hustle Show).

“Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing from people. And thankfully, because of the hard work I have put in, I don’t have to put in much hard work anymore and can focus on other things that I am more passionate about,” he clarified.

The 2 Core Beliefs For Conversion

When asked about the elements that make his sales funnel so effective, he shared two critical beliefs that any high-converting sequence must instill:

“I can do this”

The main goal is to make people think they can succeed by joining Jacques’ piano course. His course helps complete beginners learn and makes them say, “I can do this!”

“This is the course that can help me.”

This will make you believe that his course, in particular, is the best way to reach your goals.

Product Launch Formula

When asked Jacques about the format of his 12-day sales funnel sequence, he explained it closely follows the renowned Product Launch Formula popularized by Jeff Walker.

For those unfamiliar, PLF pioneered the concept of warming up an audience via a structured cascade of value before presenting a paid offer as the next logical step.

When people visit Jacques’ site to learn piano today, they are greeted with a link offering his free ebook, Learn 36 Popular Songs in 5 Days.

This serves as a lead magnet that people can download in exchange for their email address.

Once subscribed, customers enter into his evergreen email funnel spanning the next 12 days. This sequence delivers valuable content to warm up prospects before the paid course offer.

Towards the end, Jacques promotes a limited-time discount off his course to incentivize people to purchase within the 12-day promotional window before it closes.

If previous leads don’t end up buying, Jacques has designed the sequence to automatically re-engage cold subscribers every 100 days.

He says on average 3-4% of newcomers convert during their first pass through the funnel. Around 1% per re-engagement end up purchasing thanks to multiple followup attempts.

This tiered evergreen approach does the selling for him 24/7. And it does it well—having generated millions over the past decade.

Pricing Evolution

Jacques’ $800 course price point today is significantly higher than when he first got started. 

He found this resonated much better with students as it was more honest and aligned better against normal consumer shopping behaviors.

He also said that early on, he offered varying levels like a $100 ebook up to a $500 video course.

“What I noticed is that people were not successful with that bottom level package. I didn’t feel like I was serving people very well for including that any further,” he shared.

When he eventually removed the entry-level pricing, he was afraid raising prices would hurt conversions.

But he found after raising his course from $500 to $800 (and keeping it discounted by 20% in the funnel), his revenue actually increased due to larger order values outweighing modestly fewer purchases.

3 Models For Urgency & Increased Conversion

When it comes to marketing an online course, Jacques notes every creator has to solve the urgency equation. After all, most people don’t wake up eagerly to buy your educational offering first thing!

1. Availability

One effective way (that Jacques used early on) is to tell people there are only a limited number of spots available, and they need to sign up quickly before they run out.

The course will only be available until all the spots are filled, and once they are, no more signups will be allowed.

2. Discount

As his business matured, Jacques pivoted to featuring a discount promotion during his funnel sequence instead of pure availability claims.

This works better because people enjoy snagging deals, and it feels more honest than pretending there’s a shortage.

The % encourages people to sign up quickly before the timer runs out and the prices go up.

3. Bonus

Another effective strategy Jacques mentioned is offering a time-sensitive bonus. This could be something valuable like a cheat sheet, private coaching, or anything that gives value.

People feel a sense of urgency to sign up before that date to make sure they get the bonus.

Coaching Programs

While Jacques’ piano course runs passively, his main passion now is coaching fellow course creators through 3 programs:

Genesis Courses – For people new to online courses and looking for a simple way to start their course business
Next Level Coaching – For established course creators looking to create their first 5 to 6 figures
OCG Mastermind – For successful course creators making at least $100K in yearly profit looking to connect and grow with like-minded peers

Tools and Tech

When asked what crucial tech enables his business to run so smoothly year after year, his list was short:

Kajabi for course hosting
ActiveCampaign for email
Deadline Funnel for the 12-day sales funnel

He sung praises for Kajabi in particular. Their all-in-one platform makes launching courses simple because it consolidates the course content, website, and more.

His ActiveCampaign sequences power the evergreen funnel along with automated re-engagement flows for bringing cold leads back to life.

And Deadline Funnel is the glue that makes his discount triggers work like clockwork behind the scenes.

Challenges & Surprises

With nearly a decade under his belt, Jacques admits the past year held some surprises and renewed frustrations:

Lost Passion

As someone who was never a professional piano teacher, Jacques feels he got “lucky” in his course success. And after many years, he’s not as excited about it as before.

Now, he’s considering three options: sell it and move on to other projects, hire help to scale it further, or leave it as-is to coast into the future with minimal oversight required.

Looking to the Future With The Online Course Guy

Jacques remains passionate about online education and courses. Right now, he’s mainly working on two connected projects in this field:

The Online Course Guy: This aims to help others design, launch, and grow successful online course businesses.

The Online Course Show: A podcast all about exchanging knowledge and helping course creators succeed.

Jacques’ #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

2024: “Create content”

2018: “Think about the customer transformation.”

2017: “Have a compelling hook.” “Half the cost of piano lessons and ridiculously more effective.”

Episode Links

Piano in 21 Days
The 4-Hour Workweek
The Online Course Show
Theonlinecourseguy.com
Learn 36 Popular Songs in 5 Days
Online Course Guy Coaching programs
Kajabi
ActiveCampaign
Deadline Funnel

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The CoinOut app is a legit way to get paid for your receipts. Consistent app users can earn up to $3 a month, or roughly $36 a year.

In this review, I’ll share:

How CoinOut works
My experience with the app so far
Some CoinOut alternatives to consider

Ready? Let’s do it!

What is CoinOut?

CoinOut is a free rewards app that pays you for scanning receipts and sharing other data about your purchase habits.

The app first appeared on Shark Tank in 2017 and originally only worked with certain merchants. Now you can earn from receipts from any store.

CoinOut is available on iOS and Android. 

Is CoinOut Legit?

Yes, CoinOut is legit. You get cash back for submitting pictures of your receipts. While your payout isn’t going to be huge, you can make up to $3 a month or $36 a year, depending on how much you shop.

It’s not a huge amount of money, but your time investment to take pictures and upload is very minimal.

At press time, CoinOut has a 4.6-star rating in the Apple App Store and a 3.6-star rating in the Google Play store. The app has over 1 million downloads on Android so far.

The company has raised $2.7 million in venture funding to fund development and grow their userbase.

How Does CoinOut Make Money?

Like other rewards apps, CoinOut is a data broker. On their privacy page, they spell out who your personal information may be shared with, including:

Vendors and service providers
Third party platforms, providers, and networks
Data partners and business customers

The fine print:

We may disclose information that you provide through the Services to help our data partners and business customers to better understand consumer behavior… We may also provide your information, including your purchase information and your personal information, to commercial partners and other third parties, such as retailers or brands, for marketing research and analytics purposes. We will not, however, allow such third parties to use this information for the purposes of individually marketing to you or to contact you.

I tend to operate under the assumption that my consumer habits are already being sold with or without my permission, so sharing pictures of my grocery receipts doesn’t seem like a huge additional breach of privacy.

How Does CoinOut Work?

To get started with CoinOut, download the app on your device.

Once downloaded, follow the registration steps to sign up for an account.

After that, you can start earning right away.

How Much Are CoinOut Coins Worth?

CoinOut coins are worth $0.001 each. Put another way, it takes 1,000 coins to earn $1.

(But you’ll need to earn at least 3,000 coins to cash out.)

Occasionally you’ll see rewards discounted up to 10% — which would be a good time to cash out!

How to Maximize Your CoinOut Earnings

There are a few different ways to earn coins on CoinOut. I’ll review them in this section.

Take Pictures of Receipts

Receipt-scanning is the primary way to earn coins.

Every receipt you take a picture of with the CoinOut app is worth 10-50 coins. The amount of the purchase doesn’t matter, but your “Level” in the app does.

More on that below.

One point of mild frustration is that when you upload a receipt, CoinOut does not give you credit for it immediately like rivals Fetch and Ibotta. Instead, they take up to 72 hours to verify it and then credit the coins to your account.

You can also earn small amounts of bonus coins for uploading several receipts in a week.

Level Up in the App

CoinOut has several user Levels:

Bronze
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Diamond

When you first sign-up, your account will be at the basic Bronze level, and receipts are worth 10 coins ($0.01) each.

After you scan your first receipt and take a short profile survey, you’ll level up to Silver. At the Silver level, receipts are worth 20 coins each ($0.02).

To achieve Gold, you’ll need to do all of the above, plus connect your email. At Gold, receipts are worth 30 coins each ($0.03).

You can reach Platinum if you do all that, plus scan 10 receipts in a month. Then receipts will be worth 40 coins each ($0.04).

Finally, to reach Diamond, you’ll need to do all of the above plus connect at least one retailer in the app. Then your receipts will be worth 50 coins each ($0.05).

One thing that’s kind of lame is CoinOut only seems to process these Level updates once a month.

Email Connect

Snapping pictures of your receipts isn’t the only way to earn coins in CoinOut.

Another way to earn is to connect your email account to allow CoinOut to scan for e-commerce receipts.

The following email providers are eligible:

Gmail
Outlook.com
Yahoo!
Hotmail
aol.com

In exchange for letting CoinOut read your email, they’ll give you a 200-point bonus ($0.20). My understanding is they’d also give you receipt-credit based on any email receipts they find. 

But for only $0.20 upfront, I opted not to do this, which limits my account to the Silver level.

Per the site, “We do not have access to read or use information in non-receipt emails. We are strictly governed by Privacy Policy and Terms of Use that do not allow us to use information not relating to your purchase.”

Retailer Connect

Once you have your account setup, you also have the option to connect your accounts from major retailers like:

Amazon
Walmart
Instacart
Starbucks
Kroger

For each of these, you’ll earn 200 bonus coins when you connect them.

If you make frequent purchases from these retailers, it’s an easy way to capture your receipts and get rewards.

But again, for $0.20, I said no thanks.

CoinFrenzy

CoinFrenzy is a new slot game inside the CoinOut app. Every receipt you submit earns a spin, which could be worth up to 500 bonus coins.

When I tested it out, I actually won the 500 coins (and some smaller prizes) after just a few spins!

Woohoo — free $0.50!

Missions

There’s another section of the app called Missions, but at press time mine was empty.

This section might include surveys or other offers to complete for bonus coins.

How Much Can You Earn with CoinOut?

It’s hard to imagine most users earning more than $3 a month with CoinOut.

Let’s say you’re a heavy shopper and have 10 receipts a week, and you’ve given CoinOut access to your email and retail accounts to level all the way up to Diamond.

Those 10 receipts a week will be worth 500 points ($0.50), or roughly $2 a month.

If you score another 1000 points worth of bonuses throughout the month, that adds another $1 to your total.

The bottom line: it’s free money, but it’s not going to have a huge impact on your budget.

Does CoinOut Have a Referral Program?

At this time, CoinOut does not have a paid referral program.

Getting Paid With CoinOut

There are 3 ways you can get cash out from CoinOut:

Amazon gift card
Zelle
PayPal

The Amazon gift card withdrawals are available starting at $3, but it takes:

A minimum of $5 to cash out via Zelle
A mininum of $25 to cash out via PayPal

My Experience With CoinOut

My experience with CoinOut has been mostly positive.

It’s really easy and takes almost no time to snap a picture of my receipt and submit it.

This app isn’t going to bring in a lot of money, but it’s an easy way to gain some fun money with little effort. 

They are introducing more ways to earn like with CoinFrenzy, so there is the potential to gain more coins quicker, and who knows what other features they may add in the future.

CoinOut allows you to cash out for as little as $3, which is a low minimum among money making apps. If you want straight cash, you’ll have to wait until you have a larger payout.

CoinOut Alternatives

CoinOut is one of several receipt-scanning apps I keep on my phone. After each shopping trip, it’s pretty fast to go through and take a picture with each to earn the points.

Here are some similar apps to consider, along with some other ways to get paid for your data. 

1. Fetch Rewards

The Fetch Rewards app is a favorite of mine because it’s super easy. You earn points by snapping pictures of your grocery receipts, which you can cash in for gift cards.

Pro Tip: Use referral code FETCH300 when you sign up to get 300 free bonus points added to your account.

2. Ibotta

I use Ibotta every week to check for extra cash back on our grocery purchases.

The drawback is you still have to scroll through each store’s listing and choose the products you bought. Then, you snap a picture of your receipt and watch the cash back hit your account.

Ibotta Savers who use the app every month earn over $130 a year! I’ll take it. (You can cash out via gift cards or PayPal.)

3. Dosh

With Dosh, there are no codes to scan or receipts to upload. You’ll earn automatic cash back at lots of nearby locations.

Where Dosh is perhaps most interesting is in booking hotels. When you book through the app, you can get up to 40% cash back at 600,000 hotels!

4. MobileXpression

MobileXpression is a market research panel that pays you for data from your mobile phone.

After you download the app, it works in the background recording your browsing habits. You’ll earn weekly credits redeemable for gift cards to popular retailers.

Realistically, this is an un-intrusive background app that will probably earn you around $20 a year in passive income. And you’ll earn a free $5 gift card after your first week.

5. Pogo (iOS)

The free Pogo app is one of my latest finds. By sharing your location and credit card transaction data, Pogo gives you points that you can cash out to PayPal or Venmo.

Just enable location tracking and link your bank account credentials when you sign up. Based on my results so far, I expect Pogo to be worth around $5-20 a year.

Check out my full Pogo app review to learn more.

6. Caden (iOS)

Caden is one of my newest finds, and is earning me over $10 a month on autopilot

The app itself is a little slow and buggy, but may be worth those small headaches for some relatively easy passive income.

At press time, it was iOS only. Check out our full Caden app review to learn more.

Is CoinOut Worth It?

CoinOut and the other apps listed above are easy ways to earn a bit of money throughout the year.

They won’t replace your day job, but they could be used to save up gift cards for gifts or special occasions like date nights.

If you make it part of your shopping routine, it will take almost no effort to earn some extra cash over the year for money you’re already spending.

Serious About Making Extra Money?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.