- Headline result
- 4-6 launches a month
- Client
- A course publishing company
- My role
- Operations Manager and Production Director
- Scope
- 150+ course catalog on Udemy, Teachable and their own site
- When
- 2025
The problem
Work lived in scattered group chats. Files moved between Dropbox, Google Drive and Frame.io through links that went stale. Tasks were not assigned well, so editors and instructors sometimes did not know a piece of work was theirs. The founder spent hours a day messaging editors, instructors and designers about what needed doing.
Raw drafts got mixed with final files. Shortly after I joined I caught a video going out with raw unedited segments still in it, right before publishing. That was the moment that set the priorities.
Founder-as-the-link works when there are a few courses in flight. With a 150+ catalog and several launches a month it creates missed tasks, confusion and errors that only get caught at the end, if at all.
What I did
One content pipeline in ClickUp, from instructor sourcing to launch. Source → interview → onboard → outline → record → edit → QA gate 1 → revisions → QA gate 2 → trailer and assets → launch on the site, Udemy and Teachable. Every task and subtask assigned from the start with dependencies, so the next person sees what is coming.
Everyone on one communication platform and one file system. Google Drive structured by course with raw and final folders separated, linked from the ClickUp task. A file only moves to the final folder after the second QA gate passes. No more hunting for the right version in a chat thread.
I ran the instructor side myself: finding and interviewing instructors, onboarding them with written docs, tracking their production timelines and giving revision feedback on video quality. I briefed editors on style and trailers and launched the courses on all three platforms.
SOPs and onboarding docs for every recurring step, so anyone could pick up a stage if someone was away. The system is written down, not explained live.
How it works
Two QA gates, not one
One gate before revisions and one after. The first catches content and quality problems while they are cheap to fix. The second checks the final file before trailer and launch, which is the gate the raw-segments video would have hit. Errors stopped reaching the final stages.
One place for chat, one place for files
Three file tools and five group chats is how finals get mixed with drafts. One comms platform, one drive, raw and final folders kept apart and every task linking to its folder. The link lives on the task, not in someone's memory.
Assigned from the start
A course enters the pipeline with every downstream task already owned and dependent on the one before. Nobody has to be told work is coming. Their task turns active when the previous one closes.
Instructors run through a pipeline too
Sourcing, interview, onboarding docs, then into production with a timeline. Treating instructors like any other pipeline stage is what made 4-6 launches a month repeatable instead of heroic.
SOPs so anyone can step in
Every recurring step is documented with a doc or a Loom walkthrough. When someone is sick or away, someone else can follow the SOP and the launch date holds.
Results
- 4-6 new courses launched a month, personally
- Errors stopped reaching final stages
- A 150+ course catalog run from one pipeline instead of a founder's inbox
- Three file systems → one, scattered chats → one comms platform
- Instructors sourced, interviewed and onboarded on a documented process
What this means for your business
Founder-as-the-link works at a small scale and breaks the moment volume goes up. The fix is boring and it works: one pipeline, one owner per step, QA gates where errors are expensive and files in one place. If you publish courses, videos or any content at volume and the founder is still the one catching mistakes at the end, happy to grab a call to look at how work moves through your team today.
Tools
- ClickUp
- Google Drive
- Udemy
- Teachable
- Loom
Skills
- Production Manager
- Content Operations
- Course Production
- Operations Manager
- Quality Assurance Process
- ClickUp
- Instructor Onboarding
- SOP Development
- Project Management
Questions
How do you set up a course production pipeline?
Map the stages from instructor sourcing to launch, give each one an owner and build it as a board where every task is assigned and dependent on the one before. Put a QA gate before revisions and another before launch. Keep raw and final files in separate folders linked from the task.
How many QA steps does a content pipeline need?
Two, at minimum, placed where mistakes are expensive. One early, while a fix is a quick re-edit. One at the end, before anything is published. A single check at the end means every problem is found when it costs the most to fix.
How do you onboard instructors or freelance creators at scale?
The same way you onboard a team member. A written onboarding doc, the style brief, the timeline and the pipeline they are entering. Interview before committing, document everything once and run them through the same stages as every other course so nothing depends on memory.
What tools do you use to manage course production?
ClickUp for the pipeline, Google Drive for files with a strict folder structure, Loom for SOP walkthroughs and the publishing platforms themselves at the end. The tool matters less than the rule that every task is assigned from the start and every file has one home.