How Dara Denney Built a Six-Figure Course in 60 Days

When the world shut down in 2020, Dara Denney found herself back in a place she didn’t expect…

In a small town in the Midwest, living in her parents’ basement.

Up until then, she’d been living a digital nomad lifestyle, working remotely in the advertising business long before remote work became mainstream. But like most of us, COVID forced her to return home, faced with an uncertain timeline of return to her normal life.

Instead of dwelling on what she’d lost, Dara decided to make the most of what she had. With years of experience under her belt, she started creating content to help marketers navigate the world of paid social advertising.

“It was the only time I felt like if I really wanted to try content, it was the moment to try it,” Dara said.

Dara’s approach was simple but powerful. Initially, she focused her content around lessons she wanted when she was a junior digital marketer.

“There really wasn’t anyone showing the inside of ad accounts and showing how to make creatives that convert,” she said.

The content resonated almost immediately. What started as weekly YouTube videos and TikTok posts every other day began attracting a loyal following of business owners and marketers facing similar challenges.

“I got a lot of really positive feedback early on,” Dara said. “And that just went on to snowball for the next two, three years.”

For the next few years, Dara balanced her agency work with content creation, choosing not to monetize her growing audience beyond a few occasional sponsorships. But as her following grew, so did requests for more personalized help.

In response, she hosted one-hour consulting calls. But eventually, the demand took up too much time. 

So a few years into her journey, Dara made a choice that went against conventional wisdom. She quit her agency job to bet on herself, committing to launch a course within 60 days.

“I had so much advice from people telling me to make sure you build up a book of clients or make sure your course sells X amount before quitting your job,” she said. “I didn’t end up doing that.

“I had this feeling that I knew it was going to work,” she added. “And luckily, it did.”

Working from her one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, Dara broke down the enormous task of launching her Performance Creative Accelerator into a manageable, methodical process:

First, Dara built a comprehensive outline of all her lessons. She organized her years of advertising expertise into a logical, learning progression.

“It was really crucial to time block and systematize how I was going to make the course,” she said.

Next came scripting. Dara designed a lesson plan around answering real student questions and solving challenges she noticed in her comments and consulting calls.

“I have a list in my notes app of all the questions I get asked on a daily basis,” Dara said. “Those are the things that ultimately became lessons in my course.”

Then came the most intensive part: filming and post production.

“I did the entire thing myself,” she said.

Dara set up specific days for filming followed by separate blocks dedicated to editing her content. This systematic approach helped her manage the mental and physical demands of creating a course on her own.

“Making a course in a small amount of time is such a grind,” she admitted. “But necessity is the mother of invention.”

When it came to getting the word out, Dara’s strategy was not complicated. Her approach included putting the course link in every YouTube video she published, creating a few targeted Instagram posts, and sending just four emails total to her list.

“I feel like the distribution was really quite simple for me because I had been building up an audience that had been routinely asking me for content,” she explained.

After extensive research, Dara chose Teachable as her platform of choice. With its intuitive course builder, she felt free to customize her course with ease.

“When I looked at the back end of Teachable, I thought, ‘Okay, I understand this immediately,’” she said. “I really came away with the sense that it was a platform made for creators.” 

The flexibility Teachable offered Dara meant that she was always in control of her content. From video uploads to course structuring, Teachable provided a super sleek experience Dara was sold on the moment she signed up.

“My life has completely changed because of Teachable,” she said. “Because my sales and a part of my revenue is completely on autopilot, I no longer have that financial worry that has honestly burdened me as a young person.”

Despite her initial reservations about launching a course, Dara’s leap of faith paid off. Priced at $897, she signed up 570 students and generated close to $200,000 in revenue during the first month of her launch. In fact, $40,000 of revenue came in on its first day alone.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve never seen that type of money before,” Dara said. “It was a really shocking moment for me.”

But beyond financial success, Dara takes pride in the results she’s generated for both small business owners and multi-million dollar companies alike.

“Both of those things are equally rewarding for me,” she said. “My course is far from perfect but it’s had a huge impact on my students.”

Today, Dara is preparing to relaunch her course as a cohort-based program while she builds a team for her business. Her journey from pandemic uncertainty to thriving creator shows that sometimes the most unexpected circumstances become a catalyst for launching something meaningful.

And profitable, too.

Want to build, sell, and scale smarter in 2025? Download Teachable’s free Modern Course Creator Playbook - a practical guide packed with strategies to help you simplify your systems, clarify your value, and create offers that actually sell.