The reason your course is going to fail and how to stop it
This is a very common story. Someone has an idea of a course, they get excited, spend ours creating a content plan, filming, editing and then pay a platform to host the course and then they launch.
And then they hear *Crickets*
After having worked with dozens of knowledge creators, it is safe to say that the reason why this happens is not that the person is incompetent or does not have anything valuable to say.
A deeper analysis clearly points to one thing, the creator has not found their creator market fit or more specifically, their course market fit.
What is a course market fit?
In the startup world, a startup is said to achieve product-market when the product serves the needs of a select group of customers in a profound way.
Similarly, in the knowledge creator world, a course-market fit is when your course, serves the needs of a few individuals in a unique and profound way to help them achieve their desired outcome.
An ideal course market fit is that area where what you teach and what your students (your ‘market’)want to learn are aligned. Only at this point, will you be able to get your ideal student and extract value (e.g. money and time) from them.
Here is a picture explaining this graphically:
So, how do you find course market fit?
Here is a 4 step process to find your course market fit
Referring to the diagram above, we will first tackle the ‘YOU’ circle and then the “market’ circle.
Step 1: List all the topics you are passionate about.
What are the topics you just cannot stop talking about and can potentially talk about for days on end? List all the topics that come to mind.
Step 2: What are the market signals?
What are some of the topics that people have asked you advice for on? Invited you to speak on?
Step 3: Are there any topic overlaps?
Are some of the topics overlapping? Are there any topics that people have reached out to you for advice, or told you to speak on at an event/podcast that you also love talking about? Write those out.
Step 4: Test Demand
List these topics and create a course outline with these topics. Then go to your community, or those people who have asked you for advice/be a podcast guest on their platform and tell them that you are planning to launch your course. Get feedback and iterate.
Step 5: Create Op-ins
After a few iterations, as excitement builds for your course, start creating opt-ins (using a waitlist/pre-booking page) with a date in mind to launch the course.
Once you get those 5–10 options start building your course.
A personal case study.
When I was teaching my cohort, one of the biggest mistakes I made was building material on podcasting without
Then I launched.
And, guess what I heard?
Crickets
So I went back to the drawing board and followed the above process. Here is what I found.
I loved talking about all things podcasting. But, the market/my community did not want to learn to podcast per se, but how to network through podcasting.
We then created a syllabus and rough outline of what the course entails with dates of launch and re-shared it with our network. Next, we created an opt-in (sign-up page with a payment link). Once the sign-ups came in we then started creating the course content and planning each workshop in detail.
The intersection of the two led to the cohort-based course: Power Podcasting. A cohort-based course that teaches people how to network through the medium of podcasting.
To Recap
Don’t build something that your learner is not going to appreciate. Instead, find the topics they really want to learn, test demand for potential topics by asking them for feedback, create a few opt-ins and then start creating content for your course.
