The Biggest Mistake Course Creators Make
Most aspiring course creators never launch. They spend months—sometimes years—planning, recording, editing, and perfecting their content. And then... nothing. The course sits unfinished on a hard drive, or launches to an empty audience.
The biggest mistake is waiting too long. A simple course that helps real students is infinitely better than a perfect course that never sees the light of day.
The Pilot Launch Method
Instead of building your entire course before you have a single student, start with a pilot launch. This approach reduces risk, provides valuable feedback, and generates revenue before you've invested months of work.
1Start Small
Invite a limited group of students—maybe 5 to 15 people—for your first cohort. These founding members get access at a reduced price in exchange for providing feedback and testimonials.
2Gather Feedback
As you teach, pay attention to what resonates and what confuses. Which lessons generate the most engagement? Where do students get stuck? What questions come up repeatedly?
3Iterate Quickly
Between sessions, adjust your content based on what you're learning. Add examples that address common questions. Cut content that isn't landing. Refine your explanations.
4Scale Gradually
Once you've run your pilot successfully, you can increase enrollment, raise prices, and invest in more polished content. But now you're building on a foundation of proven success, not guesswork.
Mini-Courses as Discovery Tools
A mini-course can serve as a powerful discovery tool—a way for potential students to experience your teaching before committing to your flagship program.
Unlike a lead magnet (which is typically consumed once and forgotten), a mini-course creates an ongoing relationship. Students complete lessons over several days or weeks, building familiarity with your style and trust in your expertise.
The best mini-courses deliver a genuine (if small) transformation. They should be valuable on their own, not just a teaser for your paid content. When students achieve a win with your free course, they naturally want to continue the journey with your paid offerings.
Building Your Audience First
The "Field of Dreams" approach—build it and they will come—rarely works for courses. You need an audience before you launch, not after.
This doesn't mean you need millions of followers. A small, engaged email list of 500 people who trust you will outperform 50,000 random social media followers every time.
Focus on building genuine relationships with your right people. Create valuable free content. Engage in communities where they gather. Grow your email list consistently. When launch time comes, you'll have an audience ready to hear about your course.
Launch Timing and Urgency
Launches work because they create urgency. A limited enrollment period, a cohort start date, or a special founding member price all give people a reason to act now rather than later.
Without urgency, people bookmark your sales page and forget about it. With urgency, they make a decision. Even if that decision is "not right now," you've moved them from passive interest to active consideration.
Be careful, though—artificial urgency ("Only 3 spots left!" when you'd happily take 300 students) erodes trust. Create genuine urgency through cohort models, early-bird pricing, or limited bonuses.
Your First Launch Won't Be Your Best
Accept this now: your first launch will be imperfect. You'll make mistakes. Some things won't work. Some emails won't get opened. Some sales pages won't convert.
That's okay. Your first launch is a learning experience, not your only chance. The course creators who succeed are the ones who launch, learn, and launch again—each time a little better than before.
The goal of your first launch isn't perfection. It's getting real students, delivering real results, and gathering real feedback. Everything else is optimization for future launches.
