Course Creators Weekly #69
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October 18th, 2021
- From Beach Volleyball to Online Courses
Stefy Bolaños writes about volleyball games and learning, Pat Flynn talks about creating an online course from scratch, and Janelle Allen talks about validating your course idea.
Games (or what Beach Volleyball has to teach us about online courses)
In this article, Stefy Bolaños shares 4 key learnings from her Dad's everyone-here-plays-beach-volleyball tradition.
Here are my 4 key takeaways based on those learnings:
Create a safe space for students to learn through failure—mastery by trial and error
Teach the fundamentals and the first principles—let everything else build on that
Give constructive, directed feedback—design a tight feedback loop, even if automated
Create a supportive, fun culture, with honesty, vulnerability and trust—show, don't tell
Check out Stefy's article. I'm sure you'll have your own takeaways too! 
Thanks, Josh! 😊
I want to give a huge shout-out and thank you to Josh Spector for featuring CCW in his thread of "The Most Helpful Newsletters For Creators."
Growing a newsletter is not easy. At times it feels like pushing a boulder uphill, but then you get a shout-out like that, and BAM! 
Here's Josh's own, awesome newsletter: For The Interested (you're interested! 
)
Random Picks from past editions
How to Create an Online Course (Starting from ZERO)
To create a course, you must come from a place of service and helping others
People don't buy courses—they buy the outcome
You must know for whom you're creating transformation
You don't need to teach a unique topic, but you need a unique advantage
Find your niche—even a small one can be profitable with a premium course
Do you need your own audience? Not necessarily, but even a small one can help
Don't have an audience? Go where they hang out, watch and join discussions
Learn to speak your target audience's language
Keep your videos short, and stick with one action item per video
Keep your course as long as it needs to be to create transformation—no more
Start with a few people—build confidence, improve your process, get testimonials
If you can't find a few people to Beta test with, how will you find more later?
Remember: "Your earnings are a byproduct of how well you serve your audience"
How to outline a course
Take a post-it note and write down where people are right now in their journey
On another post-it note, write down where they want to go (the transformation)
Brainstorm everything you can teach to help them get there, one idea per note
Group your post-it notes into logical clusters, then re-order them
Fill the gaps, remove the duplicates, and there you have your modules
How to Validate Your Online Course Idea with Your Target Audience
Make sure your course idea has legs before investing time, energy and money into it- Remember that the only true validation is sales—everything else is pre-validation
Surveys: ask your audience about their challenges and solutions they've already tried
Customer discovery interviews: talk to people—pay attention to the language they use
e-Stalking: become a part of your target audience's community and listen intently
Be wary of people "lying" to please you or avoid discomfort—we're only human
Combine these ideas—e.g. interview survey respondents or e-stalk to verify answers
P.S. If you're interested in learning more about customer discovery interviews, especially the "lying" part, you should absolutely check out The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
