Validating your ideas is a bitter-sweet process to truly start off in the right direction in your course creation journey. It is bitter because it is difficult, awkward, and uncomfortable, but so so sweet when you get that much-needed and important feedback.
Did you know, most course creators skip this KEY step in the process of creating their online course?
You may feel like you are ready to get all that wonderful knowledge and expertise out of your head and into an online course to share with the world! It is so easy to dive into the creation stage because it is exciting, fun, and something YOU are in complete control over. However, before you dive into creating your course, you really need to validate your ideas.
Validating your ideas means that you make sure your idea has good potential for success. "Success" in this context is relative, it depends on what you want to do. Do you want to make money from your course or do you want to do it for fun or charity?
If you actually want people to pay for your course in the future, this step is absolutely critical for you. Some tough love here so prepare yourself... even though you think you have an excellent idea for a course and you are super passionate about the topic doesn't mean that enough other people will.
The good news is, if you validate your ideas, you save yourself a ton of time, stress, and disappointment. Some more good news is, the more validation you do, the better you can evolve your idea into something really worth-while. Everyone starts somewhere!
Why do course creators skip over the validation process?
Validating your ideas for an online course is much easier said than done. Remember when I mentioned that many course creators skip the validation process? There are really good reasons for that! It is NOT simple or passive to validate your course idea. Here are a few reasons why course creators skip this vital stage.
1) Fear of rejection: it's scary to put your ideas out there in the world, and you think if you just create something amazing first. You think, I'll create it, then people will come, and then it would prove it's own worth!
2) Fear of someone stealing the idea: in the entrepreneur world, this is SUCH a common feeling. I've felt it myself, and I've been in conversations with people in the start-up world that were extremely protective of their ideas.
3) Difficult to find objective feedback: It takes TIME and a lot of rejection to narrow down your target audience. People are busy, and it is very likely that your course doesn't solve the problems of the immediate people in your family or circle of friends. Asking for help means being vulnerable about your ideas and open to feedback, a situation many people avoid if given the opportunity.
"How do I get started in validating my course idea"?
Here are some strategies to address each of the three reasons I mentioned. If you resonated with some or all of the difficulties involving validation, hopefully, you can walk away with some confidence and action steps to try out today.
1) Addressing the fear of rejection: Fear is your body's natural response to something not familiar. So if you haven't practiced sharing your course idea, you will always be afraid. Remember, if you haven't even created the course yet, you have nothing to lose!
Take this time before investing your efforts and really pinpoint a problem people are feeling that could be solved by your course. If you already created your course, don't panic. Chances are that your course will help someone in the world, it just may take more time and effort to find them.
So my advice to this fear of rejection for people who already created a course is... keep fighting.
You are going to have to be very resilient because you could be in a situation now of having difficulty selling your course because no one seems to want to take it. Take every rejection as data, learn about the people who are not interested, and keep track of this information. Eventually, you will be able to find your target audience, but it is going to take some effort and resilience.
2) Addressing the fear of someone stealing the idea: This reason came to mind because I have personally felt and heard this reason many times. I think every entrepreneur could feel this way because we get so passionate about our ideas, they become your baby, and it's human nature to be very protective of our babies, right?
Well, the reality is, chances are you will MUCH better benefit by sharing your ideas and getting feedback, rather than keeping everything to yourself. Everyone has thousands of ideas that come to their mind (for me it's pretty much 100 ideas daily), but the people who actually take action on an idea are an itty bitty fraction when it comes down to the course creation market.
Don't think that the next person you talk to will steal your course idea because they won't. It is not worth the worry. Creating a course is a lot of work and effort, let alone trying to market and scale the idea, so don't assume everyone is out to take your idea and roll with it, because they don't have the same priorities and drive as you do about your topic.
3) Addressing the difficulty of finding objective feedback: This is a tricky issue to address and a lot depends on your current network. If you do have an audience, start there. Ask for a short phone call or conversation and offer them a gift card or something in return (maybe a free coaching session if you're a coach).
Time is valuable, so you want to honor that with anyone willing to help you.
If you are starting out fresh, you may not have an audience or following to ask. You resort to friends or family, who may give biased feedback or not the kind of feedback that is truly helpful in the validation process. One suggestion would be to join the Course Crafter's Lab where you can get professional, unbiased feedback on your ideas.
My other suggestion would be to tell yourself to be patient and ask people you know for connections. You can search on social media groups or specific people that match your ideal learner/customer. Reach out to them, message them, tell them your situation and that you would really appreciate their feedback and time (like mentioned earlier, offer an incentive or a service in return) because time is valuable and you haven't built a relationship with these people yet. So take the time to do so, help others and it will pay off, you just need to be patient.
One step further once you find someone who is your "ideal student avatar" or you likely have heard the term "ICA", try to schedule an empathy interview with them. You can download my free workbook that includes all of these steps to validating your online course ideas, including empathy interview questions.
What should the next article be about?
Simplifying the Outline Process
Creating Measurable Learning Objectives
Gamification
Systems and Process in Online Course Creation
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