How To Validate Your Course Idea

By: Justin Ferriman • December 9, 2014
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motivateGiven the industry of LearnDash and my experience within the elearning field in general, I have had the opportunity to come across a large variety of course offerings.

From the bizarre to the genius, people are creating and selling courses like never before!

While I always enjoy seeing how people are using LearnDash for their online course programs, it’s quite clear that some ideas will likely experience more success than others.

Note that this has nothing to do with the course content or the people behind the courses, but instead has everything to do with the market. Specifically, the size of it.

Validating Your Idea

There are many ways to go about validating your course idea, and you should explore all of these options. But there is one thing that you can do in about five seconds that will help you on your quest to create and sell an online course.

I was recently having a conversation and was asked if I’m alarmed by the number of competing offerings appearing every week in the WordPress LMS space (I can easily name off 10 at the time of this post, and that’s not even half of them).

My answer?

Absolutely not – in fact, it’s invigorating!

Admittedly, I am an extremely competitive person, so new entrants into the market excites me more than anything.

But whether you are a fan of competition or not, you too should embrace it. The truth is, competition is the ultimate sign that you are in a viable market. If the market was a bad one, then competition wouldn’t exist.

I know that many people dream of being the only one in their industry, essentially having a monopoly. While this may seem nice, it really isn’t sustainable. If you are in a desirable market, then at some point you will have competition.

You should be worried if you never see any competitors!

Before you spend a great deal of time creating your online course, quickly open a browser and head over to Google. Type in the keywords that you believe people will use when searching for your offering.

Then, have a look at the results.

Are there paid ads? If so, good!

Are people selling similar courses? If so, great!

In the end this will force you to innovate your offering so that it provides more value.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter