How to Validate Your Course Idea Before You Launch

The first course I launched failed and to be honest, it sucked. When you pour your heart and soul into something and it doesn’t work out the way you expect, it can make you question… well, everything! You might ask, “Am I charging too much?” or “Am I qualified to teach this?” or “Is my idea good enough?” And then, you might start on a darker path, “Am I good enough?” or “Should I even continuing?”

If you can relate, first take a deep breath. You are good enough. You are qualified to teach whatever it is your course is about. And, you should continue. But, here’s the thing that few people mention: Failure is a part of the entrepreneurship process. The goal isn’t “don’t fail.” The goal is “fail before you’ve put in too much".” Fail before you’ve put in too much time, too much money, too much energy or too much of yourself.

“The goal isn’t “don’t fail".” The goal is “fail before you’ve put in too much.”

When you invest too much before you discover the problems with your idea it can be devastating. When you invest too much before you discover the problems with your idea it can lead to burnout. When you invest too much before you discover the problems with your idea, you might have run out of the resources you need (time, money, energy, etc) to find a solution.

But, there’s good news! My friend, there is a way to fix this. You can’t control whether your product or service will fail. You can’t control whether people like it. Buut, you can control WHEN you discover this information. The secret to learning this information as early as possible is design thinking. Design thinking can be used for any industry or niche and, in fact, for problem solving in general. Design thinking is used by companies around the globe, like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to create new products and services before they launch. Want to learn more about design thinking? Check out this post: Design Thinking Overview.

An important part of the design thinking process is to validate your idea. But, how do you validate your idea when you have no customers, 0 email subscribers and little to no social media followers? Don’t worry! I’ve got you covered. Sign-up for the Unicorn Makerspace mailing list below to receive a FREE GUIDE on how to validate your idea when you have no audience. And remember, failure is just success is progress.