Too many course creators are in the "idea stage" for weeks, months, even years. They read books about course creation. They research platforms. They brainstorm topics. But the course never materializes. The problem isn't a lack of ideas — it's a lack of momentum. Here's a 4-step process that breaks the cycle.
Step 1: Validate That Someone Actually Wants This
This sounds obvious, but it's where most stuck creators go wrong. They develop a course based on what they think is interesting — without asking potential students whether they'd actually invest time and money to learn it.
Validation doesn't require a formal market research project. It requires five conversations. Reach out to people in your network who fit your target audience and ask two questions: "What's your biggest challenge with [topic]?" and "If a course existed that helped you solve that, would you consider taking it?"
Listen carefully to their answers. If three out of five people describe the same problem with genuine frustration, you have a viable course topic. If nobody can articulate a clear pain point, you're solving a problem that doesn't exist — and no amount of marketing will fix that.
How to define and interview your ideal student →
Step 2: Pre-Sell Before You Build
The only way to really know if your course idea has legs is to try to sell it — before it exists. This is the scariest step, and the most important one.
Pre-selling doesn't have to mean collecting money (though it can). It can be as simple as sending an email to your network:
"I'm putting together a small pilot group for a 4-week course on [topic]. I'm looking for 5-8 people who want to [specific outcome]. The course will run [dates] and includes [brief description of format — e.g., weekly live sessions + exercises]. It's free for this first cohort in exchange for your honest feedback. Interested? Reply to this email."
When people commit — even to a free pilot — two things happen. First, you get proof that real humans want what you're creating. Second, you now have accountability. Those 5-8 people are expecting you to deliver. That pressure is exactly the momentum you need to stop planning and start creating.
If nobody responds, that's valuable information too. It means either your topic needs refining, your offer wasn't specific enough, or you haven't reached the right people yet. All of those are fixable — and you find out in a week instead of spending three months building a course nobody wants.
Step 3: Build as You Teach
Once you have your pilot group, don't try to create the entire course in advance. Teach one module. See how it lands. Adjust. Teach the next one.
Start with a very small, focused bit of material — a single concept or skill — and challenge participants to take action on it before the next session. Their questions, struggles, and breakthroughs tell you exactly what to cover next. You're building the airplane while flying it, and that's by design.
The live session approach: Run weekly Zoom calls with your pilot group. Teach a concept for 20 minutes, then open the floor for questions and exercises. Record everything. Those recordings become your course content for the next round. You've now created a course and taught it simultaneously.
Complete guide to running a pilot course →
Step 4: Shrink the Next Step
The reason people stay stuck at the idea stage is that "create an online course" feels enormous. It's not one task — it's hundreds of tasks. And when your brain sees hundreds of tasks, it freezes.
The antidote is aggressive micro-stepping. Don't put "Create Module 1" on your to-do list. Put "Write 3 bullet points for Lesson 1." When that's done, put "Record a 5-minute rough draft of those 3 points." Each micro-step takes 10-15 minutes and generates a sense of completion that builds momentum for the next one.
In 2026, AI tools can accelerate this process. Set a 30-minute timer. Ask Claude or ChatGPT to help you outline your first module. Then close the tool and start recording. But be honest with yourself: "researching AI tools" can become another form of procrastination if you're not careful.
Use our outline generator to break your idea into steps →
The Inner Game
This process can be straightforward — validate, pre-sell, teach, iterate. But it only works if you have the right mindset. The blocks that keep people stuck at the idea stage aren't usually about information or tools. They're about fear: fear that nobody will sign up, fear that the content won't be good enough, fear of being judged.
Here's a fact that might help: in all the years of running the 30 Day Course Creation Challenge, we've never seen a course get zero signups. Even first-time creators with small audiences attract a handful of students. The fear of "nobody will come" is almost always worse than the reality.