The idea usually comes fast. You’ve been doing this work for years. Clients ask you the same questions on repeat. You know the answers cold. An online course feels like the natural next move. It shares what you know, reaches more people, and generates revenue without trading hours for dollars.
But before you block out six weeks of production time, there’s one question worth sitting with: Does your audience really want this?
Not “would this be interesting?” Not “would this be valuable?” But rather, would they pay for it? Would they show up? Is there a market large enough, and specific enough, to make this worth building?
Confirming if an eCourse is a good course (see what we did there?) before you create it isn’t a step you should skip simply because you’re confident. In fact, it’s what confident, experienced people do.
Here’s how we walk clients through it.
Step 1: Check Demand with Google Trends
Google Trends is a free tool that shows you how search interest in a topic has changed over time. Enter your course idea as a search query and look at two things: the overall volume (is anyone searching for this?) and the trend direction (is interest growing, flat, or declining?).
A course idea with flat interest over five years isn’t necessarily a bad idea but topics with upward trends gives you a lil’ wind at your back. Compare your topic against something you know has demand to help calibrate the scale.
This step takes 15 minutes and has saved clients from months of wasted work.
Step 2: Listen Where Your Audience Already Is
Reddit is underrated as a market research tool. Search your topic and read the threads, not for information, but for language. How are people describing the problem? What words do they use? What do they say they’ve already tried? What’s still frustrating them?
LinkedIn works differently but tells you something equally useful. How often does your topic come up in your connections’ posts or in LinkedIn Pulse articles? Is there a professional community actively engaged in this space, or are you talking into a void?
YouTube is another signal worth reading. Search your topic and look at view counts, especially on videos uploaded in the last 12 to 18 months. High viewership on recent content tells you the audience is still there and actively consuming.
At this stage, you’re not just measuring demand. You’re absorbing your audience’s own words. The phrasing, the questions, the frustrations that will eventually become your course content and your marketing copy.
Step 3: See What’s Already Selling
Udemy and similar platforms let you see which courses are generating real enrollment. Search your topic and sort by popularity. Don’t just note what exists. Study what’s working. What do the high-enrollment courses promise? What gap do they leave?
This is where a lot of businesses give up prematurely. They see competition and assume the market is saturated. But competition is a good sign because it confirms demand exists. What you’re looking for is the angle that’s underserved. The audience segment that isn’t being spoken to directly. The specific problem within the broader topic that nobody has addressed clearly yet.
Cast your net wide enough to attract real volume, but narrow enough that your course has a clear, ownable point of view.
Step 4: Ask Real People Directly
The best market research is still a conversation. Before you finalize anything, survey your actual audience. Ask your email list, LinkedIn connections, existing clients. Keep it short. Five to seven questions is plenty.
The questions that tell you the most: What have you already tried to solve this problem? What did it cost you? Would you pay for something that guaranteed a specific outcome?
You’re not asking for opinions on your idea. You’re asking about the problem because the problem is what you’re selling the solution to. If people can articulate the pain clearly and you can credibly solve it, you have a course worth building.
What Validation Actually Gets You
Validation isn’t about removing all risk from course creation. It’s about making sure you’re building something with real demand behind it.
The intel you gather in this process does more than confirm the idea. It shapes the curriculum. It informs your marketing copy. It tells you which objections to address upfront, which outcomes to promise, and which segment of the market is most ready to buy.
If you build first, and do the research second, you’ll spend months discovering what four weeks of validation would have told you. Once you’ve confirmed demand and you’re ready to think about growth, here’s how to scale an eCourse business for the long term.
If you’re exploring whether an eCourse makes sense for your brand, we’re happy to think it through with you.
