Before you build your online course or community, read this

Aug 21, 2025

When you first step into the online business world, it looks simple enough. Create a course. Build a membership. Launch a community.

And with fun, intuitive apps and tools like Kajabi - it’s effortless right?

Everyone seems to be doing it and often the highlight reels imply quick, easy success that anyone could do!

But here’s what they don’t tell you (and the hill I will die on): most digital products fail, and it usually comes down to one of two traps.

Trap 1: The Burnt-Out Service Provider

This is where many coaches, consultants and service providers find themselves. Your 1:1 calendar is maxed out, you’re stretched thin and there’s absolutely no space to take on another client (let alone do your invoicing, update booking calendar, follow up past clients..)

At first, it feels like a “good problem” being in demand. But pretty quickly, it stops feeling good. You’re exhausted, you get sick as soon as you do find a weekend to yourself (god forbid a holiday!) and you know you can’t keep trading time for money forever.

The natural conclusion? “I need to get something online. I need a digital offering. Something scalable. Something that makes money while I sleep.”

I know this trap because I’ve been in it and can absolutely attest that having some form of scalable income changes everything,  not only does it give you breathing room to do the things you love (or even just take a break), it also gives your brain space to be creative again. 

But if you jump too quickly into creating any digital product just to get something online (see Trap 2 below), you risk spending time and energy on the wrong thing. And that knowledge alone is enough to cause procrastination, which isn't helpful either.

This is why the first question shouldn’t be “What can I create?” but rather “What’s the right next step for me and my audience?”

👉 If you’re not sure where you sit, I created a short quiz that helps you figure it out: Which scalable offer is right for your business? It’s designed to show you whether you should be focusing on audience growth, building your first product or scaling what you already have.

And if you’re not burnt out yet, there’s another trap waiting that’s just as common…

Trap 2: The 'Copy & Paste' Creator

The other trap happens just as often, if not more! You’ve seen others make money with courses or communities and it looks like the obvious next move. So you sign up for a program or follow a “guru’s” step-by-step process:

  • Pick your topic
  • Record your lessons
  • Build the funnel
  • Launch with a bang

And technically… you did everything “right.” But then? Crickets.

The truth is, those programs are built for marketing scale, not for your unique business. They’re great at selling you the dream but not so great at helping you personalise the strategy. What’s missing is context: Is a course actually the right fit for your stage? Do you have the audience ready to buy? Is a membership too heavy a lift for where you’re at right now?

I see this all the time. Smart, talented people who follow the steps perfectly, only to be left confused when their course or community doesn’t succeed. It wasn’t their ability that was the problem. It was the mismatch between product and stage.

And that’s the part the glossy sales pages don’t tell you.

👉 Again, this is where clarity matters. The quiz I created can help you avoid this trap too. In less than 5 minutes, you’ll know whether a course, membership, group program, digital download, validation or even audience-building should be your focus right now based on your personalised quiz answers. You can take the short quiz here.

So what should you do instead? (it's not all doom and gloom!)

The reason both of these traps exist is because we’ve been sold the idea that success is about building a digital product - any digital product, as if it’s a silver bullet.

But in reality the “right” offer depends on where you are in your journey and how you want to show up.

  • If you don’t yet have an audience, your energy needs to go into building one.
  • If you’ve validated your idea with early traction, then it’s time to build strategically.
  • If you’ve built something that works, only then do you scale.

Skip these steps, and you either burn out or waste time. Follow them, and you create a business that’s not only scalable but also sustainable.

So if the answer isn’t ‘any digital product’ - what is the path forward?

This is why I use the Validate → Build → Scale framework with my clients (find out more about this framework here). 

And it’s why I created the quiz,  to help you see clearly which stage you’re in and what to focus on next.

Because honestly, the product itself isn’t the goal. The goal is to build something that gives your customers your knowledge and at the same time, gives you freedom:

  • Freedom from an overstuffed calendar.
  • Freedom from chasing clients.
  • Freedom from wasted launches that go nowhere.

And ultimately, freedom to live and work on your own terms.

👉 Ready to see what your next step is? Take the quiz here: Which scalable offer is right for your business?

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