A large part of our early conversations with clients has nothing to do with LearnWorlds. People usually come to us wanting help developing a course, or help building the website that holds it. What they need first is a business model, and often it doesn’t exist yet.
So we spend the time helping people define one. This post explains how we approach that conversation and how you can start on your own.
What we mean by business model
Your business model answers three questions.
- What are you selling? This might be a digital product, a service, coaching, certification or a mix of those.
- Who are you selling to? Individual consumers, other businesses, staff inside an organisation, or existing customers who get the course as an add-on to something else.
- How are you selling? A one-off purchase, a subscription, a membership or free access.
Your answers shape everything that follows. They decide which LearnWorlds features you need, how you price your offer and how much work you take on once the site is live.
Start with your idea, then test it
Most people arrive with ideas but little validation. That’s understandable. An idea feels solid when you’re close to it.
Validation means having conversations with prospective customers. We encourage people to do this and we give them ideas for how. Talking to people one to one, with the right questions, gives you better data than almost anything else. You hear how they describe their problem, what they do about it today and what they already pay for. For more on how, see our guide to validating demand for an online course.
Online communities are another useful source, and in most cases the community you need already exists. Be careful with them though. They’re prone to hyperbole, and the people who shout loudest rarely represent the majority. Use them to find the right people, then ask those people directly.
Be wary of shortcuts too. AI tools can help you prepare questions and spot patterns in what people tell you. They can’t tell you whether real people will pay real money for your course. Only real people can do that.
Some people go a step further and pre-sell before they build anything. This can feel counterintuitive, and even a little dishonest, so be open about it. Tell buyers the course is still being built, give a delivery date and offer a refund if you miss it. Then ask yourself which you’d prefer. You could have some money in the bank and customers who’ve told you they want what you’re making. Or you could spend your own money and hope you’re right.
Treat your first business model as a hypothesis
The data from those conversations helps you define your business model, but the work doesn’t stop there. Your first model is a starting point. You test it, and it might not be right.
That’s fine. We help clients build the first model we think will work. Then they learn from what happens and adjust.
Find the right price and the right offer
Pricing takes up a lot of our conversations: how to set the right price at the start, and the right offer to get people in.
Experts often price on what the course feels worth to them. Sometimes that’s right. Often it’s more than the market will pay, because nobody has checked. Your expertise is real, but your audience decides what they’ll pay for.
Look at the alternatives your audience already has. Find out what they pay now and what results they expect. Then decide where your offer sits in comparison. Our complete guide to pricing online courses goes into the options in more detail.
Make LearnWorlds work for you
Once your business model is defined, LearnWorlds can deliver it in many ways: one-off courses, subscriptions, memberships and bundles. That flexibility is a strength, but someone needs to configure the system with care.
Our aim is to make the model work from the start and keep it manageable. For most people an online course is a sideline to what they already do, and they rarely have a team devoted to it. If you’re an individual consultant or expert, managing a site on your own is harder still.
So we build systems that work for your context. We think about who handles enrolments, who answers learner questions and what happens when a customer needs something changed. You choose the mix: we do it for you, we work alongside you, or we train you to do it yourself with AI. Every build includes 30 days of support after launch, and you can change the mix as your academy grows. The goal is a site you can run alongside everything else you do.
Where to start
Write down your answers to the three questions: what you’re selling, who you’re selling to and how you’re selling. Next to each answer, note whether you know it or you’re assuming it. Then talk to people from your audience about the assumptions.
Why we sometimes don’t get the project
Some of our most useful conversations happen at the start, when we help people explore their business model. Often the person realises they need to go away and think more deeply, and we don’t get the work. We’re fine with that. We think of ourselves as partners, and we care about your success as much as you do, because it reflects well on us.
There’s little satisfaction in delivering a beautiful learning experience if no one turns up to get value from it. Business model work is included in every project where you want it.
Who we work best with
We’re learning experience designers. The joy of that work is helping people develop new skills and achieve goals, and a business model that draws in the right audience, framed in a way they’re willing to pay for, is a key part of making that happen.
Most of our clients are small businesses. For them, online learning becomes another service they offer, and those are the people we work best with. Boipe, a workplace first aid training provider, is a good example: we helped them define the model first, then set up LearnWorlds to deliver it. If you’ve seen the adverts aimed at coachpreneurs, that’s a different kind of business.
Thinking about starting a LearnWorlds site?
If you’ve got an idea, we love to talk about it. Book a free 45-minute call and we’ll help you see what you may be missing and ask the tough questions. You can also read more about how we help with business models or book the call now.
