Before you spend a single hour making your course, do this. It takes 20 minutes. It will tell you whether people will pay for what you know. And it costs nothing. Step 1 — Go to Reddit. Search your topic + the word "help" or "how do I". Read 10 threads. Are real people asking questions you could answer? That's demand. Step 2 — Go to Amazon. Search for books on your topic. Look at the reviews — specifically the 3-star ones. What did readers say was missing? That gap is your course. Step 3 — Go to Udemy Search your topic. If there are courses there with 1,000+ students, that's not competition — that's proof of a paying market. You just need a different angle or a fresher approach. Step 4 — Go to YouTube, search for your topic. Look at the comments on the top videos. People asking follow-up questions, asking where to learn more, asking for the next step — those are your future students. In 20 minutes, you'll know three things: — Whether people are actively looking for this — What they're struggling with most — What's already out there (and where the gaps are) That's your course brief. Right there. Free. Try it this weekend and come back and tell me what you found. I'll help you figure out what it means. 👇

Let me show you something that genuinely surprised me when I first saw it. Udemy has over 70 million students. Not 70,000. Not 700,000. Seventy. Million. And that's one platform. There's also Skillshare, Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Coursera, and a dozen others — plus the option to sell directly. Here's why that number matters for you: Even the most niche topic you can imagine — let's say "watercolour painting for left-handed adults over 50" — represents tens of thousands of potential students on a platform that size. You don't need everyone. You need enough. A course that sells to 200 students a year at £20 each is £4,000. Passive. Recurring. From something you made once. For most people reading this, that's not a business — it's a bonus. A side income that rewards knowledge you already have. The question was never whether anyone would buy it. The question is: are you going to make it available for them to find? What's the niche you think is "too small"? Tell me below — I'll bet you it isn't. 👇

But who would actually pay for that?" It's the question that kills more courses before they're even started than any technical problem ever could. And I understand it. I asked it myself. But here's what I've learned after 16 courses and students in over 40 countries: You're asking the wrong question. The right question isn't "who would pay for this?" The right question is "who is already frustrated by not knowing this?" Because people don't buy courses. They buy relief from a problem. They buy a faster route to the result they want. They buy the version of themselves that knows what you know. So instead of asking "who wants my course?" — try this: Go to Google. Type your topic into the search bar. Before you finish typing, look at the autocomplete suggestions. Every single one of those is a real person, typing a real question, hoping someone has the answer. That's your audience. Already searching. Already frustrated. Already looking for you. The course creator who shows up with the answer wins — regardless of whether they have a following, a website, or a single subscriber. What topic are you thinking about? Drop it below, and I'll show you how to do this live. 👇

Quick exercise. Takes 90 seconds. Could change everything. Finish this sentence in the comments: 👉 "I always get asked about __________ — but I've never thought of it as something I could teach." It doesn't have to be professional. It doesn't have to be techy. It doesn't have to be something you have a qualification in. Some of the best-selling online courses are about things people learned entirely through doing, not studying. Sourdough. DIY electrics. Managing anxiety. Running a boot sale. Writing CVs. Speaking to the camera. Raising chickens. Budgeting on a low income. Real knowledge. Real problems. Real students are waiting for someone exactly like you to show them how. When you post your answer below, the community will tell you honestly whether they'd take that course. That's free market research — right here, right now. I'll go first: When I started, my "obvious" knowledge was how further education really works from the inside — the stuff they don't tell teachers-in-training. I turned that into a course. It sold to educators in 40+ countries. Your turn. 👇

The first time someone suggested I make an online course, I laughed. I was a college Principal. I'd spent decades in further education. I'd sat in more curriculum planning meetings than I care to remember. "What would I even teach?" I thought. "Everyone already knows this stuff." They didn't. The thing is, when you've lived inside a subject for years — whether that's your job, a skill, a passion — it stops feeling like knowledge. It just feels like... you. Like common sense. But it isn't common sense to someone who doesn't have it yet. I made my first Udemy course and within weeks, people were messaging me from the other side of the world saying it had changed how they worked. I hadn't invented anything. I hadn't discovered anything new. I'd just taken what was already in my head — knowledge I'd stopped noticing — and put it somewhere someone else could find it. That's all a course is. Knowledge made findable. So I want to ask you something genuinely: What do people come to you for advice on? At work, in your family, in your social circle — what are the questions you always seem to get asked? That's probably your course topic. And it's probably more valuable than you think. Tell me below. 👇