There has been tremendous concern recently over misinformation on social media. Unfortunately, the concern is justified, as the consequences of believing false information are shaping the future of nations and affect our collective health.  One popular theory why people fall for misinformation they find online is that they lack digital literacy skills, yet, very little research has investigated the link between digital literacy and susceptibility to believe false information.

Misinformation on social media

There are two different definitions for digital literacy. <ol><li>It is the possession of basic digital skills required to effectively find information online. </li><li>It's asking whether people understand how platforms decide what to show in the newsfeed.</li></ol> One study found that digital literacy is indeed a good predictor of one's ability to discern accurate information from falsehoods. In addition, both digital literacy measures independently predicted the tendency of participants to rate factual news as more accurate than false news.

Definitions of "Digital literacy"

A study showed that people who were more digitally literate were just as likely to say they'd share false articles as people who lacked digital literacy. Even people with high digital literacy were not immune from sharing false news.  Potential reasons are that although people don't want to spread misinformation, social media is quick and distracting. People are drawn to social validation and other feedback such as likes on their posts. This means they often forget to ask if a story is true when considering whether to share it.

The willingness to share false information

Just because a piece of false information parading as “news” has been shared millions of times doesn’t necessarily mean that millions believed it to be true. At the same time, just because someone is better at distinguishing fact from falsehood if they stop to think about it, does not necessarily mean they will share more accurate information.

No one is immune from the potential to spread misinformation

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Digital Literacy Doesn’t Stop the Spread of Misinformation

There's no single right way to get started or build a business. Timing, luck, and grit often play an outsize role. However, we can learn from how the best entrepreneurs went about building their companies.

How to know when an idea is promising

<ol><li>Market first: Start with a market or space that you find interesting, then look for a specific problem.</li><li>Experience ripe for improvement: Look for areas where you believe there should be a better consumer experience and iterate from there.</li><li>Problem first: Start with a problem you’ve experienced firsthand, then find out if enough other people have the same problem. </li></ol>

How to come up with an idea

If you have a market in mind, talk to people in that space to better understand their experiences and challenges. Look for a pain that is so bad that customers will try almost anything to solve it. For example, Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta, discovered that SOC2 - the way a company needs to prove its security competency, was a major pain point. While security consultants can offer help, people wanted an easier solution.

Start with a market/space first and look for a problem

When you're at the idea stage, it's easy to throw ideas around and poke holes in them. Don't do this. All ideas are flawed, you're limited by what you know, and it's hard to get honest feedback when you're talking through hypotheticals. Instead, get out into the market, have conversations, and test early models.

Finding an idea

First build a MVP (minimum viable product) to test with potential customers and validate that people want the product. For Christina at Vantra, she knew they were onto something when people proactively reached out to ask about what she was building.

Validating the idea

<ul><li>Don’t rush into just starting a company—wait for the right thing to hit you personally, emotionally, and logically.</li><li>If it feels like you’re pulling teeth to find the pain point, you haven’t found a problem worth solving.</li><li>Be sure to validate the pain points for each persona you’re targeting.</li><li>Build prototypes and test your early ideas on real customers.</li><li>Don’t build a complete product until you’re feeling a real pull from the market. </li><li>Figure out who you can sell to most easily, and start there.</li><li>Develop a product that unlocks revenue for your customers.</li></ul>

Quick startup tips

<ul><li>Asking the wrong questions. Ask people about their past and current actions and problems, not to predict their future behaviour.</li><li>Settling for a "nice to have" reaction from early customer discovery. Instead, search for a big problem and solution.</li><li>Not having enough conversations. You need to start new conversations until clear patterns and themes emerge.</li><li>Selling a vitamin, not a painkiller. Painkillers are a “need to have”. while vitamins are a “nice to have”. Classic painkiller products include Google search and Mailchimp. Vitamins include Google Glass and CNN+.</li></ul>

Common traps to look out for

<ul><li>Take time to appreciate the small and large wins.</li><li>Document your metrics and share them with your investors and advisors.</li><li>Keep updating your roadmap and goals, so your team knows where to focus their efforts.</li><li>Carefully expand your team. Ensure to build to company culture you want while keeping an eye on your burn rate and cash reserves.</li></ul>

What to do once you have validation

Lessons learned from Flexport, Vanta, Rec Room, LaunchDarkly, Pinwheel, Snackpass, Good Dog, and Cocoon—a guest post by Todd Jackson

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

business

Business

startup

Startups

How to validate your startup idea

The goal gradient hypothesis posits that our efforts increase as we get closer to achieving a goal: when the reward is in sight, we feel incentivized to reach the finish line. Designers and decision-makers can effectively use goal gradients as a motivational tool.

Our perception of progress can impact our overall drive to reach a goal

<ul><li>The goal gradient hypothesis was first introduced by Clark Leonard Hull in 1932.</li><li>In 2006, researchers Ran Kivetz, Oleg Urminsky and Yuhuang Zheng followed up on Hull's work by testing the hypothesis on rats. Rats ran faster the closer they got to food rewards.</li><li>This phenomenon can also be observed in marathon runners who run faster once they reach the finish line.</li></ul>

The concept of a goal gradient

<ul><li>Goal gradients do not only impact our motivation but also impact how helpful or socially minded we might be.</li><li>Research suggests that the impact of a goal gradient can be affected by your power status.</li><li>Those who perceive themselves to be in a position of low social or professional power are more likely to be motivated by proximity to a goal.</li><li>Conversely, goal proximity may be of less importance to those who feel more powerful.</li></ul>

The impact of the goal gradient hypothesis

<ul><li>Offer a head start.</li><li>Track and acknowledge progress.</li><li>Break down milestones.</li><li>Customer loyalty can be encouraged by the insertion of small milestones on the way to the main milestone.</li><li>Celebrate micro-wins to make goals feel more achievable.</li></ul>

How you can motivate others to achieve their goals

Our perception of progress can impact our overall drive to reach a goal. The goal gradient hypothesis posits that our efforts increase as we get closer to achieving a goal.

productivity

Productivity

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Using the goal gradient hypothesis to help people cross the finish line

If you start a sole proprietorship or a partnership, you could be held personally liable for almost anything related to the business; that means you will be responsible for paying any business-related debts you incur and you could be sued by your clients, employees, etc.If you start an LLC, you'll have some degree of liability protection. These business structures allow your business to be treated as if it were an individual of its own. The business itself can take out a loan, incurred debt, and be the target of costly lawsuits - reducing your personal exposure to these financial risks.

Establish an LLC (limited liability company) or a Corporation

New business owners are tempted to fund the business themselves, even if they don't have the savings to cover those expenses. They take out personal loans, max out their credit cards, or incur debt in other ways to get the money they need.A few minor expenses here and there won't hurt you, but for the most part, you should never take out personal loans. Instead, work with investors, tap into your savings, or rely on your business credit to take out loans in the business's name.

Never Take Out Personal Loans

<ul><li>Budgeting and frugality: Be smart with your budgeting and try to remain as frugal as possible.</li><li>An emergency fund: Set aside at least enough money to cover a few months of personal expenses.</li><li>Tax-advantaged investment vehicles: With any extra money, use tax advantage investment vehicles to maximize your savings and plan for retirement. </li></ul>

Focus On Independent Saving Strategies

Try to diversify your income streams, both inside the business and on a personal level.<ul><li>Within the business, that could mean selling multiple different types of products and services, monetizing your content or applications in different ways, or even targeting different audiences. </li><li>The same principle applies to you as an individual. You can diversify your income streams by investing in dividend-paying stocks, investing in real estate, starting independent blogs or websites, or even picking up side gigs.</li></ul>

Diversify Your Income Streams

The right strategies can help you minimize your personal financial exposure when starting a business.

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

The 4 Most Important Ways for Entrepreneurs to Mitigate Personal Financial Risk

With developments such as Covid-19, income inequality, and political polarisation, the demands on our energy are surpassing our capacity. Four zones describe our energy levels:<ul><li>The performance zone. When your energy is high and positive.</li><li>The survival zone. When your energy is high, but you're feeling threatened or devalued.</li><li>The burnout zone. When your energy is low, and you feel helpless or exhausted.</li><li>The renewal zone. When your energy is low but positive.</li></ul> Many are spending their time in the survival and burnout zones. However, using certain practices can help to avoid these zones.

Understanding the energy quadrants to manage energy

A marathoner needs a measured pace where you can't push yourself to the limit. However, a sprinter can use 100% of themselves in every race and only stop when they've crossed the finish line. People function best when they alternate between spending and renewing energy. Two of the most beneficial sources of regulation are:<ul><li>Sufficient sleep - seven to eight hours.</li><li>Exercise that raises your heart rate.</li></ul>

Become a sprinter, not a marathoner

Self-judgement is because we allow our inner critic to make us feel less. Then we turn our judgment on others to try and feel better. But moving between the two extremes make us forever try to prove our worthiness at the expense of ourselves and others. When you notice those feelings arise, try to only notice them without judging yourself.

Replace self-observation for judgment

If someone or something triggers a surge of negative emotion in you, take a deep breath and notice where in your body you feel tension. Just noticing your emotion allows you to distance yourself from your reaction. Then turn your attention to becoming relaxed.

When you feel bad, it's not the full picture

Think about a person, place, animal or activity that makes you feel safe and secure. When you're in a difficult situation, use these steady sources of support.

Create a sage space for yourself

Take up something you enjoy for its own sake. What activity do you love and have given up on, but you could do it as a source of renewal for an hour or two a week?

Take up a hobby

Care and empathy is a powerful source of self-regulation and healing. While we all long to feel valued and seen by others, we can't guarantee they'll do that for us. But we can appreciate others, and in turn, it always makes us feel better about ourselves.

Make someone else feel valued

Six tactics to help you manage your energy.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

mentalhealth

Mental Health

What to Do When You’re Stuck in the Survival Zone

Something like 80 percent of the world imbibes some form of caffeine every day. Maybe that's you, or maybe you prefer herbal tea or even just water. Whatever it is, that first drink of a hot (or cold) beverage each day is a small but definite pleasure for most of us. 
Take just a few moments and just be in the moment--don't rush through that small pleasure. Even if it's just for a few seconds, pause, sip, and ease yourself into the day. Of course, if you can take a few minutes to sit down and really enjoy your drink, that's even better.

Savour The Morning Coffee

Not all climates or all kinds of weather are conducive to spending time outside, but if you can spend a little time outdoors each day, try to do that. 
Getting outdoors, whether you're walking, running, biking, or just sitting on your own porch, is a small joy for most people. That can be true even if you only do it for a few minutes before going back inside out of the cold. Going outside literally widens our perspective, too, helping us take things more in stride. It works even better if you can visit a park or anyplace else where there's nature.

Go Outdoors

Research shows that loneliness and isolation are so bad for you they can literally take years off your life. And that spending time with someone you care about, or at least communicating with someone you care about, is one of the most powerful methods there is for feeling better. 
So even if you live alone, or are so busy that you and the others in your household barely see each other, make sure to reach out to someone you care about at least once a day. It could be by text or phone or video chat or some other method. It doesn't have to be in person.

Talk To Someone You Care About

Napping isn't for everyone. And a lengthy nap can leave you with sleep inertia, a.k.a. grogginess. But a brief nap of 10 to 30 minutes can improve your mental function, memory, and problem-solving ability as well as improve your mood. 
It's absolutely worth building in those few minutes of naptime into the day if you can.

Take A Nap

There's evidence that reading books provide an amazing host of health and brain benefits, including possibly increased longevity. That's a really good reason to do it. 
The important thing is to pick a book that may or may not be what others consider a good book. Pick something you yourself will enjoy reading. The kind of book you look forward to diving into and hate to set down. It might be a mystery novel, a romance, science fiction, true crime, or something entirely other.

Read A Good Book

Laughing is really good for you. So, every day, try to find something to at least make you chuckle. 
If you don't know of anything, ask your friends to send you funny YouTubes and jokes, or try laughing yoga, in which people get together and just start laughing, until the strangeness of doing so catches up with them, and they start guffawing for real.

Laugh

All of us live super busy, overscheduled lives. But, increasingly, research tells us there are big benefits to being a little less busy and spending a little more time doing nothing, or at least nothing more productive than staring out a window. 
For one thing, even if it feels like you're doing nothing, your brain will leap into action, working out your most important problems and making connections in ways that it can't when you're busy doing something.

Do Nothing

One of your top priorities for next year should be your own happiness. These tiny pleasures can help.

habits

Habits

7 Small Joys You Should Make Sure to Add to Your Daily Routine in 2022

You need to identify what matters the most to you to put a strategy together that fits your level of commitment and vision.
<ul>
<li>Making a plan and committing to it will unleash all the energy and discipline you’ll ever need.</li>
<li>If you’re looking to disrupt an industry, you’d better be armed with the right story, right team, right data, and right strategies.</li>
<li>When you’re working on something you deeply care about, you will find the enthusiasm to make life a great adventure.</li>
</ul>

Know What You Want

You can break down Drive into four categories:
<ul>
<li>Advancement. Wanting to reach the next goal (promotion, deadline, or task)</li>
<li>Individuality. Having the lifestyle you desire and the security to do so</li>
<li>Madness. Competing against others and proving you are the best at what you do</li>
<li>Purpose. Self-actualization and having a positive impact on others.</li>
</ul>
You can have more than one type driving you. However, a driver can stop to work in your favor.

Your Drive

People often feel lost after a big deadline because their driver is suddenly gone.To solve this, you need to dive deeper into your Purpose.Define your purpose by asking:<ul><li>How do you want to be remembered?</li><li>How do you want to make an impact on other people’s lives?</li><li>What does the greatest version of yourself look like?</li></ul>

Running Out Of Your Drive

Rather than competing in games where you’re an underdog, find unexplored new markets in which you can win.Examine both your unique skill set and the competitive landscape to find your “Blue Ocean”.Process the competitive landscape by asking:<ul><li>Is this a place where you believe you can do well, given who your competition is?</li><li>Do you possess the necessary resources to compete?</li><li>Do you need to acquire specific resources before you can compete?</li><li>Have you educated yourself about the competition?</li><li>Is there some additional benefit your competitor has that you can’t beat, no matter what you do?</li></ul>

Your Own Blue Ocean

Don’t complain that the game is rigged. Instead, find a game in which you have a differential advantage.

Before you act on a problem, you must first “process” what’s happening. The key to success at all levels of business is to know how to process issues:Optimal processing is:<ul><li>The ability to make effective decisions based on access to information at hand with the highest odds in your favor</li><li>Subjecting every difficult choice, problem, or opportunity you face to a rigorous mental analysis</li><li>Playing out strategies, seeing the hidden consequences, and sequencing a series of moves to permanently solve problems</li></ul>But to be great at processing problems, you need to take responsibility whenever you can.

Master The Ability To Reason: The Power Of Processing Issues

<ul><li>Ask lots of questions. Having more data leads to making better assumptions</li><li>Don’t care about being right or wrong. Be only interested only in the truth.</li><li>Don’t make excuses. Wasting time and effort on why things went wrong is not productive</li><li>Embrace challenges</li><li>Be curious. You can’t solve problems without knowledge</li><li>Prevent more problems than you solve. Spot yellow flags before they turn red</li><li>Learn to negotiate</li><li>Focus on permanently solving a problem. Don’t put band-aids on problems</li></ul>

Eight traits to become a great processor

Instead of reacting emotionally to problems, use the Investment Time Return (ITR) formula to reach an objective conclusion.Investment Time Return formula:<ul><li>Investment. How much will it cost or save</li><li>Time. How much time will it take or save</li><li>Return. Return on the money and time involved in the decision</li></ul>

Investment Time Return (ITR) 

<ul><li>Find at least 3 alternative solutions to a given problem. The more choices you have, the better are your decisions</li><li>Determine the money investment of each solution</li><li>Determine the time investment of each solution. Is it a 3-month project or a 6-month project?</li><li>Calculate the return for each solution. What are the impacts on your revenue and cost?</li><li>Figure out the breakeven point of each project</li></ul>Make a list of the blind spots or things that could go wrong with each decision. If you only think about what could go right, you will overlook the downside.

Decide Using Investment Time Return (ITR) 

Problems might be different, but the way you process them should not.You need to give structure to your decision-making.The ability to solve problems well is the ability to take a complex issue you’re facing and break it down into a step-by-step formula that helps you identify the root of the problem.Three parts to Solve for X:<ul><li>Investigate. Find out the real causes of the issue, the impact of the problem, and how urgent it is</li><li>Solve. List out possible solutions and their consequences</li><li>Implement. Who will be responsible for the project and how it will change future situations</li></ul>

Solving For X

Working effectively with others will mean the difference between enjoying the process and desperately seeking a day job while hiding under your desk.Instead of being selfish and looking to see what you could take from others, focus on what you could give them. You need to define:<ul><li>What benefits are you currently offering to others? </li><li>In what way do people improve by associating with you?</li><li>How many lives have you changed positively in the past year?</li></ul>Think about who you need to help you to achieve your long-term objectives. Take care of them, and they’ll back you up.

Master Building The Right Team: Fundamentals

The less your business depends on you, the more valuable it is.

As your company grows, you will constantly replace yourself with others.Alongside the growth, you also need to create a contingency plan to replace any important position.If you have a plan in place for how to replace every key member of your team, you can handle an unexpected exit without missing a beat. Plus you’ll sleep better at night, knowing your next several moves are already planned out.

Replacing Yourself: The Game Plan

List your tasks and skills. Make a list of all your tasks and skills and determine which ones you are good and bad at.Identify who’s seasonal and who’s not. Identify who is there to fill a six-year role and who a six-month roleKnow the different languages spoken by your sales, support, technical, and executive teams.Identify who can maintain the company culture.  Know your company’s practices and procedures. Write down each department’s practices and procedures to help transfer skillsDevelop leaders to help spread the right mindset

Six Ways for Replacement and Skill Transfer

Ways you give and receive love into 5 categories:<ul><li>Quality Time. One-on-one time of undivided attention</li><li>Words of Affirmation. Appreciate the effort verbally</li><li>Gifts. Offer something to symbolize your appreciation</li><li>Acts of Service. Be at their disposal when they need you</li><li>Physical Touch. Non-verbal use of body language and touch to show appreciation</li></ul>Show people that you take the time and care needed to understand what they want.

Learn Each Individual’s Love Language

<ul><li>Don’t be afraid to call them out when they don’t keep their word. </li><li>Ask why they broke their promise. Get a specific answer.</li><li>Make specific quantitative statements, not blanket qualitative ones. Give them specific challenges to meet that can be measured and have deadlines.</li><li>Provide clear metrics and incentives. Let them know what they will get for hitting (or missing) their metrics.</li><li>Coach people through their workflow. Help them improve how they work.</li><li>Know the role each person plays on the team.  </li><li>Finish with heart and empathy.</li></ul>

Master Strategy To Scale: Make People Accountable For Growth

Seven-step system to compress time frames and increase speed:<ul><li>Choose a process. One of the best ways to identify a potential business is to find a flawed process that you can improve upon</li><li>List the steps of the process</li><li>Remove a step. How would the process function without that step? If the process is not affected, take it out</li><li>Minimize the steps. Take the remaining steps and condense their time frame</li><li>Beta test the new process. Find a subset of customers to test and see how the new process functions</li><li>Adapt the process. Based on the results of your beta test, adjust your process</li><li>Repeat.</li></ul>

Increase Your Speed

<ul><li>Know your weaknesses. Knowing your weaknesses will enable you to pivot when taking on your Goliath</li><li>Know Goliath’s weaknesses.</li><li>Master three things you do better.</li><li>Don’t try to be Goliath.  Don’t copy</li><li>Specialize. Goliaths tend to generalize in order to spread their influence and power. </li><li>When you’re small, make yourself appear bigger. </li><li>Keep a low profile initially.</li><li>Move quickly. </li><li>Partner with competitors that share an enemy.</li><li>Study history. Prepare by learning from historical events</li><li>Let other competitors wear your opponents down. Save your resources whenever you can</li><li>Don’t disclose your strategy. </li></ul>

Master Power Plays: Beat Goliaths

A simple rule of business is that in order to get, you have to give. Most amateurs are experts at making demands. What they fail to do is offer value first. When you put yourself into the other party’s shoes and lead with how they will win and make money, it will be natural for them to give you what you want.

Closing Thoughts

Your Next Five Moves explores how you can improve your business and your life by learning how to strategize.

From the creator of Valuetainment, the #1 YouTube channel for entrepreneurs, and “one of the most exciting thinkers” (Ray Dalio, author of Principles) in business today, comes a practical and effective guide for thinking more clearly and achieving your most audacious professional goals. Both successful entrepreneurs and chess grandmasters have the vision to look at the pieces in front of them and anticipate their next five moves. In this book, Patrick Bet-David “helps entrepreneurs understand exactly what they need to do next” (Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog!) by translating this skill into a valuable methodology. Whether you feel like you’ve hit a wall, lost your fire, or are looking for innovative strategies to take your business to the next level, Your Next Five Moves has the answers. You will gain: CLARITY on what you want and who you want to be. STRATEGY to help you reason in the war room and the board room. GROWTH TACTICS for good times and bad. SKILLS for building the right team based on strong values. INSIGHT on power plays and the art of applying leverage. Combining these principles and revelations drawn from Patrick’s own rise to successful CEO, Your Next Five Moves is a must-read for any serious executive, strategist, or entrepreneur.

strategy

Strategy

creativity

Creativity

books

Books

From the creator of Valuetainment, the #1 YouTube channel for entrepreneurs, and “one of the most exciting thinkers” (Ray Dalio, author of Principles) in business today, comes a practical and effective guide for thinking more clearly and achieving your most audacious professional goals. Both successful entrepreneurs and chess grandmasters have the vision to look at the pieces in front of them and anticipate their next five moves. In this book, Patrick Bet-David “helps entrepreneurs understand exactly what they need to do next” (Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog!) by translating this skill into a valuable methodology. Whether you feel like you’ve hit a wall, lost your fire, or are looking for innovative strategies to take your business to the next level, Your Next Five Moves has the answers. You will gain: CLARITY on what you want and who you want to be. STRATEGY to help you reason in the war room and the board room. GROWTH TACTICS for good times and bad. SKILLS for building the right team based on strong values. INSIGHT on power plays and the art of applying leverage. Combining these principles and revelations drawn from Patrick’s own rise to successful CEO, Your Next Five Moves is a must-read for any serious executive, strategist, or entrepreneur.

Patrick Bet-David immigrated to America at twelve years old, when his parents fled Iran as refugees during the Iranian Revolution. After high school, Patrick joined the U.S. military and served in the 101st Airborne before starting a business career in the financial services industry. At age 30, he founded PHP Agency, an insurance marketing organization with 66 agents. He grew the firm to 40,000 agents before making a multi-nine-figure exit. A serial entrepreneur, Bet-David founded Valuetainment, which became the #1 YouTube channel on entrepreneurship with nearly a billion views, and expanded into a media production company, Bet-David Consulting Group. He hosts a weekly podcast called PBD Podcast, the #1 business podcast on Spotify. He lives in South Florida with his wife and four children.

Patrick Bet-David

Your Next Five Moves

Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy

The eLearning market is expected to exceed US $ 241 billion by 2022, so there are a ton of opportunities for anyone looking to start creating online courses.
But, if you want to get a slice of this pie, you need to find a niche that people are looking for. In other words, it is necessary to find out if there is a market for your course.

Creating An Online Course

You have an excellent idea for creating online courses, you’re ready to start developing the content, but the question arises: is there a market for this product?How do you know if your idea will be a huge success or a big failure?The answer is simple: do market research.Researching whether there is an audience interested in your online course before creating it is very important.

Market Research First

Naturally, you want to invest your money, time and effort in something that is in high demand. Otherwise, creating online courses and building a distance education business will be a complete waste of time.

Course Topic Demand

Ask friends, family and people who fit your target audience, that is, have a relationship with the area and theme you intend to teach. Find out what their difficulties are and what they would like to learn. You can use social media, email, join groups and discussion forums, among other channels, to get as many responses as possible.

Testing Demand: Asking People

This survey can give you an idea if the topic you intend to address has a demand and if enough people are already trying to solve it. Search Google, Amazon, popular podcasts and other online education-related platforms. Take the opportunity to use your competitors as inspiration to create successful online courses.But be aware, if there is little or no competition, this is a bad sign. It probably means that there is little or no demand for your idea.

Checking The Competition

Google is a powerful tool that you can use to analyze the demand of their course. Use the keyword planner to find out what people are searching for and what topics are most searched for. Another great keyword tool is Answer The Public. Just select keywords related to the course topic and see how many questions arise. The more questions there are, the greater the interest in the subject.

Keyword Research 

Many people who start creating online courses make the mistake of assuming that their course is perfect for everyone. However, those who do not focus on a specific group, end up reaching anyone.It may seem counterintuitive to restrict your course audience, but it is proven that courses have sold best when created with a specific target audience in mind.

Your Specific Target Audience

<ul><li>In addition to increasing your income, you need to have greater motivation when it comes to teaching.</li><li>Without a real passion for your topic, you will not be as enthusiastic as your competitors, and your potential students are sure to notice, which will result in fewer sales. </li><li>Many professionals create a course just for the purpose of winning and forget that the most important thing is to serve your audience.</li><li>Doing an internal search is just as important as an external search. If you have no motivation other than money, you may need to rethink your idea of ​​creating online courses.</li></ul>

It's Not Just About Making Money

Thanks to technology, you have several simple and free tools online to validate your course idea.Conducting a survey is important to assess whether there is a market for your course and to give you more security before you start.There are different channels for making this query, and here are three of them, in detail:<ul><li>Google</li><li>Buzzsumo</li><li>Amazon Kindle</li></ul>

Validating Your Idea

Go to Google and start with the obvious, do a search for keywords and phrases related to the topic of your course.Think about how your potential audience could search for that topic on the internet and don’t necessarily include the word “online course”. Pay attention to these results:<ul><li>How relevant is your idea of ​​an online course to searchers? In what position does it appear?</li><li>Do videos appear on the first page?</li><li>Are there any paid ads related to the topic?</li><li>Are courses on the same topic already available?</li></ul>

Validating Your Idea: Google

BuzzSumo is a powerful SEO tool that evaluates shares on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Instagram.Just type a topic or keyword in the search field and the program will show you which sites are gaining the most likes, shares and links related to the subject.These results provide a good sense of how popular a topic is and on which channel it attracted the most attention.

Validating Your Data: Buzzsumo

The Amazon Kindle Store area is particularly valuable for course creators. It contains a large number of eBooks on various subjects.Through Amazon’s search engine you can find out if there are books on the topic you want to address and if they sell well.Enter your search terms in the search bar and select “Kindle Store” from the side menu.If you see several results related to your course topic, and if any of them are on Amazon’s Best Sellers list, this is a good indication that you are on the right track.

Validating Your Idea: Amazon Kindle

Determining whether there is a market for your course is as important as creating and selling it. Remember that you don’t have to have tons of experience or qualifications to teach on your chosen topic.What you need is a passion for the subject, a willingness to teach and a determination to create well-made and effective online courses that stand out from the competition.And, most importantly, you must strive to create a course that meets the needs of your target audience. Do this and the money will follow.

The Bottomline

You have an excellent idea for creating online courses, you’re ready to start developing the content, but the question arises: is there a market for this product?

education

Learning & Education

Creating online courses: how to validate my course idea

We all know that there is more than enough for everyone. The internet has blown apart the traditional structure of the corporate world. There is literally a job for anyone that has a computer and internet capabilities. Scarcity is no longer a thing any rational human is worried about in the world of side hustling.

Against the scarcity mentality

<ul><li>Create a time constraint. Sure, you may have all the time in the world, but if you give yourself a hard deadline, you might get more done</li><li>Manifest a competitive mentality. If you’re not openly combative with other folks, running an imaginary race with another creator, writer, company, or online side hustler can help you to be creative about finding ways to one-up the competition.&nbsp;</li><li>Compete for your customers. Whether you’re a freelance writer or a social media consultant, realizing that you have competition for the attention of your consumers can be motivating.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Cultivate a positive scarcity mentality

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A Scarcity Mentality Might Actually Help Your Side Hustle

<ul><li>Use opportunity cost to make hard decisions. Try to answer if the time spent is generating a worthwhile return.</li><li>Analyze the opportunity cost. Can you invest your time with a greater ROI doing something else?</li><li>Be prepared to pivot or shut down. If nothing is organically growing or succeeding, and you don't have a clear vision, you might be grinding yourself to death.</li></ul>

How to know if the grind is worth it

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