Self-Serve Courses Aren't Dead. They Just Need A Makeover.
My first self-serve course generated $20K in revenue. I should have been thrilled.
But when I looked at the data, the picture wasn’t pretty. Most students dropped off after chapter two. Completion rates were abysmal. A handful of people made it all the way through and got real results, but the vast majority paid, watched a couple videos, and disappeared.
The internet will tell you this is just how self-serve courses work. “Completion rates are always low.” “People buy courses they never finish.” “That’s the nature of the format.”
I don’t buy it.
I think most self-serve courses fail for specific, fixable reasons. And I’m rebuilding mine from scratch to prove it.
Problem 1: Too Broad
My original course was about public speaking. That’s like saying your course is about “fitness.” Where do you even start?
Public speaking covers keynote speeches, job interviews, team meetings, sales calls, wedding toasts, conference panels. A student preparing for an MBA presentation and a student trying to stop rambling in one-on-ones have almost nothing in common.
When you try to serve everyone, you serve no one particularly well. Students would watch the first two modules, realize the content wasn’t specifically about their problem, and bounce.
The fix is painful but obvious: get way more specific.
My new course is narrowly focused on one skill. Organizing your thoughts and speaking clearly when you’re put on the spot. That’s it. Not “become a better public speaker.” Not “communicate with confidence.” One specific scenario that professionals face constantly, with a clear before-and-after.
The specificity does two things. First, it attracts the right people. When someone reads that description, they either think “that’s exactly my problem” or “that’s not me.” Both outcomes are good. Second, it lets me go deep instead of wide. Instead of surface-level coverage of fifteen topics, I can spend real time on the techniques that actually move the needle for this one skill.
Problem 2: Vague Time Expectations
My original course had no time structure at all. “Watch these modules at your own pace.” Which sounds nice in theory. In reality, “your own pace” usually means “never.”
People need structure. Not because they’re lazy, but because they’re busy. When a course doesn’t tell you exactly how much time it requires and exactly when to do what, it’s easy to keep pushing it to tomorrow. And then tomorrow becomes next week. And then you forget about it entirely.
My new course has a concrete commitment upfront: 20 minutes a day for 20 straight days. That’s it. You know before you buy exactly what’s required. If 20 minutes a day for 20 days sounds like too much, this isn’t the right course for you. If it sounds doable, great. You know what you’re signing up for.
This transparency actually helps with marketing too. “20 minutes a day for 20 days” is a specific, memorable promise. “Learn at your own pace” is forgettable mush.
Problem 3: Passive Learning
This was the biggest failure of my original course. Students watched videos, maybe took notes, and then… nothing. No application. No practice. No feedback.
Watching someone explain how to organize your thoughts is about as useful as watching someone explain how to ride a bike. You understand the concept. You still can’t do the thing.
Speaking is a physical skill. Your brain needs reps. You need to actually open your mouth, formulate a response on the spot, hear yourself talk, evaluate what you said, and try again. No amount of framework memorization replaces that.
So I built a custom web app for the new course. Every day, students log in and get a prompt. Something like “Your VP just asked you to explain why the project is behind schedule. You have 60 seconds. Go.”
They record themselves responding. The app provides structure for self-review. And soon, it’ll offer AI-powered feedback on clarity, structure, filler words, and pacing.
This is the part that gets me most excited. Personalized feedback has always been the bottleneck in self-serve courses. You either get zero feedback (most courses) or you need a human coach reviewing every submission (my old cohort model, which burned me out).
AI closes that gap. Not perfectly, not yet. But well enough to give students meaningful, specific feedback on every single practice session. That changes the economics of the entire thing.
The Real Problem With Self-Serve Courses
Most course creators blame the format. “Self-serve doesn’t work. People need accountability. You need a community. You need live calls.”
Maybe. But I think the real problem is simpler than that.
Most self-serve courses are just video libraries with a price tag. They’re organized knowledge, not structured transformation. And there’s a massive difference.
A video library says: “Here’s everything I know about this topic. Good luck.”
A structured transformation says: “Here’s exactly what you’ll do today, how long it’ll take, what skill you’ll build, and how you’ll know you’re improving.”
The first one is a reference book. The second one is a training program.
I’m building a training program.
Will it work? I have 150 people on the waitlist, so I’ll find out soon enough. But the underlying bet is straightforward: if you make the content specific, the time commitment clear, and the practice active, people will actually finish. And finishing is where the results come from.
Preston