There’s a great old song by the band America with a line that goes “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn’t already have.”

The Tin Man, you may remember, was the Wizard of Oz character who wanted a heart. He didn’t have one – or so he thought – because he was not a real man. The Wizard helps the Tin Man understand that he already has plenty of heart, he just needs to open his eyes a bit and appreciate his own best qualities.

The situation is similar for many edupreneurs. [Read more…]

Have you got what you think is a great online course idea, but are wondering if there is really a market for it? It’s a question every course creator faces: is this a product that will sell?

Fortunately, it’s also one that technology makes easier—and more affordable—to solve than ever before. There are now many free and low cost ways for online course creators to assess and validate the potential market for their courses. In this this article, we’ll take a look 15 of them.

“Validating” your market simply means taking steps to be as confident as you can that the market is there and that there are people likely to pay for a course on whatever topic you have in mind.

To make this process and the list of tools easier to digest, I’ve grouped the different approaches you can use for market validation into four types of activity: searching, listening, asking, and testing. You don’t have to use all of the tools I suggest, but I encourage you to use at least one tool in each activity area. This is the best way to vet your idea from the ground up and ensure that you get high-quality results. [Read more…]