Maven How to Validate Your Course Idea

Speaker: Rachel Cai, Wes Kao

• Workshop: glimpse of the program, prepare for final step of the course
• Hundreds of applications narrowed down to ~55 participants

Key Points

• Don’t pick a topic you’re tired of!
• Maven’s landing page already takes into consideration what it takes for a user to convert
• Access to marketing coaches as thought partners for positioning the course
• Most of Maven’s coursework is based on brainstorming activities

Validation Exercise

Outside-in (what people want to learn):

• Relationship between Buddhism and neuroscience
• “Practical” mindfulness - how to integrate into daily life
• Neuroscience 101 for the average person - how to improve their life based on the latest scientific understanding

Inside-out (what you want to teach):

• Application of Buddhism to modern life
• How to live an unburdened life

Overlap: Practical mindfulness with neuroscience support

Narrowing your scope

• First thought he was going to do a beginner’s class on crypto, and then his survey revealed that his audience are intermediate/advanced students

Most people have MULTIPLE courses IN THEM—DO NOT overwhelm the student.

Course Design Tips

• Use juicy verbs like from Bloom’s Taxonomy
• https://bit.ly/blooms-taxonomy-verbs
• Chunk out different sections and students want artifacts after the course ends
• We will spend 1 week on this topic in Maven accelerator

DO NOT have a leave with “better understanding of”…

Better outcomes:

• Customized plan on how to improve relationships, accountability plan

Survey Strategy

https://mavenlearning.notion.site/Final-round-application-course-survey-fe04ed390c8c404b84b2c0fadda4fea3

Additional info/pointers from Mickey:

• Top of survey, have no more than 2 paragraphs on:
  • Topic (just 1 unified) - explicitly phrase as the number 1 reason why a student will seek out a course of this nature
  • Takeaways for student (explicit outcomes)
  • Credentials
  • Price point (be explicit and base it on pricing of similar courses offered)
    • Do not ask a question about whether a student is willing to pay this price point, it will not generate useful information
    • Offer scholarship (e.g. 25% off) for completing survey
• Ask just 1-2 questions on what the student wants to learn, on one unified topic
• Offer link to landing page with more info after survey completion (to shorten the funnel to survey)