In this episode, we walked through the exact 8-step process we followed to take our latest mini-course, Substack Notes Simplified, from first idea to 5-figure launch in under 14 days.
If you're interested in building and selling your own mini-course, simply follow these steps to set yourself up for success.
Step 1: Choose a Highly Specific Topic
The more specific your topic, the easier everything else becomes.
A mini-course is not the place to teach everything you know — it’s about taking someone from point A to point B as efficiently as possible.
When you narrow your scope, you avoid overwhelming your students, keep the content completable (ideally in two to three hours), and make it easier to position as an impulse buy.
Think about the small, specific wins your audience is already asking for — those are your best course ideas.
Step 2: Validate Demand Before You Build
Interest in a topic does not automatically equal willingness to pay for it. That’s a lesson learned the hard way.
Before creating a single lesson, validate demand in one of three ways:
Analyse your existing content data to see what consistently overperforms
Have real conversations with your audience through DMs or community discussions
Run a pre-order campaign where people can buy access before the course even exists
That last option is the ultimate validation — if people pay upfront, you know you’re onto something worth building.
Step 3: Create a Clear Course Outline
Never start recording until you have a solid outline.
The outline is your roadmap — both for creating the course and for guiding your student through it.
A good mini-course outline has three to five modules, each containing three to seven short, actionable lessons.
Think of each module as a stepping stone that builds on the last, moving the student progressively from their starting point to the promised outcome.
Spending extra time here makes everything downstream faster and cleaner.
Step 4: Record Your Course Content
Once your outline is locked, it’s time to record.
The format depends on your topic — screen recordings, slides, or talking-head videos all work, and you don’t need to show your face throughout.
Tools like Loom and Canva make this approachable for anyone.
More importantly, don’t try to make it perfect. Students don’t want a Hollywood production — they want clear, helpful teaching that gets them results.
The most efficient approach is to batch-record your videos in one or two focused sessions rather than spreading it over weeks.
Step 5: Upload to a Course Hosting Platform
Choose a platform and move quickly — the platform itself won’t make or break your success.
Some of the best options are:
Teachable
Thinkific
Kajabi
Gumroad
What matters is picking something that fits your current needs and getting your course live. You can always migrate later if needed.
Don’t let this decision become a bottleneck.
Step 6: Price Your Course Based on Outcome, Not Length
A common mistake is pricing a mini-course based on how long it is. Instead, price it based on the value of the transformation it delivers.
Mini-courses typically sit in the $37 to $150 range — an accessible, impulse-friendly price point.
If your course helps people solve a painful, pressing problem (especially one tied to business or earning more), the higher end of that range is fully justified.
For our launch, we priced Substack Notes Simplified at $97, because we knew the outcome — growing your Substack through better notes — was directly tied to audience growth and income.
Step 7: Build a Compelling Sales Page
Even the best course won’t sell if the sales page doesn’t communicate its value clearly.
Your sales page should focus on benefits, not features.
Not “you’ll get five modules and a PDF,” but “here’s the problem you’re currently facing, and here’s the transformation you’ll experience after taking this course.”
You’re painting a before-and-after picture.
Good news: you don’t need to be a master copywriter to pull this off.
AI tools can help, and once you’ve built one sales page, you’ll have a template you can reuse for every future launch.
Step 8: Launch Across Your Channels
The final step is getting your course in front of people. Leverage every channel available to you — email newsletter, Substack posts, YouTube, community chats, social media.
During launch week, tie all your content back to the topic your course addresses and make the promotion feel natural and relevant.
Most importantly, build in an element of urgency: a deadline, an introductory price, or a bonus that goes away.
Without urgency, even genuinely interested buyers will delay — and delay often means never. When there’s a clear reason to act now, you’ll see a meaningful spike in conversions right at the deadline.
🔴 We packed everything we’ve learned from helping thousands of creators into one program: Mini-Course Accelerator.
It’s the fastest path from “I have knowledge” to “I have a product that sells.”
