The Secret to Building the Go-To Course in Any Niche

Believe it or not, in 2024, some course creators were still mailing out CDs and DVDs — and their customers were choosing that option over online access. 📀 It sounds like a punchline, but it's actually a perfect illustration of the core philosophy Jasmine Jonte, founder of Cre8tion, shared with Jacques Hopkins on The Online Course Show.

Let's get into the conversation.

Q: Do you help people build a course, or do you also help them sell it?

A: Strictly the course itself — and Jasmine is clear about why that focus matters. Her team is a done-for-you agency, similar to ghostwriting a book: they interview the expert, pull from existing content (books, keynotes, free resources), and build the entire learning experience — scripts, slides, workbooks, the online portal — while the expert focuses on showing up to record.

She deliberately doesn't handle sales, funnels, or traffic — clients typically already have a path to selling (licensing to companies, an existing audience, or folding the course into a higher-ticket group program). Her reasoning: staying focused on making an exceptional program is what actually drives repurchase and referral rates — which, in her experience, matters more long-term than optimizing the front-end sales page.

Q: Why do experts who are clearly good at what they do outsource the course itself?

A: Two overlapping reasons, according to Jasmine. First, the obvious one: time. Many clients are booked out 1:1 or constantly traveling for speaking engagements. But underneath that is a quieter, more honest reason: they know teaching is its own skill — separate from whatever expertise they're known for — and they haven't put in the reps to be good at it yet. That's not a character flaw; it's simply an unlearned skill, the same way copywriting or sales are skills.

Q: Is there a universal formula for what makes a course "amazing"?

A: No — and Jasmine's example is genuinely surprising. Her team has split-tested older audiences (60s and 70s) on whether they'd prefer online access, physical CDs/DVDs, or both — and many chose CDs and DVDs only, even in the present day. Not because it's a smart strategic move broadly, but because that's specifically what that ideal client wanted.

Her point isn't "mail people CDs." It's this: don't build your course to look like Amy Porterfield's or anyone else's — build it for the actual person you're serving, even if that choice looks unconventional from the outside.

Q: Are there any genuinely universal best practices, regardless of niche?

A: Two came up clearly:

1. Design for different learning styles — visual, auditory, and kinesthetic — within whatever format you're using. For kinesthetic learners specifically, Jasmine's simplest fix is giving students explicit permission and structure to take notes — most students, when simply told to "take notes," don't actually know what that means in practice. A concrete instruction like "grab a journal, write things down as you go, and star the most important takeaway at the end" does far more than assuming students will figure it out themselves.
2. Gather feedback early, not just at the end. Most creators only send a survey after a course is finished. Jasmine recommends building in feedback touchpoints as early as the end of Module 1, so you can actually improve the student experience in real time rather than only learning what didn't work after it's too late to help that cohort.

Q: What's the single biggest mistake you see in course content?

A: Content that isn't actionable enough. Jasmine's specific example: a podcasting course that tells students "here's everything I use, here's how it all works, go" is far less effective than one that says, "go get a microphone, get this specific recording software, get a ring light — here are the exact Amazon links."

The pattern she sees repeatedly: experts know so much that they struggle to sift through their own knowledge to identify the most potent, specific action steps. Doing that filtering work before launch — clearly defining what "done" looks like at the end of each lesson — is what actually drives results.

Q: How do you know when it's time to update an existing course?

A: Two signals matter most:

1. Student feedback and results — recurring themes in what students are telling you.
2. The gap between where the expert is now and where the course still is. Jasmine's noticed a specific pattern: when an expert has clearly evolved past their existing course, their confidence in selling it visibly drops — because they no longer feel proud of what they're promoting, and it shows.

Her general rule of thumb: update roughly 10-15% of a program every year, rather than either ignoring it indefinitely or doing a full rebuild constantly. How much updating is actually needed also depends heavily on niche — a social media course needs frequent refreshes; something more evergreen (her example: a piano course) needs far less.

Q: How long should a course actually be?

A: As short as possible while still delivering the result — and Jasmine has observed consistent length "break points" across the programs she's built over the past several years:

• Micro/mini course: 45-90 minutes of total runtime, designed to be binge-watched once and completed without needing to return.
• Signature program: roughly 4-5 hours of content — commonly sold through a webinar funnel, priced around the $997 range.
• Complex/nuanced programs: 8-10 hours, reserved for genuinely intricate topics with many "what if" scenarios (she's built these specifically for real estate investing strategies and business acquisition programs).

🎯 The consistent guiding principle across all three tiers: length should be determined by what the transformation actually requires — not by a perceived need to "prove value" through volume.

Q: How should someone choose a course platform?

A: From a business owner's perspective, not just a student's. Jasmine points out that the actual student-facing experience across most major platforms (Thinkific, Teachable, Kajabi) is fairly similar these days — so the more important question is what does your broader tech stack and business need, both now and where you're heading?

About 60% of her clients don't have a platform picked when they arrive, and her recommendations vary widely by business type:

• Experienceify — for clients wanting robust gamification, like a "choose your own adventure" style structure
• Kajabi — a strong all-in-one option for solo experts who want everything centralized (her personal choice)
• Customer Hub — particularly strong for onboarding systems, useful for experts blending 1:1 client delivery with education

⚠️ Her bigger point: the platform decision matters far less than actually making one. The worst move is delaying the decision entirely.

Q: What's your advice for creators worried about course piracy?

A: A combination of real legal protection and honest, upfront communication with students. On the legal side (with the disclaimer that she's not a lawyer): adding copyright notices to every slide and workbook page, and submitting formal copyright applications for those materials, gives creators actual legal standing — not just a symbolic copyright mark — if content does get pirated.

On the communication side, Jasmine's advice is refreshingly direct: don't avoid the topic. Addressing it plainly in onboarding — "this program is meant for you and only you, please don't share it" — paired with terms and conditions students actively agree to, creates awareness without being adversarial. Most students, she notes, respect that boundary once it's clearly and respectfully stated.

Q: Is community more important than content now — or is that overstated?

A: Jasmine resists picking a side, and her reasoning is grounded in her own contradictory experience as a student. She's personally in several programs purely for the content — she almost never engages with community features, preferring to move at her own pace and find her people through separate masterminds. Meanwhile, she knows others who thrive specifically because of community engagement, even with completion rates as low as 15% — and are completely satisfied with that outcome.

Her framework for deciding what matters more for a specific audience:

• Is the result something achievable in a defined window (e.g., 90 days)? Content and training likely matter more.
• Is it a skill developed and honed over years? A membership or long-term community model likely serves students better.

✅ The practical takeaway: rather than forcing every student into one engagement style, give explicit permission in your welcome content — "we have multiple ways to engage, use what actually works for you." Jasmine calls this Goldilocks content: not too much support infrastructure, not too little, just enough that students can self-select the parts that genuinely help them.

The Bottom Line

There's no single formula for building a great course — the right format, length, platform, and support structure all depend entirely on who your specific student is, not on what's trending or what a bigger name in your industry is doing. Focus on genuinely actionable content, build in real feedback loops early, and protect your work with both real legal steps and honest communication.

Want help figuring out what "amazing" actually looks like for your specific audience? 🚀 Head to cre8tion.co to talk through your course.

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