Mining Online Conversations for Course Ideas

People tell you what they need every single day.
You’re just not writing it down.

It’s right there in a Facebook post from someone frustrated out of their mind.
It’s buried in a Reddit thread where strangers are trying to help each other.
It’s hidden in the comments of a podcast episode you love.

And sometimes, it’s sitting in your DMs.

If you want to create a course people will actually buy, you can’t sit around waiting for inspiration. You’ve got to eavesdrop on the internet a little.

Start by hanging out where your people hang out. Not everywhere — just a few spots where you know they open up.
A Facebook group with a few thousand active members.
A subreddit that’s basically a running therapy session for your niche.
The comment section of a YouTube video that hit a nerve.

That’s where the gold is.

Don’t just skim. Look for the posts that feel heavy. The ones that sound like,
“I can’t figure out how to…”
or
“I’ve tried X but it’s still not working.”

That’s pain in plain sight. And pain is where people will pay for a solution.

When you see it, grab it. Screenshot it. Copy and paste it into a doc. Keep the exact words they used — don’t “polish” it. Those words are the same ones you’ll use later when you’re selling your course.

At first, it’ll feel random. But after a while, you’ll notice the same problems coming up again and again. That’s when you know you’re onto something.

And here’s the thing: not all common problems are worth solving. If people talk about it casually, they might not be motivated enough to pay for it. But if you keep seeing that frustrated, desperate tone — that’s the course idea you start with.

The Bottom Line

You don’t have to guess what to teach. The internet is handing you ideas every single day. All you have to do is show up where your people are already talking, listen without jumping in to fix everything right there, and collect the patterns. That’s your course blueprint.