So instead I’m trying to apply the lessons learned to my startup: - how can I offer a product …

Where/how are you selling your course? Is this strictly a DYI thing or are you utilizing some kind of framework?

>unrelated startups or making money The thing about these courses, especially if they're about tech and advertised on twitter or reddit, is that they don't have to be directly about startups or making money. You simply have to reference money on your feed, and vaguely connect your course to this, and people buy. You can release a course just based on Rust, and people will still flock to it because your bio references making 50k a month or whatever the case may be. Nothing will ever sell as much as the mere potential of the buyer becoming rich or attractive. There are entire billion dollar industries based on this. People have become NYT best sellers because of this pitch. And so I'm not surprised at all your course has made substantially more than a serious startup product. While it's true, courses are perpetual, the ones with high quality content aren't really - they have to be rewritte…

I am not sure that I would conflate the success of your course to mean much about the relative success of your startup. I think there are a few other things to consider that are specific to your situation (as an outsider it's been interesting to watch). In my mind, your course has a few extra things going for it - one it's aspirational and people like to imagine the best version of themselves, two the solution you're selling people has the potential to give them a lot of leverage (building an audience has provided you leverage after all), and three you have credibility in the space by virtue of having already done the thing. Of these, I think the promise of giving your customers leverage is the most important value, and people trust you enough to buy it due to your credibility. I think these aspects don't apply quite as cleanly to Logology. It has a different kind of problem to solve - t…