There’s a business model so elegant it almost deserves respect.
Almost.
Here it is.
Find people who want to make money online.
Sell them a course about making money online.
Use the course revenue as the proof that you make money online.
Use that proof to sell more courses about making money online.
Repeat until you’re on a podcast talking about your “multiple six figure business.”
The loop is self-sealing.
Every time a student buys the course, they add to the revenue number that justifies the course existing.
Every time someone asks “does this work?” the answer is: “It made me $X.”
The X came from people asking whether the X was real.
It’s turtles all the way down.
Now. Is the underlying information wrong?
Not necessarily.
Audience building is real. Email lists matter. Digital products sell. Distribution is everything.
That stuff is true.
The problem is the framing.
“This is how I made money” becomes “this is how you’ll make money.”
Those are very different claims.
What worked for one person, in one market, at one moment in time, with one specific advantage they’re not mentioning — that’s not a system.
That’s a case study.
Case studies are useful. Systems are better. The guru sells the case study as a system and charges system prices.
The tell is the testimonials.
Look at when they were collected. Not whether they’re real — they usually are. But when.
Most testimonials in the course industry are collected 72 hours after purchase. Before anyone has done anything. Before a single lesson has been applied.
The feeling of buying a good product is not the same as doing something with it.
“This course is amazing!” written on day two is not a result. It’s optimism wearing a hoodie.
I bought a course once that had 47 testimonials on the sales page. I counted.
Three of them mentioned specific outcomes.
One said she’d made $200. One said he’d gotten his first client. One said she’d finally understood what a landing page was.
The other 44 were variations of “this changed my life” and “I can’t believe I waited this long.”
Forty-four testimonials. Zero information.
How to spot the loop before you’re in it.
Ask: what did people do differently after buying this?
Not “what did they feel.” Not “how did their mindset shift.”
What did they actually do? And what happened when they did it?
If those answers are on the sales page, it’s probably a real product.
If the page is full of transformation language and screenshots of PayPal accounts — run the math first.
One more thing.
The loop doesn’t make the underlying skills fake.
Building an audience is real. Selling digital products is real. Email marketing works. Content compounds over time.
All of that is true.
The scam isn’t the skills. The scam is the shortcut.
“Here’s the system I used to make $50k in 30 days.”
Nobody made $50k in 30 days by following a system.
They made $50k because of the six years before the 30 days.
The system gets credit for the result it didn’t build.
Worth naming that.
Want the guide I WISH I had before I started?
How to determine your first product
How to make it with AI
Yeah… Grab it here
