Eric Siu breaks down why online courses fail: most buyers never use them, similar to unused gym memberships. About 40% stay inactive, even in his $5,000/year "part-time YouTuber accelerator." He explains how emotional purchases drive sales while engagement craters after signup.
A lot of people will buy a product to fulfill an emotional need. Once they fulfill that emotional need, they feel like they've gotten the value from it. Sometimes they won't even open it, and that's okay. I still feel kind of weird about it, but it's almost like a gym membership. There's always gonna be like 80% of people that don't use the gym membership, which actually subsidizes it for everyone else who does. And so we now have this product, a part-time YouTuber accelerator, which is like a $5,000 for a year thing that gives them ongoing support. And even with this, like 40% of people are inactive, and we send them emails and be like, are you thinking of getting back into your YouTube channel? And usually they're like, either don't reply or they'll be like, oh, sorry, life got in the way. I'll get back to it at some point.
