A few months ago, I was seriously considering chucking in teaching online and opening a café instead.
I wasn’t burned out because the work was hard. I was burned out because I’d realised the way I’d been teaching – the entire online course model I’d built my business on – wasn’t actually working anymore.
Not for my students, and definitely not for me.
The prospect of making Build With Bricks 2.0—a course people had been clamouring for, that I’d talked about making for ages—filled me with absolute dread.
And I mean dread. Not “oh this will be a lot of work” dread. More like “I cannot face doing this again” dread.
Which is ridiculous, isn’t it?
I love teaching (Bricks, WordPress, and tech/software generally).
I’m damn good at it.
Thousands of people have had tremendous results from my training over the last 8 years.
But the thought of spending another 3 months locked away, recording and re-recording dozens of videos, editing everything to perfection, only to watch it go out of date within 18 months…
Yeah. That café was sounding pretty good, actually.
The cracks in the foundation
Here’s the thing: I’d built a successful business on the “build an audience, sell courses” model.
And it worked. For years, it worked really well.
I’d create comprehensive, well-structured courses. People would buy them.
Some would get great results.
Everyone wins.
Except… everyone wasn’t winning.
My course completion rate is currently around 50%.
In the online course industry, that’s considered good. Something to brag about, apparently.
But 50% means half the people who bought my training—who invested their money and their trust in me—weren’t finishing. They weren’t getting the transformation they paid for.
That didn’t sit right with me.
I’d also get emails like this:
“Hi Dave, I bought your course 18 months ago but didn’t get around to starting it, and now it’s out of date. When are you remaking it?”
I’ve often provided a community support element as part of my courses.
But was that really helping? Or was it just a token gesture—a box I could tick to say “yes, support included”?
The truth?
Most people weren’t asking questions anyway. They were just… stuck. Alone. At 11pm.
Feeling guilty about not finishing another course they’d bought.
And here’s the thing: It wasn’t that my courses were bad. They’re comprehensive, well-structured, clearly taught. I regularly get feedback telling me so.
The problem wasn’t the quality of the content. The problem was the format itself.
The self-study model sounds perfect, doesn’t it?
For students: learn at your own pace, watch whenever you want, no pressure.
For creators: build it once, sell it forever, help thousands of people while you sleep.
But here’s what actually happens:
People buy the course and get a dopamine hit. “Yes! I’m investing in myself! I’m going to learn this!”
They feel like they’ve already achieved something just by buying it.
And I get it—I’ve done this myself plenty of times. That purchase feels like progress.
But then… life happens. The course sits there. Days turn into weeks. The initial excitement fades.
That dopamine high wears off and gets replaced by shame, guilt, disappointment.
Self-study courses have become the Netflix binge-watch series of online education.
Great to consume, entertaining even, full of information… but less likely to lead to actual transformation.
Students get information but not transformation. Content but not accountability. Access but not results.
And creators? We spend months in isolation making something that most people won’t finish, that goes out of date quickly, and that ultimately doesn’t deliver on the promise we made.
Meanwhile, I was disappearing from YouTube for months at a time, not connecting with my audience, not helping anyone.
And then—best case scenario—the course would be relevant for 12 months before the software updated enough that I’d need to remake the whole thing again.
The cycle was exhausting. Unsustainable.
And every time I thought about starting the next course remake—waiting for the software to hit the next major version, then spending months making it, knowing it would be out of date again soon—the dread just got worse.
I had to find another way. Or seriously consider that café.
The moment everything changed
Then, a couple of months ago, I tried something different.
Instead of buying another self-study course, I joined a live cohort program—a small group of students learning together over 6 weeks, with live teaching sessions and a dedicated community.
It had nothing to do with web design. I was on the other side—I was the student, not the teacher.
It blew me away.
I showed up. I did the work. I didn’t make excuses or wait to start it later.
But here’s what surprised me: it wasn’t because the content was better than a typical course.
It was everything else.
The time-limited “we’re doing this NOW” nature of it.
The accountability of knowing other people around the world were doing the same thing at the same time.
The energy in the community.
Being able to ask questions and get answers while the learning was happening, not weeks later when I’d already moved on.
Something about being part of a real live group, all moving through it together, with live teaching and real support—it completely changed how I learned.
I actually got results. Not just information—actual transformation.
And I remember thinking: This is what teaching should feel like.
Not recording videos into the void and hoping they help someone months from now.
Not building massive courses that go stale before most people even finish them.
But real teaching. The kind I used to do in classrooms with kids, back when I was a primary school teacher in the 90s.
Interactive. Responsive. Human.
That’s when it hit me: what if I could teach this way again?
The shift: back to real teaching
So I made a decision.
Instead of locking myself away for months to create another massive pre-recorded course, I’d deliver the training live.
Six weeks.
Small group (limited to 50 people).
Real teaching sessions every week.
A dedicated private community where people could get support, ask questions, work through challenges together, and actually finish what they started.
Not a course.
A cohort.
Same comprehensive training—start to finish, building a fully dynamic case study website. Same workflow, same expertise.
Just… alive. Current. Connected.
And here’s what’s wild: this format solves literally every problem I’d been struggling with.
The training is always current. I’m teaching with the very latest version of the software, live. Not a course I recorded 6 months ago that’s already aging. If the software updates mid-program? We just incorporate it. Done.
People actually finish. When you’re part of a small group, all doing it together, with live sessions and a dedicated community, you show up. The 6-week timeframe creates focus—you’re not leaving this “for later” because there IS no later. You’re doing this NOW.
I’m teaching again. Properly teaching. Answering questions in real time. Adapting based on what people actually need. Seeing them progress. This is what I’m good at. This is what I love.
No more months of isolation. I can run a 6-week cohort, take a breath, make YouTube videos, connect with my audience, then run another cohort. It’s sustainable. I’m not disappearing for months at a time.
No more burnout from remaking courses. When the software updates again? I just run another cohort with the new version. That’s it. No massive remake project hanging over my head.
The format fits both what my students need (transformation, not just information) and what I need (sustainable work that doesn’t destroy me).
The early results
I opened enrollment for my first cohort 5 days ago, at the time of writing.
I’ll be honest—I was nervous. This was completely different from anything I’d done before.
Would people get it? Would they want it?
Here’s what happened:
All 50 places are taken. Which is great, obviously.
But more important, it’s the energy that’s blown me away.
The emails I’m getting are genuinely excited. Grateful. Ready to do the work.
And my peers—other online educators—have been reaching out too:
“I’ve done this format before and I’m thinking about doing it again, actually. It’s very effective and you get way less drop-off from people who join.”
“Great decision! Your educational skills are exceptional and I think this is a much better way to go.”
“Learning tech is hard and the promise of democratising education via the internet sounds so plausible, but the reality is that learning in real-time with an educator is much better.”
It’s validating to know I’m not alone in feeling this shift.
But the real test comes November 11th, when I actually start teaching. That’s when we’ll see if this works the way I think it will.
(Spoiler: I’m pretty confident it will. But ask me again in January after the first cohort wraps up.)
What this means for online education in 2025
I’m not here to tell other course creators how to run their businesses.
If the traditional course model is working for you—if your students are getting results, if you’re not burning out, if you’re happy with 10-20% completion rates—then crack on. Genuinely.
But I think we need to be honest about what’s happening in online education right now.
Completion rates are falling. Across the industry. Even the “good” ones are around 50%, and most are far lower.
Course fatigue is real. People have bought so many courses that didn’t deliver on their promise. The dopamine hit of “I’m investing in myself!” has worn off. Now it’s just guilt and overwhelm.
Software training has a shelf-life problem. By the time someone gets around to your course, it might already be outdated. And remaking courses every 12-18 months? That’s not sustainable for creators or students.
The “passive income” dream sold us a lie. Build it once, sell it forever, scale infinitely! Except… it doesn’t actually work like that. Not if you care about student results.
The internet promised to democratise education. Make it accessible to everyone, everywhere, cheaply.
And in some ways, it did.
But what we ended up with was a lot of people watching videos alone, getting stuck, feeling guilty about not finishing, and not getting the transformation they paid for.
Here’s what I think is true:
People don’t need more polished content.
They need connection.
Accountability.
Real teaching that responds to where they actually are, not where the course creator assumed they’d be.
The live cohort model isn’t perfect.
It’s certainly not infinitely scalable.
It requires showing up consistently.
You can’t just “set it and forget it.”
But you know what? That’s actually the point.
Teaching isn’t supposed to be passive. It’s supposed to be active, engaged, human.
I’m not saying everyone should abandon courses and switch to cohorts. That would be absurd.
But I do think we need to rethink what “good” online education looks like in 2025.
For me, it’s looking like smaller groups. Live teaching. Real community. Actual transformation.
It looks like going back to what teaching was always supposed to be: helping people succeed, not just selling them information and hoping for the best.
I’ll still create some self-study materials—not everyone wants or needs the live experience. But the core of what I do is shifting.
Less time making courses that go stale. More time actually teaching.
I’m excited about my work again. For the first time in a long time, I’m not dreading the next project.
Turns out I didn’t need to open a café after all.
I just needed to remember why I became a teacher in the first place.