The Science of Building Courses for Clients with Dave Lakhani

Dave was raised in a cult from age six until he left at sixteen. That experience sparked a lifelong study of persuasion and human influence that became the foundation of his career. He earned his college degree through postal mail while deployed in the military — receiving assignments, completing them, and mailing them back to instructors. That early experience of distance learning taught him that the format was efficient but not always effective, and it drove him to think carefully about how adults actually learn and retain information. His agency now builds courses for clients who lack the technical capacity or time to do it themselves, handling everything from research to platform setup to marketing.

Dave's agency begins every project with audience surveys — asking whether the topic is viable, what the audience wants to learn, what they would be willing to pay, and gathering unexpected ideas to include. Only after validating demand do they sit down with the subject matter expert to outline learning objectives and desired outcomes. Then they cross-reference the outline against existing research, looking for gaps the expert has not covered. A project that started as one fertility course for plant-based dieters turned into three: a preparation course, a fertility course, and a postpartum course — with additional sections they had not anticipated, like guidance for partners who eat differently. This expansion changed everything from pricing structure to marketing strategy.

After producing roughly 10 percent of the content, Dave's team starts internal review — first within their agency, then with the client's organization, and finally with external beta testers. They use a combination of surveys, personal interviews, screen recordings, and quizzes to understand how people engage with the material. They deliberately recruit testers across a spectrum: ideal-fit candidates alongside people who are only marginally interested, to see where different learner types succeed or struggle. This layered approach sometimes leads to an abort decision — clients realize the review process requires dozens or even hundreds of hours on their end and decide the initiative is not right for the moment. But for those who continue, the refinement produces courses that are rigorously validated.

Dave's persuasion background shapes a distinctive approach to course design. He does not take for granted that enrolled students are motivated to complete the course. Instead, he bakes internal marketing throughout: strategically naming course sections with titles that create curiosity, embedding hidden bonus content as easter eggs that reward completion, and designing the pacing around how distracted modern learners actually are. He advocates for two- to five-minute video segments with a clear takeaway at the end of each, rather than the 45-minute classroom-style sessions that were common in earlier generations of online courses. As Danny noted in the debrief, this integration of persuasion principles with instructional design is unusual and valuable — constantly re-hooking attention and selling the value of the next section.