How to Validate Your Course Idea Using Google Forms

Before you open Google Forms, write down the three or four assumptions your course idea depends on. Every course idea rests on beliefs about your audience that may or may not be true. You might assume your audience struggles with a specific problem, that they'd pay a certain price, that they want a self-paced format, or that they haven't found a good solution elsewhere. Your survey needs to test these assumptions, not confirm them.

Danny Iny, who co-teaches the Course Lab podcast with me, calls this the pilot approach: validate before you build, and let your audience tell you what the course should be rather than guessing. A survey is the simplest version of that principle — you're asking people what they need before you invest months creating something they might not want.

You need five to eight questions. More than that and your completion rate drops sharply. Each question should map to one of your assumptions. Here are the categories that matter most for course validation:

Pain points: "What's the single biggest challenge you face with [your topic]?" Use an open-ended text field, not multiple choice. You want their words, not yours. The specific language people use to describe their frustration becomes the language of your course sales page.

Prior attempts: "What have you already tried to solve this?" This reveals whether your audience is actively seeking solutions — which means demand is real — or whether they've accepted the problem as unsolvable. It also shows you what you're competing with: YouTube tutorials, books, other courses, coaching, or nothing at all.

Willingness to pay: "If a course solved this problem for you, what would you expect to pay?" Give them a multiple-choice range: under $50, $50-$100, $100-$250, $250-$500, over $500. Ranges are more reliable than open text for pricing questions because people anchor to the options you provide.

Format preference: "How would you prefer to learn this? (Select all that apply)" and offer options like self-paced video, live group sessions, a mix of both, written lessons with exercises, or a community with weekly assignments. Don't assume your audience wants the format you planned. I've seen course creators build elaborate video libraries for audiences that wanted live workshops, and vice versa.

Timing: "If this course existed today, how likely would you be to enroll in the next 30 days?" Use a simple scale — very likely, somewhat likely, not likely. This separates real interest from polite enthusiasm.

Go to forms.google.com and start a blank form. Add a brief introduction at the top — two or three sentences explaining that you're exploring a course idea and want honest input. Keep the tone casual. Something like: "I'm thinking about creating a course on [topic]. Before I build anything, I want to make sure it would help. This takes 3 minutes." Then add your questions. Leave the form set to "Do not collect email addresses" so responses stay anonymous.

Send the form link to 30-50 people who represent your target audience. Your email list is the best source if you have one. If not, share it in communities where your audience spends time — Facebook groups, Slack channels, professional associations, or your own social media. The key is reaching people who actually face the problem your course would solve, not friends and family who'll tell you what you want to hear.

A personal message outperforms a broadcast. "Hey, I'm working on something and would really value your perspective — would you mind spending 3 minutes on this?" gets a higher response rate than a generic post. If you can get 15-30 responses from real members of your target audience, you have enough data to make a decision.

Click the "Responses" tab in your form, then the green Sheets icon to open all responses in a spreadsheet. Google Forms also shows a summary view with charts, but the spreadsheet is where the real insights live — especially for open-ended questions.

Read every open-ended response. Highlight recurring words and phrases. If five people independently describe the same frustration using similar language, that frustration is validated. If the pricing responses cluster around a range, that's your starting point for pricing. If most people want live sessions but you planned self-paced, that's the kind of insight that saves you from building the wrong thing.

Your survey results point in one of three directions. If you see clear, repeated pain points, willingness to pay at a viable price, and interest in a format you can deliver — build the course. If you see interest in the topic but misalignment on format, pricing, or the specific problem — adjust your concept and consider running a second, more focused survey. If responses are sparse, vague, or consistently lukewarm — pause. A course without clear demand is a course that launches to silence, and it's better to learn that from a survey than from an empty enrollment page.

"What's your biggest challenge with [topic] and what have you tried?" is two questions disguised as one. Respondents will answer the easier half and skip the harder one. Split compound questions into separate fields. You get cleaner data and the survey feels shorter even though it has more items.

If you ask "Which of these challenges do you face?" before "Describe your biggest challenge," you've already anchored their thinking to your categories. Put the open-ended question first so respondents describe the problem in their own frame. Their unprompted language is the most valuable data in the entire survey.

If someone writes a detailed, specific response to your open-ended questions, that person is worth a conversation. Add an optional final question: "If you'd be open to a brief follow-up conversation, leave your email address." This is voluntary and separate from the anonymous responses. Even three or four follow-up conversations will give you deeper context than the survey alone — and those people often become your first students.

A survey measures what people say, not what they do. Someone who reports they'd pay $200 for your course may not actually buy it when the moment arrives. The strongest form of validation is still a real transaction — someone handing you money for a pilot version of your course. A survey gets you close by revealing whether real demand exists, but it can't close the gap between stated intention and actual behavior entirely.

Google Forms lacks conditional logic beyond basic section branching. If you need complex skip patterns — showing different questions based on previous answers — a tool like Typeform handles that more gracefully. For a five-to-eight question validation survey, though, conditional logic is usually unnecessary. Keep the survey simple and save the complexity for your course design.