#148 Live-Learning Is SO Back
Today's essay is going to be part "predictions" + part "this is already happening". And it might cause you a little anxiety... especially if you run a course business.
But I want you to check that anxiety gremlin at the door & read this through the lens of how much opportunity there is right now.
I keep seeing brilliant people with incredible expertise… sitting on top of course libraries that are quietly expiring.
Not because the content is bad, but because the world is moving faster than the content can keep up... (and that we can keep up with content).
Which means one thing: live learning is back. In a very real, very strategic way.
Let's get into it –
A friend recently sent me a LinkedIn post from Kat Norton – AKA Miss Excel – which sent me down a rabbit hole...
If you remember, she built a massive audience (2M) teaching Excel online while dancing. Viral content, on-demand courses, the whole thing.
But what caught my attention was what she’s doing now. She’s hiring corporate trainers and onboarding them into her method for running live, results-driven training sessions for companies.
Her business has worked with 400+ organizations (!!!) She is running live learning experiences at scale, and it's working.
Courses aren't dead... but on-demand knowledge has a shorter shelf life than ever before.
Software is updating constantly, AI is changing how we work in real time, and entire workflows are being rewritten every few months.
And when someone can open ChatGPT and get a step-by-step answer instantly… the value of static content drops fast.
What people actually need now is a place to keep up, practice, and figure it out together.
This is where community-driven learning becomes the product.
Let's break down the 3 biggest live-learning opportunities I see right now:
Opportunity #1 Software-based memberships
If you teach anything tied to tools or platforms, this is your moment.
I'm talking about Canva, Notion, Airtable, Edits, AI tools in literally any niche, you name it.
These tools are evolving weekly which means your course is outdated the second you hit publish.
But a live learning membership becomes the space where:
You share what’s new this week
Members test and report back
Everyone builds skill through practice, not just consumption
It’s not about having all the answers. It’s about leading the room where the answers are being figured out.
Opportunity #2: B2B training is quietly exploding
As small business owners we tend to think in creator-first models, but the bigger opportunity right now is inside companies.
Large organizations are moving slower than the technology they need to adopt.
Their teams need to learn AI, need to update workflows, and need to stay competitive.
But they’re not going to sit down and binge your course library.
They need structured, live environments where learning actually happens.
That’s why models like (1) corporate training retainers, (2) team-based memberships, and (3) seat-based access to live programs are becoming incredibly valuable.
You’re not just selling knowledge, you’re selling ongoing capability building.
Opportunity #3: The "we'll figure it out together model"
This is the one I’m personally most excited about.
Inside my new community, The Collective, there’s no fully built curriculum yet. We're all navigating change too quickly to pretend there is some kind of blueprint that works right now...
Instead, we're building programming off of our core framework, sharing experiments, documenting what's working, and building SOPs in real time.
Mostly we're learning from each other, not just me and my team.
That’s the most valuable room you can be in right now. Because the truth is nobody fully knows what they’re doing in this new era of AI and work.
The advantage goes to the people who are willing to experiment and share notes with each other.
Your job has changed
Your job is no longer to package knowledge, your job is tofacilitate progress in a fast-changing environment.
And the best way to do that is live, together, in practice, not in theory.
We’re in a weird in-between moment right now.
Old models still work… but not as well. New models are emerging… but not fully defined.
And that’s exactly why this is such a big opportunity.
The people who lean into live-learning now are going to build the next wave of category-defining membership businesses.
The rest will keep updating their course modules.
If you’re building something in this direction, I’d love to hear what you’re experimenting with. Or if you want help designing this into your business, that’s exactly what we're doing with all our clients at Affinity Collective right now.
If you liked this kind of prediction + opportunity issue, you'll love the free training I'm hosting on Tuesday! RSVP for free here (and get the replay).
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