What you build first on Maven depends on where you are in your expert portfolio building journey. Below is a guide to help you find your right first move.
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate
You're early in your journey. You don’t yet have a following, and you’re not yet known publicly in your area of expertise.
You're someone who has real knowledge and expertise to share, but hasn't yet started building a public presence or monetizing what you know. You may not have a following, a newsletter, or much experience teaching others. That's okay. Everyone starts here.
Your first job is to build trust. Before anyone will pay you for knowledge, they need to encounter that knowledge and find it valuable.
Your potential path:
Commit to sharing high-value content publicly (LinkedIn is a strong starting point for many), and use free resources like Lightning Lessons to start building an email list.
Offer lightweight 1:1 calls or more Lightning Lessons to get reps, gather real feedback, and start understanding what your future students actually need.
Sell a Workshop once you have an early audience and a topic that's resonating.
Build a higher-priced Cohort-Based Course once the Workshop has proven demand.
This is a longer runway, but each step builds to the next. By the time you launch a higher-priced product, like a full course, you’ll have built interest, trust, and insights.
The Momentum Builder
The Momentum Builder
You've been sharing publicly and building an audience for your expertise. You're ready to start monetizing.
You've been putting in the reps. You're sharing content publicly, people are engaging with it, and you're starting to get questions and inbound interest. You don’t need to have a huge following - the people who do follow you are paying attention. You haven't done much monetization yet, but the opportunity and foundation is there.
Your potential path:
Mine your existing audience for insights before you build anything. Look at what gets engagement. Notice what questions keep coming up. A Lightning Lesson or a few free 1:1 calls with people in your network can surface the exact problem your first product should solve.
Start with a small paid product like a Workshop, a paid digital resource, or 1:1 coaching. Each helps you validate willingness to pay before you build something bigger.
Build a higher-priced Cohort-Based Course once you’ve put in the validation reps, gotten real feedback, and have a sharper sense of what your audience needs next from you.
The Established Voice
The Established Voice
You're well known and trusted in your space. You have an audience and a proven track record.
People know your name, seek out your content, and trust your point of view. You may already be monetizing in some form, whether through coaching, corporate training, or an existing course. Your question to answer is - what’s the right next product to build?
Because trust is already established, your priority before building anything new is validation. That might mean hosting a Lightning Lesson to gauge demand, or simply having direct conversations with your best existing customers.
From there, the right move depends on your current setup:
If you have a low-ticket offer but no high-ticket product yet
Build a flagship Workshop or Cohort-Based Course that’s priced higher and designed specifically for the people who've already bought your lower-priced offer and want to go deeper. Your existing buyers are your warmest possible audience.
If you're offering 1:1 Coaching but want to scale
Your coaching practice is already your curriculum. The patterns you've seen across clients — the same questions, the same stuck points, the same breakthroughs — are the outline of a Workshop or Course waiting to be built.
If you have a course that's mostly passive and async
If you’re teaching an async course, your students are missing out on live interaction and community. A Workshop, a live extension of the course, or a higher-ticket Cohort-Based Course layered on top adds the human element that async content alone can't provide and gives your most motivated students somewhere to go next.
If you've been selling corporate workshops and private trainings
You have deep expertise and strong social proof. Your gap is usually a personal brand. Start building in public while continuing your corporate work, extract your existing frameworks into lead magnets or downloadable resources, and lean hard on your corporate experience as credibility when you do launch to a consumer audience.