Blew $150 on a viral TikTok course that was just repackaged common sense

The whole thing was basically just telling me to post at 9 AM and use trending audio, which I could have figured out from 10 minutes of scrolling, so has anyone else fallen for these influencer guru courses?

4 comments

4 Comments

mason_reed4717d ago

Ugh, that's rough. The real money isn't even in the advice, it's in convincing people they need the course in the first place. The biggest secret those gurus keep is that their real hustle is selling hope to beginners, not actually growing accounts.

olivia67017d agoMost Upvoted

What you said about "selling hope to beginners" really hit home. A friend of mine paid $200 for a course from some guy who claimed he made $50k in a month on Etsy. Turned out the whole course was just screenshots of other people's shops and a PDF on how to open a store. He actually found the exact same info for free on YouTube later that night. She still feels stupid about it, but honestly, those guys are just really good at making you feel like you're one click away from hitting it big.

amyh1217d ago

Mason called it exactly right. The whole business model is selling the dream, not the knowledge. Those gurus know that people who are desperate to make it will pay anything for a shortcut. And once you buy in, they already got your money. The real secret is that their own success came from selling courses, not from the actual content of the courses. That's the grift - they're not teaching you how to grow, they're teaching you how to sell hope to the next sucker. The advice is always vague enough to sound smart but useless in practice.

ruby_wright11d ago

A girl I knew from high school spent $800 on a "mentorship program" and the guy literally just sent her links to free blogs and told her to "manifest abundance." lmao. The whole thing is a pyramid of people convincing the next person down they're about to crack the code.