Paid training classes _cannot_ work. If free courses on Excel were available, then people wouldn't buy the paid ones.

Paid yoga classes _cannot_ work. If free yoga lessons were available on YouTube, then people wouldn't buy the paid ones.

Paid water _cannot_ work. If free water was available in your faucet, then people wouldn't buy the bottled kind.

Paying for print versions of Shakespeare _cannot_ work. If free versions are available on project Gutenberg, then people wouldn't pay for it.

Ever think there may be varying levels of success, and the free week-long version gets you the basics (I can touch my toes, Yoga success!), but not yet an expert? Just like every other field of human activity?

Not necessarily true. I offer a free email course (also for freelancers), and I position the free course as the strategy - how should a freelancer think about sales? The premium course is the tactics - an actionable deep dive into the content covered in the free course, along with templates, scripts, video interviews, accountability, and more.

It's worked really well. People love the free course, and those who want a more tactics and accountability buy the full course.

People may love the free course, but does it actually make previously unsuccessful people successful? I think the implication here is that the free course is essentially just there to get you pumped up for the paid course, and is not actually useful.

It does. My business goal with my email course is to generate qualified leads for my course. My personal goal is to make people better off than they were before they started the course.

If the free course is nothing but the "sizzle" and a giant pitch for something paid, that's a problem. You're probably not going to get many sales for your paid course, and no one's going to refer others to the free course.

But if it's valuable independently of the premium course, and allows the reader to determine if it makes sense to go pro, then it's a win-win for all involved. At the end of my course, I ask people to reply back with what they got out of the free course and what they plan on changing as a result of it — I get a fair amount of awesome responses (which turn out to be great testimonials) from this last email: http://i.glui.me/1A3VNtx

I can vouch for this. Not with the emails, but came across bdunn's free blog and podcast 2 months ago. They earned me an extra $8,000 last month, and a better end product for my client. Spending a fraction of this to get more advice (the paid course) was a no brainer.

(Brennan, feel free to use as testimonial / ask me to elaborate.)

That's great! We're actually running weekly profiles on people who have used my advice to help grow their business, and I'd love to feature you. Here's the link: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/student-success-spotlight-a...

If you learn what you need to on the free course, I'm fine with you not buying the paid course (I've told many people not to buy the course if I don't think it's right for them). The free version still has a ton of great information that's already helped the beta testers.

Forget what HN is telling you. They are complaining about your list yet they are the first ones to sign up for the next ruby/angular/whatever JS thingy is popular this week ebook mailing list.

Your logic assumes the measure of success is strictly binary, i.e., it either works or it doesn't. Another way to look at it : becoming good at something is a continuum and we're all at different points along the way. This is applicable to a lot more than freelancing.

How well the course works is not a boolean. The free course could be helpful. The paid course could also be helpful.