Don’t teach: The Big Secret to Info Product Success

“Teach what you know.”

The most harmless advice that’s killed more good products than bad design ever will.

It sounds noble. Clean. Even empowering.

But here’s the unspoken truth I discovered in year four of building info products, after multiple burnouts, half-successful launches, and a sabbatical where I researched over 50 creators:

Most people don’t want your knowledge. They want their story to change.

And if your info product can’t do that—even if it’s smart as hell—they will ghost you faster than a Web3 newsletter in 2023.

Let’s dig up what’s really going on beneath your curriculum.

So buckle up, its about to get weird. 

🧪 Teaching vs Intent: The Hidden Buyer Psychology

Here’s the thing no one tells you in online course creation bootcamps or digital product strategy guides:

I didn’t believe this until I saw three nearly identical info products bomb in a row. Smart ones. Good design. Clear lessons. But… nothing moved.

So let’s be blunt:
Most people don’t buy info. They buy a feeling.

This isn’t just marketing poetry. It’s measurable behavioral truth.

This changed everything for me.

I discovered the Law of Info Product Fallacy from the Hidden Curriculum of Creator Economy

And got pulled into JOBS TO BE DONE. What’s that?

🧠 Enter Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)—the dirty little secret hiding beneath every underperforming launch:

The real job isn’t what it is—it’s what it means.
“Don’t sell what it does. Sell what it solves emotionally.”

That’s when I realized: I was selling curriculum.
But they were buying catharsis.

🤯 Here’s what creators think people are buying:

• 🔧 Tactics
• 🧰 Tools
• 📘 Frameworks
  

But here’s what they’re actually hiring:

This is where curriculum-obsessed creators fall off the map.
They’re teaching, when they should be mirroring emotion.

🔁 The Hooked Trap: Curriculum ≠ Conversion

To make this even messier, I cross-referenced with Nir Eyal’s Hooked Model of behavior design:

Trigger → Action → Reward → Investment.

The same rule applies to info products.

Most courses skip emotionally potent triggers entirely.

They assume action will happen just because “it’s good.”
Nah. That’s not how brains—or browsers—work.

The result?
A perfectly structured course that no one is triggered to start.
And if your course only starts at “here’s how”…

You missed the entire why that powers the buy.

This is what I’ve been quietly observing with a few burned-out freelancers, creators, and coaches during my sabbatical.

I watched one creator 10x their conversions—not by adding modules, but by changing their offer’s mirror.

Instead of teaching better… they sold a personal escape plan. 

Same knowledge. Different I.N.T.E.N.T. (More on that in a second.)

And this is why…

🧨 “Don’t sell what it is. Sell what it means.”

Is not just smart marketing advice.
It’s the only way to build info products that work post-2023.

🤯 The Backwards Product Pyramid (🔥Diagram)

It started in the comment section.

Beneath a post by Jay Clouse, amidst the usual “you got this 💪” emojis and thought-leader humblebrags, I ended up deep in a thread with Mark Shust from M.academy. What began as a polite exchange turned into a full-blown creator economy autopsy.

One thing we both agreed on?

Soon, AI will offer personalized, responsive learning paths—adjusted to each user’s preferred style, pace, and even mood. 

That means most info products—especially those stuck at the “here’s how to do it” level—will be replaced faster than you can say “curriculum update.”

And that’s when it hit me…

📉 Most creators are building upside-down.

Let me introduce:

Most creators build from the bottom up—starting with lessons, hoping buyers climb their way up to clarity, and finally reach identity shift on their own.

But buyers?

They’re scanning for who they’ll become—not what they’ll learn.

This pyramid reframing emerged during our Proof of Work Sundays compilation in Dept. Dispatch No. 3. We noticed comments that the attention was tilting towards this, according to data

• People want to monetize knowledge.
• But they’re haunted by info product fatigue.
• Selling knowledge became cringe.

Emotional intent isn’t fluff. It’s the fuel. And most products run out before they even take off.

Want product-market fit for creators? Build for how they want to feel—not just what they need to learn.

That’s the only way your info product survives the AI apocalypse.

🧬 Enter: The I.N.T.E.N.T. Model

There was a moment—around launch #7, I think—when I realized something soul-crushing.

I’d built the perfect course. It had frameworks, step-by-steps, three tiers of access, and a Notion dashboard so pristine it could’ve been sponsored by Apple.

But no one bought it. Again.

I didn’t have a marketing problem. I had a meaning problem.

So I did what any burnt-out consultant with too many whiteboards would do:
I spiraled into a rabbit hole of Jobs to Be Done theory, Nir Eyal’s Hooked Model, and emotional behavior design.

What I found became the start of a working theory I now call:

📉 The Lie: “If I teach it better… they’ll buy it.”

This is the silent brainworm infecting 80% of info creators.
You think you’re selling knowledge. But your buyers are hiring relief.

They don’t want a Google Doc of your genius.
They want a mirror of their next self.

This is the same thing Clay Christensen warned about in his theory of “Jobs to Be Done”:

Replace “company” with “creator.” The logic holds. Because most info products?
They’re not being rejected because they’re wrong.

They’re being rejected because they’re irrelevant to what the buyer is actually feeling.

🧠 Teaching vs. Triggering

Let’s pull up the data real quick.

One is a syllabus. The other is a lifeline.

If you’ve ever watched someone nod along to your pitch but still ghost the checkout page—this is why.

You’re selling to their brain.
But the buy button is controlled by the gut.

And the gut has no time for information.

🔍 The I.N.T.E.N.T. Diagnostic

After months of research, dead launches, and live-product autopsies on Zoom with creators mid-burnout… this is what I built:

The I.N.T.E.N.T. Model: A 6-part filter for real buyer resonance.

Rate your product 1–5 on each of these. If you miss more than 2?
It’s probably educational wallpaper.

💡 Pro Tip: Use this table to score every product idea. You’re not selling clarity—you’re selling confusion wrapped in aesthetics.

💣 Active Comparison: The Case of the Dueling Email Courses

Let’s take 2 fictional offers…these might be bad representations of my skill right now, but they’ll have to do

🧠 OFFER A: “Master the Psychology of Email Funnels”

• Built with clean modules and five frameworks
• Carefully written curriculum
• Solid testimonials

Result:
Polite DMs. Dead checkout page.
Even I didn’t want to finish teaching it.

💥 OFFER B: “Escape the Algorithm With One Email a Week”

• I.N.T.E.N.T.-aligned
• Mirrors identity: anti-hustle, minimalist growth
• Fits narrative: burnout from chasing engagement
• Emotional win: 1 hour > 20
• Trigger: “I hate Reels and I’m exhausted.”
• Perceived time freedom

Result:
Sold out in 36 hours. No launch runway. No Facebook ad.
Just resonance.

Same IP. Different story architecture. One was built like a teacher.
The other was built like an engineer of emotional momentum.

🕳️ The Deeper Realization (and a hint at what’s coming next…)

This wasn’t just about copywriting or launch mechanics.
It exposed a deeper issue:

This shook me. Because during my sabbatical, I’d been consulting quietly behind the scenes with creators who were on the verge of giving up.

Almost every one of them was stuck in “Builder-First Logic” (more on that in the Builder-Buyer Gap in the future).

They weren’t thinking in emotional triggers. They were thinking in modules.
They didn’t want to manipulate—but also didn’t know how to ethically resonate.

I started reengineering my approach.
Every offer had to earn its way through I.N.T.E.N.T.

Now I test it on everything I build. From a Notion dashboard to a $10k DWY offer.

🧠 Future Offers Will Win on Behavior Design, Not Curriculum

This is the next war in the info creator space.

And here’s the kicker:
AI is going to make this way harder.
Because when everyone can generate good lessons, value becomes invisible.

What makes something sell won’t be how well it teaches.

It’ll be how well it feels like a solution.

“In a world of infinite knowledge, emotion becomes your edge.”

And that, dear builder, is where we go next…

🛠️ HOW TO USE THIS (WITHOUT BEING DELUSIONAL)

Score your product honestly on all 6.

• Any score under 3? That’s a red flag.
• If you don’t have at least 4 dimensions at 4 or above, your product might be logical—but it’s not emotional.
• And info products that lack emotion become invisible in a noisy feed.

Use this like a truth-telling compass, not a checklist.
Even just tweaking one of these 6 levers can 5x your resonance.

✏️ ADD-ON: THE “WHO IS THIS FOR?” CHEATSHEET

Here’s a quick set of emotional buyers you’re likely missing:

This is where AI can help:
Use GPT not just for emotional pattern recognition.
Ask it to analyze your testimonials, DMs, and FAQs using the I.N.T.E.N.T. lens.

🔥 Why AI Makes This Harder (and Scarier)

“We’ve trained the machine to echo our confusion. And now we’re outsourcing the echo.”

In the post-ChatGPT gold rush, creators mistook abundance for insight. 

Suddenly, everyone had 100 hooks, 47 page lead magnets, and 17-part launch sequences.

And yet—nobody was buying.

Here’s what I learned the hard way:

In 2023, I built an AI-generated offer in one weekend. Used fancy prompts. Designed a sleek PDF. “High-value,” I thought. (more on that later)

Zero buyers.

Why? Because I didn’t build for emotional intent. I built for logical outputs.

AI doesn’t understand the irrationality of human demand—it scales your assumptions. And if your assumptions are wrong? Congrats, you just burned out faster, not better.

🧠 Prompt Engineers ≠ Product Thinkers
They optimize for format. Not friction.

Here’s the trap:

And that’s where the B.U.I.L.D. filter from How to Kill Your Info Product (& save it) came from. A series of diagnostic blind spots I saw in both my clients and myself:

🔍 B – Biases you’re blind to
🧨 U – Urgency that’s fake
🧠 I – Identity traps you can’t name
💥 L – Leverage mismatches
🔥 D – Demand that’s imaginary

This wasn’t an AI problem. It was an intent problem.

🌀 Teaching Makes You Feel Smart. Intent Makes You Wealthy.

Let me tell you a true story that I just mentioned above — but we’ll make it feel like fiction, so it’s easier to digest.

Once upon a time, after a sabbatical, I built a brilliant little product.
It explained complex systems. Synthesized trends. Had expert-level breakdowns.

Result: 0 copies sold.

Same week, I launched a 1:1 session with the positioning line:

“You’re not confused. You’re trapped in the wrong model. Let’s rebuild it.”

Sold 1 spot in 4 days.

I realized something:

Teaching made me feel important.
But intent made me income.

You’re not a bad creator for wanting to share knowledge, you have to find the liquidity sweet spot to turn your knowledge into an asset. 

But let’s not pretend teaching alone = transformation.

Buyers don’t want to learn. They want to become.

Truthfully, you don’t need more slides. You need more sensitivity.
You don’t need more pages. You need more purpose.

And it starts by asking:
🧠 “What are they emotionally hiring this for?”
📉 “What silent pain are they trying to end?”
🌱 “What identity are they trying to grow into?”

This is not just info product strategy—it’s behavioral design meets narrative therapy.

🎯 The Real Product Is Not What You Built—It’s What They Become

If you leave with one truth, let it be this:

Teaching scratches your ego. Intent rewires your business.

Your info product is not a syllabus. It’s a story of becoming—and your buyer is the protagonist.

So forget frameworks for a second. Forget your clever modules.
Ask: What quiet identity crisis is this solving?
If you can name it, you can sell it.
If you can feel it, you can scale it.

Because in the end?

You’re not selling lessons. You’re selling liberation.

Build for that—and watch everything shift.

(Writing this piece has taken me upwards of 22+ hours, from all the research to making sense of things and putting it up in a slightly easy-to-digest format.
So for some reason, if you decide to share this piece of content with others on social, it’ll be appreciated (and won’t go unnoticed, so thank you).

Sudhanshu Pai

Sudhanshu Pai is the writer of THE INFO CREATOR DEPT. He spends his days researching knowledge business, creators economy, why & how 7 fig info business scale (or flop) and generally figuring out blueprints, breakthroughts and strategies to help creator educators get higher return on their expertise.

The deep dives and other content take more than 100 hours to put together, so sharing this content with others on social media will be much appreciated (and won’t go unnoticed.)

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