You’ve seen the business gurus. They offer the keys to the kingdom in exchange for your hard-earned money, usually in the form of a course or series of courses. Their promises include things like a step-by-step guide to earning passive income, or any number of get-rich-quick schemes.

What if I told you that all of these gurus are full of shit? Because that’s exactly what I’m telling you, and in this post I’m going to explain why digital gurus are frauds in a way that is very easy to understand.

The Digital Guru Business Model

The gurus hook entrepreneurs, or people who desperately want to escape the rat race of their 9-to-5 job, by selling them on their greatest dreams: an easy way to get rich, so they can quit their job and live the life that they desire, on their own terms. I can relate with this desire––it’s why I’m out here grinding as an entrepreneur myself. But I don’t have a course to sell you, and I’m certainly not a guru.

Let me ask you this: if the guru truly had such a successful business, that makes them tens of thousands of dollars per month, why would they spend their time trying to sell you the blueprint?

Wouldn’t they be too busy building their actual business, scaling it further, so it could surpass the income levels that they claim to have reached? Or, wouldn’t they be guarding their knowledge, so their strategy remains viable, and doesn’t become flooded with copycats?

The guru does not have a successful business doing whatever their course claims they’ve done. Their business is selling courses to people like you. That’s what they do with their time, and that’s what makes them money, and that’s what makes them all frauds.

What Real Entrepreneurs Do

A real entrepreneur knows that get-rich-quick schemes are false narratives. They know that there is nothing passive about passive income. Ask any truly successful entrepreneur how they achieved success, and they will tell you that it took a lot of hard work and determination. It took years of iteration, probably more than one failed idea, and countless setbacks until they developed the mindset and skillset required for success.

I’m sorry to burst anybody’s bubble on this, but it’s true. Entrepreneurial success is about having a good idea, consistent effort over time, mastering basic marketing principles, and never giving up. That’s what it takes. Most people are not cut out for it, or lack the ability to pivot when times change, and that’s why most entrepreneurs fail, or give up before they achieve success.

On the internet, times are always changing. This becomes more true every single day. Are you ready to embrace that?

How to Learn the Skills

You might be thinking to yourself: Okay, so I shouldn’t buy that guru’s $1000 “proven success strategy” course. What should I do instead?

The truth is, everything you need to know to become a successful entrepreneur can be learned for free. You just have to be willing to work.

YouTube is a goldmine for learning new skills. AI tools like ChatGPT can also be used as patient teachers. Reddit is another good place (if you can sift through the noobs and negativity). Niche communities like BuilderSociety, a forum for digital entrepreneurs, are filled with no-nonsense people who are constantly talking about the latest and greatest success strategies and mindsets. Even X (formerly Twitter) can be a valuable resource.

In fact, most of the gurus who sell courses lurk in these spaces, gathering knowledge to pack into their next course, to sell to the first unsuspecting would-be entrepreneur who has their credit card ready.

I suggest you go straight to the source material and learn it for yourself. Find something that interests you, whether it’s coding, marketing, creating products, or some combination of the three, and become exceptionally good at it.

Learn By Doing

Another common pitfall for people who want to become entrepreneurs is the tendency to spend all their time researching and none of their time building. To become successful, no amount of research is going to save you from failure. You can read all the books in the world, watch every YouTube video in existence, and you’ll never find success if you don’t get started.

Experience is the best teacher. Every successful person who makes a YouTube video, or writes a book about marketing, started their journey with an idea and a dream, and went to work.

The gurus know this, and they prey upon it. They know you’ll never get started, they know you just want to find an easy way to become rich, and they sell you on a dream.

Don’t be a sucker. Forge your own path to success. Find out what you need to know to create what you want to create, and then simply start building. It’s that simple. Welcome to digital entrepreneurship.