Le triste déclin des formations en ligne (et du "make money")

Executive Summary

Manoah Labranche explains why he stopped selling online courses, coaching, and information products at the start of 2026, despite generating an estimated €2–2.3 million in revenue from them over nearly seven years. His decision reflected both personal burnout and a tougher market: customers had become more skeptical, advertising and delivery costs had risen, competition had intensified, and beginners were increasingly difficult to help achieve results.

He has shifted toward matching models with agencies and earning a percentage of the business generated by each partnership. This approach uses his existing network, avoids selling training to poorly qualified beginners, and creates recurring revenue tied to client outcomes.

Business Journey and Strategy Shifts

• Early experiments: Sold digital services and small products, including video intros and a €9.99 guide on growing Snapchat story views. Information products appealed to him because they had low production costs and could be sold repeatedly.
• Organic education business: Launched his first marketing course around late 2019 for €49–59, earning about €500 on launch day. He then built an Instagram-led business around infographics, courses, email, Telegram, and a podcast.
• Scale through partnerships: From 2020 to 2023, he created products across several topics and partnered with subject-matter experts, sharing a percentage of sales. Customer acquisition was primarily organic, with no paid advertising.
• Niche focus: In 2023, he closed most of his course catalogue and concentrated on training for the adult creator-management (OFM) niche, including the Only Cash program.
• Higher-touch offer: In 2024–2025, he moved from a course costing just over €1,000 to a €3,600 package combining six months of group coaching, a model introduction, and promotion through his platform, Reveal.
• 2026 pivot: He stopped selling training and coaching and began connecting models with agencies, earning a share of the revenue generated during each collaboration.

Why He Exited Online Training

• The market became harder to serve: OFM and other “make money” businesses required more expertise, work, marketing investment, and operational management than beginners expected.
• Customer expectations were misaligned: Some prospects expected easy income, while the actual work involved managing teams, investing in marketing, adapting to frequent market changes, and conducting substantial competitive research.
• The experience gap grew: Labranche describes this as the “curse of knowledge”: experienced operators may assume beginners understand concepts that are still unfamiliar to them. This made coaching less effective and clients less able to realize the program’s value.
• Trust and acquisition weakened: He says customers had grown skeptical after repeated income claims across the industry, while advertising had become more expensive and no-shows had increased.
• Delivery economics deteriorated: A high-ticket offer did not necessarily translate into strong profit after accounting for VAT, sales and marketing costs, introductions, and months of support.
• Personal fit declined: He no longer wanted to make formulaic “make money” content or manage unhappy customers and customer-service conflicts.

Frameworks and Playbooks

Organic Acquisition Playbook

1. Publish useful niche content on a social channel.
2. Direct interested followers to owned channels, such as email and Telegram.
3. Build trust through personal updates, a podcast, or other recurring content.
4. Launch products to an existing audience and use customer proof to support future launches.
5. Partner with experts when the creator lacks subject-matter expertise, sharing sales revenue.

Offer Evolution

• Start with a low-priced information product.
• Specialize in a niche and deepen the training.
• Move to a higher-value service when customers need implementation help, connections, or ongoing support.
• Labranche’s example: course → six-month coaching and model introduction → agency/model referral partnership.

Market Fit and Client Qualification

• Do not assume that interest in an opportunity means a prospect has the time, skills, capital, or willingness to execute.
• Set expectations around the actual work and costs involved.
• Avoid selling complex business programs to a mass beginner audience if the delivery model cannot reliably help them succeed.

Recurring Referral Model

• Use a network advantage to connect complementary parties.
• Charge a percentage of the business generated over the partnership’s duration rather than an upfront training fee.
• Diversify across multiple introductions so that losing one relationship does not materially undermine income.

Entrepreneurship Versus Investing

Labranche cautions that success operating a business does not automatically make someone a good investor. He recommends not assuming that entrepreneurial skill transfers directly to angel investing or speculative investments.

Metrics and Financial Details

All figures below are self-reported estimates from the video:

• Total online-training revenue: Approximately €2–2.3 million from around 2019/2020 to 2025/2026.
• Peak month: Approximately €105,000 in February 2022, reportedly without paid ads or a team.
• Other strong months: Approximately €50,000–€70,000, with an estimated 90% margin in the earlier, leaner business.
• Early course launch: Priced at €49–59, with approximately €500 in first-day sales.
• Earlier product-company investments: Typically 20–25% stakes in companies generating around €10,000–€20,000 per month; he says he received dividends.
• Coaching/referral offer: €3,600, including six months of group coaching and a model introduction. He estimated monthly sales revenue varied from roughly €10,000–€40,000, with some of the best months at about €40,000 excluding VAT.
• Unit-economics example: From a €4,800 sale, he estimated roughly €800 in VAT and €800 in sales, closing, and marketing costs, leaving about €3,200 before accounting for six months of delivery. He estimated the client generated about €500 per month during that period.
• Referral business: Currently around €15,000 per month, with a stated expectation that it could rise to €30,000–€40,000 per month. One referral made in December was generating about €5,000 per month at the time of recording.
• Industry downturn: He reports hearing from a reliable source that some major trainers had experienced 70–80% revenue declines, alongside rising no-shows, expenses, and advertising costs. This is an attributed, unverified report.
• Timeline: The business evolved over nearly seven years; he stopped training and coaching at the beginning of 2026.

Actionable Recommendations

• Reassess a business when the cost of delivering promised outcomes—not just acquiring customers—starts eroding profitability.
• Treat market timing as a major factor in success; past results do not guarantee that the same offer will work in a later, more saturated market.
• Make promises that reflect realistic outcomes and the work required, rather than relying on aggressive income claims.
• Qualify customers based on their readiness, time, resources, and ability to execute.
• Build acquisition and revenue models around assets competitors cannot easily copy, such as a trusted audience, specialist expertise, or a valuable network.
• Consider performance-aligned partnerships when they can replace a high-friction product sale with ongoing value creation.
• Keep content connected to genuine expertise and interest. Labranche says authentic content has brought him more engagement and business opportunities than formulaic promotional content.

Presenters and Sources

• Presenter: Manoah Labranche.
• People mentioned as influences or examples: Antoine BM, Niklas Pedde, Yomi Denzel, and Théophile Elia.
• Other sources: Labranche’s own business experience and his account of industry conditions. The reported 70–80% revenue declines are attributed to an unnamed “reliable source.”