Webinar or Live Workshop

What is a live workshop?

A live workshop (or webinar, short for web seminar) is a free online session where you teach your future customers how to solve one slice of their problem, in real time, and then invite them to take the next step with your product. People register with their email, show up at a set time, ask questions and try the method with you.

A workshop beats a recorded video in one way that matters for early founders: you hear objections LIVE. When 30 people type questions into the chat, you learn in an hour what blog analytics take months to show. You also meet your warmest leads by first name, which makes the follow-up personal.

When should you use it?

Good fit:

• Your product teaches, guides or speeds up a process: courses, coaching, B2B software, templates, financial or legal services.
• You can show a result inside 45 minutes: a filled template, a first draft, a calculated number.
• You have a way to invite people: an email list, a community, social followers or a partner with an audience.

Skip it when:

• You have nobody to invite yet. Start with a lead magnet or a partner’s audience through co-hosted events.
• Your product is a simple physical item people buy on sight.
• You cannot commit to a follow-up offer. A workshop without a next step is a nice evening and nothing more.

How do you do it, step by step?

1. Choose one slice with a visible result. Write the promise as “In 45 minutes you will [result]”. Say: “In 45 minutes you will set your first freelance rate and write the email that announces it.” Teach the manual version of what your product does. The product then becomes the obvious shortcut.

2. Pick the platform by group size and goal.

   1. Zoom or Google Meet for up to a few dozen people who should talk and share screens. Zoom’s free plan allows meetings of up to 40 minutes with up to 100 participants, per its pricing page, so plan two sessions or a paid month for longer workshops.
   2. YouTube Live for larger, mostly watching groups and a replay that stays online. You need to verify your channel before you can stream, so do a private test stream days ahead.

3. Build a one-screen registration page. Use Luma, a Tally form or your email tool’s landing page. Include: the promise, date and time with time zone, 3 bullets on what they will leave with, who it is for, who you are in one line, and one question: “What is your biggest struggle with [topic] right now?” Read every answer; they shape your examples.

4. Invite in three waves. Send the first invitation 10 to 14 days ahead, a second 3 days ahead, and a last call the morning of the event. Post in communities where self-promotion of free events is allowed and ask 2 or 3 partners to share it. Our rule of thumb: 30% to 40% of registrants show up live, so aim for three times the audience you want.

5. Send reminders that sell the attendance. 24 hours before: the promise plus one prep task (“Bring your last 3 invoices”). 1 hour before: the link. At start time: “We are live, join here.” A small prep task raises show-up because people feel invested.

6. Run a 45-minute agenda.

   1. 0 to 5 min: welcome, what they will leave with, ask everyone to type where they are from.
   2. 5 to 30 min: teach in 3 steps, each with a quick exercise people do on their own screen.
   3. 30 to 38 min: questions.
   4. 38 to 45 min: the offer. Explain what your product or service adds, the price, a reason to act now (a founding price for attendees until Friday, say), and one link.

   Ask a friend to watch the chat and pass you questions.

7. Follow up within 24 hours. Send the replay, the slides, the template and the offer link to everyone who registered, including no-shows. Send one reminder before the offer closes. Then reply personally to anyone who asked a question in the chat.

What does a worked example look like?

Say Amara is launching a coaching program that helps freelance translators raise their rates. Her email list has 260 people from a free rate calculator.

She announces “Raise Your Rate in 45 Minutes: a live workshop for freelance translators” on Luma. The registration question gets answers like “I’m scared of losing my biggest client” and “I don’t know what others charge”. She builds her exercises around both. 74 people register and 27 attend live on Zoom. To fit Zoom’s 40-minute free limit she trims the teaching to 25 minutes and moves the longer Q&A to a second short call the next day.

In the last minutes she offers a 6-week group coaching program at a founding price for attendees, valid for 5 days. The follow-up email goes to all 74 registrants with the replay and the rate template. She counts how many sign up, which questions came up most, and which exercise got the most chat replies, and she turns that exercise into her next free YouTube how-to video.

Which free tools help?

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Teaching everything. People leave overwhelmed and buy nothing. Teach one slice deeply and let the product cover the rest.
• Hiding the offer until minute 59. Half the room is gone by then. Mention early that you will share an offer at the end, then keep the promise.
• No reason to act now. Without a deadline, “I’ll think about it” turns into never. A short founding-price window for attendees is honest and clear.
• Only reminding once. Without a 1-hour reminder, people who registered with good intentions forget.
• Skipping the no-shows. Registrants who missed it are still interested. Send them the replay and the offer.

How do you know it worked?

Our rule of thumb:

• 30% or more of registrants attend live.
• More than half of live attendees stay until the offer.
• 5% to 15% of live attendees take the offer or book a call within a week.
• The chat questions give you at least 3 new content or product ideas.

Go: someone pays or books, and the questions repeat across sessions, so run the workshop monthly and improve the weakest part. No-go: low sign-ups mean the promise does not grab; good attendance and zero sales mean the offer does not match what you taught.

What should you do next?

Turn the recording into clips and a blog post with content repurposing, and send registrants into a welcome email sequence that continues where the workshop stopped. If you want to try a founding member offer at the end of your session, test its wording first with an AI co-founder in the F/MS startup game.

FAQ

What is the difference between a webinar and a live workshop?

A webinar is a talk with slides where the audience mostly listens. A workshop gives attendees exercises to do during the session, so they leave with something finished. For selling, workshops win because people feel the result.

How long should a free workshop be?

Our rule of thumb is 45 to 60 minutes, including questions and the offer. Shorter sessions leave no room for exercises; longer ones lose people before the end.

Can I run a webinar for free?

Yes. Zoom’s free plan, Google Meet and YouTube Live all let you host a free session, each with its own limits. Check the current limit of your chosen platform before you set the agenda.

Updated 26 October 2026 · Written by the Fe/male Switch team

Mark this method as done