What I Learned Running a Cohort Without a Team
Behind the scenes of a solo-run cohort: what broke, what worked, and the one system that saved me.
Last month I ran a four-week cohort for 22 coaches. No VA, no project manager, no co-facilitator. Just me, a Notion workspace, and a lot of coffee.
The first thing that broke was email. I thought I could handle personal replies to every question, but by day three I was drowning. The fix was a shared FAQ doc that I updated daily and linked in every email. That cut my inbox volume by half.
The second thing that broke was content delivery. I had pre-recorded videos, but I kept changing the order based on questions. Next time, I'll lock the sequence and add a live Q&A mid-week instead of rearranging everything.
The one system that saved me was a simple client portal—a single page with links to recordings, worksheets, and the FAQ. I built it in an hour using a template. Without it, I would have spent hours answering 'where's the link?' emails.
Running a cohort solo is possible. But you need to build the scaffolding before you need it, not after.