What I Learned Launching My First Online Horse Business Product: Webinars, Challenges, And The Honest Truth About What Worked, And What I Would Do Differently

Photo by Mountain Ember Photography

I want to talk about something the horse industry does not discuss enough: what it actually looks like to build and launch an online product for the first time. 

Not the highlight reel. The real version, with the pivots, the surprises, the moment everything clicked, and the honest accounting of what I would do differently next time.

Because I think there are a lot of horsewomen sitting on knowledge, skills, and ideas that could become digital or hybrid group products, and they are not starting because nobody is showing them what the messy middle actually looks like.

Here is mine.

The Webinar That Changed Everything

I started with a structure a coach had provided and ran my six webinars from that framework. It was fine. It did not convert the way I had hoped. So I invested in Julie Chappell's program, The Easiest Yes, from Funnel Gorgeous, and that changed everything.

After rebuilding my webinar using her framework, I made three sales from the very next one. I paid for the course with those three sales. And I got two more sales before my launch started.

Here is what I learned: how you set up a webinar matters enormously. The structure is not decoration. The story you tell, and how deliberately you build it so that your audience sees themselves in your offer before you ever ask them to buy, is the entire game. People do not buy products. They buy the version of themselves they see on the other side of what you are offering. If they cannot see themselves there, they will not move. Equally important: address the objections before they surface. 

Do not wait for someone to think "I can't afford this" or "I don't have time", name those doubts out loud and answer them inside the webinar itself. By the time you make the offer, the resistance is already gone.

And how you invite people to participate matters just as much as the content itself. The registration process, the reminder sequence, the energy you bring to the room, all of it is part of the experience before the experience even begins.

The Launch: What Worked and What I Would Do Differently

I paired the webinar with a seven-day launch. I had been building my email list through paid lead ads specifically for the webinar, and I targeted that list with my launch emails. I deliberately held back on social media because I did not want to wear out my audience. This was my first time running both a webinar and a launch simultaneously, and I did not want to overwhelm people with too much at once.

The launch did not produce the sales volume I had hoped for. But looking back, I do not think the launch itself was wrong. It was not hyped or discussed on social media the right way. 

And more importantly, I had not yet built enough trust with my audience to ask for that level of commitment.

What I know now is this: run a webinar or run a launch. Not both at the same time, especially early on. And before either one, spend real time building trust with your audience. They need to know you before they will buy from you.

This is something I’ve been building for several months after joining the JessiJeanHome Yap Challenge.

If I were doing this again, I would focus entirely on the webinar first, build the relationship, and save the launch for when the audience is warm enough to receive it.

What I specifically mean, is have a waitlist begging for me to launch the product they helped me build.

Why I Believe in Challenges for Hybrid Group Products

The product I launched is called the Brave Again 40-Day Challenge. It is built for horsewomen who are afraid of the animal they actually love, and it is designed to change that through what the Kaizen project management method calls small tasks. 

What is the smallest thing you can do today to move toward your goal? Those small actions add up. A woman who was afraid to ride alone at the start of 40 days becomes brave, confident, and reconnected to her horse, not because she made one enormous leap, but because she made forty small decisions to say yes to herself.

Because this is the first cohort, these women are getting a lot, Voxer access, bonus content, more of my time than future rounds will include. They are helping me build the course in real time, and I am deeply grateful for that. The beauty of launching this way is that by the end, I will have an evergreen product that my first cohort helped shape. 

That is something money cannot buy.

Challenges work for the horse industry for a specific reason: horsewomen want to do things together. They want community. They want to know they are not alone in what they are feeling or building. A 40-day challenge gives them a shared experience, a built-in community, and a clear result on the other side, and it creates an evergreen product that can be launched again in a variety of ways. 

My Challenge To You

If you are an equine business owner with an online or hybrid offer, or an idea for one. I want to ask you something: is there a challenge inside what you already do?

The knowledge you have. The transformation you create. The specific result your clients get could that become a 21-day challenge? A 30-day experience? A cohort that builds your course while you get paid to deliver it?

I think challenges are one of the most underused tools in the equine online business world. They are low barrier to enter, high in community value, and endlessly repurposable. And they meet horsewomen exactly where they are looking for an experience they can share, in a community where they are not alone.

I would love to know what you are building. Find me and let's talk about it because I genuinely believe that the more we share what is working, the stronger this industry gets for all of us.

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Alicia VanderGriend

Cowgirl Life Co.

Alicia VanderGriend is a certified wellness coach, marine biologist, and former project & proposal manager with 25+ years of experience leading complex, high-stakes work. 

She is the founder of Cowgirl Life Co., a horsewoman lifestyle brand built on showing up brave and confident in our bodies, minds, and wallets, and feeling the greatest expression of freedom. 

Drawing on decades of personal practice and professional training, Alicia combines movement, mindset, and sustainable habit systems into a practical approach designed specifically for the horsewomen.

She lives and rides her three mustangs in the Pacific Northwest. 

Follow at @cowgirllifeco on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. 

If this is the kind of circle you have been looking for, I am building something. It is called Brave Again, a community for horsewomen who are ready to talk about money, build something real, and hold each other accountable to the horse life they actually want. 

If that is you, get on the waitlist at https://www.aliciavandergriend.com/braveagain-waitlist

This article is from the September 2026 issue of Equine Business Magazine