Best LinkedIn Courses for Founders in 2026 (Compared & Reviewed)

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Last updated: October 22, 2026. What changed: Lara Acosta's Literally LinkedIn entry was replaced with The Known Club and scored on the same criteria as every other option. Every provider page was checked again on October 22, 2026, and the transparency and feedback scores now follow one written rule for all six options.

BLUF: The best LinkedIn course for a founder is the one you will finish, built for someone who sells, with some way to get feedback on your own posts. On those criteria, this page scores five real courses and programs, each checked on its own page, plus the 1:1 alternative I run. Lara Acosta's The Known Club and Will Leatherman's Your First LinkedIn Customer in 30 Days tie for the highest outside score at 4.00, and The Known Club is listed ahead on the tie because it offers more feedback. The Known Club suits founders who need a group and live review, if they can give it about 10 hours a week during the intensive. Leatherman's workshop is the fastest route for founders who want a first client, and Justin Welsh's LinkedIn Operating System fits founders who want a full system at their own pace. If you keep buying courses and not finishing them, a course is the wrong unit. 1:1 Mentorship is listed first because it has the highest score on this page at 4.30, and the feedback criterion favors 1:1 by design, so re-weight the table if feedback matters less to you.

Key takeaways

Pick the format before the creator. Self-paced, live cohort, 1-day workshop and 1:1 solve different problems.

Finishing is the real cost. A self-paced course has no deadline, so it only works if you already do the homework alone.

No course on this list reads every one of your drafts. If line-by-line feedback is what you need, you are shopping for coaching.

Check who the course is built for. Some LinkedIn courses target job seekers or creators chasing followers, which teaches a founder the wrong goals.

Cohorts and workshops open and close. When checked, the next run of Will Leatherman's workshop was listed as sold out, and The Known Club's page showed its start date and membership length in more than one way.

Prices are not listed here. Check each provider's own page and buy only from the creator.

Best LinkedIn courses for founders at a glance

Option	Best for	Falls short	Delivery model	Who does the work	Price
Your Social Strategy 1:1 Mentorship (Frank Velasquez)	Founders who want a person reading every draft	Not a course. You have to write. Four people at a time	6-week 1:1 program, optional ongoing calls	You write, mentor reviews every draft	Scoped on a discovery call
The Known Club (Lara Acosta)	Founders who need a group, fixed dates and coaches looking at their work	About 10 hours a week of live sessions in the intensive. The page does not promise a read of every post, and it gives the start date and membership length in more than one way	4-week live intensive, then membership	You	Ask the provider
Your First LinkedIn Customer in 30 Days (Will Leatherman, Maven)	Founders and consultants who want LinkedIn to bring a first client	One 2-hour live session. No review after it. Next run listed as sold out	2-hour live workshop	You	Ask the provider
1 Day LinkedIn Masterclass for Builders (Joel Hansen, Maven)	Founders and CEOs who want to tell their story on LinkedIn	One workshop day, built around storytelling and visibility more than lead flow	1-day live workshop, four recorded sessions	You	Ask the provider
The LinkedIn Operating System (Justin Welsh)	Solo founders who want a complete system and will run it alone	Self-paced, no deadline. No email or call support	Self-paced video course, 90 minutes	You	Ask the provider
The Step-by-Step Guide to Building your Thought Leadership on LinkedIn (Alexandra Galviz, LinkedIn Learning)	Founders who want a short, low-risk primer first	General level, not built for selling. About 34 minutes, released 2020. LinkedIn Learning now lists it as archived, so it is reachable by direct link only	Short self-paced video course	You	Ask the provider

How we ranked these LinkedIn courses

Each option is scored 1 to 5 on six criteria, from the seat of a founder who wants LinkedIn to start conversations with buyers and wants to keep writing in their own voice. The total is each score times its weight, out of 5.

Criterion	Weight	What a 5 means
Founder fit	20%	Built for people who sell a product or service, with clients as the goal
Feedback on your own posts	20%	Someone experienced reads your drafts and tells you what to change
Structure to finish	20%	Dates, deadlines or a group that make you actually do the work
Your voice stays yours	15%	You write the posts. Nobody writes them for you
Time to finish	10%	The total time fits a founder's calendar
Transparency	15%	Format, length, contents and next start are all stated clearly and consistently on the provider's own page

Two criteria use a fixed written rule, applied the same way to all six options.

Transparency counts four items stated clearly and consistently on the provider's own page: format, length, contents and next start. Self-paced or on-demand access counts as a stated start, and a sold-out run still counts. Four of four scores 5, three of four scores 4, two of four scores 3, and one or none scores 2.

Feedback on your own posts scores 5 when an experienced person reads every draft you write, one to one. It scores 4 when coaches look at your own work repeatedly across the program, live and in writing, but not on every draft. It scores 3 for repeated group critique of your posts. It scores 2 for a single live critique session or group input without a review of your posts. It scores 1 when the page offers no feedback.

Scores for each option, out of 5:

Option	Founder fit	Feedback	Structure	Voice	Time	Transparency	Total
YSS 1:1 Mentorship	5	5	4	5	3	3	4.30
Lara Acosta, The Known Club	4	4	5	5	2	3	4.00
Will Leatherman, First LinkedIn Customer	5	2	3	5	5	5	4.00
Joel Hansen, 1 Day LinkedIn Masterclass	4	2	3	5	5	3	3.50
Justin Welsh, LinkedIn Operating System	4	1	2	5	5	5	3.40
Alexandra Galviz, LinkedIn Learning	2	1	1	5	5	5	2.80

Ties are ordered by the higher Feedback score. The Known Club and Will Leatherman's workshop both total 4.00, and The Known Club is listed ahead because it scores 4 on feedback to his 2.

Sources checked: each provider's own page, linked in its section below, and for YSS the homepage at yoursocialstrategy.co. Every page was checked on October 22, 2026. Scores are my judgment from what those pages state, not a survey and not a review of anyone's student results. I run the Mentorship listed first, and the feedback criterion favors 1:1 by design, so weigh my score for it with that in mind. It is first because of its score, 4.30. I gave it a 3 on time because it asks for writing hours every week, which a 1-day workshop does not. On transparency, my own homepage states the format and the contents but not the length or a next start, so it scores 3 like The Known Club and Joel Hansen's workshop. The Known Club's page states its format and contents, but gives the membership length and the start date in more than one way. Joel Hansen's page lists June session dates next to the November cohort and describes both four one-hour sessions and a three-hour schedule with a Q&A. Will Leatherman's, Justin Welsh's and Alexandra Galviz's pages each state all four items, so they score 5. The Known Club scores 4 on feedback because its page lists daily live Q&A where coaches review your work, coach replies within 24 hours and weekly implementation calls, though not a read of every draft. The Known Club scores 2 on time because its intensive runs 20 two-hour sessions in four weeks. Every option scores 5 on voice because you write your own posts in all six. If feedback matters less to you, drop its weight and the courses move up.

Who this list is for

This list is for founders, consultants and small business owners who want to learn to write their own LinkedIn posts and want those posts to bring in client conversations. It compares courses and workshops, meaning something you take, finish and then run on your own, plus the 1:1 option for founders who already know a course will not stick.

Skip it if you want someone to write your posts. A ghostwriter or an agency fits better, and I laid those out in LinkedIn ghostwriter alternatives. Skip it too if you want an individual coach. That comparison is in best LinkedIn content coaches for founders. Executives looking for a structured program will find those in best LinkedIn mentorship programs for executives. Not sure whether a course or coaching fits you better, my breakdown of LinkedIn ghostwriter vs mentorship vs course vs agency covers what each one includes and ends with a checklist to help you decide.

1. Your Social Strategy 1:1 Mentorship (Frank Velasquez)

What it is

A 6-week 1:1 LinkedIn Mentorship, which is what people search for as LinkedIn ghostwriting coaching. Before the first call I go through your profile and your last 10 to 15 posts. The first calls cover your offer and who you want to reach, the stories that build trust, and what you know because you've done it. I turn those calls into an idea bank and hand it over. From week three you post three times a week, I review every draft, and every other week we look at what landed. After six weeks you can keep the bi-weekly calls going or stop.

Best for

Founders who want to keep their own voice and build the skill, with a person reading every draft instead of a video telling them what good looks like.

Where it falls short

It is not a course. There are no videos to watch at 11pm and no library to come back to. You have to write, and if you cannot protect two to three hours a week, it will stall. It is 1:1 only, with four people at a time, so there can be a wait. If you finish courses and can judge your own drafts, one of the courses below costs you less time.

Who it is best for

A founder with opinions and an offer who has tried posting alone, maybe bought a course, and still cannot tell which posts sound like them. More on how this kind of work runs in what LinkedIn ghostwriting coaching is.

2. The Known Club (Lara Acosta)

What it is

The public page describes The Known Club as a private members club for ambitious founders. As of October 22, 2026, the page states that membership starts with a 4-week intensive of live coaching: 20 live sessions of 2 hours each on weekdays, with 1 hour of teaching and 1 hour of live Q&A where coaches review your actual work. Coaches answer questions between sessions within 24 hours, by Loom video, voice message or written breakdown. The page also lists weekly implementation calls with feedback on the content and funnels you create. After the intensive, membership continues with community access and feedback. The page gives the start date and the membership length in more than one way, so confirm both before you join.

Disclosure: Frank Velasquez took Lara Acosta's Literally Academy cohort, which is now part of The Known Club.

I took Lara's LinkedIn cohort in 2023, so this is the one program here I can speak to as a student, in its earlier form. On a call with her at the start, I told her I kind of know how to create content, but it needs reframing, and that my main thing was going to be accountability. I said I wanted to post every single day, and she told me it might be too much. My run lasted around 30 days, and on the very last day I got my first viral post, about 20,000 impressions. I kept posting after that, and my streak reached 266 days without stopping.

Best for

Founders who know roughly what to say but keep stopping, and want a group and fixed dates with coaches looking at their work.

Where it falls short

The intensive asks for about 10 hours a week of live sessions, which is a lot for a founder running a company. Review happens in live Q&A, coach replies and weekly calls, and the page does not promise a read of every post. The page also gives the start date and membership length in more than one way. In my own run, my main thing was accountability. Join only through the club's own page.

Who it is best for

A founder who needs momentum more than instruction and can clear four weeks of calendar for it. If you want to see how that live format sits next to a self-paced option, The Known Club vs The LinkedIn Operating System: Cohort or Self-Paced Course? lays out the two side by side.

3. Your First LinkedIn Customer in 30 Days (Will Leatherman, Maven)

What it is

A live workshop on Maven from Will Leatherman, founder of Catalyst GTM Agency and former CMO at Parcl. The course page is written for founders and consultants who have tried posting on LinkedIn but have not gotten clients from it yet, plus agencies, coaches, fractional executives and early-stage B2B founders. The agenda covers rewriting your profile to work like a landing page, mapping your first 12 posts into a 30-day content calendar and writing a three-message DM sequence. It closes with a 30-day activation plan and a live Q&A where you can bring your profile or stuck DMs for critique. When checked, the next run was listed for November 24, 2026, from 11am to 1pm EST.

Best for

Founders who want the whole path from post to client in one sitting, including the DMs.

Where it falls short

It is one two-hour session. You get live critique on the day, then run the 30 days alone, with no one reading your drafts along the way. The November 24 run was listed as sold out when checked, so ask about the next one. The page quotes figures, such as LinkedIn generating 80% of B2B social media leads, without a source, so judge it on the agenda.

Who it is best for

A founder or consultant who has an offer, has tried posting without landing a client from it, and wants a first month mapped out fast.

4. 1 Day LinkedIn Masterclass for Builders (Joel Hansen, Maven)

What it is

A 1-day live workshop on Maven from Joel Hansen, a marketing advisor, two-time TEDx speaker and writer of the Personal Brand Brief newsletter. The workshop page lists founders and CEOs first in who it is for, followed by entrepreneurs, speakers, consultants and board members. The syllabus has four live one-hour sessions on LinkedIn storytelling, community building, the habits of prolific creators and a fireside chat with a guest. Sessions are recorded, and bonus modules cover your profile, content and outreach. When checked, the next cohort was listed for November 6 to 7, 2026.

Best for

Founders and CEOs who have a story worth telling and do not know how to turn it into posts.

Where it falls short

One day, so practice and feedback happen after it ends, on your own. The goals it lists run from meeting reporters and landing podcasts to sales deals, so client conversations are one aim among several. The syllabus still showed June session times next to the November date, so confirm the schedule before you book.

Who it is best for

A founder who wants to get comfortable writing about their own journey before working on lead flow.

5. The LinkedIn Operating System (Justin Welsh)

What it is

A self-paced video course from Justin Welsh, a former startup executive who built his business on LinkedIn. The course page lists 90 minutes across 25 lessons in six parts: an introduction, foundations (your sub-niche and persona), content creation, audience building, lead capture through your profile, and inbound and outbound selling on LinkedIn. It comes with a Content Creation Matrix and a Perfect Backstory Builder, and access is lifetime.

Best for

Solo founders who want a complete system in one place and like working at their own pace.

Where it falls short

Self-paced means no deadline. The FAQ says the course has no email or call support, so no one checks your posts. The page says it is for any professional, and the system came from one creator's own growth, so you still have to translate it to your buyers and your voice.

Who it is best for

A founder who has finished courses before, changed how they work because of them, and can judge their own drafts.

6. The Step-by-Step Guide to Building your Thought Leadership on LinkedIn (Alexandra Galviz, LinkedIn Learning)

What it is

A short course on LinkedIn Learning, LinkedIn's own course library, taught by Alexandra Galviz, a LinkedIn Top Voice for the UK and cofounder of #LinkedInLocal. The course page lists it at 34 minutes, general skill level, released July 2020. As of October 22, 2026, the page says the course is archived: LinkedIn Learning has removed it from search and recommendations, and access is by direct link. It covers crafting an authentic voice, growing your audience and creating content, with examples from UK thought leaders.

Best for

Founders who want a quick, low-commitment look at the basics before paying for anything bigger.

Where it falls short

It is a primer. At 34 minutes it cannot go deep, it is written for professionals in general rather than people selling something, and there is no feedback or structure to finish beyond the videos. It was released in 2020, so check any platform details against how LinkedIn works now. LinkedIn Learning also lists it as archived and has removed it from search and recommendations, so you need the direct link to reach it.

Who it is best for

A founder who is not sure LinkedIn is worth their time yet and wants to test the idea over a lunch break.

When does 1:1 beat a LinkedIn course?

When the course is not the problem. If you have the framework and still cannot tell which of your posts sound like you, another course gives you more framework. Someone reading your drafts gives you the answer.

My own cohort run shows the line. I did all the writing. I kind of knew how to create content, and my main thing was accountability. I was motivated by everyone else getting impressive numbers. A founder who cannot yet judge their own drafts needs a reader, and a deadline alone will not supply one.

I laid out the full trade-off, with scores for DIY, course, cohort, Mentorship, ghostwriter and agency, in LinkedIn ghostwriter vs Mentorship vs course vs agency. Use that page if you are still choosing the format. Use this one once you know you want a course.

How to choose a LinkedIn course as a founder

Have I finished a course before?

Be honest about your history. If you have finished one and it changed how you work, a self-paced course is fine. If you have two unfinished ones in a bookmarks folder, pick something with dates.

Who is the course built for?

Read who the page says it is for. Job seekers, creators chasing followers and founders chasing clients need different things. Pick the course whose students look like you.

Will anyone read my posts?

Ask how feedback works, by whom, and on how many posts. Group feedback and 1:1 review are different products.

Does it cover getting clients, or only getting reach?

Look for the profile, the DMs and the conversation after the post. A course that stops at impressions leaves the part founders care about to you.

Is it running right now?

Workshops and cohorts open and close. Ask for the next date before you plan your month around it.

What will I have when it ends?

A good course leaves you with a list of post ideas and a weekly routine you can keep without it.

FAQ

What is the best LinkedIn course for founders?

It depends on how you work. On this page's scoring, Lara Acosta's The Known Club and Will Leatherman's Your First LinkedIn Customer in 30 Days tie for the highest outside score at 4.00, with The Known Club listed first on the tie because of its feedback. The Known Club fits founders who need a group and live review and can give it about 10 hours a week during the intensive. Leatherman's workshop is the fastest route for founders who want a first client, and Justin Welsh's LinkedIn Operating System fits founders who work alone. 1:1 Mentorship scores highest overall at 4.30 because it adds review on every draft, which no course here does.

Are LinkedIn courses worth it for founders?

Yes, if you finish them and can judge your own drafts afterwards. A course is the cheapest way to learn how LinkedIn works before you pay anyone for more. It is a poor buy if your problem is follow-through or knowing which posts sound like you.

How much does a LinkedIn course cost?

It ranges from included in a subscription to a sizeable one-off payment for a live cohort, so prices are not listed here. Check each provider's own page and compare against the time you will put in. For Mentorship, cost is scoped on a discovery call.

Should a founder take a self-paced course or a live cohort?

Take self-paced if you work best alone and have finished courses before. Take a cohort if you need a deadline and people around you. My cohort run worked for me because of the accountability.

How long does it take to see results from a LinkedIn course?

The courses here run from 34 minutes to a few weeks. Results come from posting after the course ends. My first viral post came on the last day of a cohort of around 30 days.

Is LinkedIn ghostwriting coaching the same as a course?

No. A course teaches you a system and leaves you to apply it. LinkedIn ghostwriting coaching, or Mentorship, puts a person on your drafts while you write, so the feedback lands on your own posts.

Can I learn LinkedIn writing for free?

Yes. LinkedIn Learning comes with some LinkedIn Premium plans, and you can learn by posting and studying what lands. Free material gives you the basics. It rarely gives you someone reading your drafts.

What should I have ready before the first session of a course or cohort?

Bring your offer in one sentence and your current profile. Then block the live sessions on your calendar before the first one, because the formats on this page run from a 2-hour workshop to 20 two-hour sessions over four weeks. With both ready, the first session goes to work on your own material.

Should I take a course before hiring a coach?

It can help. A short course teaches you the vocabulary, so when you hire a coach you know what you want reviewed. If you have already taken one and stalled, skip the second course and go straight to feedback.

Next step

If the table pointed you to a course, pick the one that matches how you work and finish it. If it pointed you to 1:1 Mentorship, book a discovery call and bring your last few posts.

I'm Frank Velasquez. I'm Head of Content at a ghostwriting agency, and I run Mentorship on the side for four people at a time. You can find me on LinkedIn.