Teaching & coaching · idea 38 of 52
Run a paid study group for a professional exam you passed
You passed the CPA, the bar, the PE, the PMP, the nursing boards. The next cohort will pay for structure, accountability and someone who knows the traps.
- Who pays you
- Exam candidates pay you a fixed fee per cohort, by card or transfer, for a scheduled series of live group sessions over video, plus a shared study plan and practice questions you've selected.
- Outcomes
- 0 receipts. Nobody's reported back on this one yet. Receipts open when accounts launch.
How it works
Professional exams have a large, motivated audience that already bought the official materials and still fails at a high rate. What they lack is a schedule, a group and someone who passed recently and remembers what actually appeared. You announce a cohort: eight weeks, two evenings a week, capped at twelve people, a fixed price. You run it from your dining table over video, using materials the candidates already own. The first cohort comes from the forums and groups you used when you were studying.
What it actually takes
- Having passed the exam recently, with a good enough score to be credible.
- A study plan you can write out week by week.
- A video call tool, a shared document, and a way to take payments.
- The discipline to run sessions on schedule even when only four people show up.
Where it goes wrong
- Selling your notes as a course. That's a different, worse idea (see the graveyard). The product here is live structure and accountability.
- Copyright. Don't redistribute the official question banks. Point people at what to buy.
- Promising a pass. You can't, and in some fields promising results is a regulatory problem.
- The exam changes format and your knowledge goes stale after a couple of years. It's a window, not a career.
Published 3 Aug 2026