The 8-Figure Loophole: Justin Allan Montgomery Reveals How to Build a High-Demand Continuing Education Business

In Episode 165 of The Proven Entrepreneur, host Don Williams sits down with Justin Allan Montgomery, founder of ProCourseStart, to dissect a recession-resistant corner of the e-learning market: continuing education (CE) courses for licensed professionals. Published July 3, 2026, the episode titled 'The 8-Figure Loophole: Building a High-Demand Continuing Education Business' explores why CE is uniquely durable in a saturated, AI-flooded course economy.

Montgomery argues that licensed professionals—such as dentists, lawyers, chiropractors, electricians, and nurse practitioners—represent a built-in, repeat-buyer market because their demand for CE is legally mandated. This makes CE courses less susceptible to the skepticism plaguing generic online courses. He outlines a tactical blueprint for launching a CE business with just $10,000, allocating roughly $3,000 to product build and $7,000 to marketing.

A key takeaway is Montgomery's emphasis on audience-first validation. He launched his first company, The Elite Nurse Practitioner, in 2018 and spent six months building an audience of approximately 3,000 nurse practitioners before selling anything. That strategy paid off: he generated $50,000 in his first seven days. He grew that audience to 40,000 subscribers without viral videos or a six-figure follower count. Montgomery advises using AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to validate a course idea before spending any money on development.

Montgomery challenges the mythology of passive income in the online course space. 'There's no such thing as passive income. I'm sorry. There just isn't,' he tells Williams, explaining that even his eight-figure CE business required about ten hours per week of active input while generating $250,000 to $300,000 in monthly course sales, with some Black Friday months topping a million dollars. He warns aspiring course creators against skipping validation: 'You really need to spend more time developing your idea, developing your value proposition, identifying the problems that you're gonna solve. You need to spend more time on that than you actually spend building the course itself.'

Montgomery's trajectory underscores the potential of this model. While simultaneously operating multi-location men's health clinics, he realized that 'you can only build one bridge at a time.' He doubled down on CE, engineered an eight-figure exit, and retired at 39. He now runs ProCourseStart, offering a 15-hour evergreen course and a mastermind program at ProCourseStart.com.

The episode is available wherever podcasts are heard and at provenentrepreneurshow.com. Hosted by Don Williams, The Proven Entrepreneur delivers real success stories, tactical frameworks, and unvarnished lessons from operators who have built and exited businesses.