Founder Justin Allan Montgomery Reveals $10K-to-8-Figure CE Course Blueprint
On Episode 165 of The Proven Entrepreneur, host Don Williams interviews ProCourseStart founder Justin Allan Montgomery, who turned a $10,000 investment into an eight-figure continuing education course business and retired at 39. He breaks down the CE loophole, audience-first marketing, and the myth of passive income.
Dallas, TX (Newsworthy.ai) Thursday Jul 23, 2026 @ 7:30 AM CDT
Don Williams' The Proven Entrepreneur Podcast
“I built that business up to 8 figures and had an 8-figure exit event that allowed me to retire at the age of 39. And so I did that by building the audience.”
Episode 165 of The Proven Entrepreneur, titled 'The 8-Figure Loophole: Building a High-Demand Continuing Education Business,' hosted by Don Williams, brings listeners a candid conversation with Justin Allan Montgomery, founder of ProCourseStart. Published July 3, 2026, the episode dissects a recession-resistant corner of the e-learning market: continuing education (CE) courses for licensed professionals. With buyers increasingly skeptical of generic online courses, Montgomery argues that CE is the rare category where demand is legally mandated, making it uniquely durable in a saturated, AI-flooded course economy.
Williams and Montgomery cover the strategic terrain of launching, marketing, and scaling a CE course business. Specific threads include:
Don Williams' The Proven Entrepreneur Podcast
“I built that business up to 8 figures and had an 8-figure exit event that allowed me to retire at the age of 39. And so I did that by building the audience.”
- Why licensed professionals (dentists, lawyers, chiropractors, electricians, nurse practitioners) represent a built-in, repeat-buyer market.
- How AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can validate a course idea before a single dollar is spent building it.
- The audience-first model Montgomery used with his first company, The Elite Nurse Practitioner.
- A tactical breakdown of a $10,000 startup budget: roughly $3,000 on product build and $7,000 on marketing.
Montgomery is direct about the mythology surrounding online courses, particularly the promise of passive income. "There's no such thing as passive income. I'm sorry. There just isn't," he tells Williams, before explaining that even his eight-figure CE business required roughly 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 also 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."
The deeper context is Montgomery's own trajectory. He launched The Elite Nurse Practitioner in 2018, spent six months building an audience of roughly 3,000 nurse practitioners before selling anything, then generated $50,000 in his first seven days. He grew that audience to 20,000, 30,000, and eventually 40,000 subscribers without viral videos or a six-figure follower count. While simultaneously operating multi-location men's health clinics, he realized, echoing a mentor's advice, 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.
About The Proven Entrepreneur
Hosted by Don Williams, The Proven Entrepreneur delivers real success stories, tactical frameworks, and unvarnished lessons from operators who have actually built and exited businesses. The show's mission is simple: help others, help others, whether that means growing sales, improving customer experience, sharpening company culture, or leading like rock stars. Episode 165 is available now wherever podcasts are heard, and at provenentrepreneurshow.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What makes continuing education (CE) courses different from typical online courses?
- According to Montgomery, CE courses target licensed professionals—dentists, lawyers, doctors, chiropractors, electricians, and more—who are legally required to earn credits each year to maintain their licenses. That built-in, recurring demand insulates CE from the skepticism plaguing the broader course market, where buyers have been burned by generic, AI-generated content. Even a mediocre CE course still delivers a required credit, so buyers reliably show up.
- How did Justin Montgomery build The Elite Nurse Practitioner into an eight-figure business?
- Montgomery launched The Elite Nurse Practitioner in 2018 and spent six months building an audience of about 3,000 nurse practitioners before launching his first course, which generated $50,000 in seven days. He kept prioritizing audience over selling, eventually reaching 40,000 subscribers, $250,000–$300,000 in monthly sales, and an eight-figure exit that allowed him to retire at 39.
- How should someone actually spend a $10,000 CE course startup budget?
- Montgomery recommends validating the idea for free using AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, then spending roughly $3,000 on building the business—website, course hosting platform, and a professional editor—and the remaining $7,000 on marketing and audience building. Host Don Williams frames it as a 30/70 rule: 30% on product, 70% on telling people about it.
- Why does Montgomery insist there is no such thing as passive income?
- Montgomery argues that every income stream requires upfront or ongoing work, whether that's building an affiliate funnel or earning the capital to invest in treasuries. Even his CE business, which sold 24/7, still demanded about ten hours of his time per week. He calls course businesses "partially passive" and warns that treating a business passively guarantees passive returns.
- What separates a $3 million course business from a $3,000 one?
- Montgomery points to three factors: aggressive marketing, a sizable audience built through genuinely valuable and consumable content, and courses that solve a real problem or create transformation. His CE courses taught medical providers how to launch their own practices and escape hospital or clinic employment—an outcome substantial enough to drive some months past $1 million in Black Friday sales.
- Why did Montgomery walk away from his men's health clinics to focus on CE?
- Montgomery ran multi-location men's health clinics that had plateaued regionally, and expanding required opening more locations he didn't want to open. After making more profit in one week of CE course sales than two months at the clinics, and remembering a mentor's line that "you can only build one bridge at a time," he doubled down on the course business.
- How can listeners connect with Justin Montgomery and ProCourseStart?
- Montgomery directs listeners to ProCourseStart.com, which hosts articles, videos, a roughly 15-hour evergreen course covering everything from launch to scaling and selling a CE business, and a mentorship-style mastermind program. He also invites direct email at [email protected], noting he personally answers messages without VAs or AI agents in the loop.
