Hello contrarians,
Today’s idea is called The New-Manager Workshop Store.
Find a comfy chair. 🪑
First, a teacher’s story. Then, the business you could build from it.
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⚡ Quick facts
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📖 How one teacher made $2 million from her lesson plans
It started with lessons for her own class.
Deanna Jump teaches kindergarten and first grade in Georgia.
She made her own lessons for her class.
Then, in 2009, a colleague had an idea: sell them on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Never heard of it?
It’s a website where teachers sell lessons to other teachers.
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Her prices were small.
Like $8 for a reading guide called “Guided Reading 101.”
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Fun fact: other teachers kept buying.
By September 2012, she had sold 160,000 items.
And she was the first seller on the site to pass $1 million in sales.
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By 2014, she had more than 140 products.
That year, Reason magazine reported she “has earned more than $2 million.”
Loopity loop. 🎢
She went from making lessons for her own class, to more than $2 million, by selling them to other teachers at small prices.
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🔗 Same idea, new group
In the story: teachers paid Deanna Jump small prices for ready-made lessons, so they didn’t have to build their own.
⠀In this idea: workplace trainers need ready-made workshops for new managers, so they don’t build each one from scratch.
⠀Why it carries over: both groups teach all the time, and one course seller says building one course takes a trainer 20 to 40 hours.
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💡 The opportunity
Workplace trainers make lessons too, and they have no Teachers Pay Teachers of their own.
Wait, who are workplace trainers, exactly?
They teach a company’s employees new skills, like leading a team or giving feedback.
And there are a lot of them: the US had about 472,500 of these jobs in 2025.
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Making the material is part of their job.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says they “design and create training manuals, online learning modules, and course materials.”
In other words, building the slides is part of their job.
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Here’s the twist: Teachers Pay Teachers is built for schools, from preschool to 12th grade.
When we checked, workplace trainers had no store like it.
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So pick one group of trainers: the ones who train new managers.
Why them?
Training for managers and supervisors is the biggest slice of company training budgets, at 13%.
It’s tied with compliance training, the training a company must give by law.
And every year, companies promote people into their first manager job.
They all need the same basics: a first one-on-one, a hard feedback talk, and handing off work.
(A one-on-one is a regular private meeting between a manager and one team member.)
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Manager skills are a safe place for someone new to training to start.
Compliance and safety training follow laws, so one mistake carries legal risk.
Manager skills aren’t set by law, so someone new to training can start here.
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👉 The idea: sell ready-made workshop packs to trainers who run new-manager training: slides, a facilitator guide (the script the trainer follows), and activities.
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🧩 What you actually need
Short list, promise.
Real material.
Notes from your own first year as a manager.
Or interviews with experienced managers, with their permission.
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A simple store, like Gumroad or your own website.
AI drafts and checks the packs.
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✅ Why this could work
Here’s why people will pay for this.
Selling lessons to teachers made many people money, and trainers also buy ready-made material.
Deanna Jump wasn’t the only one.
By November 2022, more than 300 Teachers Pay Teachers sellers had earned at least $1 million in profits.
And its sellers had taken home $1.5 billion in total.
Now, the trainer side: Just Ninety sells ready-made 90-minute workshops to trainers.
Its founder told Starter Story it made $4,500 in sales in its first four weeks.
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Trainers have bought ready-made material since the 1980s, and they still do.
Back in the 1980s and 90s, publishers sold binders of training activities, all ready to adapt.
Yep, binders.
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New buyers arrive every year.
About 46,000 trainer jobs open up in the US each year, on average.
And each new trainer needs workshops to run.
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👉 Curious where these numbers come from? Every source is linked in the last section, “📎 The sources.”
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📊 More proof people want this
Want more? Here you go.
Trainers already pay Just Ninety for ready-made workshops.
Yep, the same Just Ninety from “Why this could work.”
It charges $249 for one 90-minute workshop, and $796.80 for a bundle of four leadership workshops.
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The big trainers’ association sells a workshop book, too.
ATD is the big association for trainers.
It sells a workshop book for frontline managers, who lead the people doing the day-to-day work, at $74.99.
Want to edit and use its files inside one company?
That license costs $179.
Using it with outside clients?
That license costs $499.
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Training publishers sell workshops as well.
HRDQ, a training publisher, sells one customer-service workshop program for $34.99 to $318.99, depending on the version.
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Building a workshop from scratch takes a long time.
Just Ninety says building a single course takes a trainer 20 to 40 hours.
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The big picture. 💰
US employers spent $102.8 billion training their people in 2025.
That’s only counting employers with 100 or more workers.
$16 billion of that went to outside products and services.
Overall, that’s about $874 for each person trained.
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What a trainer says.
“Just Ninety has saved me days of prep time.”
She adds: “I rebranded the slides, ran the session, and got amazing feedback!”
She’s a training consultant in Canada, in a testimonial Just Ninety shows on its own site.
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👉 Trainers already pay for workshops that are ready to run.
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🔍 Who’s already doing it
Who’s in the space, and what they skip.
Teachers Pay Teachers, the site from the story above, is built for schools.
Teachers sell lessons there for kids from preschool to 12th grade, not for adults at work.
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Just Ninety sells ready-made 90-minute workshops to trainers.
It covers many topics, for every kind of team.
Its top sellers, when we checked, were on prioritizing, time management, and coaching.
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ATD’s frontline-manager book is one long workshop.
It’s a 200-page book for a two- or three-day course, published in June 2021.
And the editable slides and handouts need a separate license.
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Still missing when we checked:
Short packs, one for each moment of a new manager’s first year.
Packs made for one kind of company, like hospitals or software teams.
A price per pack, so a trainer can buy just the one moment they need.
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🔎 Check the market yourself in 2 minutes: run Part 0 of the prompt in the build plan below.
Your AI searches training stores, plus Etsy and Gumroad (two sites where people sell digital files), that day.
Then it tells you: early, growing, or crowded.
Early? Start now.
Crowded? Good news: it means trainers buy. Pick one narrower group of managers (Step 1 of the build plan).
A crowded market is still OK. You win by serving one group better, not by being first.
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👉 You can be the one to fill that gap: short packs for each step of a new manager’s first year, for one kind of company.
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🤖 Why AI won’t replace it
AI can help build a workshop. You hand them one that’s ready to run.
Could ChatGPT just do this?
It can help, sure.
Here’s what your pack adds.
A finished pack: every piece matches.
ChatGPT can write all of it, if a trainer explains every piece and how they fit together.
Your pack shows up with slides, a minute-by-minute script, activities, and a handout, all telling the same story.
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You know what works in a live session.
Which activity gets quiet people talking.
What to cut when the 90-minute slot turns into 60.
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Checked twice.
Every fact and study in the pack is checked against its source.
ChatGPT cites a study correctly when it’s handed the source.
But a rushed trainer won’t go find it first.
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Ready when they need it.
Picture a trainer told on Thursday to run a session on Monday.
She has no time to build it from a prompt.
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Proof they pay for the finished pack: trainers pay Just Ninety $249 for one 90-minute workshop.
Free AI tools are one click away, and they still buy.
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👉 Free answers are everywhere, but a workshop that’s ready to run is hard to find.
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💵 How much you can make
Here’s how the numbers add up.
First stop: $10,000 a month from single packs
40 packs a month is 480 a year.
Pack buyers are trainers, and about 46,000 trainer jobs open each year.
So 480 a year is about 1% of them.
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The $249 is Just Ninety’s price for one 90-minute workshop, so you’re not guessing what trainers pay.
⠀Don’t expect Deanna Jump’s $2 million here.
Let’s be real about that.
Teachers Pay Teachers serves more than 7 million educators.
The US has about 472,500 trainer jobs.
So this market is smaller.
The table above is the goal, not a promise.
Next stop: $25,000 a month, with two more ways to earn
Once trainers trust one pack, many want the whole set.
Single packs still do most of the work.
Grow from 40 to 60 packs a month, and they bring in $14,940 a month.
That’s 720 packs a year, still under 2% of the 46,000 trainer jobs that open each year.
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The bundle is for trainers planning a whole program.
One sale, four packs.
Just Ninety already sells its leadership packs this way.
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The library plan is for trainers who run sessions every week.
Trainers’ Library, a subscription site of ready-made training material, charges $495 per trainer a year.
Ten new members a month is the goal.
Each new member pays $495 up front, so 10 new members a month brings in $4,950 that month.
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If it doesn’t work out, here’s all you lose:
Nothing to open a Gumroad store: it has no monthly fee.
One month’s subscription to an AI app, like ChatGPT or Claude.
Two weekends of your time.
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👉 One store, three ways to earn: about $25,000 a month.
Pick two or three ideas from this newsletter, or open this one for a second group. Together, they could add up to a million dollars in two or three years.
For this store, a second group could be trainers who run sales training. And this store could be your first idea.
Itching to build this one?
The step-by-step plan is right below. 👇
Just browsing? All good. A new idea comes next week.
That’s it, my fellow contrarians! 🙌
Yours ‘proving you don’t need an original idea, just a proven one’ Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️
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🧰 Want to build it? Here’s everything else.
AI drafts each pack, and checks it twice before any trainer sees it. 🧑🏫
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Step 1: 🎯 Pick your moments
Don’t sell “management training.” Sell one moment at a time.
List the moments in a new manager’s first year.
The first one-on-one.
The first hard feedback talk.
Handing off work they used to do themselves.
The first team meeting.
Pick one kind of company to start.
For example: software teams, hospitals, or restaurants.
Not sure which? Part 0 of the prompt checks which group is least served.
Plan twelve packs, and write three first.
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Step 2: 🛠️ Make the pack
Every pack has the same five parts, so trainers know what they get.
Slides, about 20, with your own simple design.
A facilitator guide. What to say, minute by minute, with the timing for each part.
Two activities, like a role-play or a short case to discuss in pairs.
A one-page handout the new managers keep.
A follow-up email the trainer sends a week later, to make it stick.
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👉 Your AI drafts all five from your notes or interviews. You edit them so they sound like a real person.
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Step 3: 🔍 Check every piece
A trainer runs a live session from your pack. It has to work.
Your AI does all three passes for you: it writes in Parts 2 and 3, and checks in Parts 4 and 5 of the prompt.
🖊️ The AI writer. AI drafts the pack from your notes, interviews, and named public sources.
🔍 The AI fact-checker. A second pass opens every link, and removes any study or number it can’t find.
🧐 The AI critic. A third pass reads it like a strict trainer: do the timings add up, and is every instruction clear?
Optional: pay an experienced trainer once to run your first pack, and fix what they find.
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👉 The prompt already follows three safety rules: no invented studies, no copied slides or trademarked (company-owned) models, and clear license terms in every store listing.
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Step 4: 🏪 Open your store
Copy the prices trainers already pay.
Set your prices.
$249 for one pack, like Just Ninety.
A bundle of four for $796.80, Just Ninety’s price.
Later, a library plan: every pack for $495 per trainer a year, like Trainers’ Library.
Say what the license covers.
Use inside one company, or with outside clients for a higher price, like ATD does.
Pick where to sell. Gumroad or your own website.
Give one pack away free, in exchange for an email address.
Why free? Trainers want to see the material before they buy.
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Step 5: 📣 Get your first buyers
Let trainers try your work where they already meet and browse.
Offer a free 20-minute sample workshop at your local ATD chapter meeting.
ATD is the big association for workplace trainers, and it has local chapters.
Email the chapter’s program organizer, run one moment from a real pack, and hand out its one-page handout.
List one free mini-workshop in a slide-template gallery, with your store’s name on the last slide.
Pick a gallery trainers browse, like Canva’s templates, and title it the way they search: “first one-on-one training slides.”
The last slide says where the full pack lives.
The week a trainer runs a pack, ask how it went.
If they say it went well, ask for an honest review on your store page while it’s fresh.
Ask for an honest review, never a good one.
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Step 6: 🏃 Eliminate competitors
Copycats will come. Here’s how you stay first.
Let past buyers trade in the old edition of a pack for credit on the new one.
Update each pack once a year, and give past buyers credit toward the new version.
A rival’s brand-new pack can’t offer that, so your buyers stay with you.
When you add a module, raise the price openly and say what’s new.
For example: “Now with a remote-team version of every activity, so the price goes up next month.”
Never quietly cut pieces to keep the price low.
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Step 7: 🎲 Make it bigger
Every group of trainers has the same two things: new people, and workshops to build.
Add the two extras from “How much you can make,” one at a time.
First the bundle of four, once you have four packs that fit together.
Then the library plan, once you have enough packs to fill a year of sessions.
Open the same store for other trainers: onboarding (training for new hires) for one industry, customer service, sales training.
One store at about $25,000 a month is about $300,000 a year, before fees. 🎯
Add two or three more stores, or ideas from this newsletter, and a million dollars in total is two or three years away.
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🗓️ Your first week
Phew. That was a lot. 😅
Steps 1 to 5 fit into seven days. 🚀
By day 7, you have a store, one finished pack, a free sample pack, and your first pitch sent.
Quick heads-up: the prompt below has seven Parts, and they’re not the same as the Steps above.
Day 1 (Step 1): Run Part 0 and Part 1 of the prompt (it’s below).
Pick your group, and plan twelve packs.
Days 2–3 (Step 2): Write the facilitator guide with Part 2, then the slides, activities, and handout with Part 3.
Day 4 (Step 3): Check the pack with Parts 4 and 5.
Day 5 (Step 4): Write your store listing with Part 6, and open your store.
Days 6–7 (Step 5): Write your ATD chapter pitch and your free mini-workshop with Part 7, and send the pitch.
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🏄 How to use the prompt
One prompt does all the AI work, in seven parts, plus a quick market check (Part 0).
Part 1 — Plan the packs. Lists the moments in a new manager’s first year, and picks the first three packs.
Part 2 — Write the facilitator guide. Writes what the trainer says and does, minute by minute.
Part 3 — Make the slides and handouts. Writes every slide, two activities, a handout, and a follow-up email.
Part 4 — Check every fact. Opens every link, and removes any study or number it can’t find.
Part 5 — Test it like a strict trainer. Checks the timings, the instructions, and the activities.
Part 6 — Write the store listing. Writes the listing, the license terms, and the bundle.
Part 7 — Find your first buyers. Writes your ATD chapter pitch, a free mini-workshop for a template gallery, and your review note.
Run it your way:
Part by part (the default): it pauses after each part, and you type “next” to keep going.
All at once: say “run all seven parts.”
Just one part: say “only do Part 3,” or any part you need.
The full prompt is just below, under “📋 The prompt.”
🎙️ Talk to your AI sidekick, don’t type.
Turn on voice mode, or use a dictation app like Wispr Flow.
Say it messy. The AI sorts it out.
Turn it into a skill, so you never paste it again.
Paste the prompt into Claude or ChatGPT, and say: “Turn this into a skill I can save.”
Install once, use forever.
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📋 The prompt
The prompt (copy it into Claude or ChatGPT, fill in the INPUTS part, and run it your way)
CONTEXT:
- You're my partner in building a store of ready-made workshop packs for trainers who run new-manager training.
- Each pack covers one moment in a new manager's first year, and has slides, a facilitator guide, two activities, a handout, and a follow-up email.
- This prompt has seven parts, in order.
- Run it the way I ask:
- If I say nothing, go one part at a time. After each part, show me the result, then stop and wait. Move on only when I type "next."
- If I say "run all seven parts," do them all without stopping.
- If I say "only do Part 3" (or any part), do just that part.
- If a part needs something from me, ask for it before you start that part.
- Use only my notes, my interviews, and public sources you can link to. Never invent a study, a quote, or a number. If you can't find a source, leave it out.
- Never copy anyone else's slides, and never use trademarked models (like DiSC or Myers-Briggs) by name.
- I'll often answer by voice, so expect long, messy answers. Don't ask me to tidy them.
- Keep web search on for the whole prompt (turn on search in ChatGPT or Claude), so you can open any page you need to check.
=============== INPUTS — edit these, or just run as is ===============
Who the packs are for:
{e.g. trainers who run new-manager training at software companies}
My material (paste it, or attach the files):
{e.g. my notes from my first year as a manager, and three interviews with experienced managers}
The length of each workshop:
{e.g. 90 minutes, for 8 to 20 new managers}
My prices:
{e.g. $249 a pack, or four packs for $799}
======================== END OF INPUTS ========================
THE PARTS:
Part 0 — Check the market today.
This part needs web search (turn on search in ChatGPT or Claude). Search for ready-made new-manager training materials sold to trainers and, for each place, give the count, the three biggest with links, and their prices:
1. Training publishers and courseware stores (for example ATD, HRDQ, Just Ninety).
2. Etsy shops selling manager training slides or workshop kits.
3. Gumroad and similar stores selling trainer kits.
4. Free kits that trainers use instead.
Then tell me: early (few sellers), growing, or crowded, and which group of managers looks least served (for example: hospitals, restaurants, software teams). Give a link for every number. If you can't open a page, say so. Never guess a number.
Part 1 — Plan the packs.
List twenty moments in a new manager's first year, in the words a new manager would use (for example: "my first one-on-one with someone who used to be my peer"). Group them by theme. Pick twelve to make into packs, and the first three to write, and say why. Say clearly which reasons are your guess.
Part 2 — Write the facilitator guide.
Ask me which pack to write first. Then write the facilitator guide for my workshop length:
1. The goal of the session, in one sentence.
2. A timed plan, minute by minute, that adds up to the full length.
3. What the trainer says at each step, in plain words.
4. Where each activity goes, and how to run it.
5. What to cut if the session gets shortened by a third.
Part 3 — Make the slides and handouts.
Using the guide from Part 2, write:
1. Every slide: a title and up to three short lines each. About 20 slides.
2. Two activities: a role-play and a short case for pairs, with instructions the trainer can read aloud.
3. A one-page handout the new managers keep.
4. A follow-up email the trainer sends one week later.
Mark any fact or study, with its source link.
Part 4 — Check every fact.
Now act as a separate fact-checker who didn't write this pack. Open every link. Mark each fact, study, and quote: matches the source, doesn't match, or has no source. Remove anything with no source. Then give a fixed version of the pack.
Part 5 — Test it like a strict trainer.
Now act as an experienced trainer who has to run this pack next week, and has never seen it before:
1. Check that the timings add up to the full length.
2. Flag any instruction that's unclear, and any activity that won't work for 8 people or for 20.
3. Flag anything that sounds like legal or HR advice.
Then give the final pack, with every fix made.
Part 6 — Write the store listing.
Write a store listing for Gumroad or my own site: a title with the moment and the group, a short description, what's inside the pack, and the timing. Add the license terms in plain words: use inside one company, or a higher price for use with outside clients. Add a bundle listing that shows how much buyers save. Never promise results.
Part 7 — Find your first buyers.
Write:
1. A short email to my local ATD chapter's program organizer, offering a free 20-minute sample workshop on one moment from this pack. Keep it under 120 words.
2. A free mini-workshop of five slides from this pack, for a slide-template gallery, titled the way trainers search, with my store's name and link on the last slide.
3. A short note to send a buyer the week they run a pack, asking how it went. If they say it went well, it asks for an honest review on my store page, never a good one.
When all seven parts are done, ask if I want to repeat Parts 2 to 7 for the next pack.⠀
📎 The sources
Every number above, with where it came from.
Deanna Jump’s earnings · Number: “Jump has earned more than $2 million on Teachers Pay Teachers”; 145 other products besides two named examples; “Guided Reading 101” at $8 · Source: Reason, August/September 2014
Deanna Jump’s start and first $1 million · Number: Kindergarten and first-grade teacher in Georgia; joined in 2009 at a colleague’s suggestion; 160,000 items sold; first seller to pass $1 million in sales · Source: TechCrunch, September 30, 2012
Teachers Pay Teachers millionaires · Number: More than 300 sellers with at least $1 million in profits; $1.5 billion in take-home profits for sellers · Source: EdSurge, November 28, 2022
Teachers Pay Teachers today · Number: Founded 2006; “7M+ educators worldwide”; “the world’s largest marketplace of PreK-12 resources” · Source: Teachers Pay Teachers
Trainer jobs · Number: About 472,500 jobs in 2025; about 46,000 openings a year, on average, over the decade; they “design and create training manuals, online learning modules, and course materials” · Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics
US training spend · Number: $102.8 billion in 2025; $16 billion on outside products and services; $874 per learner; management and supervisory training 13% of budgets, tied with required compliance training (US organizations with 100+ employees) · Source: Training magazine, 2025 Training Industry Report
Just Ninety’s first month · Number: $4,500 in revenue in just over four weeks (founder’s own report); early sales from emails to about 150 trainers in the founder’s LinkedIn network · Source: Starter Story, February 25, 2023
Just Ninety’s prices and claims · Number: $249 a course; Leadership Bundle $796.80 for four; top sellers on prioritizing, time management, and coaching; “20-40 hours developing a single course” · Source: Just Ninety
Trainer quote · Number: “Just Ninety has saved me days of prep time. I rebranded the slides, ran the session, and got amazing feedback!” (an L&D consultant in Canada; a testimonial on Just Ninety’s own site) · Source: Just Ninety
ATD’s frontline-manager workshop book · Number: $74.99 paperback or PDF (non-member); internal license $179; client license $499; 200 pages; two- and three-day workshops; June 2021 · Source: ATD
HRDQ workshop program · Number: $34.99 to $318.99 for Becoming a Customer Service Star (online and print versions) · Source: HRDQ store
Binders of training material · Number: “In the 1980s and 90s there were several publishers of loose leaf binders” of training activities, “all ready to adapt” · Source: RapidBI
Gumroad fees · Number: No monthly fee; 10% + $0.50 per sale · Source: Gumroad pricing
Bundle price · Number: “Leadership Bundle: USD $796.80” “(20% discount on four courses)” · Source: Just Ninety
Library plan price · Number: “$495” “Per trainer, per year”; 12-month minimum; site copyright 1999 to 2026 · Source: Trainers’ Library