13 Skills Training Business Success Stories [2023]
It is a great idea to start a skill training business with your website oriented towards helping people learn new skills. Starting your own skills training business is within reach. It doesn’t require a lot of money, but it can bring a significant impact on your life and others.
The global skills training market expects to reach $47.2B by 2027. If you’re looking for financial freedom, starting your own skills training business is the way to go. Training clients and building an impressive portfolio will allow you to charge higher rates and start living the life of your dreams.
Here are some real life success stories of starting a skills training business:
1. TrumpExcel.com ($120K/year)
Sumit Bansal (from Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India) started TrumpExcel.com almost 10 years ago.
I am Sumit Bansal from India and I have a website (TrumpExcel.com) where I teach people how to use Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets efficiently. On this site, I create written tutorials and videos and also sell online courses.
I started this site in 2013 and it gets more than 1 million pageviews every month. As of last month, my average monthly revenue was ~$10,000.
2. Marketplace SuperHeroes ($4.2M/year)
Stephen Somers (from Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom) started Marketplace SuperHeroes ago.
Hey! My name is Stephen Somers & I’m the co-founder of a company called Marketplace SuperHeroes, an online education company that helps people from all over the world learn how to sell their own products globally on Amazon, from complete scratch.
Together with my business partner, Robert, we've sold over $12m of products on Amazon and helped over 5,000 people learn to do the same. We’ve built an 8-figure coaching and services business, along with a consolidated freight company (SuperHero Freight) over the last number of years.
Learn more about starting a skills training business:
Where to start?
-> How much does it cost to start a skills training business?
-> Pros and cons of a skills training business
Need inspiration?
-> Examples of established skills training business
-> Marketing ideas for a skills training business
-> Skills training business slogans
-> Skills training business names
Other resources
-> Skills training business tips
4. Better Sheets ($49.2K/year)
Andrew Kamphey (from ) started Better Sheets almost 3 years ago.
In April I had 13 sales and made $390. As of now, in the month of May I’ve made 134 sales with revenue of $2,291.
5. SquarePlanet ($3.49M/year)
Brian Burkhart (from Phoenix, Arizona, USA) started SquarePlanet about 12 years ago.
As far as money goes, our revenues have remained both consistent and on an upward trajectory since inception. We hit six-figure revenues our first year in business, and seven-figure revenues every year since. And we see no sign of slowing down.
6. EMDR Consulting ($1.8M/year)
Roy Kiessling (from Portland, OR, USA) started EMDR Consulting almost 10 years ago.
Greetings, my name is Roy Kiessling, founder of EMDR Consulting, an international training organization specializing in teaching the EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) psychotherapy to master's level and above mental health professionals.
What started as a one-person training organization in 2013, has now grown to administrative staff of 5. a training team of over 20 trainers and 150 coaches. EMDR Consulting is now one of the largest EMDR training organizations in the United States, annually conducting over 150 EMDR basic training courses a year, teaching over 1500 mental health professionals how to integrate EMDR into their clinical practice.
7. Product Focus ($1.8M/year)
Ian Lunn (from Cirencester, UK) started Product Focus almost 17 years ago.
My name is Ian Lunn and I am one of the Founding Directors of Product Focus, a leading global provider of product management courses in the UK, US, and Europe.
We provide training for product managers and product management teams, teaching them skills and providing the tools to excel in product management. We also review the product management roles and processes in companies to help them understand how to improve performance. We’re all about helping individuals and businesses deliver world-class product management. Over the past 15 years, we’ve trained thousands of product people and are now the European leaders in product management training running multiple courses every week.
8. Mindynamics ($18K/year)
Saakshi Choithani (from Mumbai) started Mindynamics over 3 years ago.
Hi, I am Saakshi Choithani, a mompreneur, coach to solopreneurs, and Professional Growth Hacker. I call myself a MOM-PRENEUR because I started my entrepreneurship journey after being a mom.
We are offering our programs in countries like India, Russia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and some countries in the UK as well. We could really change the picture of our company by doing more than 100 events in the past year and actually proving that e-learning is the new normal to upskill yourself and grow fast.
9. COO Alliance ($5M/year)
Hiring has been a huge issue for me. And in a past interview with Cameron Herold, I brought it up because he’s the founder of the COO Alliance, the world’s leading network for the second in command. I don’t get embarrassed by a lot of stuff. If you heard my interviews, you hear me get pretty frank a…
Cameron Herold (from Scottsdale, Arizona, USA) started COO Alliance almost 7 years ago.
Cameron Herold is a successful entrepreneur and serial founder who launched Coo Alliance, a globally renowned training network, in 2016. The COO training firm provides the skills, methods, and processes you need to develop your organization smarter and quicker.
The platform provides a support group and enables COOs to build better companies, grow their revenue, and develop ideas that will be 100% profitable. Here COOs will get access to a leading community where the peer team is allowing proper tools & guidance to take their businesses to the next level.
Apart from being a renowned business expert Cameron Herold is a best-selling author of books like The Miracle Morning, Free PR, and Meetings Suck among others. He is the driving force behind the exponential expansion of hundreds of enterprises, and his work has indirectly impacted countless more.
At 42 years old, Cameron joined 1-800-GOT-JUNK. As the COO and during the 6.5 years he was with the company, he oversaw a phenomenal growth in sales from $2 million to $106 million. In the last few years, his enterprises received over 5,200 media placements, including attention on Oprah.
The founder received his BA, LAW from Carleton University in 1988. He is a well-known international speaker. He is also a top-rated professor at EO/Entrepreneurial MIT’s Masters Program and a strong and successful speaker at global CEO and COO leadership events.
The platform’s mission is to provide COOs with the same professional development and growth opportunities that CEOs have had for many years.
Key Takeaways
- Cameron made great connections flying business class.
- The business makes around $2.5 million ARR and has 7 employees.
- Rating his team based on results and cultural fit.
- Sets quarterly and annual goals.
- Meets employees every quarter to check on goals.

10. The Speaker Lab ($1.92M/year)
Grant Baldwin (from Thompsons Station, Tennessee, United States) started The Speaker Lab about 11 years ago.
- Grant Baldwin established The Speaker Lab, a company that instructs people in public speaking.
- He founded The Speaker Lab in 2015 to provide other speakers with resources that he lacked when he first started speaking.
- Grant performed everything from closed-door workshops to keynote speeches in front of 13,000 people, earning over $2 million from 500+ paid engagements around the world.
- The Speaker Lab's goal is to give speakers clarity, confidence, and a direct path to making an impact.
- Using a combination of automated webinars, Facebook ads, and email marketing, he has more than tripled his business over the past few years.

Listen to the full podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜
11. Fixer ($19.2M/year)
I first interview Mike Evans 12 years ago when he was hustling to get GrubHub off the ground. It’s mind-boggling how much he got done in those 12 years and I want to find out about all of it: the IPO, the exit, the time off, and the new start. Today, Mike Evans is the founder of Fixer, an on-demand…
Mike Evans (from Chicago, IL, USA) started Fixer almost 6 years ago.
In 2017, Mike Evans, co-founder and former COO of GrubHub built Fixer, a business that offers handyman services and training.
This business aims to provide excellent customer service while opening up skilled career paths for both men and women in the building trades.
Fixer offers its services in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, and Phoenix, and anyone living there can easily schedule a fixer at any time.
To date, their team has completed nearly 25,000 jobs in Dallas and Chicago.

Listen to the full podcast on fullratchet.net ➜
12. Oki Doki Digital Inc ($480K/year)
Marie Poulin (from Vancouver, BC, Canada) started Oki Doki Digital Inc over 3 years ago.
Hey! I’m Marie Poulin, and in 2014 I teamed up with my husband Ben Borowski under the brand Oki Doki to deliver consulting, design, and digital strategy services. Previously we’d both been running our freelance operations for several years, and our skillset had such a complementary overlap that we decided to unify our services together under one company.
Today we are 4 full-time team members, and the majority of our revenue and efforts come from our signature course, Notion Mastery. This course now generates an average of about $40k/month for the company.
Hey! 👋 I'm Pat Walls, the founder of Starter Story.
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