The idea didn't come from a YouTube video about passive income. It didn't come from a Reddit thread about side hustles. It came from sitting at a kitchen table with my husband, both of us studying for exams that would define our careers, both of us frustrated by the same thing.
The study materials were terrible.
Not "could be better" terrible. Genuinely, embarrassingly, inexcusably terrible. Outdated content. Clunky interfaces. Practice questions that felt like they were written in a different era of the profession. And the price — for something that barely worked, that charged working people serious money and then underdelivered without apology.
I remember thinking: I could build something better than this.
And then I thought: I actually could.
The backstory
My husband was studying for his pharmacy boards. I was studying to become a pharmacy technician. We were both deep in exam prep materials at the same time, which meant I had a front-row seat to exactly how bad the options were — not just for one exam but for multiple levels of the same profession.
The PTCE for pharmacy technicians. The MPJE for pharmacists. The same pattern everywhere: outdated questions, poor explanations, prices that assumed exam candidates had money to spare. They don't. They're students and working people who are already stretched thin and just trying to get licensed so they can move forward with their lives.
I didn't want to build a side hustle. I wanted to fix something that was broken. The side hustle part turned out to be a consequence of caring about the problem.
That reframe matters to me. The apps I built are not generic. They're not AI-generated quiz questions slapped into a template. They're built by someone who sat with those exams, who understood the gaps, who knew what a working person actually needs when they're studying for a high-stakes test between shifts.
What I've built so far
Three sites live. One ready to launch. Eight more in development.
Let me say that again so it lands properly: twelve exam prep sites total. Three generating revenue right now, one ready the moment the advertising is dialed in, and eight more being built out. All of them following the same model — current content, honest explanations, prices that working people can actually afford.
Unlimited Practice Guide — the umbrella brand, starting with pharmacy technician exam prep (PTCE). Where this whole thing began.
MPJE Unlimited Practice Guide — pharmacy law exam prep for pharmacists studying for the MPJE. One of the most notoriously difficult pharmacy exams and one of the most poorly served by existing materials.
NCLEX Unlimited Practice Guide — nursing students preparing for the NCLEX. Another high-stakes exam where the stakes are real and the existing resources are inconsistent.
And then nine more — one that's fully built and just needs advertising tweaks before launch, and eight more actively in development across different healthcare and professional licensing exam categories.
I'm not going to list all twelve here yet because some of them are in competitive niches where I'd rather not telegraph what's coming. But the pipeline is real and it's moving.
Why this model scales when most side hustles don't
Here's what I didn't fully understand when I started and now can't stop thinking about.
Most side hustles hit a ceiling. Marketplace reselling requires you to find, list, and sell each item. Service work requires your time for every transaction. Even the coloring books — which I love — have a natural revenue ceiling per title.
Exam prep sites are different because every professional exam has a new cohort of candidates every single testing cycle. The NCLEX is taken by hundreds of thousands of nursing graduates every year. The MPJE is required for pharmacist licensure in most states. The PTCE is the gateway to pharmacy technician certification.
These aren't markets that dry up. The demand resets constantly and automatically. Every person who passes their exam and moves on is replaced by the next person who just graduated and needs to study.
Twelve sites covering twelve exams means twelve separate revenue streams serving twelve separate audiences — all built on the same technical foundation, all following the same model, all running simultaneously without requiring me to show up for each transaction.
That's a fundamentally different business than any other hustle I've tried.
The tools I actually used
I want to be specific because the question I get most often is: how did you build functional web apps with no formal coding background?
Replit — where everything lives and runs. Development environment, hosting, deployment. Replit made it possible to go from idea to live site without a traditional engineering setup. Every single one of the sites is built and runs on Replit.
Claude — the AI assistant I used throughout development. Not to write the exam content — that comes from real study and real knowledge of these exams — but to help with technical architecture, debug problems, explain concepts I didn't understand yet, and get unstuck when something wasn't working. Building twelve sites would not be possible without this.
Stripe — all payment processing. Clean integration, handles subscriptions and one-time purchases, reliable. When your first sale notification comes in at 2am you'll understand why getting the payment infrastructure right matters.
LegalZoom — I formed an LLC before the revenue got serious. Getting the legal structure right early was one of the better decisions I made. Running multiple sites under a proper business structure protects everything you're building.
A business manager app I built in Replit — when you're managing filings, deadlines, and details across an LLC, three live sites, one pre-launch site, and eight in development, you need a system. I built my own tracking app in Replit rather than duct-taping together a spreadsheet and a calendar. It tracks everything in one place.
The first month
Exciting and frustrating in equal measure.
The first version was not good. I knew it wasn't good. I published it anyway because the alternative — waiting until it was perfect — was just a more comfortable form of not starting. There's a saying that if you're not embarrassed by your first iteration, you started too late. I was appropriately embarrassed.
But it was live. And then something happened that no amount of preparation fully prepares you for.
The first sale.
Someone found the site, read what it was, decided it was worth paying for, and bought it. A real person, with a real exam coming up, who chose my thing over the alternatives that have been around for years.
I stared at the Stripe notification for longer than I'd like to admit.
That first sale didn't mean the product was finished. It meant the problem was real and the solution was viable. Those are two different things and both of them matter enormously when you're building something from scratch.
If you're not embarrassed by your first iteration, you started too late. I was appropriately embarrassed. I published it anyway. Someone bought it anyway. That's the whole lesson.
Why exam prep specifically
The best products are built by people who genuinely needed them and couldn't find them.
I had sat with these exams. I understood the gaps not from research but from experience — my own studying, watching my husband navigate the same broken system at a higher level, seeing firsthand where candidates get stuck and where the existing materials fail them.
Pharmacy technician exam prep was broken and I knew exactly how it was broken and I knew exactly what would fix it. Healthcare professional licensing more broadly is full of the same problem — high-stakes exams, outdated materials, prices that punish working people for trying to advance their careers.
That's a big problem. Twelve sites barely scratches it.
What's coming
Thursday I'm publishing the full scorecard — three months of revenue, time invested, what I'd do differently, and where the numbers are heading as more sites come online.
The pre-launch site will be announced here when it's ready. The eight in development will roll out over the coming months and I'll document each one as it launches. This blog is the running record of what building this actually looks like — including the parts that don't go as planned.
If you're studying for the PTCE, MPJE, or NCLEX right now — go look at what I built. The whole point was to make something better and more affordable than what exists. I'd love to know if I succeeded.
👉 unlimitedpracticeguide.com — pharmacy technician exam prep (PTCE) 👉 mpjeunlimitedpracticeguide.com — pharmacy law exam prep (MPJE) 👉 nclexunlimitedpracticeguide.com — nursing exam prep (NCLEX)
What problem did you notice in your own life or career that nobody was solving well? That frustration is usually where the best hustle ideas come from. Hit reply or drop a comment — I read every one.
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