Ask HN: Is it possible to create a viable business from "Personal Development?"

I don't want to call it "self-help".

I am the product of the American Dream, gre up poor AF, put myself through college at night later in life while also working 2 jobs ... yadda yadda yadda I am not overeducated and, dare to say, (upper) middle class.

I was the first one of my extended family and friends to ever graduate from college. Most of my friends are high school dropouts in dead-end blue collar jobs.

I look at my income, how much I save, and my net worth and I feel rich (I know I am not).

Here and there I have tried to help the less fortunate, I was a Big Brother for a while, volunteered as a math tutor, in college (where I graduated with honors) I was paired with other students who were struggling... and I have to say I was not very successful, I always put in more effort that these individuals did. But that's another story.

In the past I have had 2 blogs and 2 related e-books on "success", personal and professional, and they have gone nowhere; mostly because I advocate hard work and not silver bullets. But I diverge.

I am still evolving and improving, I have never stopped, and now I am wondering if, following The Lean Startup and PG's principles of solving one's problems and doing things that don't scale, one can actually have a viable business in the vertical of "Personal Development"; doing well by doing good.

I see people like Tony Robbins and Mark Manson doping well enough.

So, aty the dawn of the AI era, is it possible to create a viable business in the vertical of Personal Development?

Viable = profitable.