Erick Prospero is the founder and CEO of Ninja Tropic, a custom eLearning development studio in Arizona. He has led the company since 2016. Erick helps associations, healthcare organizations, and nonprofits build training that changes what people do on the job. For associations, he also helps turn education into a steady source of non-dues revenue.
Before he started Ninja Tropic, Erick ran the learning and development team at an association. He has sat in the education director’s chair, and he builds for the pressures that come with it.
QUICK FACTS
Erick Prospero at a Glance
Why Erick Measures Training by What People Do Next
Most organizations judge training by one number: how many people finished it. That number says almost nothing about impact. A nurse can pass a module and keep doing a procedure the old way. A member can buy a course, click through it, and never buy another.
Erick built Ninja Tropic around a harder question. What should people do differently after this training, and how will we know? Every project starts there. The format, the media, and the platform come after.
He also treats learner experience as a performance issue, not a style choice. Learners judge an organization by its courses. A clumsy course lowers retention, and it lowers trust in the organization that published it.
Erick’s Areas of Expertise
Association education as a revenue product
Associations hold expert knowledge that people will pay to learn. Erick helps education teams turn that knowledge into courses, certificates, and continuing education programs. He treats a course catalog like a product line, with a clear buyer, price, and path to the next purchase. The goal is to grow non-dues revenue and turn a one-time learner into a long-term member.
Microlearning Product Architecture
Erick created Microlearning Product Architecture, a method for designing each course as a set of reusable components. Short lessons, video segments, exercises, and assessments are built to work inside the course and on their own. One production budget can then feed new certificate programs, refreshers, and bundles. The same components also become preview clips, social posts, and email content that bring in new learners.
Clinician training and patient education
Healthcare training succeeds when practice changes. Erick’s teams build clinical education that aims at competency and fewer errors, not just passed quizzes. For patient education, the target is patients who understand their care, arrive prepared, and follow their plan. He also speaks on producing multilingual patient education video at scale, with clinical review built into every step.
AI in real learning production
Erick uses AI inside Ninja Tropic’s daily production work, and his team tests new AI video tools every month. His view is practical. AI makes content faster and cheaper to produce. Instructional designers and subject matter experts still decide what is accurate and what will change behavior.
Build versus buy
Custom development is not always the answer. Erick helps organizations decide when a custom course is worth the investment and when an off-the-shelf content library will do the job. Ninja Tropic builds both, so the advice is not tilted toward one.
Recognition and Results
Under Erick’s leadership, Ninja Tropic’s association and nonprofit work in science and technology earned four Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards in 2025: three Gold and one Silver. In 2026, the studio earned two more Brandon Hall awards for clinician training and 2 Power of Association Awards.
Ninja Tropic has built learning for organizations including from Pfizer to smaller associations like HPNA, along with professional associations and medical societies.
See the full list on the Awards page and in our Case Studies.
How Erick Works With Clients
Erick leads strategy on Ninja Tropic engagements and stays involved through launch. Behind him is a team of about 20 instructional designers, developers, animators, and video producers.
Ninja Tropic is not an LMS vendor. The team is technology-agnostic and works alongside your LMS, not in place of it. Courses are delivered as SCORM or xAPI packages that run on the platform you already use.
Clients usually start in one of three ways:
- Learning strategy consulting to plan a program, a catalog, or a product line before anything is built.
- Custom eLearning development for a specific course or series, from instructional design through final build.
- Staff augmentation that places a dedicated Ninja Tropic specialist inside your team.
Speaking, Podcasts, and Media
Erick hosts The Microlearning Lab, a podcast with leaders in learning technology, associations, and workforce education. He speaks at association, L&D, and healthcare education events and appears as a podcast guest.
Topics he speaks on include:
- How associations design courses that drive revenue and reach
- Using AI to produce training content, with real workflows and tools
- Custom content versus off-the-shelf libraries for workforce programs
- Training for internal staff versus external learners like members and customers
- Modernizing a legacy course library
- Patient education and clinical training at scale
Books and Articles
Erick is writing Course Correction, a practical playbook for associations that want to run digital learning as a portfolio of products. Feb 2026
He writes on eLearning strategy, microlearning, and association education on the Ninja Tropic Learning Lab blog.
The AI Companion for Patient Education: Accelerating Microlearning Design
How to Improve Sales Enablement Training with Custom Learning Assets
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Erick Prospero?
Erick Prospero is the founder and CEO of Ninja Tropic, a custom eLearning development studio he started in 2016. He specializes in eLearning for associations, healthcare organizations, and nonprofits, with a focus on training that changes behavior and education programs that earn revenue.
What is Ninja Tropic?
Ninja Tropic is a custom eLearning development studio. It provides instructional design, custom course development, Articulate Storyline and Rise builds, microlearning, video and animation, and learning strategy consulting. It is not an LMS vendor and works with any platform.
What is Microlearning Product Architecture?
Microlearning Product Architecture is a course design method created by Erick Prospero. Each course is built from reusable components that also work on their own. That lets one production budget produce the course, new products like certificates and refreshers, and marketing content.
How can associations earn non-dues revenue from education?
Associations earn non-dues revenue by selling courses, certificates, and continuing education built on their members’ expertise. Erick recommends managing these as a product line with clear buyers, pricing, and a path from one purchase to the next, including membership.
What does Erick Prospero speak about?
Erick speaks about association education as a revenue product, AI in training content production, custom versus off-the-shelf content, microlearning design, and patient education at scale.
How can I work with Erick Prospero?
You can book a consultation through the Ninja Tropic website. Erick and his team work with clients on learning strategy, custom eLearning development, and staff augmentation.
Talk to Erick About Your Learning Program
Tell Erick what you need learners to do differently, whether they are members, clinicians, patients, or staff. He will help you figure out what to build, what to skip, and how you will know it worked.
Not ready to talk yet? Listen to The Microlearning Lab for conversations with association and learning leaders.