Species progression?

[Dude123]

Hey everyone.

Long time lurker here, lots of good information to be found! I've never posted but a few of the posts from the last few days have made me curious about something.

Often when talking about wanting to keep species that require very specific care instructions, posters are told to work their way up to that species. While these threads usually have a recommendation for that individual I have never seen a kind of commonly agreed on progression list for heading in certain directions. Obviously this isn't something that would be for everyone, and there are obviously multiple species that can fit.

For example, people are often told that Corn Snakes are a fantastic first snake to get into the hobby, but what if your goal was to get into giant snakes like Retics? How would you recommend to progress from Corn ----> Retic? I'm the most familiar with snakes so I could see fitting a Ball and Boa somewhere in between to gain experience with bigger snakes.

What about going towards keeping the various tree boas? or Hots, though they require a different sort of preparation and a mentor. Or lizard species. If I wanted to own an Iguana or large Monitor what experience should I have before acquiring one?

I guess the short version is that it might be nice for people new to the hobby to have a rough guide to glance at that would place common species, both for snakes and lizards, in a kind of progression order, especially with how common some species like Boas and some giants are and how much experience a keeper should really have before acquiring one.

What does everyone else think? Would something like this be worthwhile or even possible?