464: Dead Simple Business Ideas That Anyone Can Start With No Money – Family First Friday

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You’re listening to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast, where I teach you how to start a business or side hustle from the perspective of a father with two kids. And welcome to a new segment of the show, which I’m calling Family First Fridays in honor of my book, The Family First Entrepreneur. And I want to start this episode by saying that I’m officially a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. It feels great. And what was magical about this entire experience was that I found out that my book hit the bestseller list during the closing keynote of my conference, The Seller Summit.

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which allowed me to announce it on stage in front of everyone at the event. It was an amazing moment that I will never forget. In addition, my partner Tony got everyone to sign a copy of my book, which is a gift that I will treasure forever. Now, some of you might find this story funny. When I told my mom that I hit the best seller list, she didn’t say congrats. She didn’t say good job. The first question that came out of that woman’s mouth was, what number did you hit? And then I had to tell her that I hit number seven.

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And at that point, it was a little anti-climatic. But she did finally say good job, though in the back of my mind, she was probably wondering why I didn’t hit number one. Anyway, the first half of The Family First Entrepreneur is about finding your next side hustle. And one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone comes up to me and says, hey Steve, I can’t think of anything to sell to make money. Or Steve, I don’t have any money to start a business. Or Steve, everything’s already saturated out there. So in this episode today,

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I’m going to whip off some online business ideas that anyone can start this year without any money at all. And these are all businesses that you can start from the comfort of your own home with little or no upfront investment. You just got to be willing to put in the work and good things will happen. Now the first online business idea is actually a problem that I experience every day, finding good podcast guests. So why not start an online podcast matchmaking service? Now, according to podcast report,

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the number of podcast listeners reached 464 million this year with over 5 million podcasts total. And many of these shows, including my own podcast here, are constantly on the lookout for new guests. In addition, there are many people out there who have written books or want to develop an online presence who are itching to be featured on podcasts as well. And all you’d have to do is collect a list of podcasts and ask them if they need someone to help them find guests for free.

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And then once you have a portfolio of podcasts, you can then pitch authors, researchers, anyone, and have them pay you to get them on podcasts. And in reality, you don’t even need the permission from the podcast host. Just gather a list of podcasts and find shows for your clients. It’s a very straightforward business model that only requires people skills. And one of my friends, Jessica Rhodes, started a similar business over at Interview Connections and grew it to six figures within a year.

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Now the next online business idea that you can start for free is a digital course business. Now just in case you guys aren’t aware, did you know that you can teach people something cool and make money at the same time? Well you can. By creating an online class about something you know really well, you can share your knowledge with people all over the world. Plus, you can become your own boss. Now a lot of people want to learn new things, and the money they spend on online classes is growing every single year.

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In fact, the e-learning market is expected to surpass $375 billion by 2026. If you make your own class, you can help others learn and save for your future at the same time. Now you might not think that you’re qualified to teach an online course, but the key thing to realize is that you just have to be expert enough. As long as you know more than the person you are teaching, that is good enough. For example, I teach an online class on e-commerce, which has over 5,000 members and has made me almost $10 million.

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Would I consider myself the foremost expert on e-commerce? Not really. In fact, what I teach is only good until a store hits about 10 million in revenue. Any store that makes more than that is unlikely to benefit as much from my class. But the vast majority of my clients would be happy to make a million or even 100K. And there many online course platforms out there that will host your online course for free, like Teachable. In fact, there are a ton of course platforms out there that will handle all of the heavy lifting for you.

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and all you got to do is provide the content. And the best place to find clients is by looking in local Facebook groups. For example, I teach e-commerce, so you’ll sometimes find me hanging out in e-commerce Facebook groups, answering questions, and developing myself as an authority. It just takes some time, and once again, it’s all about people skills. Now, this next online business idea is e-commerce. And the beauty of e-commerce is that it doesn’t necessarily have to cost you any money to start. Now, earlier on in a prior episode,

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I outlined 12 e-commerce platforms that allow you to sell your products for free. So there’s no excuse really not to get started. Now the number one question that most people have is where and how to source your products for sale. And if you have no money, then you can start with drop shipping. Drop shipping is where you take orders, but your supplier is responsible for storing and shipping the order to the end customer. And if you are interested in this business model, then there’s a bunch of videos on my YouTube channel that will teach you exactly how to get started.

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and how to find the best dropshipping suppliers. Now I’m going to be upfront and tell you that dropshipping probably won’t make you life-changing money because the margins are low, but it’ll be a nice stepping stone towards a more lucrative online business. All you got to do is start out dropshipping, find out what sells, and then private label your winners to keep more of the profit. You can also start a print-on-demand store. A print-on-demand business is where you create your own designs that can be printed on t-shirts, mugs, hoodies, you name it. You create the design,

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sell the merchandise, and the print-on-demand company prints and fulfills your order. And the best part is that you don’t even need to be an artist these days. With AI programs like Mid Journey and Dali, you can have a computer create the design for you based on your inputs. Now, this next business model is something that I just thought of from my last trip to Japan. And while I was there, there were all these cool foods that could not be found in the United States. And now that I’m back, I actually really miss some of the cool snacks that I ate over there. So here’s an idea.

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Why not start a subscription box service that ships curated snacks from all over the world? And the best part is that you can expense all of your vacations and save on taxes at the same time. Also, once someone signs up for a box, they become a consistent paying customer. There are many services out there that can help you create and sell your own subscription box. For example, CreateJoy is a marketplace for subscription box entrepreneurs, and they’ll help you spread the word about your business. Another dead simple online business model,

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is to create specialized content for e-commerce companies. Now have you ever seen ads online where a person is using a product and just gushing about it in a testimonial video? Well, I hate to burst your bubble here, but most of these people in those ads are hired content creators that are paid to create these testimonials. In fact, many video testimonials that you see online, especially in ads, are fake. Think about it this way. What are the chances of finding someone good-looking and eloquent on camera?

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who happens to purchase a product and makes a professional video about it? Very unlikely. If you were good on camera, there are literally tens of thousands of companies looking for people to create testimonial-like content for their products. And the best part is that you don’t even need an audience. All you gotta do is film yourself pitching the product, and that’s it. This video does not go on your own channel. It goes on the company’s ads and social media. I actually have one friend who makes a living making these videos for skincare companies.

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Now this next online business model is dead simple to start, especially if you love shopping on Amazon. Now did you know that you can make money by creating videos reviewing the products that you find on Amazon? Here’s how it works. All you gotta do is buy a product that you would normally buy on Amazon. Then you take your phone and film a video review of that product you just bought and upload it to Amazon. If anyone watches your video review and buys that product, you get a cut of the sale. Now the cut is pretty small.

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and around 4%, but you get that cut off of the customer’s entire shopping cart at the time of checkout. Now, in order to start this business model, you must first apply to the Amazon Influencer program. Then, once you’re accepted, you can go shopping. And the key is to find popular products that do not have many video reviews at all. That way, if you create a video review, there’s a high probability that your video will be displayed in the Amazon product listing itself. And if you can get your review on there, you’ll start making money on autopilot

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because Amazon gets millions of visitors per day. By the way, I actually filmed a YouTube video about this, and if you just do a search on my channel, you’ll find it. The next online business model I’m gonna talk about is great if you have people skills. Now, if you are skilled in a particular area, then you can provide personalized coaching and mentorship in many fields like personal finance and entrepreneurship. This past year, my daughter just entered high school, and since I’m Asian, it’s very important that she go to a good college.

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But most kids don’t get into the best colleges by accident. It takes planning. As a result, we’re looking to hire a college admissions coach to help advise us through the process. And there’s literally a personal coach that you can hire for practically anything that you can think of. The other day, my buddy destroyed me in Super Mario Kart and talked so much trash that I looked up Mario Kart coaches and I actually found a coach online. I don’t know if I’m gonna hire this guy, but you get the point. There’s a coach for anything. So I’ll repeat this again.

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If you are skilled in a particular subject, then offer to provide personalized coaching. List your skills on places like Fiverr, Upwork, or even Craigslist, and I can almost guarantee you that you’ll find some clients. The more obscure the skill, the better. Now this next online business model is one that I recently played around with, and it has to do with selling activity books online. Those of you with kids probably know that it can sometimes be difficult to keep your kids occupied if you want to have a nice quiet dinner at a restaurant. And what we used to do,

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When my kids were younger, was bringing activity books everywhere we went. Trust me, there’s a huge market for these types of books and various niches. And the best part is that you can literally create these types of books in about an hour with software like BookBolt. BookBolt has built-in templates that automatically build you word scrambles, word finds, crossword puzzles, sudoku, you name it. And then you create an attractive cover, find an underserved niche, and then list your activity books on Amazon KDP. For example,

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I was looking for a Chinese New Year activity book several months ago and discovered that these types of books sell super well on Amazon. And the best part is that you don’t even need to be artistic. If you want to create a coloring book, for example, you can simply have mid journey or your favorite AI drawing tool, create coloring book images on the fly. Now this next online business idea is one that I accidentally stumbled upon three years ago. The year was 2020. And you all know that I run an annual e-commerce conference called the Seller Summit. Anyway, because of COVID,

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I had to cancel the live event and move everything over to a virtual event in the span of just three short weeks. And it was extremely stressful to say the least because I knew nothing about throwing virtual events. I knew nothing about the software, nada. Now, if there only was a virtual event planning agency available at that time, I would have hired them. And these days running virtual events is in very high demand and you can easily create a business that helps organize these conferences. Everything from the planning,

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the arrangement of the speakers, the email sequences can be taken care of by your company. Now this next business model is a no brainer and extremely easy to do and can make you up to six figures just for being able to speak English. All you got to do is tutor foreigners in English. And the reason this idea came to me, and this has been around for a long time, is because one of my friends’ ended up making over 100K by tutoring Chinese kids in English over Zoom. Before video conferencing, you had to be physically present to do this?

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but not anymore. In fact, language tutoring online has become the norm. Now this method of teaching goes way beyond language tutoring as well. I have friends who are taking virtual piano lessons, virtual singing lessons, you name it. I even gave my tennis coach the idea of providing virtual tennis lessons for $99 a month over at tpatennis.com. And today he makes thousands of dollars every single month without having to set foot on a tennis court.

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Now in this day and age, there are no geographical boundaries for practically anything, and you can reach billions of people all over the world with your skills. There is literally no excuse for not starting an online side hustle today. So I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you ever see me live at a conference or something, never tell me that you can’t think of a business idea. Never tell me that you need a lot of money to start a business. And if you use some of these ideas here, I’m sure if you sat down and just brainstormed for a little bit,

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you can come up with a bunch of ideas on your own.