MBA2539 5 Businesses I Would Start in 2024

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: MBA2539 - 5 Businesses I Would Start in 2024 Hosted by Omar Zenhom
Release Date: October 28, 2024

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In the latest episode of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom delves into five innovative and low-cost business ideas poised for success in 2024. Drawing from over two decades of entrepreneurial experience, Omar presents actionable strategies tailored for aspiring entrepreneurs with minimal resources. This comprehensive summary captures the essence of each business idea, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for deeper insights.

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1. Creator Marketing Services Business

Timestamp: [01:08]

Omar kicks off the episode by addressing the booming creator economy, highlighting the exponential growth in content demand. He emphasizes that while creators excel in producing content, they often lack expertise in editing, posting, and marketing their material.

“Creators need help. There's a huge market for services that can handle all this backend stuff like editing videos and audio.” – Omar Zenhom [03:45]

Key Insights:

• Niche Focus: Specializing allows businesses to offer tailored services that meet the specific needs of creators, enhancing value and client retention.
• Cost-Efficient Model: Minimal startup costs since services can be offered on a project or subscription basis, often with clients paying upfront.
• Scalability: Entrepreneurs can begin by managing tasks themselves and scaling by hiring as the client base grows.

Conclusion: By providing comprehensive marketing support, entrepreneurs can empower creators to focus on their strengths, fostering a symbiotic relationship that drives mutual growth.

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2. Group Accelerator Programs with Specific Results

Timestamp: [06:22]

Next, Omar introduces the concept of group accelerator programs, which blend coaching and accountability to help participants achieve defined milestones within set timeframes.

“People are willing to invest in programs with a clear, tangible result.” – Omar Zenhom [07:15]

Key Insights:

• Targeted Outcomes: Programs should promise and facilitate specific achievements, such as reaching a certain number of subscribers or mastering a particular skill.
• Scalable Structure: Group settings allow for economies of scale, enabling the coach to mentor multiple participants simultaneously without proportional increases in effort.
• Community Building: Creating a supportive network fosters accountability and enhances the overall effectiveness of the program.

Conclusion: Group accelerator programs offer a structured pathway for individuals to achieve significant milestones, making them an attractive proposition for both coaches and participants.

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3. SaaS Reseller or Affiliate

Timestamp: [08:50]

Omar explores the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, specifically focusing on becoming a reseller or affiliate. This approach leverages existing software platforms to generate recurring revenue without the overhead of developing proprietary software.

“You don't need to create the whole software; you just need to promote one that you really believe in.” – Omar Zenhom [09:30]

Key Insights:

• Low Startup Costs: Affiliates can start with minimal investment, focusing resources on marketing and content creation.
• Recurring Income: SaaS models typically involve subscription-based payments, ensuring steady cash flow.
• Leveraging Established Brands: Partnering with reputable SaaS products enhances credibility and eases the marketing process.

Example Highlight: Omar cites Thomas Frank, who successfully built a business around the Notion software by creating extensive tutorials and resources, thereby generating affiliate income and developing complementary products.

Conclusion: The SaaS reseller or affiliate model is ideal for entrepreneurs seeking a low-risk entry into the software industry, capitalizing on established products to build their own revenue streams.

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4. In-Person High-Value Events and Retreats

Timestamp: [10:15]

Recognizing the growing appetite for in-person experiences post-pandemic, Omar advocates for organizing high-value events and retreats centered around specific activities like skiing, surfing, or yoga.

“People want human connection again. And this is what's great about this concept—there's a huge opportunity to create networking or mastermind events.” – Omar Zenhom [10:45]

Key Insights:

• Growing Demand: With global tourism on the rise, there's an increased desire for meaningful, immersive experiences.
• Minimal Upfront Costs: Entrepreneurs can start by selling tickets without immediate overhead, allowing for flexibility in event planning.
• Repeatability: Successful events can be scaled and repeated, fostering a loyal community and consistent revenue.

Example Highlight: Omar shares his own experience with OSCON, an event focused on skiing and snowboarding in Australia, which successfully brought together entrepreneurs for networking, learning, and recreation.

Conclusion: Hosting specialized events and retreats taps into the current trend of experiential spending, offering significant value to participants while providing a scalable business opportunity.

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5. MicroAI SaaS Business

Timestamp: [12:18]

Concluding the list, Omar introduces the MicroAI SaaS model, which involves creating small, AI-driven software solutions that address specific problems. This approach leverages advancements in artificial intelligence to deliver high-impact tools without extensive development resources.

“AI is just at the beginning of its powers right now, and it's going to shape a lot of what business is going to look like in the future.” – Omar Zenhom [13:05]

Key Insights:

• Niche Solutions: Developing AI tools for specific applications, such as podcast monitoring or content repurposing, ensures a targeted market and higher adoption rates.
• Ease of Development: Utilizing existing AI models like ChatGPT allows entrepreneurs to create sophisticated applications without starting from scratch.
• High Value Proposition: AI tools can significantly enhance productivity, making them highly desirable for businesses seeking efficiency.

Example Highlights:

1. Podscan FM: An AI tool that detects brand mentions in podcasts, simplifying the monitoring process and providing valuable insights.
2. CapShow.com: Facilitates content repurposing by transforming podcast episodes into various formats like show notes, images, and social media snippets.

Conclusion: MicroAI SaaS businesses offer a blend of innovation and practicality, enabling entrepreneurs to harness AI's potential to deliver valuable solutions while maintaining manageable startup costs.

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Final Thoughts and Action Steps

Timestamp: [16:45]

In wrapping up, Omar reiterates the accessibility of these business models, emphasizing that "it's never been easier to start a business with all the tools out there." He encourages listeners to take actionable steps towards launching their ventures by:

• Identifying Interest: Selecting a business idea that resonates personally and aligns with market needs.
• Planning Execution: Setting clear deadlines and actionable steps to move from concept to reality.
• Leveraging Resources: Utilizing available tools and platforms to minimize costs and maximize efficiency.

“Move forward, take action. That's how you'll get closer to your dreams.” – Omar Zenhom [16:55]

Conclusion: Omar's insights provide a roadmap for aspiring entrepreneurs to navigate the initial stages of business development, offering both inspiration and practical advice to turn ideas into successful enterprises.

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Visit 100mba.net for more business lessons and resources.

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This summary captures the key elements and actionable insights from Omar Zenhom's episode on The $100 MBA Show, providing a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to embark on entrepreneurial ventures in 2024.

Transcript

[Omar Zenhom]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Omar Zenhom]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Omar Zenhom]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zenholm and in today's lesson you'll learn about the five businesses I would start in 2024. If you're looking for low startup costs, low overhead, a path to profitability, these business ideas are for you. We're going to dive into each one and I'm going to explore with you why they're not just viable, but a potential game in your world, in your path ahead in 2024 as you start your business. Let's get into it. Did you know that 62% of Americans want to start their own business but most don't because they're afraid of high startup costs? Makes a lot of sense. They don't have a lot of money just slaying around, right? This is from a study from Guidant Financial and one of the things they found is that one of the biggest barriers to entrepreneurship is perceived costs. Feeling like I don't have a lot of money to start a business. I think I need a lot of money to start a business. But don't worry, today I'm going to show you five businesses you in 2024 that won't break the bank and can turn a profit pretty quickly. So let's start with business number one. And I call this a creator marketing service business. Now these businesses I'm going to share with you are pretty specific because the more specific the better. The more niche your business is, the better chance you are going to have for create a great product for them, great service for them so that they can feel compelled. Hey, this is a no brainer. I want to pay for this. I need this in my life, right? So like I mentioned, the first one is a creator market, marketing services business. What is this exactly? Well, the demand of content has skyrocketed, okay? Creators and the creator economy is exploding right now, and they need to create a lot of content. They're under a lot of pressure to produce more content faster than ever before because of all the platforms out there, all the social media out there. They need to pump out a lot of media, a lot of content, a lot of videos, a lot of creatives, a lot of images, a lot of everything, right? But here's the thing. Most creators are great at creating, but they're not necessarily great at editing, posting and marketing that content. I am living proof. I am a content creator. I create a lot of content through this podcast. We publish three days a week. We have videos, we have audios, we have worksheets. We got a whole bunch of things going on around this podcast. Just this podcast, right? And in order for me to be able to promote this podcast properly, I need a team to help me out. And this is why I use a service like the one I'm recommending you create, right? And basically all I need to focus on is creating the content. And then I give them all the content, all the videos, all the media that I create, and then they edit it for me, they post it for me, they make sure it gets out in the world and pushes my podcast. Here's the bottom line. Creators need help. There's a huge market for services that can handle all this backend stuff like editing videos and audio. It's very time consuming. By the way, scheduling posts. One of the things I hated doing is posting on social. Remembering a post or even scheduling it, it's really time, right? And I gotta remember, and if I don't remember, I fall behind. It's just a headache. And I'm glad that somebody else is doing this for me right now, managing social media accounts, making sure that things are looking polished, that things are looking good. They're setting things up so your brand is represented properly. This is where you come in as this new business owner who's creating this service to these creators, you're going to help them save money, time, effort, and they can create more content if they have somebody helping them produce it. Now, the thing is, is that creators, they have no choice, need to create. So this is a really in demand service. Something that if somebody is a creator and doing this for a living, and this is how they pay their rent and pay their mortgage and feed their family. They're going to need your help, okay? And they know that they can't level up. They can't get to that next level of creating so much content and being omnipresent around the Internet if they don't have a team around them. And this is where you come in. And this is what's so great about this, is because it's not going to cost you much to get started. Imagine offering a package where you handle all the creators post production work, freeing them time to focus on the things they do best, like creating their content. The value is really immense for the creator and you are able to demand a pretty good price for this service because you're taking away some of the heavy lifting for them. So you can do packages and offer this to multiple creators and you don't need to actually have any upfront capital to do this because once you get the customer and they pay you upfront like a month in advance, you can then start to either either hire some people to do this for you, help you do this and create an agency, or you can do all this work yourself at the beginning and then document all your procedures and then hire people to do it for you. This is a very easy model to produce because you don't have to spend any money until you have a customer. Business number two, creating a group accelerator program with specific results. This essentially is a group coaching and accountability program focusing on achieving a specific outcome. Let's say you're a YouTube expert and you have grown different YouTube channels in the past. Well, you create an accelerator program and invite people to join it to hit a certain milestone or goal. Let's say, for example, the milestone is hitting a hundred thousand subscribers. Now this is really, really impactful and really appealing to people because you are promising or you're helping them get to a certain stage or a certain level in a certain period of time. Let's say a hundred thousand subscribers in a year. This is really good because people can see the in this and are willing to pay. People are willing to invest in programs with a clear, tangible result. If you have expertise in a niche or an area, you can guide a group of people to achieve this goal. The beauty of this model is that it's scalable. Whether you have 10 people in the accelerator or a hundred, the work involved is roughly the same. And what's great about this is that the more you do this, the more results you get. The more testimonials you have, the more popular this program becomes. You can run a program where the participants meet weekly or monthly, whatever you might think is appropriate, that you can set goals, they can share progress, you can cheer them on, you can hold them accountable. And this is really what helps people move forward. By the way, many of these businesses or ideas that I'm sharing with you today, I'm doing myself in my own business at the $100 RMBA. So I know this stuff works. The third business I would start is a SaaS reseller or affiliate. SaaS stands for software as a service. And this is a chance for you to get into the game of software and reoccurring billing, which gives you steady income. This is reason why SaaS businesses are so valuable is because of that reoccurring income. So how do you do this? Well, this combines the benefits of being a content creator and the potential revenue, like I mentioned, of the SaaS business. You don't need to create a whole software, you just need to promote one that you really believe in. So why this is a great idea? Well, like I mentioned, you have to create a whole software which is really costly, especially if it's a. Software does many things, but becoming an expert of a particular SaaS product, you can really become like the spokesperson, the unofficial spokesperson and promote it. You can create content around it, you can sell templates, you can sell courses and services around this product. And it really allows you to really benefit from the reputation this product already has and all the marketing they're doing for their product around the web, around the Internet. The startup cost of this is really minimal because you have all this potential of reoccurring revenue, but all you gotta do is create the content around it. If you want a good example of this type of business, then I would check out Thomas Frank on YouTube. Thomas Frank has created a whole brand and business around the software Notion. He has created a crazy amount of videos and tutorials around this product and therefore people click on the links and he gets an affiliate commission from Notion. But more importantly, he's created a lot of his own products, templates, guides, courses on how to use notion and how to be an expert. And he's built this incredible business around this successful SaaS product. So check out Thomas Frank on YouTube if you want to see what I'm talking about. Business number four in person high value events and retreats. People are craving in person experiences more than ever and people are craving travel more than ever. It's at an all time high. According to a report by the World Tourism Organization, global tourism is expected to continue to grow. It's higher than ever right now, but it's expected to continue to grow as people seek meaningful offline experiences. Okay, people want human connection again. And this is what's great about this concept, about this business. There's a huge opportunity to create networking or mastermind events centered around a certain activity that's fun, like skiing or surfing or hiking or biking or yoga. These events can be immersive. They can be really valuable to people because they get to first learn something, they get to network, they get to have fun in a beautiful location. This is a no brainer. How do I know this? Well, I run an event like this called OSCON around skiing and snowboarding where I gather some really interesting entrepreneurs in Australia. They get to network, they get to meet, they get to learn from each other and have a ton of fun for a group of days, like five or six days. And it's been highly successful. And a lot of people love this concept because they get a chance to take a break from whatever they're doing and they get to focus on building relationships, learning and having a bit of fun. Who doesn't like that? Okay, so this is a no brainer business because it doesn't cost you anything to get started. You can start selling tickets without any overhead costs. And then once you have interest, once you have sold some tickets and you have some money, you can then say, okay, I'm going to pull the trigger and do this event. I have enough interest, I have enough attendees. And you can start booking things like hotels, you can book venues, you can start planning out your whole business around a whole event around it. And you don't have to do this once a year. You can do this once a quarter or even every month if you have enough interest.

[Omar Zenhom]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.

[Omar Zenhom]

Roger, wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started [e-mail] results. Terms and conditions apply.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Business number five, a MicroAI SaaS business. Like I mentioned, SaaS is software. As a. I'm really bullish on AI. I think AI is just at the beginning of its powers right now, and it's going to shape a lot of what business is going to look like in the future. Now, when I say a micro AI SaaS, this involves creating a small but focused software product that leverages AI to solve a specific problem. Now, you don't need to create this huge product, this huge business. This could be something that you create yourself if you know how to code. If you want to learn how to code or even get AI to help you to code. Right, you can hire somebody to do this for reasonably low cost. Okay. Because there's a lot of models out there. There's ChatGPT, there's all this other stuff out there that allow you to leverage things that have already been created in the AI world and just put an interface on it. So why do I love this business idea so much? Well, it's really transforming the world. And AI in specific uses can save businesses and people hours, if not days of work. Okay, let me give you some examples. There's a product called podscan fm, run by a guy I know and really love his work. His name is Arvid Call. And what does this product do? Well, it's a very niche product, and it's a product that allows you to find out if anybody mentions your brand or business or name or whatever you're searching for on any podcast. So how would you do this manually? It's really hard. You're going to listen to every single podcast around the world? No. So this tool uses AI to figure out if somebody mentioned my name or somebody mentioned my business brand or my product. It's also a way for you to check out what the competitors are doing, how you are mentioning the competitor. The point here is, is it's sort of like Google Alerts, but for podcast mentions in audio format. So it's really a smart idea and a great product for people that have a podcast or in the podcasting world or advertising on podcasts or have a product in the world where people are listening to podcasts. So as you can see, it's something that it's really hard to replicate. It's really hard to kind of do the work. It's going to take hours, if not days to do. And he provides a pretty good software for a Pretty low fee to tap into his use of AI. Love this example. Another example is capshow.com and basically this is an AI tool that allows you to take your content, like your podcast episodes and create other content with that content. So like show notes, like images, like social media snippets, like emails. The point here is, is that in order for you to transcribe all this, to pull out all this information, it's gonna take you hours, if not days. It's gonna take a lot of manpower, not worth it. This tool is very smart and you can create any kind of tool like this that's gonna save people time and money. The beauty of this micro AI business is that you could create a highly valuable product with the potential for an acquisition by a larger company who wants to take your product and kind of infuse it in their whole big business and their whole big product themselves. And there's a lot of people that do this. They build, you know, niche products for three or four years, they build an audience, they have a great product that people love and they sell to a larger company and they do that over and over and over. So there you have it. Those are the five businesses I would start in 2024. Let's recap real quick. OK. Business number one, creating a marketing services business. Business number two, creating a group accelerator program with a specific result. Business number three, okay, a SaaS reseller or affiliate creating content around a product like a SaaS product or email marketing service, whatever it might be. Business number four, in person, high value events and retreats. And business number five, a micro AI SaaS. Thanks for tuning into the hundred dollar MBA show. Hope you found this episode valuable and you've been inspired to take action if you haven't started. A. Yeah, these are some great options for you. It's never been easier to start a business with all the tools out there. And I'm here for you. I got your back. If you ever need any help or you want to ask a question, go ahead and go to our website, 100mba.netq and you can ask a question. We'll answer right here on Q and A Wednesday. We have over 2,500 business lessons free for you to check out over on our website. So go ahead and check it out over at 100mba.net. I'm Omar Zinm and I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, take a step forward. Choo. One of the businesses I just shared with you that kind of pique your interest and see where you want to go with it. What are the first steps? How are you going to get that live? What's the deadline you want to set you for yourself before you launch? Move forward, take action. That's how you'll get closer to your dreams. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.

[Omar Zenhom]

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