Types of Online Businesses

In today’s day & age of hustle culture, social media, and gurus who can do everything flawlessly, let’s dive into the different types of online businesses people are having success with.

1. Service Businesses

2. Product Businesses

3. Content Businesses

1) Service Businesses
Services are referring to tasks you do for individuals (B2C; or business to consumer) or other business (B2B; or business to business).

Pros:

• Inexperienced people can trade their time for work (get results, then sell that result to other businesses facing similar issues that you helped solve)

• The perfect gateway into creating your own product (get paid to learn and upskill into a specific skillset)

Cons:

• Time-intensive (it takes a lot of time & energy to go form 0-1)

• High failure rate (most people quit before they ever earn a dollar)

• Inconsistent income

• Only get paid for time spent (AKA no passive income until you branch out)

• No stability

2) Product Businesses
This can refer to physical products like apparel, or it can be info-products like that $997 course from that guru in his garage on youtube.

Pros:

• Earns money passively (people can purchase your product even when you’re asleep)

• If you’re experienced in a given niche, you can build products that bridge gaps within that particular system and indoctrinate others who face similar problems

• Broad appeal: one could create an info-product to teach someone how to do virtually any service, or create improvements in any of the 3 evergreen niches (health, wealth & relationships)

Cons:

• Requires big upfront investment (AKA longer runway to profitability)

• Requires comprehensive experience; usually from years of honing your skills within an established organization

• Most products are highly commoditized and compete on branding (celebrity-led or celebrity-backed brands will always beat the competition without a existing audience by virtue of pre-existing audiences given the rising costs associated with acquiring new customers)

• High failure rate

3) Content Businesses
This can be any type of content ranging from short-form videos, video essays, podcasts, streaming, newsletters, etc.

Pros:

• No barrier to entry

• Gateway to various income streams (ads, sponsors, parlaying the content into your own product, etc)

• Opportunity to conduct deeper explorations around your interests/passions (if you’re fortunate to have passion for something)

• Connecting with like-minded people (AKA using the internet for good!)

• Forces you to upskill your ability to communicate & present ideas

Cons:

• High competition. Endless content on almost any subject means you really need to hone in on a specific angle from which you can provide value

• Generally requires lots of work & grinding before any money happens

• Most creators quit before they ever earn a dollar

• You are the business. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but if your interests and priorities evolve, you might face some emotional turmoil which will invariably be handcuffed by your ability to produce income

Ok, so those are the main types of online businesses. I won’t pretend like I know which one is best to start with because I think it depends on the individual and their level of understanding in a given space. However, it seems like content is the backbone of attention and that if you create content that attracts an audience, your ability to start & scale a service or product-based business would probably increase a lot.