Offline Business Ideas. Is Online Business Oversaturated?

[Timmi]

It seems like everybody on Social Media (especially YouTube) wants to start an agency, web design business or become an YouTuber. Gurus are making millions on those courses our their coaching programs because they understood the pain of all those desperate wantrepreneurs, which I would categorize myself into.

Everyone wants to travel the world, be location independent and make a shit ton of money while doing a fun thing that has an easy barrier of entry.

Which of you really makes an sustainable income (10.000$ Cashflow per month or more consistently) with those kind of businesses?

I recently bought a Webdesign Course and while I was doing research there is so much competition it is crazy. It is the same with everything you can start online and which is promoted by all those gurus. Personally I have never met a single person who bought a course or coaching program and then became a successful entrepreneur. Do you think it is a fake world or are there people out there who make real money without selling an online program?

I mean when you look around businesses like: pest control, hvac, cleaning business it seems like there is 0 competition. Only old guys with outdated websites, 2 Google Reviews and no marketing at all.

So if you need to choose, with which of those opportunities would you go?

Online or Offline?

 

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[perchboy]

It seems like everybody on Social Media (especially YouTube) wants to start an agency, web design business or become an YouTuber. Gurus are making millions on those courses our their coaching programs because they understood the pain of all those desperate wantrepreneurs, which I would categorize myself into.

Everyone wants to travel the world, be location independent and make a shit ton of money while doing a fun thing that has an easy barrier of entry.

Which of you really makes an sustainable income (10.000$ Cashflow per month or more consistently) with those kind of businesses?

I recently bought a Webdesign Course and while I was doing research there is so much competition it is crazy. It is the same with everything you can start online and which is promoted by all those gurus. Personally I have never met a single person who bought a course or coaching program and then became a successful entrepreneur. Do you think it is a fake world or are there people out there who make real money without selling an online program?

I mean when you look around businesses like: pest control, hvac, cleaning business it seems like there is 0 competition. Only old guys with outdated websites, 2 Google Reviews and no marketing at all.

So if you need to choose, with which of those opportunities would you go?

Online or Offline?

Offline service businesses are so easy to make quick cash. Demand is high and competition is shit.

General online business that gurus talk about have all the sexy benefits but it’s much harder to start. Competition is crazy since you’re competing with the whole world.

Source: kid who did web design for 3 months and made $0 then did car detailing for 3 months and made $7000

 

[Timmi]

Offline service businesses are so easy to make quick cash. Demand is high and competition is shit.

General online business that gurus talk about have all the sexy benefits but it’s much harder to start. Competition is crazy since you’re competing with the whole world.

Source: kid who did web design for 3 months and made $0 then did car detailing for 3 months and made $7000

Thank you so much for sharing! Do you had any experience in this Field before?

 

[Abrahamadesanya]

I really hope this thread will blow up. I'm at a crossroad, I am receiving my 12-months savings next month, and I needs ideas on what to put it into to have more cash flow.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

Offline businesses are easier to start. Local competition for most services are usually not that great and it's easy to out-market your competitors. Flyers, a few FB ads and you'll have your first clients. Or go knock on doors. If you're starting out, it's probably easier to do something local, even if it's offering online services to local businesses. There are people on the forum washing cars, washing windows, mowing lawns doing all sorts.

The less sexy the job, the easier it'll be to make money with it offline.

Online businesses are harder to start, especially if you copy everyone else. There's a learning curve with learning software and making different services work together. Everyone is chasing the same stupid things. But online is still profitable and has the possibility of scaling incredibly quickly if you get it right. If you can create something people want, selling online is super easy. But to create something people want, you need to develop expertise in some field and stop listening to gurus and what everyone else is doing. The biggest problem people face selling online is selling something they want people to buy, rather than selling something people want to buy.

It all comes down to creating value vs money chasing.

 

[Timmi]

Offline businesses are easier to start. Local competition for most services are usually not that great and it's easy to out-market your competitors. Flyers, a few FB ads and you'll have your first clients. Or go knock on doors. If you're starting out, it's probably easier to do something local, even if it's offering online services to local businesses. There are people on the forum washing cars, washing windows, mowing lawns doing all sorts.

The less sexy the job, the easier it'll be to make money with it offline.

Online businesses are harder to start, especially if you copy everyone else. There's a learning curve with learning software and making different services work together. Everyone is chasing the same stupid things. But online is still profitable and has the possibility of scaling incredibly quickly if you get it right. If you can create something people want, selling online is super easy. But to create something people want, you need to develop expertise in some field and stop listening to gurus and what everyone else is doing. The biggest problem people face selling online is selling something they want people to buy, rather than selling something people want to buy.

It all comes down to creating value vs money chasing.

How can you find something people want to buy?

 

[Subsonic]

It seems like everybody on Social Media (especially YouTube) wants to start an agency, web design business or become an YouTuber. Gurus are making millions on those courses our their coaching programs because they understood the pain of all those desperate wantrepreneurs, which I would categorize myself into.

Everyone wants to travel the world, be location independent and make a shit ton of money while doing a fun thing that has an easy barrier of entry.

Which of you really makes an sustainable income (10.000$ Cashflow per month or more consistently) with those kind of businesses?

I recently bought a Webdesign Course and while I was doing research there is so much competition it is crazy. It is the same with everything you can start online and which is promoted by all those gurus. Personally I have never met a single person who bought a course or coaching program and then became a successful entrepreneur. Do you think it is a fake world or are there people out there who make real money without selling an online program?

I mean when you look around businesses like: pest control, hvac, cleaning business it seems like there is 0 competition. Only old guys with outdated websites, 2 Google Reviews and no marketing at all.

So if you need to choose, with which of those opportunities would you go?

Online or Offline?

Online businesses are not saturated.

Doing the same thing as everyone else is. I am doing offline businesses because I see better opportunities and less competition there. If you see a chance to help someone online, by all means, do that.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

How can you find something people want to buy?

Develop expertise in some field, figure out how to help people in that field in a different way/better way than is currently being done.

 

[Ing]

Get into completion of brick and mortar business bankrupts!
Not easy to start, but lucrative, if you can manage.

 

[Timmi]

Get into completion of brick and mortar business bankrupts!
Not easy to start, but lucrative, if you can manage.

Actually I sell to those companies and do the work beside the installation. The commission is insane! But if you own such a company yourself you can make millions. But this requires extreme commitment and a lot of knowledge. Are you in brick and mortar business?

 

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[Filippos]

One of the best answers I heard about this question (online business being saturated or not) is this:

Markets are not saturated, offers are.

If you think about it, if I was a business owner and I would receive thousands of e-mails and LinkedIn messages trying to sell me digital marketing or any other digital services, I would feel really frustrated, thinking that I hate those sleezy people writing me all the time.

Everyone offers the same thing: "Can I do this or that for you, random business owner on my scrapped list?". The trick is to have a better offer, such as: "I´m doing a research on what businesses are struggling with in XYZ industry. What are you struggling with at the moment?"

So I would think that both offline and online businesses are equally good to start, as long as you are different than the competition. Different doesn´t mean necessarily better, it means having a different offer.

I´m currently trying to start my fastlane business on the side of my 9-5 job, so I´m no expert, but this was a valuable insight for me.

 

[svekk1]

One of the best answers I heard about this question (online business being saturated or not) is this:

Markets are not saturated, offers are.

If you think about it, if I was a business owner and I would receive thousands of e-mails and LinkedIn messages trying to sell me digital marketing or any other digital services, I would feel really frustrated, thinking that I hate those sleezy people writing me all the time.

Everyone offers the same thing: "Can I do this or that for you, random business owner on my scrapped list?". The trick is to have a better offer, such as: "I´m doing a research on what businesses are struggling with in XYZ industry. What are you struggling with at the moment?"

So I would think that both offline and online businesses are equally good to start, as long as you are different than the competition. Different doesn´t mean necessarily better, it means having a different offer.

I´m currently trying to start my fastlane business on the side of my 9-5 job, so I´m no expert, but this was a valuable insight for me.

Sounds interesting, where did you find this insight? Or did you come up with it yourself? What field do you work in your 9-5? And what are your greatest struggles in your job?

 

[Filippos]

Sounds interesting, where did you find this insight? Or did you come up with it yourself? What field do you work in your 9-5? And what are your greatest struggles in your job?

I heard it on the podcast of a marketing "guru" who is not so sleezy as the rest. His name of Joel Kaplan. I say he is a guru, because he is very present in YouTube about SMMAs, but he seems to have his heart on the right place.

I´m working on a manufacturing company as an engineering manager. My main struggle in my job is that everyone has settled for the old solutions from the 80s. No one wants to invest any time to build any kind of automation. Everything is seen with suspicion. Digitalization, AI, data collection... everything is lightyears away from the current generation of managers (50+ / 60+ engineering managers that have been raised with hand calculations and drawings in paper). There are so many problems that can be solved to increase productivity, revenue and workforce satisfaction, but the people taking the decisions / having the money don´t want to try anything new.

What about you? Do you also have a job and are trying to build a business on the side? What are your greatest struggles at the moment?

 

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[Beijing]

Everyone wants to travel the world, be location independent and make a shit ton of money while doing a fun thing that has an easy barrier of entry.

True.

It seems like everybody on Social Media (especially YouTube) wants to start an agency, web design business or become an YouTuber.

I mean when you look around businesses like: pest control, hvac, cleaning business it seems like there is 0 competition. Only old guys with outdated websites, 2 Google Reviews and no marketing at all.

So if you need to choose, with which of those opportunities would you go?

Online or Offline?

Your post only references both a small fraction of offline business options and a small fraction of online business options, and therefore, your question is set up to be a false dichotomy.

The available choices are not between starting an HVAC company or a marketing/web design agency.

There are plenty of problems that individuals, businesses, and organizations face that no one has created a valid scalable solution for. In many cases, individuals remain frustrated and businesses are making due with overly complex Excel spreadsheets that solve their problem inefficiently and cost them far more money that they would like to be spending.

I'm one of those many people you mentioned that want to be able to travel the world, work from anywhere and make good money while doing something that they enjoy and care about. However, rather that looking for something location independent with a low barrier of entry early in my career, instead I picked an industry that was interesting to me and spent about 11 years doing mainly location-dependent work (both 9-5 and freelance, depending on what worked best for what I wanted to learn next) until I felt ready to launch a business with a very high barrier to entry selling a product that practically no one would think of. Right now, I'm working on finishing the last steps of developing a digital product that will be marketed, sold, and distributed 100% online for an underserved niche target user audience.

Despite having a product that if successful will allow me to continue to work fully online and travel wherever on a whim my passport can gain me entry, my challenge will be consumer education, not an oversaturated marketplace.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "well, that's fine for you, but I don't want to spend 11 years learning an industry and developing a product before I can start living a fun lifestyle." I couldn't blame you at all for feeling that way, because 11 years ago*, I absolutely agreed with you. So, I explored options for taking what skills I had and finding a job somewhere that would be interesting to live and provide me with some degree of freedom to see the world and got myself hired by an employer in Beijing.

Fast forward over a decade and I've spent over ten years living in China, had the flexibility to spend one or two months at a time working remote periodically from Malaysia, Japan and Hong Kong, traveled to a dozen other countries just to see them, become competent in speaking Mandarin Chinese, and I have a niche professional skillset that has the potential to open all sorts of doors.

Your options are not limited to either starting a pest control business or becoming a Youtuber. There are practically unlimited paths you could follow as you develop your skills and work towards your lifestyle goals.

*Note: If it hadn't been for the risks and unpredictability associated by the COVID era and the fact that I was making good money working 9-5's the past four years, I probably could and would have launched my product after accumulating just 7 years of industry experience. A more driven, organized and efficient person, probably could have had a compelling product ready to launch in just 5 years. It's unlikely that a full decade of industry is experience is necessary for the right person to be able to transition into running a location independent business in a niche where no comparable products exist.

 

[Tulio De Silva]

Empresas offline são mais fáceis de iniciar. A concorrência local pela maioria dos serviços geralmente não é tão boa e é fácil comercializar seus concorrentes. Folhetos, alguns anúncios FB e você terá seus primeiros clientes. Ou vá bater nas portas. Se você está começando, provavelmente é mais fácil fazer algo local, mesmo que esteja oferecendo serviços on-line para empresas locais. Há pessoas no fórum lavando carros, lavando janelas, cortando grama fazendo todo o tipo.

Quanto menos sexy o trabalho, mais fácil será ganhar dinheiro com ele offline.

As empresas on-line são mais difíceis de começar, especialmente se você copiar todos os outros. Há uma curva de aprendizado com o aprendizado de software e a criação de diferentes serviços. Todo mundo está perseguindo as mesmas coisas estúpidas. Mas o online ainda é lucrativo e tem a possibilidade de escalar incrivelmente rápido se você acertar. Se você pode criar algo que as pessoas querem, vender on-line é super fácil. Mas, para criar algo que as pessoas desejam, você precisa desenvolver conhecimentos em algum campo e parar de ouvir gurus e o que todo mundo está fazendo. O maior problema que as pessoas enfrentam na venda on-line é vender algo que desejam que as pessoas comprem, em vez de vender algo que as pessoas querem comprar.

Tudo se resume a criar valor versus busca de dinheiro.

Amigo, eu tenho notado isso há anos, as empresas on-line estão a caminho da saturação, todo mundo quer ser afiliado, inúmeros canais ensinando como ganhar dinheiro com marketing digital dizem apenas que mostram faturamento falso, só falam sobre plr .
A internet em termos de negócios on-line é insana aqui em um país do terceiro mundo (Brasil) e algo surreal de se ver são inúmeros gurus com inúmeros tipos de promessas além dos golpes. Existem exemplos como pablo marçal e thiago finch cobrando preços absurdos em cursos massivos sofridos e iludidos por sermos brasileiros ensinando coisas que trabalharam lá em 2008.

Para você ter uma idéia de como é insano aqui, um guru (thiago finch) simplesmente copiou as coisas dos segredos dos livros da mente milionária e as vendeu por um preço absurdo, e ele criou um primeiro curso, depois o abandonou e fez outro curso sendo uma cópia do primeiro, havia pessoas que até venderam o carro, dividi-o em três cartões de crédito diferentes apenas para ouvir e ver algo óbvio de um guru com a esperança de ser milionário no futuro e o engraçado é que ele fez 100 milhões de reais, outra coisa bizarra era um guru como Pablo Marçal que Ele cobrou 3 mil reais para as pessoas simplesmente escalarem uma montanha para sair de sua zona de conforto. Essas conversas com treinadores, havia pessoas que até morreram por causa disso. sua amplitude na escala da mesma

 

[Guyfieri5]

If you look deeply enough into the market, you will find an abundance of opportunities offline. For instance, you could go into the funeral home business, create a business selling sanitation chemicals to food processing plants, offer flat-top grill cleaning services, specialize in driveway resurfacing, or fabricate niche equipment catering to specific industries, among other things. I can personally vouch for the profitability of many of these avenues as I have friends and acquaintances who have embarked on these paths and have done well. The funeral home business thing made a family friend a sh&$ ton of money.

The market is full hidden gems that often get overshadowed by more glamorous business ideas like setting up a marketing agency or launching a YouTube channel. But in these less-explored territories is plenty of untapped potential and opportunities for innovation. For example, no one in their right mind thinks to go into the funeral business but it is a serious itch that needs scratched and people are paying serious money for funerals. Scratching an itch alone in a business like that could make you wealthy, but going further and innovating in underserved spaces will make you serious money.

The last thing I'll say is that most of your ideas won't work, but you'll get better at finding good ideas over time. Myself and most on this forum who have made it, or in my case, who have finally found a working path, have had to poke around into different things for a while.

Best of luck!

 

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[svekk1]

I heard it on the podcast of a marketing "guru" who is not so sleezy as the rest. His name of Joel Kaplan. I say he is a guru, because he is very present in YouTube about SMMAs, but he seems to have his heart on the right place.

I´m working on a manufacturing company as an engineering manager. My main struggle in my job is that everyone has settled for the old solutions from the 80s. No one wants to invest any time to build any kind of automation. Everything is seen with suspicion. Digitalization, AI, data collection... everything is lightyears away from the current generation of managers (50+ / 60+ engineering managers that have been raised with hand calculations and drawings in paper). There are so many problems that can be solved to increase productivity, revenue and workforce satisfaction, but the people taking the decisions / having the money don´t want to try anything new.

What about you? Do you also have a job and are trying to build a business on the side? What are your greatest struggles at the moment?

I guess the older someone gets, the more reluctant is to change... Evenin business.

Yeah, I'm currently still in a 9-5 office job in data analysis/data collection field. I have some ideas but the biggest obstacle for me is the technical side. I'mdeveloping myself but it's slow.

I'm sure AI will make my job redundant, at least the data collection side pretty soon. That'sthe biggest challange day-to-day as well. Find that 2 facts that are important to us from 70 pages

 

[Filippos]

I guess the older someone gets, the more reluctant is to change... Evenin business.

Yeah, I'm currently still in a 9-5 office job in data analysis/data collection field. I have some ideas but the biggest obstacle for me is the technical side. I'mdeveloping myself but it's slow.

I'm sure AI will make my job redundant, at least the data collection side pretty soon. That'sthe biggest challange day-to-day as well. Find that 2 facts that are important to us from 70 pages

You sound like you have resigned about how valuable your skills are.

If you are working on data analysis and collection, you can do that for SMEs (small and medium sized businesses) helping them organize the systems they are using internally. Think how much time people loose just to prepare an executive report for the CEO about internally processes / projects / business KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) or how much time managers lose to analyze the problems their people have using software like MES (manufacturing execution system), CRM (customer relations management), etc.

And the result of these actions getting done manually are quite honestly extraordinarily shitty... No one has the time to go through internal data, because everyone is doing this on the side of everyday business. As a result, CEOs and managers with little to no understanding of data analytics are limited by half-facts and whatever their direct subordinates tell them (which is usually not the truth, but what they want to hear... manual data analysis is prone to human objectivity and office politics where your subordinates suppress problems to hide any mistakes that could have done)

 

[fridge]

Offline businesses are generally a lot more labor intensive but much easier to get work for. If you have any business sense at all, you can generate 1,000 business leads quick and run a few cold email tests with Woodpecker or Lemlist to see what businesses in your area need the most help with. Some basic ideas: landscaping, window cleaning, asphalt maintenance, pressure washing, line striping, etc, then decide which service to run/offer based off the demand from that.

With Chatgpt, automation tools, and the ability to hire freelancers around the world at a cheap price competing in a local market is a lot easier.

 

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[Ing]

Actually I sell to those companies and do the work beside the installation. The commission is insane! But if you own such a company yourself you can make millions. But this requires extreme commitment and a lot of knowledge. Are you in brick and mortar business?

no. I m too stupid. A friend does, and makes millions a year. I help him from time to time and he led s me some breadcrumbs.

 

[Timmi]

Offline businesses are generally a lot more labor intensive but much easier to get work for. If you have any business sense at all, you can generate 1,000 business leads quick and run a few cold email tests with Woodpecker or Lemlist to see what businesses in your area need the most help with. Some basic ideas: landscaping, window cleaning, asphalt maintenance, pressure washing, line striping, etc, then decide which service to run/offer based off the demand from that.

With Chatgpt, automation tools, and the ability to hire freelancers around the world at a cheap price competing in a local market is a lot easier.

thanks for sharing. I have the same opinion as you but as MJ says: If you can deliver outstanding results it is still possible.

 

[HoneyBadger302]

Honest question - while I see a ton of opportunity for offline business, I don't see very many that could qualify as "Fastlane" - most still require knowledge in that area, need capital, have a limited reach, and mostly turn into selling your time for money. Some may make decent money, but it's still a limited market.

My current business is technically online, but that's just because I've set it up to be remote. Plans are to get to a point of hiring people to do the day to day and move into more management and expansion, but all of that will require a slow-grow time period and bringing in more capital so the ideas can be generated. I'm no coder or computer expert, and it seems like those are about the only way to go fastlane? And it can't be that easy or every SWE out there would be rolling on easy street, not working multiple jobs to get ahead....

Without becoming an expert in every field out there, are there legitimate "fastlane" businesses that don't require being a computer/online expert or tons of capital you can throw at it? Would really like to hear from those who've successfully built and made good money with non-tech businesses without spending 20+ years becoming THE expert in the field...most of what is see here is online from SaaS to web to ecommerce or some variation therein.

 

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[circleme]

Competition is crazy since you’re competing with the whole world.

doing offline businesses because I see better opportunities and less competition there.

I completely agree.

I'm an online guy. Ex-Software-Dev, earned every penny that I've every made in my entire life exclusively through online or digital activities and am I seriously thinking of going the offline route at least twice a week just because of the "less" competition. I don't change my business, but I would be lying if I say I would never think about going offline...

Even if there are many offline businesses, most of the time they suck - big times.

In the online world, you can reverse engineer everything extremely fast. Like in a few hours or even minutes. You see your competitor going ham on Facebook Ads to promote his newest features? Well, you can copy that 1:1 - no problem. Someone is trying out new sales funnel strategies and customers are reviewing the experience with the company since changing the funnel as smooth and pleasant? Well, you can copy that 1:1 - no problem. In an offline-environment, you cannnot do that most of the time. Those things take quite a bit of time AND money. For example: If someone is restructuring his complete offline-store and people like the change a lot and conversions go up by 100%, you can't mimic that change as fast as an competitor compared to an online-business. You have the classic first-mover advantage imho. In the online world, everyone just copies - which I can understand to some point - but that process takes sometimes just a few minutes.

I'm still commited to my shit, even though I think a lot about offline possibilities lately, not gonna lie.