5 $1M+ startup ideas you can launch tomorrow with $0

You're going to get some actionable business ideas that you can start right away, no matter where you are in your career. These ideas range from creating YouTube channels to leveraging AI-generated content, all with the potential for significant income and growth.

If you have 100,000 subscribers, especially in B2B, at worst case it's worth, call it a dollar; at best case, it's worth $10. If it's worth $10, that's a million-dollar asset that you're sitting on. There's your real estate.

Canva YouTube Channel as a Lead Generation Funnel

One actionable business idea is to create a YouTube channel focused on Canva tutorials. This can serve as a lead generation funnel for an agency, especially if you hire offshore talent for unlimited design services. Publish daily videos showing how to do specific tasks on Canva, targeting high-search-volume keywords.

This approach builds a relationship with viewers and naturally leads to inbound client requests. The YouTube channel itself can generate ad revenue, and you can build a newsletter to further monetize the audience. The business model is scalable, potentially growing into a million-dollar company with multiple revenue streams from ad revenue, client services, and newsletter ads.

Monetizing Through Affiliate Marketing and SaaS Products

Publishing daily Canva tutorial videos can lead to a high-margin agency, but affiliate marketing is another lucrative avenue. SaaS products often offer 10-50% of monthly recurring revenue. Including affiliate links in your video descriptions can turn into a steady revenue stream. For instance, Adobe has one of the most effective affiliate programs, heavily investing in short-form creators.

Print-on-demand creators are a prime example, making up to $500k a year through a combination of courses, affiliate marketing, and YouTube ad revenue. Interestingly, they often earn more from affiliate marketing than from ad revenue or course sales.

Creating Complementary Software for Canva

Identifying limitations within Canva can lead to new business opportunities. For example, Canva's captioning features are lacking, presenting a chance to develop captioning software. This software could integrate with existing tools like Whisper API for transcription. Building such an app not only addresses a market need but also leverages an existing audience and newsletter for distribution. Partnerships can further amplify this effort, offering a collaborative path to market entry.

The Resurgence of Long-Form Video Sales Letters

Long-form video sales letters are making a strong comeback. These extended videos, often running for an hour or more, are proving highly effective in selling high-ticket items. For instance, Ean Gazi's hour-and-a-half-long video successfully sells a $5K online agency course. The key is to make the content unfiltered and raw, which resonates well with the audience.

AI-Generated Type Beats: A New Frontier

Type beats, especially in the hip-hop and rap space, are a lucrative market. These are beats that mimic the style of popular artists like Kendrick Lamar. AI models now make it easier than ever to generate thousands of type beats quickly and efficiently.

The business model involves posting these beats on YouTube, where they generate ad and streaming revenue. Producers can then link back to their marketplace in the video description, offering licensing or purchase options. Groups like Internet Money have already capitalized on this, making significant money by producing beats for artists like Juice WRLD.

Leasing type beats can be incredibly profitable, with the best producers making up to $60,000 a month. Leases typically range from $15 to $150. YouTube's algorithm often ranks instrumentals higher in search results, leading to more views and sales. Producers also earn streaming revenue from their YouTube channels, which can have substantial subscriber bases.

Modern music production, especially in hip-hop, has evolved significantly. Artists now often "punch in" their verses, recording in short segments without writing anything down. This method, popularized by Jay-Z and later adopted by Lil Wayne, has become the norm.

The type beat market can be likened to digital real estate, offering a more stable and lucrative alternative to traditional investments. It eliminates the need for mortgages and the financial pitfalls associated with physical properties.

Digital Influencers: The Future of Brand Representation

Brands are likely to start creating and owning digital influencers to mitigate the risks associated with real-life celebrities. Digital influencers, created using AI and stable diffusion, can represent various body types and personas without the risk of real-life scandals. These digital personas can interact, create drama, and generate buzz around the brand, much like real influencers.

This approach is not only cheaper but also safer. Additionally, these digital influencers can be considered assets, much like a YouTube channel or an email list, contributing to the brand's overall value.

Creating a digital influencer involves using generative AI technologies like stable diffusion and the Flux model. These tools can generate a person or license someone's likeness to create a digital persona. This persona can then live out a crafted narrative, complete with lore and backstory.

Brands can build communities around these digital personas, similar to how fandoms discuss the lore of their favorite franchises. Digital influencers can even have their own YouTube channels, sharing content and promoting products in a consistent, on-brand manner.

AI-generated influencers are becoming a significant trend. For instance, Atana Lopez, an AI-created by an art collective in Barcelona, sold $20,000 worth of content in just 24 hours. This phenomenon highlights how people are engaging with digital personas without realizing they are not real.

Young people today face a unique challenge, navigating a world where AI-generated influencers and virtual relationships are becoming the norm. Platforms like Candy AI offer virtual girlfriends who can even send nudes, complicating the dating landscape for the younger generation.

Corporations are likely to adopt AI influencers as well. Imagine a Fortune 500 company having a spokesperson who never ages, always stays on brand, and avoids scandals. This owned media asset could be invaluable, providing consistent and reliable representation for decades.

AI-Powered Email Template Generator

An AI-powered email HTML generator could simplify the creation of email templates. The idea is to have a user interface where you prompt the AI, which then writes the code and visualizes the email in real-time. This tool could save time and resources, making it easier for businesses to create professional emails without extensive programming knowledge.

The strategy involves creating listicle-style blog posts and running Google ads on specific keywords like "email HTML generator." This approach targets users at the bottom of the funnel, aiming for conversions through signups.

To build initial organic links, submit the tool to AI directories to gain domain authority. The estimated cost to develop this tool is between $3,000 and $5,000, with a development timeline of 3-4 weeks. A recommended developer is HTMLburger.com, known for their efficient and cost-effective work.

The tool would feature a simple UI, API calls, a signup flow, and a Stripe connection for payments. The monetization model would be pay-to-play, with no free tier. A pro tier could allow users to bring their own API key for a one-time payment of $249.

For marketing, posting on Hacker News with strategic timing could help the tool go viral. With this approach, it's possible to reach $5K in monthly revenue within a week.

Newsletters for Short-Form Creators

Short-form creators, especially in the B2B space, often struggle to make substantial money. One solution is to build newsletters targeting their specific audience. The process involves the creator recording a 30-minute video discussing recent insights and data. This video is transcribed and turned into an email newsletter, mimicking the creator's voice and vocabulary.

Using Beehive Boost can kickstart revenue for newsletters, allowing them to self-fund growth. Imagine having 50 newsletters in different niches. You can sell ads to industries related to each niche. For instance, a newsletter focused on growth organizations could target heads of growth and customer experience.

A single newsletter can potentially make $20K a month. With 100 newsletters, that's around $2 million monthly. Aggregating these newsletters allows for larger media buys, where companies purchase ad slots across multiple newsletters for extended periods.

Subscriber lists are valuable assets. A list with 100,000 subscribers can be worth between $100,000 and $1 million, depending on the industry. This provides an exit strategy for creators, who can sell their lists after a year of work, earning significant returns for minimal effort. The profit-sharing model ensures that both the creators and the operators benefit.

One approach to building newsletters involves leveraging existing public content from creators. By scraping this content, you can create and grow an email newsletter without the creator's initial involvement. Once the newsletter reaches a substantial subscriber base, you can offer it to the creator as a ready-made asset or even sell it independently.

Introducing Landing C

For e-commerce companies with extensive SKUs, there's a new player in the SEO game: Landing C. This company specializes in AI-powered programmatic SEO, creating thousands of collection pages to drive traffic and improve search engine rankings. Currently working with Shopify and soon expanding to WordPress, Landing C offers impressive results for its clients, functioning as an SEO agency that scales content creation.

Community Service and Knowledge Sharing

The importance of community service and sharing knowledge is emphasized. The speaker reflects on their journey, highlighting how online resources, even those with low production quality, were crucial in their early career. Today, they aim to give back by providing high-quality, accessible information to help the next generation of entrepreneurs. This commitment to community service is seen as a way to enrich the ecosystem and support others in their entrepreneurial endeavors.

Conclusion

The conversation emphasizes the potential of leveraging digital platforms and tools to create profitable ventures, encouraging listeners to explore innovative business models and capitalize on emerging trends.