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How to finally start your first business in 2026

2025-02-25 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 20:52 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Business and entrepreneurship · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: His own numbers, Sponsor segment present

Answering a community poll on what stops people starting a business, Ali debunks five myths: you need a good idea, time on a failed business is wasted, you need money, you must go all in, and your first business must give you everything; he holds that your first three businesses will probably fail and teach you the skills.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The community-tab poll on what stops people starting a business; Ali's ten years in online business

00:01:01 — Myth 1: you need a good idea to start a business

  • ★★ Ali says videos, courses, business school and a corporate job do not teach the nuts and bolts of building a business; you learn by trying to make one work. — 00:01:31
  • ★★ James Altucher (quoted): Entrepreneur James Altucher advises that if you cannot come up with 10 business ideas, you should come up with 20 instead. — 00:02:01
  • ★★ To lower the bar for a business idea, Ali suggests making yourself come up with 50 business ideas in 10 minutes, however bad they are. — 00:02:30

00:02:59 — The sponsored business planning template: who, problem, where to find 10 customers, testing if someone will pay

  • ★★ Ali's business idea template asks who the business is for, what problem it solves, and where you will find 10 target customers who might pay for it. — 00:03:28
  • ★★★ Using the now-not-how prompts from Noah Kagan's Million Dollar Weekend, Ali advises asking the fastest way to test whether someone will pay and the simplest version you can test, such as messaging 10 friends on WhatsApp to ask if they would pay $1. — 00:03:58 · Noah Kagan
  • ★★ Ali says there is something magical about getting a first paying customer, and a common mistake is trying to make too much money right at the beginning of a business. — 00:03:58
  • ★★ For a new business Ali suggests the crystal ball method: imagine it is three months from now, name the top three reasons the business did not go to plan, and act against each risk. — 00:04:27
  • ★★★ Ali frames a business idea as "people struggle with a problem; my idea is to help them by…", starting with the who: a big mistake is focusing on the what or the how. — 00:04:56 · person, problem, solution
  • ★ Ali's first example business idea is a freelance video editing service. — 00:05:25
  • ★★★ Ali calls it a myth that time spent on a business that fails is time wasted. — 00:07:05

00:07:18 — Myth 2: time spent on a business that fails is time wasted

  • ★★ Ali thinks school teaches us to aim for certainty. — 00:08:04
  • ★★ Unless you are a doctor with guaranteed employment, Ali argues that as AI disrupts many jobs, starting your own business often gives more financial security than relying on an employer. — 00:09:02
  • ★★ Many people who want to start businesses but are afraid, Ali says, overestimate the financial security they need. — 00:09:31
  • ★★ Ali says his first six businesses failed before he built a successful one, and he needed those failures to learn the ropes; they were not wasted time. — 00:10:00

00:10:39 — Myth 3: you need to spend money to start your first business

  • ★★ People think a business needs investment, Ali says, because they picture product businesses like those pitched on Dragons' Den or Shark Tank, rather than service businesses, which need no investment. — 00:10:59
  • ★★★ In Ali's opinion and that of many entrepreneurs he speaks to, your first business should be a service business, selling your time and skills, not a product business. — 00:11:28
  • ★★ At around 16 or 17 Ali offered private GCSE tutoring to parents in his local area, advertising on the website UK Tutors; it cost him no money to start. — 00:12:46
  • ★★★ You do not need money to start your first business, Ali says; he recommends that your first couple of businesses need no startup capital. — 00:13:43
  • ★★ Waiting until you have two years of living expenses saved before starting a business is fear, Ali says, disguised as a practical concern about money. — 00:13:43

00:13:57 — Myth 4: you need to go all in to start your first business

  • ★★★ For a first business, Ali does not recommend quitting your job: run it on the side as a side hustle for 20 minutes or half an hour a day. — 00:14:27
  • ★★ To work on a side business with a corporate job, Ali suggests waking 20 minutes early, taking a shorter lunch break, or putting in two hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings before the family is awake. — 00:14:27

  • ★★★ The point of your first business is to learn, not to earn, Ali says: since the first three businesses will probably fail, get the failures under your belt quickly. — 00:14:56

    “to learn, not to earn”

  • ★★★ Against the myth that your first business must give you everything, Ali says he has met almost no entrepreneur who succeeded with their first business. — 00:15:25 · time freedom

00:15:31 — Myth 5: your first business needs to give you everything; Ali's failed businesses

  • ★★ After a couple of businesses, Ali says, making money decorrelated from your time is the first major unlock: freedom from the nine to five and the corporate job. — 00:16:07
  • ★★★ Ali's first business was freelance web design at about 13; next a pyramid multi-level marketing website at 14 or 15; then private tutoring making about $100 a week. — 00:17:05
  • ★★ When he got into medical school, Ali built a business helping other people get into medical school, which worked reasonably well. — 00:17:34 · 6med
  • ★★ Ali tried building an app in 2017, and it completely flopped. — 00:17:34
  • ★★ While at school Ali also tried a business on an online forum helping teenagers learn lock picking and martial arts, which completely flopped. — 00:17:34
  • ★★★ Ali's one message: if you have wanted to start a business but have not, your bar is too high, and you should lower it. — 00:18:03
  • ★★ When starting a YouTube channel, Ali says the rule that your first 50 videos will be terrible helps, since making them teaches you the skills of video making. — 00:18:03

00:18:10 — Lower the bar: ideas are a dime a dozen, business is a game of being comfortable with uncertainty

  • ★★ Ideas are a dime a dozen, Ali says: many people had the idea for Uber; what stops a business is execution, held back by never having done it before. — 00:18:48
  • ★★ Ali calls business a game of being comfortable with uncertainty and discomfort. — 00:19:46

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: bias to action

Also: People: Alex Hormozi · James Altucher · Noah Kagan

Works: $100M Leads · Dragons' Den · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Million Dollar Weekend · Shark Tank

Organizations: 6med · Reddit · Uber · UK Tutors

Concepts: crystal ball method · GPS: goal, plan, system · lifestyle business · Now, Not How challenge · person, problem, solution · quarterly quest · reframing failure · time freedom · unfair advantage

Products: Cut and Paste

Also centred on bias to action: If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This · 7 Life Lessons I Know at 30 But Wish I Knew at 20 · How to Actually Make Money Online in 2026 - Case Study

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