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The Easiest Business to Start in 2026 for Beginners

2025-12-05 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 20:16 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Business and entrepreneurship · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His own products discussed, Sponsor segment present, AI

Ali's recipe for a beginner's first business on easy mode: sell something for $2,000 to $20,000 to few customers rather than cheap things in volume, start with a done-for-you service rather than a product or online course, and solve a painful, tangible problem for people or businesses with money.

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 easiest business for a beginner aiming at financial freedom; Freedom Fridays

00:00:55 — The price and people equation: $100,000 from one buyer or from 100,000; the $2,000 to $20,000 zone

  • ★★★ Ali's simple equation for making money has two variables: the number of customers buying your stuff and the price point of your stuff. — 00:00:55 · the $2,000 offer rule
  • ★★ Starting a business is a much nicer way for most people to reach financial freedom than following a normal, traditional career and getting a job, Ali says. — 00:00:55 · work optional
  • ★★ Ali shows that $100,000 can come from one sale at $100,000, ten at $10,000, a hundred at $1,000 and so on down to 100,000 sales at $1: people multiplied by price. — 00:01:47
  • ★★ As a business beginner Ali believed he should sell cheap things for $1, $10 or $100 in large numbers because that was easier; he now says that could not have been further from the truth. — 00:02:09
  • ★★★ To make $100,000 it is way easier to sell 10 copies of something at $10,000 than 10,000 copies at $10, Ali says: volume is way harder than price. — 00:03:07 · the $2,000 offer rule
  • ★★ Starting a business that sells cheap things in high volume is playing business on hard mode, Ali says, with much lower chances of success, especially for a beginner. — 00:04:01 · business on easy mode
  • ★★★ Ali says a beginner's business should ideally sell at a price point between $2,000 and $20,000, because the hard part is getting the customer, not charging them a lot. — 00:04:30 · the $2,000 offer rule
  • ★★ Students of Ali's Lifestyle Business Academy often feel they have no skills worth $2,000; Ali and his team coach them to find something they can sell for at least $2,000. — 00:05:00

00:05:29 — Sponsor read for Trading 212

00:06:57 — Per year, subscriptions and one-off packages; business ideas heard in Hong Kong on hard mode and easy mode

  • ★★ For a business making $100,000 a year, Ali says, the "per year" comes either from the price, such as a $10,000 yearly subscription to 10 customers, or from volume, such as 100 new buyers a year of a $1,000 course. — 00:06:57
  • ★★ Beginners need not worry about subscriptions, Ali says: start by working out a one-off package you could sell for $2,000 to $20,000 and turn it into a subscription later. — 00:07:22
  • ★★ Over the last couple of weeks Ali has done a couple of events in Hong Kong and stayed for hours afterwards talking to people about their business ideas, which led to this video. — 00:08:07 · Hong Kong
  • ★★ For the most part, Ali says, the business ideas people bring him are playing business on hard mode. — 00:08:32 · business on easy mode
  • ★★ A woman in Hong Kong wanted to start an accessibly priced modest-fashion brand for women who run; Ali calls it hard mode because it sells cheap items that need a ton of volume. — 00:08:32 · Hong Kong, business on easy mode
  • ★★ A Lifestyle Business Academy student's idea of a $20-a-month self-improvement membership is hard mode, Ali says, because anything sold for $20 a month needs a ton of volume to be viable. — 00:09:14 · business on easy mode
  • ★★ A beginner is probably not famous on the internet, Ali says, so finding the volume of customers a cheap product needs will be really hard. — 00:09:43
  • ★★ Elias and Haya (as heard), a married couple in Ali's academy, sell accountancy practices in London a service that speeds up onboarding new clients: boring, Ali says, but easy mode, as they know accountants' problems and accountants pay well to save money. — 00:10:12 · business on easy mode, London

00:10:40 — The service to product spectrum: done for you, done with you, do it yourself

  • ★★★ Ali's second principle: service businesses are much easier to start than product businesses. — 00:10:40
  • ★★ Ali calls it a cognitive bias that people picturing a business think of companies that sell products, such as Apple, Starbucks or Sony. — 00:11:21 · Apple
  • ★★ Product businesses are really hard to start, Ali says, because products are generally cheap, so you have to go for big volumes, and volume is hard. — 00:11:48
  • ★★ Ali thinks most of the GDP of developed economies such as the UK and Hong Kong comes from services such as financial, legal and accounting services. (hedged) — 00:11:48 · Hong Kong
  • ★★ In a service business you do something for your client, Ali says, while in a product business you make something that does something. — 00:12:17
  • ★★ The only reason people buy anything, Ali says, is that they want a problem solved or a job done. — 00:12:42
  • ★★ The owner of a doner kebab shop is very unlikely to become financially free from it, Ali says, unless he expands to several locations with a team, because he is playing the volume game. — 00:12:42
  • ★★★ Ali's service to product spectrum: done for you, where you do the work and as a beginner can charge the most; done with you, such as coaching with one-on-one support; and, more scalable, do it yourself, such as a course or an app. — 00:13:15
  • ★★★ For a beginner seeking financial freedom, Ali fully recommends starting with a done-for-you service, at a stretch done-with-you coaching or consulting, and not selling an online course, which falls into hard-mode prices. — 00:14:24
  • ★★★ Ali does not think online courses will be around much longer: with AI slop, anyone wanting to learn something just asks ChatGPT, and the bar for free content keeps rising. — 00:14:24 · ChatGPT
  • ★★ Elias and Haya (as heard) can charge accounting practices $8,000 to speed up their onboarding, Ali says, because they do the work for them. — 00:15:02
  • ★★ Ali thinks business is moving more and more towards high-end, high-touch services in which you do a lot of the work for your clients. — 00:15:02
  • ★★ Sold as an online course, the same onboarding know-how might fetch about $80 from accounting practices, Ali says, and they would never use it, because businesses are busy. (hedged) — 00:15:31
  • ★★ If you can do the work for clients and promise them the outcome without their doing any work, Ali says, you can charge way higher prices. — 00:15:31

00:16:11 — How to find your niche and offer: a painful, tangible problem for someone rich

  • ★★ Finding a niche, Ali says, means working out who the person is and what problem they have, because people pay money to solve problems; your business is the bridge. — 00:16:11 · person, problem, solution
  • ★★★ To play business on easy mode, Ali says, sell to someone rich or to a business with lots of money: charging them $2,000 to $20,000 is much easier than selling to people without money. — 00:16:11 · business on easy mode
  • ★★ Ideally the problem is very painful, Ali says, since the more painful it is the more motivated people are to solve it, and positioning your business as its solution makes it much easier to sell. — 00:16:56
  • ★★★ In a dream world, Ali says, the problem you solve helps the client make or save money; such services are the easiest to sell because they give a direct, tangible return on investment. — 00:17:25

  • ★★★ Ali's formula for playing business on easy mode: a done-for-you service business priced between $2,000 and $20,000 that solves a painful problem for a rich person, ideally helping them make or save money. — 00:18:00 · business on easy mode, the $2,000 offer rule

    “a service done for you business between two and 20K that solves a painful problem for a rich person”

  • ★★ Life coaching, mindset coaching or helping professionals overcome imposter syndrome are harder businesses to start, Ali says, because imposter syndrome is not a tangible problem. — 00:18:24 · imposter syndrome

  • ★★★ Ali advises tying an intangible transformation to a tangible outcome, such as curing imposter syndrome so that professionals get a raise or a promotion: then charging $2,000 to $20,000 becomes much easier. — 00:18:49 · imposter syndrome
  • ★★ People generally do not want to buy internal transformations, Ali says, but external results that are measurable and obvious to others; an internal transformation is hard to sell for a lot of money. — 00:19:38
  • ★ Ali guarantees that the four books of his video on becoming financially free teach the principles of this video and help you find the business to start. — 00:19:38

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: business on easy mode · service to product spectrum · the $2,000 offer rule

Also: Projects: Freedom Fridays · Lifestyle Business Academy

Organizations: Apple · Shopify · Sony · Starbucks

Concepts: imposter syndrome · lifestyle business · person, problem, solution · time freedom · work optional

Places: Hong Kong · London

Products: ChatGPT

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