Online Business Ideas: The MFM Playbook for Digital Wealth
Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot—a company worth 90,000 per month from Google AdSense alone. No employees. No venture capital. No product launches. Just a weekend project that prints money while the billionaire sleeps.
The observation is uncomfortable for anyone who believes wealth requires suffering. On My First Million, Sam Parr and Shaan Puri have spent years cataloging businesses like this—digital operations that generate outsized returns with minimal overhead. The pattern that emerges is counterintuitive: the most successful online businesses often look nothing like what ambitious people imagine when they picture entrepreneurship.
What Are Online Business Ideas?
The category is broader than it appears. An online business is not merely a website or an app. It is any enterprise where the primary value creation and delivery occurs through digital channels—newsletters that reach millions of inboxes, content that builds audiences who then buy products, AI tools that replace human labor, or simple games that capture attention and monetize through advertising.
What distinguishes online businesses from their offline counterparts is leverage. A single person can reach a global audience with zero marginal cost per customer. The economics invert the traditional relationship between effort and output.
Sam Parr built The Hustle to 75 million in revenue and sold a majority stake at age 25. Both businesses started with nothing more than an email list and a willingness to write daily. The entry cost was effectively zero. The ceiling was practically unlimited.
The asymmetry explains why the category attracts so much attention on the podcast. The downside is bounded. The upside is not.
The Newsletter Model: Media Without the Media Company
The economics of newsletter businesses have surprised even their founders. Austin Rief described the early days of Morning Brew with a detail that reveals the scrappiness required:
“I was literally going to every lecture hall at the University of Michigan, going up to the professor before class, and saying hey, I’m a student here, I have a new newsletter, can I have two minutes after class ends to collect emails?”
The tactic sounds almost embarrassingly simple. Walk into a room. Ask permission. Collect email addresses on a clipboard. But those early subscribers became the foundation of a $75 million business.
The underlying insight is that newsletters can be far larger than most people assume. Horizontal newsletters—those covering broad topics like business news—can grow to ten times the size of vertical newsletters focused on narrow niches. The Hustle and Morning Brew both proved that a well-written daily email could compete with established publications that had been operating for decades.
The monetization follows a similar pattern. Ad sales work differently than most people expect. Sam Parr noted that the salespeople at The Hustle earned 10 to 15 percent commission and sold 80 to 90 percent of available ad inventory. The model works because the audience quality matters more than the audience quantity. Advertisers pay premium rates to reach engaged readers who actually open their emails.
One framework that recurs across newsletter discussions is what Sam calls “IQ arbitrage”—hiring smart people from non-traditional backgrounds who are undervalued by the market. A brilliant writer without an Ivy League degree costs less than their output is worth. The gap creates margin.
Creator to Commerce: Building Audiences into Businesses
The transformation from content creator to business owner follows a predictable arc, though the specific products vary wildly.
Kevin Espiritu started Epic Gardening as a blog that earned 45 million annually by selling seeds, soil, and raised garden beds. The content validated the product ideas before any inventory was purchased. When a video about tomatoes went viral, Kevin knew exactly what product to develop next.
Doug DeMuro reviewed cars on YouTube for years before launching Cars and Bids, a marketplace for enthusiast vehicles. The platform has now facilitated $450 million in sales. Billy from Slow Ventures, who invests in creators, observed what makes these creators durable: viewers feel like they are watching a version of themselves. The woodworker seems just like other woodworkers. The gardener seems just like other gardeners. The relatability builds trust that transfers to product recommendations.
The pattern repeats across improbable categories:
- Jonathan Katz-Moses built a woodworking YouTube channel, then launched KM Tools—now doing 2 million in investment from Slow Ventures
- Jocko Willink parlayed a podcast about discipline and leadership into Jocko Fuel, an energy drink brand generating $100 million per year
- The Hacksmith raised $7 million on Kickstarter in a single week for a multi-tool, leveraging 15 million YouTube subscribers
- Tonster, fired from Sherwin-Williams for making paint-mixing videos on company time, now has 2.3 million TikTok followers and his own paint brand
Billy articulated the underlying principle plainly: if you are going to spend five years building an audience, build them into something you can transact with. Kevin sells raised beds. Doug sells cars. Jonathan sells tools. The detailer sells chemicals. The pattern is obvious once you see it.
AI Businesses: Software That Does the Work
The shift happening now differs from previous technology waves. Sarah Guo, an AI investor at Conviction, framed it as the transition from Software 2.0 to Software 3.0—moving from tools that help you do work to tools that do the work for you.
The implications for online business are significant. Character AI has 310 million monthly users interacting with AI companions. HeyGen generates 50 million ARR in its first year as an AI writing assistant.
The opportunity that Sarah identified as most immediate is voice agents for small businesses. Every dentist office in America has a receptionist who picks up the phone and books appointments. The voice quality and latency are now good enough that AI can handle this task. The same applies to restaurants, salons, and any service business that schedules appointments by phone.
A more subversive approach comes from what Sam Parr calls “AI as Go-to-Market.” Traditional agencies sell promises—hire us and we will improve your marketing. AI enables a different model: do the work first, then sell the finished product. The pitch becomes simpler. The problem is already solved. Pay to turn it on.
The business structure can be startlingly lean. One podcast discussion explored agencies operating with zero employees—AI handles the creative work, automation handles the delivery, and the founder handles sales.
Side Projects and Passive Income
The Wordplay story is not unique. The podcast has documented multiple instances of simple projects generating significant passive income through mechanisms that seem almost too basic to work.
Dharmesh Shah’s 48-hour build works because of a viral loop. The game includes a challenge feature that lets players prove their intelligence by sharing their scores. Each share brings new players. The cycle sustains itself without ongoing effort.
A separate case involves a soap opera blog that sold for $10 million. The topic seems absurd until you consider the audience: passionate fans of a niche entertainment category, returning daily for updates. The traffic supported advertising. The advertising supported an acquisition.
The common thread is that these projects target activities people already do obsessively. Word games. Soap opera discussions. The creator simply builds a better venue for existing behavior.
The Framework: Choosing Your Path
Several mental models recur across episodes when the hosts evaluate online business opportunities.
Bottom of Funnel Monetization: Every successful creator business ends with a transaction. Content without commerce is a hobby. The question is not whether you can build an audience but whether you can build an audience for something they will buy.
Content as Market Research: Viral content reveals demand before you invest in inventory. Kevin Espiritu at Epic Gardening does not guess which products to develop. The audience tells him through their engagement.
IQ Arbitrage: Talent is mispriced. Smart people from non-elite backgrounds, from non-traditional industries, or from countries with lower wage expectations can deliver exceptional work at below-market rates. The gap is the margin.
Team and Theme: Billy from Slow Ventures evaluates creator investments on two dimensions. Is the founder someone you would back regardless of the business? Is the market large enough to support a significant outcome? Both conditions must be true.
FAQ: Online Business Questions Answered
What are the most profitable online businesses?
Newsletter businesses at scale—Morning Brew (20M at exit)—demonstrate the ceiling for media operations. Creator-to-commerce businesses show even higher potential: Epic Gardening (100M), Cars and Bids (50M ARR in their first year. The common factor is not the category but the leverage—reaching millions at near-zero marginal cost.
How much does it cost to start an online business?
The range spans from effectively nothing to millions. Dharmesh Shah built a $90K/month side project in a weekend. Austin Rief started Morning Brew with email signups collected in college lecture halls. Newsletter and content businesses can launch with no capital beyond time. AI businesses may require more investment in tooling. The barrier is usually not money but skill and persistence.
What is the fastest path to $10K per month online?
Productized services appear consistently in podcast discussions. Take a skill—marketing, design, writing, AI implementation—package it as a fixed-price offering with defined scope, and sell to businesses with high customer lifetime value. Senior living facilities and personal injury attorneys are mentioned as categories with marketing arbitrage. The key is trading time for money initially, then systematizing delivery.
Should I build an audience before launching a product?
The evidence strongly supports content-first approaches. Kevin Espiritu validated product ideas through viral content before investing in inventory. Doug DeMuro built millions of subscribers before launching his marketplace. The audience reduces risk. Products launched to existing audiences have higher success rates than products seeking audiences after launch.
Are AI businesses the future of online entrepreneurship?
The opportunity is real but the landscape shifts rapidly. Sarah Guo observes that AI companion apps already serve 310 million monthly users. Voice agents for SMBs represent immediate opportunity. However, the underlying models improve so quickly that today’s moat may disappear tomorrow. The businesses most likely to succeed are those solving real problems for specific customers, not those building generic AI wrappers.
Sources & Episodes
- How to build a $100M+ newsletter business — Austin Rief on Morning Brew, lecture hall email collection, horizontal vs. vertical newsletters
- How to build a $100M+ newsletter business — The Hustle story, ad sales economics, IQ arbitrage
- Year With Weird Hobbies — Creator to commerce case studies, bottom of funnel framework, Slow Ventures approach
- [[episodes/he_turned_a_300mo_gardening_si|He Turned A 45 Million/Year | Kevin Espiritu Interview]] — Kevin Espiritu, Epic Gardening, content as market research
- Month Side Hustle In 48 Hours | ft. Dharmesh Shah — Dharmesh Shah, Wordplay.com, viral mechanics
- 10 AI Business Ideas From The Queen of AI ft. Sarah Guo — Sarah Guo, Software 3.0, voice agents, companion apps
- How to Scale a Profitable Agency with 0 Employees (Using AI Agents) — AI as Go-to-Market, zero-employee agencies
- Month In Passive Income — Productized services, niche content sites
Related: Sam Parr | Shaan Puri | Morning Brew | The Hustle | Epic Gardening | Creator Economy | Newsletter Business | AI Business | Productized Services | Dharmesh Shah | Sarah Guo | Kevin Espiritu | Austin Rief