What's The Most Profitable Business To Start In 2022? (backed by data)

When you hear a lot of gurus talk about starting a business, they often tell you to start "something you enjoy, something that even if you're not making money off of, you're having fun!" 

This has to be the worst piece of advice I've personally heard.

First of all, let's all be honest with ourselves for a second. We start businesses to ultimately have a better life, right?

Especially if you're clicking on this post.

When I first started my e-commerce business, I really enjoyed it. After I failed miserably, I no longer had the same passion for it.

When I first started forex, the idea was so interesting that I couldn't stop learning or watching YouTuber videos. The mere idea of understanding these markets and how to trade them was motivation to do it but... well that also didn't work out too well.

When I owned the marketing agency, It was interesting and fun at the start. I really thought that this was going to be what will bridge my dreams and reality together. Little did I know, I was getting myself into a CEO role for a sales company because that's what owning an agency pretty much is.

There was two things I really had a passion for (I think). They were:

• Playing video games
• Basketball

Although I wasn't terrible at video games, I had a pretty bad temper and so I'd rage a lot...

I also don't think I would have made it pro anytime soon.

On the other hand, with basketball, I did have a dream to go to the NBA around year 10 and 11 when I was at the ripe age of about 15/16.

After I internalised the fact that since 1998, there was no one who was Spud Webb's height in the NBA, I realised that this dream may be over before it even started.

Just a quick note - I'm NOT Spud Webb's height, I'm quite a bit taller actually.

Now I know, there's people out there making millions, maybe more from gaming online and playing basketball online. For example, Ninja who makes an unthinkable amount from streaming on Twitch.

Or Cashnasty, who is a basketball YouTuber making some pretty good money too.

What if streaming and YouTube isn't for me? What if I don't want to wait a few years to go viral?

The truth behind social media is that not everyone makes it. The people you see, the Ninjas and the MrBeasts, it doesn't happen to everyone.

For every person on social media who looks like they have the exact life you want, there may be a few thousand that are struggling to get views.

For us, we're just screwed, right? 

WRONG.

Opportunity is everywhere.

Although getting rich overnight is not really a thing, there are definitely businesses that can make you rich pretty damn fast.

And if you're smart, if you're truly looking to make a change in both the world and ultimately your life, these are the opportunities you'll be seeking.

So.

What is The Most Profitable Business To Start In 2021? 

The truth is, it really depends. 

Before you go, you'll have your answer soon. 

But this is the cold hard truth. Let me explain...

Let's say someone starts Amazon. Although it might grow to be the biggest company in the world, it's nowhere near as profitable as something like doing YouTube.

What we're looking for here is bottom-line profit. What we take home.

If you're anything like me, you don't want to own the biggest operation in the world, you want to have the necessary requirements to live the life you want (and some).

In pretty much everyone's case, I'll guarantee that this does not mean building the next Amazon.

It could be building something that makes you five figures a month.

Maybe some of you want to make a million per year. Your goal is to only make six figures a month.

Going back to the point... why does it depend?

Why is there not one single business that is the most profitable?

It's not how the world works.

There can be two people who own a KFC branch. These two franchise owners could have completely different profit margins.

Why?

Let's say KFC owner 1 has a KFC branch in Central London. 

The other KFC owner may have a branch in Manchester.

These are two completely different places, where the price for rent wildly varies.

Whilst the KFC owner in Central London may have a business that generates £2,000,000 annually, their overhead maybe around 70% of the revenue generated.

The KFC owner in Manchester may only make £1,000,000 annually. But in Manchester, they have to pay less rent and also less staff expenses and other overhead costs.

This means that their overhead may only be 40% of the business' revenue.

So now, this is how much profit they are both making at the end:

• KFC owner 1 (Central London) - £600,000
• KFC owner 2 (Manchester) - £600,000

Now that we've understood this, I can explain to you what the most profitable Business to Start in 2021 is.

One day, back when my marketing agency was still running but I was on the brink of depression, I was out walking in the neighbourhood listening to a podcast.

On the way back home, I had an idea that hit me.

"Why have I never seen something that summarises books into, I don't know... 10 minutes?"

Immediately after, the podcast host I was listening to mentioned something called 'Blinkist.'

Turned out they did exactly that, summarise books into 15-20+ minute narrations.

So I paid it no thought and I went home.

Day after day, I woke up and the same idea just sat in my mind, it didn't want to leave.

So I did some research on it here and there, I didn't want to spend too much time on it because I was already working on the marketing agency and didn't want to fall victim to shiny object syndrome.

I've managed to stop it in its tracks so far whilst owning a marketing agency, but for some reason, I couldn't help myself this time.

I had to make this idea work, it was such an interesting idea and I wanted to pioneer it.

I promised myself I'd split my time effectively on the agency and the app.

Eventually, I had to stop the marketing agency because I realised it's not something I wanted to do, especially not in the meantime.

So I set out to make the app work.

After doing research into Blinkist, I realised that they had 20 million members. At £10/month, that would mean they're making £200,000,000 per month from summarising books. 

Although not all their users are active, it still meant that they had 20 million people sign up to this service previously.

So I sat down, and planned out a strategy.

I had the pitch deck ready and the name is... 'Condensr!'

I reached out to developers and we started to build out the wireframe.

I was hesitant, I've never spent $2000 before but it was something I had to do if I was to succeed.

Shortly after the payment was made, my paranoia led me to discover the lean startup methodology by Eric Ries.

He preaches a lot about shipping to market as soon as possible and getting user feedback to constantly iterate your product.

This is when I started doing customer discovery interviews. 

Again, I was scared and annoyed because something I hated doing (cold messaging) in the agency was also something I had to do once again.

I realised business is always a matter of sales, there's only one 'business' that can be started by anyone which doesn't require customers or sales.

After the wireframe was built, I spent the next month talking to customers. I spoke to 25.

Within this time period, I was also putting out my business on many different sites, learning, creating the landing page and also applying to accelerators.

Although I didn't get into any accelerators (yet), I was able to meet some great people.

Through my applications, actively engaging and talking to new people, I was able to get some interest from investors.

Every interview I did, I discovered either something new and interesting, or I was told that my business was very similar to X, Y and Z which could be very demoralising.

After all the interviews were done, I took a very short break from Condensr and decided to look into other businesses because I was losing faith in Condesnr.

I didn't think it would be worth building because of the vast amount of competition and the free alternatives out there such as YouTube, podcasts and websites online.

Eventually, I decided to listen to Eric Ries and not give up too early. 

We're now currently building out the MVP and will be shipping it out to early adopters and testers to really grasp if the business is worth pursuing.

Being a non-techincal founder, it's very hard and expensive to get into the tech world.

Every mistake can cost you either months or a lot of money.

This is why I was so glad to discover 'Bubble.io' a no-code platform which is where I've built the MVP (minimum viable product).

Back to the point - so what's the most profitable business to start in 2021? 

My answer? 

Take your pick.

Like I mentioned earlier, there is no single most profitable business.

Whilst one e-commerce store can have 50% profit margins, another could have more or less.

It all depends on the people behind the business.

In my opinion, this is what a perfect, profitable business looks like:

• A market size of at least 25,000,000 people
• A tech-based digital product or service that is A MUST for people to operate their day-to-day lives
• Something that can be charged on a monthly basis - at least £100/month or more

Although my current business - Condensr - is does not match this criterion perfectly, it does have a market size of almost 600,000,000 people.

With this simple formula, you only need to get 0.003% of the market to have a million-dollar business.

With this simple formula, you only need 0.35% of the market to have a 100 million-dollar business (per year).

This is why I believe there is no single business, but a whole industry out there for people to explore.

Technology is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.

Think of cars.

Before the first car in 1886, horses were the biggest form of transport for over 5000 years.

Within less than 200 years, we've now been able to create self-driving cars, even flying cars.

We have robots who are almost as intelligent as humans.

Imagine what the next 200 years could look like.

The current US market for tech is $1.6 TRILLION.

There is enough room in this space for tens of thousands of business to thrive.

Finally, we can answer 'What's The Most Profitable Business To Start In 2021?'

The question should be 'What's The Most Profitable Industry To Get Into In 2021?' 

The answer is technology.

Do you agree? What industry is your current business in?

Till next time,

Mohamad