Best Online Business Ideas To Start In 2026 Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 It seems like nowadays, there are so many different online businesses to try, but which ones are actually worth it? Well, in today's video, I'm going to share the seven online businesses that have actually worked for me over the years of trying so many of these, and I'm even going to show you guys how to do them. As usual, I will explain everything here on camera, but then I'll take it one step further and show you real examples of all of these on screen recording.

00:19 What's going to make this video so helpful is that for almost all of these business ideas, I have full step-by-step tutorials on my YouTube channel totally for free. There are no courses to buy, I have absolutely nothing to sell you. I just wanna share pure value of all the things that I've learned over the years of doing this. Now in a second, I'll switch you over to the computer and we will get straight into this, but I do have to say just a quick disclaimer before we get started.

00:38 What this is is that what I'm about to share with you in this video has been my experience and my opinions on all of these things. There are no guarantees that just because you do what I have done, you are going to make the same amount of money that I have. I just wanna make sure that we are all going into this on the same page knowing that none of these are get rich quick schemes.

00:54 Now with all that being said, let's go ahead and get straight into this video. All right, so getting straight into this, let's get started with the first online business idea. So switching over to the computer, this is called Kindle Direct Publishing, and this is actually directly through Amazon. So essentially what Kindle Direct Publishing is is you can create and sell books on Amazon, and we're not talking about novels or full-fledged textbooks, we're talking about low and medium-content books.

01:15 Now if you haven't heard of these low and medium-content books, I'll show you some real Amazon KDP book examples here. This first one is a lined notebook, it just has a funny cover on the front, it actually has no cover on the back, and it's just filled with lined pages inside. That would be an example of a low-content book. Now another example of a low-content book is this password log book.

01:32 So again, it has the front cover here, the back cover here, and then each page inside here is identical, but it's just going to be a layout where you can keep track of your passwords. Now beyond low-content books, there are medium-content books. These would be two examples here. These are themed word search books. So this is a camping themed word search book and a Christmas themed word search book.

01:48 Again, it is a front cover design here, back cover design here, and it's actually word search puzzles inside, and all of these are themed about camping. Now the reason that these are called medium-content books instead of low-content books like we were showing before is because these don't have the same page template on every page, there are actually unique things on each page.

02:05 So with all of that being said, those are the types of books that we're talking about creating for Amazon KDP. Now to show you how this actually works, you can basically go to Amazon KDP's homepage right here and you can click on Join KDP. This is 100% free to do. You don't have to pay to join Amazon KDP, there are no ongoing fees to be a part of KDP either.

02:22 You can do this from anywhere in the world, so it's not restricted to just the United States or anything like that. And basically once you fill out this information and create your account, you can then upload books to Amazon KDP. Now like we had just talked about, we are just uploading the front cover design, the back cover design, and then what is going to get printed on each page.

02:37 Those are the only files that we're uploading to Amazon KDP, and then Amazon actually takes those files and creates a virtual listing for us and posts that on the marketplace. So to show you what this looks like, coming over to Amazon, I've typed in camping crossword puzzle books to show you an example of this. If you scroll through here, you are going to see all of these front covers.

02:54 These are basically the virtual listings that Amazon has created for these books. If you're coming in as a customer, you would have no idea that these are just virtual listings and they're not actual books that are printed and held in inventory waiting for someone to order them. So anyways, the idea is that when someone searches for the type of book that you have created and uploaded, hopefully yours will show up in these search results.

03:11 And if someone clicks on your book, let's just use this one for example, it will show them the front cover of your book, the back cover as well. And if they click on Read Sample, they can see just kind of a few pages of your book to get an idea of what that is. And as you can see, these are just all of the puzzles. Now if they like your book and they actually want to purchase it, they can go to Add to Cart, they can purchase that book.

03:29 And this is the cool part of Amazon KDP. When someone orders your book, Amazon receives that order and sends it to their book printing facility, they print one of those books or however many the person has ordered, they ship it out to the customer, and they handle all of the customer service. Now as far as how we make money from this, we basically just get a split of the profit on each one of these books sales.

03:47 So for those of you who want to learn more about Amazon KDP, I'll put a link down in the description below that is the full step-by-step tutorial on how to do this business. For the sake of keeping this video moving along, let's go ahead and get into the next online business. What this online business is is Amazon Merch on Demand. Again, this is directly through Amazon, so we get to take advantage of their marketplace and all the people who are already shopping on Amazon.

04:07 And basically what this is is just like Amazon KDP, but instead of books, this is for t-shirts. So to show you what this one looks like, let's come over to Amazon, and I've typed in funny camping t-shirt. This again is just to give you some ideas on this, but this works the same way. So if you've ever thought of funny t-shirt designs, you can actually create those designs, you can upload them to Amazon, they will create virtual listings.

04:27 And then if someone clicks on one of these listings and they wanna purchase this shirt, they basically just pick what color they want that printed on, they pick what type of shirt they want and what size, and then again, they can just add it right to their cart and they can purchase it. Amazon will receive this order, they will print it in their shirt printing facility, and ship that out to the customer, and again, handle all the customer service for us.

04:47 The same way as Amazon KDP. We are just getting a split of the profit on each one of these sales. So guys, that is two business models right there that are almost the same, but you're using different products. So you're getting in front of different shoppers on Amazon. For both of these, we are literally just creating the designs and getting them posted on Amazon's marketplace.

05:03 Everything else happens for us. Just like the first business model we talked about, I have a full step-by-step tutorial that shows you everything that I do for my Amazon Merch on Demand business, that will be linked in the description as well. Again, it's a free video here on YouTube. All right, so keeping this video moving forward, let's get into the next online business.

05:18 So what this is is called Amazon Associates, and this is another way that we can make money through Amazon's marketplace. Now this is going to be different from Amazon KDP and Amazon Merch on Demand. We are not creating any products that are going to be listed on the marketplace. Rather we are going to recommend existing products that are on Amazon's marketplace.

05:34 So this technically is called affiliate marketing. And to show you how this works, you can basically just come in here and sign up. You will then be able to get unique links to any products on Amazon, and you can share those with people. And when people use your link to actually make a purchase from Amazon, you will get a commission on that sale. The commission rates go up to 10%.

05:52 So if someone orders something for a thousand dollars, you might get a hundred dollars. And that is going to vary depending on the different category of things that you're recommending. Now I have been a part of the Amazon Associates program for many years and I've tried just about all these strategies out there for affiliate marketing. What I can say works the best is creating videos.

06:08 Now, let me show you a couple real examples of this because it is a lot easier than most people think. So coming over to YouTube, just to give you a great example of this, if you type in something like best camping fan, you're going to see all of these videos, and these are Amazon Associates videos. So we could really click on any of these for an example.

06:24 But if we click on this first one here, this is basically just someone on camera giving their review of a specific product. Now the way that this works with Amazon Associates is if you scroll down into the description, you open up this description, there's going to be a link right here. So this is actually through the Home Depot affiliate program, not the Amazon affiliate program, but the concept here is going to remain the same.

06:43 Let me give you one other example. So let's go back to these results. Let's click on another one of these. Let's click on this one right here. This is going to be someone just giving their opinion on this fan, but if you come down into the video description, you click on More, you are going to see all of these Amazon links. So this is the fan that he is talking about, but it is different colors.

06:59 So let's say we want it in black, let's click on this link. This then instantly takes us to Amazon to the specific product that he's talking about in that video, but I'm now on his Amazon Associates link. What that means is that if I add this to my cart and purchase it right now, he is going to get a commission on that sale. Now what's even cooler about this is that since I clicked his link to come over to Amazon, anything that I buy in the next 24 hours, he is still going to get a commission on.

07:22 So let's say that I close out of this window, I go make dinner, I come back later, I open up my computer again and I just go buy some new shoes or something that I needed to buy on Amazon anyways. Since it is still within that 24 hour window since I clicked his link, he will get a commission on whatever I purchase. These are called secondary sales, and it's basically when you referred someone to one product and they ended up buying a different product, you are still going to get a commission as long as that happens

07:42 within 24 hours. So anyways, that's Amazon Associates. And the overall idea here is that you create YouTube videos reviewing specific products that you already own from Amazon, and then you use your unique Amazon Associates link down in the description so that people can click on that link and then you will get a commission on whether they purchase that product you referred them to, or if they buy something else within 24 hours, you'll still get a commission on their purchase.

08:04 The reason that this works so well is that people are coming in to watch these videos with buyer's intent. They're looking for a review on a specific product just to confirm that it is the right product for them to purchase and they're ready to make that purchase and very comfortable purchasing from Amazon. Guys, again, there is so much that I'd like to tell you about this one, but I've put it in a full step-by-step tutorial over on the channel.

08:23 Again, totally free, but if you're interested in Amazon Associates, that link will be down in the description below. All right, keeping this video moving along, let's get into the next online business. And this one is actually general affiliate marketing. So what we just talked about with Amazon Associates is doing affiliate marketing specifically with Amazon.

08:37 They have tons of products and you can get those secondary sales, that's why that's so good. But almost every big company out there has their own specific affiliate program. So you can also make videos just the same way as Amazon Associates, but about products that are not for sale on Amazon. So to show you a real example of this one, let's go back over to YouTube and let's look up Shopify tutorial.

08:56 So if you're not familiar with Shopify, it's probably the largest e-commerce tool to create a website or sell your own products online. Now when it comes to setting up Shopify and using it, there is a lot to learn here, so that's why people are coming to YouTube and typing in Shopify tutorial. So anyways, if you click on one of these videos, this is going to be a tutorial showing you how to use Shopify and set up your account.

09:15 But again, if you come down here, you open up this description, here is the affiliate link. So free Shopify trial, three months for $1. You click on this link, it will auto-redirect you to Shopify. And now if you sign up for a Shopify account, the creator of that video is going to get a commission on that sale. So anyways, that's general affiliate marketing.

09:33 You can join affiliate programs to any company out there. It doesn't specifically have to be Amazon. And just know that you can join as many affiliate programs as you want. You're not limited to just joining one, and you're locked in exclusively with them. But with all that being said, let's keep this video moving along and get into the next online business.

09:47 All right, so getting into the next one here, this is the homepage for Amazon Influencers. This is the last Amazon one here, but again, this is a great way to make money from Amazon. I just wanna clear this up. This video is not sponsored by Amazon, but I've just found myself gravitating to making money from Amazon because people are spending so much money on that platform and Amazon has made all these ways where we can sign up and make money from all those people shopping on Amazon as well.

10:08 So anyways, Amazon Influencer, what you need to know about this one is that you can click to sign up here. The only thing is that you're going to need to have some kind of social media page already. You can literally create the social media page and start posting on it a week before you apply to this and Amazon is not going to look to see how many followers you have, but rather they're looking to see that you have engagement on your posts.

10:26 They have not set a specific amount of engagement, but I think they really just wanna see that you have a legitimate social media page set up. Now with that being said, once you have signed up and they have reviewed your social media page and they've accepted you to Amazon Influencers, you can then create on-site review videos. These are a really good way to make passive income, and I'll show you how to do them here.

10:43 So if we go back over to Amazon, and I'm just looking up camping fan in this example, if you scroll down, and these are just all products that are sold on Amazon, let's click on this one right here. If you scroll down here, you're going to see this little section that says videos. If you click on this, you're going to see related videos for this product.

10:59 So all of these right here, it is not going to be the customer review videos over here, but specifically the related videos. These are all Amazon Influencers who have created just simple review videos of these products. And when I say simple, I'm talking about really simple, just talking about what are the features, how does it work, how do you turn it on, how long does the battery last?

11:16 And the way that this works is that if I came in here as a customer and I watched someone's video and then I X-ed out of here and I purchased this product, the Amazon Influencer whose video I just watched is going to get the commission on the sale. This is just like Amazon Associates affiliate marketing, except it is entirely on Amazon. We don't have to post videos on YouTube at all.

11:34 Now something I will say here is that not all products are going to have this little videos tab, but if you scroll down here past all of this, you're going to see all of these videos listed right here in this video section. So these are all of the Amazon Influencer videos right here. Now guys, something else to know here is you don't even have to be on camera.

11:49 So again, this is the same girl we just saw before. This is her review on camera, but you can do something like this. This is just an example of someone showing that product out in use, and they're not even showing themselves on camera. So these videos are super easy to make. Again, there's just so much that I wanna keep telling you about this one, but I wanna keep this video moving along.

12:06 So all of that information is in the full step-by-step tutorial that's linked down the video description below. We've only got two more left in this video, so let's go ahead and keep it moving along. So the next one is creating digital downloads and selling them on somewhere like Etsy. So if you haven't heard of Etsy, it's basically like Amazon. It's its own product marketplace.

12:22 But Etsy also allows you to upload a digital file and allows someone to purchase that digital file just as a digital file. There is no printing of any products. So to show you an example, this would be a kid's birthday party invitation. Basically you're just purchasing this layout and the way to edit it. So as the creator and the seller of these digital downloads, someone like you or me doing this, you can get access to Corjl, which is software to do this, or you can just use Canva and you can do that for free.

12:46 And you basically create these templates and then give people access to that software so that they can customize the template and then they can download it to their computer and they can get it printed. But just to give you some ideas here, you've got a kid's birthday invitation, you have a wedding invitation, you have a baby shower website template.

13:00 Again, you can do that through Canva, which is pretty cool. Digital planner layouts. You can basically sell anything that you've created on your computer as a digital file and you can send that to someone else. Now the last thing to say about digital downloads here is that you can do it kind of a couple different ways. You can create that digital download and upload it to somewhere like Etsy and just rely on the marketplace traffic just like we do with Amazon, or you can create your own content to get your digital

13:20 download in front of the right people. So coming over to YouTube here, I've searched for Notion Template. This will give us a great example. If you're not familiar with Notion, it is a software for productivity. But to show you what I'm talking about here, you can basically create a tutorial or something like that. So let's click on this first one, and then if you look down in the description of this video, you have Get My Notion Template.

13:39 So you can click on that, this is going to take you over to a digital product. So this is a template that is created and exported from Notion that you can purchase this seller's specific template. All right guys, we made it to the last online business, and what that is is selling prerecorded courses online. So to show you an example of this, this is the first one.

13:54 It's called Udemy. I've been selling on this one for many years now. And basically you're just creating very in-depth YouTube tutorials and then uploading them to Udemy and Udemy basically does everything else. Now like I said, with all these, I have done all these business models. So if you search my name on Udemy, you'll actually see my courses. These courses were from many years ago.

14:11 So if you click on one of these, for example, you will see that this course was last updated in 2019. Has over 5,000 students, and what I can say is that Udemy is still paying me every month from these courses that are uploaded. I don't do anything to promote these courses, they're literally just listed on Udemy's marketplace, but Udemy is doing all of the marketing.

14:27 They're running all the sales for you automatically, and we just get a split of the profit whenever someone enrolls in your course. The last thing to say about these prerecorded courses is that if you've uploaded one to Udemy, you can also upload that to Skillshare. It's just another website, another marketplace that's just like Udemy, but you can upload the same courses to both of them.

14:43 Now these prerecorded courses and the digital download products are two that I don't have full step-by-step tutorials on. If you would be interested in those, just let me know down in the comments below. But as far as all the other business ideas that we talked about today, check out the video description below. I put links to all the full step-by-step tutorials that are on this YouTube channel totally for free.

15:01 If you guys are interested in starting one of these business models, you don't have to pay for a course. These full tutorials will teach you everything that you need to know totally for free. Guys, I love sharing all this information with you guys, and if you can start multiple of these over the years, the more of them you get stacked, the bigger your passive income is going to grow, and that is extremely exciting.

15:18 As always, if you guys have any questions at all, just let me know down in the comments. If you enjoyed this video, please just give it a thumbs up or let me know down in the comments as well. I would appreciate all of that support. But guys, that is going to be it for this one. As always, I'll plan to see you all in the next video.