Blind Ranking the 7 Worst Business Models

I want you to blind rank the worst business models.

All right, how many have you got for me? Seven. Seven. So one is worst? Seventh is seventh worst. Yeah, yeah. All right. Because seven isn't going to be best, is it?

No, no, no.

But just for fun, if anyone can.

Guess exactly how much silver is here.

In the monetary value, not the weights value, then I'll give some of it away. But you have to get exactly right how much I paid for it, when I paid for it, which was recently. And we've got 1 ounce coins, 1 kilo bars, 5 kilo bars.

Boom. Win some free silver. All right, clothing brand 5. A gym, 4.

A restaurant, 1.

Like why?

Why?

Short form video editor, 6. Estate agent 3. Laundromat 2. And social media agency.

Oh, 7.

I have nailed the out of that. I honestly probably would have ranked that even if it wasn't blind. Exactly like that.

All right, seven. Social media agency. Why did you ran that?

Seven? Well, it was the only one left, so it was a lottery. But actually I would definitely have it as one of the best of the worst because everyone's on social media and yeah, all right, there are a load of shit agencies out there and there's a lot of people doing stuff on social media that isn't working. But you've literally got a global audience, billions of potential customers. You don't need offices, premises, stock overhead. So it can be lean. You just have to get good at social media and figure out what people need and sell it to them. So that's how I would have said that or social media editor was the best. So social Media Editor Number six.

Number six.

Because it's lean, fast like any. If you're 16 years old, you can set up a business as a social media editor. All you need is your phone and you can use apps in app so you can edit for people on TikTok in TikTok, or you can obviously use the decent like cap cut or whatever. You can do it. Don't need to go to college, don't need any qualifications. So those two. Yeah, the best of the worst.

What do you think the most important skills are for somebody starting a social media agency or an editing?

I would say just be on social media and know it really well because the better you know social media, the easier it is for you to sell that knowledge to other people. So for example, know what creates virality, you know, know how to retain and get retention and know what creates engagement, you know, just think about what everyone wants on social media. They want engagement, they want virality. They want engagement, they want monetization. So just get good at those four. And an easy way to do this is to just look at what you like to consume and why you like to consume it and why you stay on it and why, why you click and why you share and why you comment and debrief that. So you're almost your own researcher and then just follow the big gurus and there are even now people teaching it.

How important do you think sales is as a skill if you want to start either of those?

Mark Cuban, billionaire, said sales cures all. Other than a venereal disease. I don't think sales can cure that. Sales cures all. And I completely agree with that. Other I've got clients I'm helping and they're like, oh Rob, shall I just do a rebrand? No, sell more. Ah, Rob, should I just make my store look better? No, sell more. Oh Rob, shall I redo the logo? No, sell more. Sales cures more. Doesn't even matter what the question was. That's the answer.

So five A clothing brand. So an E commerce clothing brand.

So a clothing brand could have been higher up worst. But I figured things like restaurants and laundromats and cafes was going to come up. I love fashion as well. I think with clothing, fashion trends change all the time. Therefore that's an opportunity. It's the same in fitness. You know, if you think of health and fitness, there's always a new fad, there's a new machine, there's a new exercise style. And while that can be difficult to navigate every new trend and fad and style is an opportunity to get into the market and, and disrupt. So with clothing, you've got to find out what was in fashion and make it back. In fashion, you've got to find out what people want to buy. You got to look at what the celebrities are doing and jump off of that. But I think if you have a real interest in fashion and I know it's a noisy space, so that is a downside, that's why it's in the worst businesses to start, because you've got to buy stock and that can be an issue. And you. I remember buying a load of stock because I did. I started an e commerce business 20 years ago, back before it was a big thing. And I'd buy stock from America and then they'd either hold it at customs or I'd get a load of customs taxes, which I didn't know at the time. So you got all that. So definitely not an easy business. But if you love fashion and you're good at trends. It can be a good one.

Yeah, because it's tricky one because you need to pay up front for your stock, get your website live. You need to be good at design or at least buying other people's stuff. White labeled. You need to be good at social media, influencer marketing, paid ads. So many skills you need to be good at before you can make any money.

Yeah. And agency and editing. No. Stock holding, E commerce, shopping, brand stock holding.

Yeah.

So the problem is if you get your numbers wrong, you lose on the stock and the stock goes down in value. So yeah, it's not the easiest but not the hardest. I mean if you go back, do you remember Ed Hardy Haps?

No.

No. Okay. But there's always some trend of things that everyone wants to buy. So if I was starting a clothing brand, I probably wouldn't start my own. First I try and find out what's on trend and sell it and build up some cash to be able to then launch my own label afterwards.

Okay. Number four gym.

If you love fitness, just like if you love clothing, I would never stop anyone starting the business because you know your love for it will burn the midnight oil and when it gets hard, you'll get harder and you won't become bitter, you'll become better because you love it. If you've got a vested interest in it. So gyms, not the worst because fitness is a huge industry and you can always reinvent that and actually right now more than ever these boutique gyms. So you know our friend AJ who runs his own gym, he was my boxing trainer, still is. He's got like quite a small boutique gym. It's not, it's private, it's not for public and you can have one to one sessions and a lot of people want one to one or small group classes. And Hyrox has become a massive thing and he's jumped on that and he does the boxing classes and he makes really good money out of a small boutique gym. So I'd say if you're going to start a gym, start a small boutique gym and target the higher end clients in your area, you know, who don't mind paying 50, 70 for a one to one session instead of 15 and but the problem with the gym is you've got the overhead, the rents, the rates, you know, and all the other expenses. You've got to find a location, you've got to buy all the equipment which is really bloody expensive. So you can be tens of thousands down before you start and There's a lot of gyms.

Yeah.

What makes yours different?

I suppose the benefit then is membership and recurring revenue.

Yes, it is because there's no revenue like recurring revenue. However you've got a, like with a membership site selling information, let's say you're ten pounds a month. Well once you paid your twenty pounds a month hosting and your domain name and other bits, you might have a 15, a 50 pound a month recurring cost on a membership site. So you only need five members and you paid it. But on a gym you might have a three to five grand a month or more recurring cost. But yeah, over and above that you've got promissory promised income recurring and passive income beats occurring and active income.

Boom. Okay now number three, estate agency.

So yeah, estate agency, very competitive. Every high street's got loads of estate agents. You don't make a massive margin on a house sale, it's not regulated. But if you get into it there's firms that have been doing it decades so they probably know it much better than you. You need, you probably need the location. Yeah, just, it's just very traditional and old school. Overhead, staffing, slowness, hard to get in and get market share. Like imagine starting an insurance business or a supermarket or a car manufacturer. You know these companies that have been going 100 years that a billion or soon to be trillion dollar companies and you as a little, you know, jumped up startup trying to disrupt and get into that industry, all manner of hoops, regulation, insurances, all this stuff that's just hard.

So I know a lot of the oil companies lobby to make it even tighter restrictions to make it harder for new people to start.

Of course, of course. And on it. Are you going to get turf wars in an estate age? You know, all estate agents on the same street?

Yeah, you're going to get turf wars.

And it's not going to be easy. And I mean, you know some of the Italian mafia in, in Peterborough own a lot of the estate agents and you know their families are powerful in this city and yeah, it's not, they're not just going to let you come and take their market share, are they?

How much money do they make normally?

I don't know, I don't know the numbers on an estate agency but I'm in property big time and I've never been, ever been tempted to start one.

Makes sense. Okay.

A letting agency on the other hand, different a property management company because it's passive income.

How so?

Because you get a property that you manage, the rent comes in on Standing order direct debit every month passively and you get your share. So if you've got 100 properties under management, you're getting 100 rental incomes every month you get your share of that. If you get a thousand, you get a thousand. And the amount you make on a property rental as the management is quite set, so it might only be a few percent of the rent net, but it rarely goes down and it's very consistent. So I get paid a lot of money from my property management company every month and it is like this recent.

Budget should warn you that your pension is not safe and secure and they're coming for your inheritance. Do you even know how much is in your pension or where your pension is invested? Add to this the recent inheritance tax grab on your pensions and the risk of a market crash.

You probably didn't know this and I.

Didn'T until recently, but physical gold can be added to your pension. Pot gold is inheritance tax free and has grown 700% in the last 20 years.

Years.

You probably know from my content I'm investing heavily in silver and gold and that's why I've partnered with Direct bullion. Myself and Nigel Farage are brand ambassadors and direct bullion can help you with gold to protect and grow your pension. I buy my gold and silver from direct bullion and I don't earn any money on any purchases of gold or silver if you buy direct from Direct Bullion. So if you go to robmore.directbullion.com you can get a great price on your silver and gold and you can get the Pension Gold Investing Guide completely for free. As you know, I don't do many strategic partnerships and when I do, I do them with people who are credible, who've been doing it a long time, who invest in things that I invest into. And gold and silver's going wild. I'm investing heavily in gold and silver and I recommend you check out robmore.directbullion.com.

Clock it goes like this. It just basically just trickles and goes up and up and up and up and up. It doesn't go like that. Like, you know, if you've had a good.

This recent budget should warn you that your pension is not safe and secure and they're coming for your inheritance.

Do you even know how much is.

In your pension or where your pension is invested? Add to this the recent inheritance tax grab on your pensions and the risk of a market crash.

You probably didn't know this and I.

Didn'T until recently, but physical gold can be added to your pension pot. Gold is inheritance tax free and has grown 700% in the last 20 years. You probably know from my content I'm investing heavily in silver and gold and that's why I've partnered with direct Bullion. Myself and Nigel Farage are brand ambassadors and direct bullion can help you with gold to protect and grow your pension. I buy my gold and silver from direct Bullion and I don't earn any money on any purchases of gold or silver. Silver if you buy direct from direct Bullion. So if you go to robmore.directbullion.com you can get a great price on your silver and gold and you can get the pension gold investing guide completely for free. As you know, I don't do many strategic partnerships and when I do, I do them with people who are credible, who've been doing it a long time, who invest in things that I invest into. And gold and silver's going wild. I'm investing heavily in gold and silver.

I, I recommend you check out robmore directbullion.com week in a restaurant you might do six, seven grand, ten grand. If you had a bad week, you might do 1500 quid. You know, the difference could be 70 or 80%. Good week to bad week, good weekend to bad weekend. Also because we're coming to restaurant. I don't like businesses where it's a lot out of your control and maybe if we, we get onto that, can talk about that.

Okay, so one before that is Laundromat.

Yeah. So a lot of these American, you know, laundromat millionaires are talking about how great it is to have a laundromat. Well, probably only in really shitty areas and you've got to buy all the equipment you need. Rent rates, do you know business rates even for a new business can be 60 grand a year. The, the rates are outrageous, the business rates. Of course they don't tell you about that security because, you know, if you're using coin operated, which could be a benefit that might get nicked. Okay. A lot of them probably got the, you know, the tap and you got maintenance. They probably don't tell you about that on all the washing machines and dryers. And how many people are actually going to come through? How much volume are you actually going to get? What about theft? What about damage? I mean, you know, a lot of people talk about car washes, don't they? But unless you want to wash the cars yourself, you're going to have theft.

What do you mean?

Well, if you're hiring cheap labor to clean the cars for you. What's to stop them pocketing some of the money?

Because they're normally all done through cash.

So what's to stop them pocketing the money? Unless you've got really good systems to track everything, which costs a lot of money. Like if you wanted a subway franchise, they'll put a camera there, a camera there, a camera there, a camera there and a camera up there. You know, they're literally. Because they know that the biggest wastage is theft. So, yeah, just probably not quite as sexy as a lot of people make it out to be. Now, if you could own all the real estate, would I own 100 laundromats and own the buildings and the real estate of all the laundromats? That's something else. Because, you know, McDonald's, its biggest business is real estate. Because of the. I don't know how many McDonald's there are. Google it. How many McDonald's restaurants are there in the world? I bet it's like, what, 50,000, 45,000. The silver. I'll win the silver.

I have to find out the company soon. But there's a company that has. That does all of the washer dryers for all of the student accommodation in the uk, right. I think it's called Circle and it's.

They do all of them, so they've got market share. So that means you ain't getting in. Yeah, well, number one, you have scale, which means you can offer them cheaper. But number two, they have power. But I bet you those student washing machines and tumble dryers are more industrial.

They're huge.

Yeah, because, like, when students get pissed, what do they do?

Trash everything?

I replied.

No, I was one.

So, yeah, this often isn't talked about with laundromats.

I found the number one laundromat for student accommodation in the UK. They're called circuit laundry. In 2022 is the last figures I can find. 40 million in revenue pounds and 3.6 million pounds in profit.

Okay, how long have they been going?

Over 10 years.

Right, so not bad. Not a bad business. Does that mean I was wrong to knock laundromats or does that just make it harder to get into?

They're pretty much the only one.

Right, There you go.

Okay, so, Number one.

Number one, worst business to start in 2024-2025-2030-2050, 21, 72. A fucking restaurant. Why? Well, you need a location and you either buy it and that's hundreds of thousands, or you rent it and then you need to Fit it out. And that fit out could cost you tens of hundreds of thousands of pounds and that's completely dead money because when you give it back to the landlord you have to put it back to how it was. So that's possibly, that's six figures just in those two. Then you got. If you get the location in any way wrong, you're fucked up because in a restaurant it's all low. You know, people aren't dining in restaurants in other countries, they're dining in restaurants within 10 mile catchment. So you got to get the location exactly right. Staff like if you want to think of an industry where people are going to pull sickies or not want to come in, you know, or mess you about is waiter, waitress, chef, etc. So you got major staff issues, stock. Now if I buy silver slightly wrong, it doesn't matter because in 100 or 1000 years that's still going to be like it is. But if I over order on food, that food's gone off in a week or gone off in a day if it's milk. If you've got an ice cream restaurant, your milk goes off in two or three days, even if it's pasteurized shit. If you've got anything that relies on the weather, especially in the uk, then you're fucked. So my dad had a carvered restaurant and basically bad weather was good, good weather was bad. So it was really shit in the summer. So there's just so many things against you. Rent rates, overheads and really fine margins and costs of food's gone up crazy since lockdown. Do you need any more reasons? The staff will nick the food because I remember because I worked in my mum and dad's pub and I just used to eat for free. I used to take steaks home with me, probably dip the hand in the till and nick out the till. I mean hell, they're the worst.

Yeah, sound shit. You've put me off.

No.

Okay, so what are the best business models in your opinion this year?

Low cost, high speed, low friction, globally infinitely scalable, the quickest to set up, no stock holding, no staffing low and no fixed costs that you can do anywhere in the world that only rely on Internet connection and needing a phone. So I would say that's the concept. High agility, high ability to test quickly and change, adapt, evolve if required. And so the best form of that is probably information. Content, courses, masterminds, masterclasses, online, face to face, passion into profession, content to cash flow. Starting a, an online agency. So content agency, media agency, Editing agency, publishing agency, podcast guest acquisition agency. Say, that's really good. You got to do that. Well though, there's a lot of agencies, but then there's a lot of shit content creators, you know, there's a lot of gyms, there's a lot of shit restaurants. And then the third, I would say is AI. So AI is going to wipe out a lot of jobs, but it's going to create a lot of jobs too. It's going to wipe out the low skill level jobs, but it's going to create a lot of jobs on people operating AI. So for example, Henry Ford created the manufacturing, the factory line and it wiped out a lot of manual labor jobs. But then people still had to operate and run the factory line, design them. You know, if you think of a factory line that had to be designed, that had to be built, so people are going to take everyone's jobs, it's going to take low level jobs and create higher level jobs. So they're probably the top three, I'd say.

Yeah. Anytime somebody moans about, I always say, well, how many social media managers did you know 10 years ago or 15 years ago?

I mean, I get a short form editor every day. Wanted to clip my long form into short forms. Yeah, I didn't, didn't get one email 10 years ago about that.

Okay, so if you was to pick one for you specifically, you're starting from scratch today. What's the best business you're picking?

For me and for most people watching, I'd say an information business right now in the world, we're lost, we're confused, we don't know what to do, we don't know where to turn, we're overwhelmed, we're hammered with ads, There's a creator everywhere. We don't really know what works for us and we're lost as a society, I think. So if you can create community and content, you can turn that into cash flow. So what you need to do is just figure out what you know, what you love, what you're really good at, what you've done a long time, and then some quick testing to see if there's a market for that. And there's usually a market for that because there's usually a market for every niche. Otherwise it wouldn't be a niche. And then start simple.

This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, helping bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting video and social content. Visit disruptive media.co.uk to learn more.

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This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, Helping Bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting, video and social content. Visit disruptive media.co.uk to learn more.

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