How to Start a Million Dollar Business this Weekend (according to Noah Kagan)
We all want a million dollars, don’t we?
In this video, Noah Kagan teaches how to quickly establish whether your million dollar business idea will eventually be money-making, or not.
Before proceeding from business ideas to business planning, this five-step process is essential in ensuring your million dollar business idea isn’t a dud.
Learn these essential steps below.
Prerequisites: Business Mindsets for the Early Days
As they say, an idea is only as good as the execution. But before dedicating valuable resources and time to build a business model, we need to ensure we have the best chance of success.
Let’s face it, we all think we have million dollar business ideas. We sit around dreaming of financial freedom in our cubicles whilst the office workers chat by the water filter. We’d be rich if we spent less time dreaming and more time executing.
But we don’t.
Why is that? Fear of failure, that’s why.
If your great dropshipping business fails, it’s proof that your business model also failed. It’s proof that you failed. So, for our own selfish reasons, we don’t act.
Furthermore, the longer we take to get our million dollar business ideas off the ground, the higher the chances it won’t.
We need great business ideas, a great mindset, and excellent execution to start a great business. So think about your mission statement, and stick by it during the inevitable highs and lows you will experience during your business building journey.
With the mindset out of the way, let’s proceed to step one.
Step One: Pick an Idea for Your Own Business
Don’t have any million dollar business ideas yet? Not a problem because, fortunately, million dollar business ideas are a dime a dozen.
Let’s define what a million dollar business idea is. A million dollar business idea is simply an opportunity to start a business that has the potential to generate at least $1 million in annual revenue.
It can’t be that hard, can it?
Check out a few real-world examples below of million dollar businesses that far exceed the annual revenues we are trying to achieve.
Real-World Examples of Million Dollar Business Ideas
Become a vehicle exporter ($27.6M/year)
Marshal Group LLC is an automobile manufacturer and exporter founded by Nathan Huskins. Marshal Group LLC focuses on selling vehicles from Canada and America for international customers. Nathan generated $26.5 million in sales in the first 6 years of business. Impressive.
Start a custom printing business ($36M/year)
Founded in 2000, Underground Printing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is an American printing company that offers customized printing services. UGP offers screen printing, digital printing, and embroidery for many types of apparel and promotional items.
Start a photo printing business ($18M/year)
In 2004 Jainam Shah founded CanvasChamp, which specializes in photo printing. They create many different photo gifts for home décor and gifts, notably canvas and metal print. CanvasChamp started in March 2012 with a single canvas print and now have over 60 plus personal gifts for photos. Their revenues are 1.5 million +/mo. Incredible for a company that started as a small business, is it?
Start a hygiene product company ($60M/year)
Josh Elizetxe from Arizona USA began SNOW in 2004 as a hygiene products business venture. The Snow brand was founded in 2012 to offer people the opportunity to have teeth whitened at home. Another small business success.
Start a fulfilment business ($67M/year)
ShipMonk is a technology-driven fulfilment centre based out of South Florida. The company was named the Fastest Growing fulfilment centre by the prestigious “Feeding 500” magazine and ranked number 29 in the Inc. 500. Projected revenues for 2019 will total $60M. How’s that for impressive cash flow?
Start a food truck ($18M/year)
Jeffrey Mora of California opened the Food Fleet in Los Angeles in 2000. With six people, including his partner, he managed over 20M in revenues. Who thought a simple food truck business could provide financial freedom and be great for relationship building as well!
Start an online food business ($24M/year)
Alex Moore from the UK founded Rosa Thai Cafe almost sixteen years back – based in London. Their website currently covers 18 countries around the UK, selling traditional and authentic Thai food to lovely people from across the UK and worldwide! The cuisine combines Thai food with authentic local produce. Another great business model.
17 Million Dollar Business Ideas
Check my list below for 14 million dollar business ideas that might get you on the way to generating all the money and profit you could ever want in the world! Dropshipping business, anyone?
1. Luxury home cleaning and organization company. Suppose you have a knack for organization and cleaning. In that case, starting a luxury home cleaning and organization company may be the perfect business for you.
2. Online retailer specializing in selling eco-friendly and sustainably produced home goods. Suppose you’re passionate about green living and want to help others make more environmentally responsible choices. In that case, starting an online retail business specializing in eco-friendly and sustainable home goods is a great way to make a difference – and a lot of money.
3. High-end fashion consignment e commerce business. This is another business model with meagre startup costs. You can scale quickly by setting up a shop on eBay or a similar online marketplace.
4. Membership-based website offering exclusive content and services for busy moms. If you’re a mom looking to start her own business, there’s no need to wait. This weekend, you can start a million dollar business with just a few simple steps. First, create a membership-based website offering exclusive content and services for busy moms. This will help you attract a loyal following of customers eager to learn from your expertise.
5. Premium pet food delivery service. Another great business idea for those looking to start a million dollar business this weekend is to launch a premium pet food delivery service. Capitalize on the growing trend of pet ownership and easily set yourself apart from the competition by offering a high-quality product and excellent customer service.
6. Consulting business for wealthy individuals who want to reduce their tax burden. There are many, many avenues when it comes to starting a business. Still, one of the most lucrative and exciting opportunities is to create a consulting company. Consulting companies can be highly profitable. In addition, they offer the potential to work with some of the wealthiest individuals in the world.
7. An online platform that helps businesses find and book unique event spaces worldwide. Help people find and book particular areas worldwide perfect for meetings, parties, conferences, workshops, and celebrations.
8. On-demand personal assistant service for busy professionals. This is a sound option for professionals who need help completing tasks but don’t have the time to do it themselves. Services like this can be expensive, but they can also be worth it if you’re looking to get things done quickly and efficiently.
9. A luxury home furnishings store. There are a few different types of luxury home furnishings stores. For example, you could open a store that specializes in high-end furniture or one that focuses on unique, one-of-a-kind pieces. You could also consider a store that sells luxury home accessories, such as candles.
10. Online course teaching people how to start and grow a successful e commerce business.
11. Meal delivery service for busy families that want healthy, home-cooked meals but don’t have the time to cook them. If you’re like most people, you’re life is hectic. You don’t have the capacity to cook a nutritious meal every night, so you either eat out or eat unhealthy processed foods. What if there was a way to have healthy, home-cooked meals without spending hours in the kitchen?
12. Concierge service for busy executives who need help with personal tasks like scheduling appointments, arranging travel, and managing their households.
13. Luxury car rental service. You can make great revenues by starting your own luxury car rental service. The key to success is providing high-quality service and building a solid client base.
14. Home automation company that installs and maintains customized intelligent home systems for its clients. Services include home security, entertainment, communication, and energy management.
15. Monetize your interests. Create an online course or program teaching your unique skills. Provide a remote work service where people can pay for remote workers to do the job you specialize in.
16. Start a dropshipping business. Many millions have been made by people who focus on the dropshipping business model.
17. Build a food truck franchise – Food truck businesses are taking off right now, particularly with the craft beer movement! If you have a passion for food preparation and want to get in on the food truck craze, start by franchising an existing food truck business.
The above ideas might be a good start. But, even if you think you have a seven-figure business idea, it’s essential to do due diligence to ensure your business has a strong chance of success and precious time won’t be wasted.
Step Two: Find out how much demand/interest there is for your idea with Market Research
Now you have your idea, next comes the time for market research. The ultimate question to ask is – how many people would be interested in your million dollar business ideas, hundreds? Tens of thousands?
Is your million dollar business idea in the early stages or a declining market? We don’t want to be developing a product in a declining market. In the business world, this is called a ‘sunset industry’. We don’t want those.
These things need to be asked before building your own business for selfish reasons alone.
Follow the steps below to figure this out.
a: Check Google Keyword Planner
The Google keyword planner is a great site to visit to establish whether your great idea will be worth the effort to start. With this tool, you can check demand metrics such as:
- How many search impressions that your idea is generating per month
- The average cost per click. The cost per click tells you how much each click will cost you to reach that audience. The lower, the better.
Here, you can expand your search to other related terms to understand how these might perform against the main idea.
b: Check SpyFu
SpyFu is another site worth checking out that provides similar information to Google Keyword planner. Here, it is helpful to see how their data compares to Google and any similarities or differences.
c: Check Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads platform provides good data to see how in-demand your idea might be. Here you can select specific demographics such as location, age, gender, and even the keyword you are targeting. With this data, Facebook provides you with the total number of users you could potentially target – helpful info.
d: Check Google Trends
Now you have established how many people you can potentially sell to, it is essential to understand whether any of your million dollar business ideas are trending or not.
Trending keywords get more searches, more views and hopefully, more sales for you and Google Trends is an excellent platform for this. You can see whether your idea is trending up, down or flat by entering your keyword. As Noah says, you want to be part of the tidal wave, not part of the drought.
This data is critical to establish if your idea will be a million-dollar one or not and the potential longevity of your business.
Once you have gauged interest in your idea, you should have a good indication of whether you are in a market capable of scaling. I’m afraid it’s back to the drawing board if you don’t. But, if you do, congratulations, proceed to step three.
Step Three: How much are those customers worth
Now that you have established demand for your idea, we need to prove how much these customers might be worth. Or, in other words, how much they’ll be willing to spend on your idea.
The first question to ask is, what are the alternative ways your potential customer is spending money?
For example, suppose I had an idea to sell backyard offices. In that case, these potential customers might be presently spending $300 per month at a WeWork. That’s $3600 per year. Given that they might be spending that, now we know how much they may be willing to pay for an alternative solution.
Next, look at your competitors’ prices. How much are they charging for a product similar to your idea? With the help of Google, we can figure this out. Go to the search engine and enter ‘buy [your product idea]’. Here you can see the price range for which your product might sell.
Step Four: Find out how big the Total Adjustable Market is
Finally, as part of our research process, we need to determine how big your total addressable market is, also known as TAM.
To establish the TAM for your idea, use the following formula:
how many people available x amount willing to spend
The number you get is the total addressable market.
Phew, that was a lot, so far, so good. If you made it thus far, congratulations – this process is essential in establishing how profitable your business idea might be. If you find out that you need to convert 100% of the TAM to make a $1,000,000 turnover after these steps, the idea might not be worth your time. Go back to step one if you get to this stage and the numbers don’t add up.
Now comes the fun part, getting customers. Proceed to step 5.
Step 5: Get Customers
Now comes the hard part – validating your idea. The few critical things are:
- Testing to see whether you can attract customers for your business through validation
- Getting proof that you have a minimum viable product (the quicker, the better)
Validate Your Idea
It’s essential to quickly validate your idea to see if people will buy it. Here are a few techniques to try.
- Sell it to your friends. Call or text your friends and ask them if they would buy it. If they are not interested in what you’re doing, find out about something that does interest them.
- Drive traffic to a basic sales page. Create a sales page and run traffic to see if people will buy or pre-order. You can use Unbounce or Instapage to create a sales page quickly. Be careful not to spend too much time playing around with ads, landing pages, etc. Just get it done!
- Try marketplaces. Marketplaces include things like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Etsy, or other markets in your local area. Here, find a product similar to yours or create a mock design for what you want to sell to people. A clever trick is to relist items you can buy from other marketplaces and see if you can turn a profit.
Minimum Viable Product Law
Quickly establishing an MVP is essential to ramp up your million dollar idea and build a successful business. Great ideas need speedy execution.
To do this, Noah recommends completing the following in one weekend:
- Get three customers
- Make $100
If you take longer than a weekend to confirm you have an MVP, scope creep sets in, and you may never get the idea off the ground. On the other hand, limiting your time increases your creativity. Suppose any of these things are too hard to execute, sorry. In that case, it’s probably not going to be a very accessible business for you to scale.
Once you have established that you have a minimum viable product, you should start building out your marketing strategy, including areas such as paid ads and social media marketing on social media feeds.
To Recap
There you have it, Noah Kagan’s approach to building a million-dollar business in a weekend. Most companies fail to develop a sound business case, which is why they fail. To recap:
- Find out how big the market is, and is it growing, staying the same, or declining?
- Find out how valuable your customers are
- Calculate the total market size
- Come up with fast ways to validate if you can get customers quickly for your business opportunity.
Speed of execution is essential here, so get to it, start building your own business, and hopefully earn your first million dollars!
