The Startup Ideas Podcast - How Will People Make Money in the AI Age?

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

In this solo episode, I walk through the 13 businesses I think are left to build in the agentic era. I believe that in a world of agents and abundance, owning the right assets puts you in a better position. For each business, I explain what it is, why it holds up in a world of agents, and one or two examples, from Othership's sauna clubs to Osmo's window-cleaning robots. This episode gives you a map of where to build next, at any age. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:15 – AI-Native Service Firms 02:57 – Offline Businesses 05:41 – Distribution and Organic Audiences 07:34 – Proprietary Data Sets 09:08 – Domain-Specific Harnesses 12:16 – Robotics and Physical AI 14:01 – Physical Products With a Fan Following 16:34 – Compute and Energy 17:31 – Health, Longevity, and Care 19:30 – Marketplaces and Social Networks 21:04 – Real Assets 21:46 – Vertical Agents 22:18 – Security 24:08 – Closing Thoughts Key Points In an AI-native service firm, agents do most of the delivery and a human reviews the exceptions. Ad clicks went from about five cents in 2009 to $1–5 today, so I start with organic audiences. Proprietary data and domain-specific harnesses are the two gold rushes I see right now. Offline businesses, niche hardware, and robotics sell rooms, objects, and labor that agents only support. Compute, energy, and security are the scarce inputs every agent depends on. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

Today we're going to talk about the only businesses left to build in the agentic era. Yes, I think that there's only 13 businesses to be building in the world of agents. Now, I don't subscribe to the people who say there's going to be this permanent underclass and you just got to create businesses or else you're kind of messed up for the future. I don't think it's going to be as dire as that, but I do think that in a world where agents exist, abundance are going to exist, owning these. assets, I mean, are going to put you just in a better position. So today, what are we going to do? We're going to go through the 13 businesses that are left to be built. By the end of this, you're going to understand all 13 pretty well, why there's an opportunity, why they're going to exist in a world of agents, a couple ideas. So, but, you know, grab your coffee, grab your tea,

strap in because, hey, this is the stuff that, you know, if you're in your teenager, if you're in 20s, your 30s, 50, 70s, this is good stuff to know because the world is changing and it is changing fast. So the first type of business that you'd want to own in an AI agent world is AI Native Service firms. What is that? Well, an AI Native service firm is when the agents do more of the delivery. Now, I've seen people say AI Native Service firms is when they do all of the delivery. I don't believe that's the case. I think you can still have the agent doing 90% of the work

and still be an AI native firm. So as an example, you can create a bookkeeping firm for one type of business where you have client records, the agents prepare the books, and then the human reviews exceptions, and then you complete monthly books. And you charge for the completed job. It could be a monthly fee,

but it could also be, hey, every time we, you know, complete these books, it's going to cost X, Y, Z. Why is owning this business good? Well, it's high margin. You don't need that many clients. The Y now exists when you have, you know, Astra 5.5, some of these great models that are coming out soon. You know, you actually, they, you know, could get this incredible amount of output. So I'm really, really interested in AI Native service firms. I did a whole episode on one recently. I'll include it in the description around creating a creative agency. So you can imagine doing like a logos as a service or or ads as a service, these sorts of things. Really like these businesses, super high

margin and something I'm ideating actively around. The second is just generally offline businesses. You know, people, yes, it's an AI age. But we, you know, people actually want to pay to go and do something with other people. So one example of this is, you know, this company called Overship. I heard about them from the founder actually in Toronto where they started. And they've got this like neighborhood sauna club where there's, you know, you walk into the sauna and it's like huge. And there's other people and there's music. And they, you know, there's someone who can help you do cold plunges.

and it's just this incredible environment and tea, they basically leveled up the experience of a communal sauna. And I think now more than ever, you know, people want this sort of thing. And it's not cheap. It's really not. The visit itself could be, you know, I don't remember exactly what it is, but it's not cheap. But it's an incredible experience.

And they sell a membership. So I think businesses like this that, you know, are onto trends. you know, here the trends are obviously are wellness, community. And you're just seeing them scale. They've been scaling in New York. And I just, I love these types of businesses, especially ones that have a membership model. So I think you're going to see a lot more like this. And you can run, you know, of course you can have agents do a lot of the admin.

But the room, the experience is what people are buying. Now, the hard part about offline businesses, obviously, is that, it costs a lot more money to start an offline business than an AI Native service firm, especially if you're creating an offline business in a place like Manhattan or Toronto, like a place with high amount of real estate. So, you know, how I think about offline businesses is, you know, what is the food cart version of or food truck? What is the food truck version of your business?

What do I mean by that? If you're going to start a restaurant, sometimes the best thing is, to do is to start a food truck version of it because it's just so much cheaper and you can prove out that model that way. So the MVP, you know, what is the, what is that look like? And I actually think, actually, now that I'm remembering, I remember speaking the founder about this, the first version of Othership was literally in the founder's backyard. He literally like made this in his backyard. And obviously that didn't cost too much money. He started inviting friends, community members, and then he decided to get a place. So take a one step at a time.

Third is distribution. So we live in this world now where you prompt a few times and all of a sudden you basically have a startup. But getting people to the products that you're building or people are building is harder than ever, honestly. And my belief, leaf is that the price of reaching people is going to get higher and higher. And actually, if you take a step back and look at what people used to charge for, for example, a Facebook ad, in 2009 or whatever, when the Facebook ad platform came out, they were literally charging five cents a click. Now the average click, you know, I don't have the exact data in front of me, but we're

talking a dollar, $2, like, you know, even more than that, $3, $4, $5, depending on who you're trying to target and which country you're trying to target. So I think that owning organic audiences is so, so, so important. And I think that even before you end up, you know, if you end up wanting to create an offline business, if you end up wanting to creating AI Native Service firm, starting with the distribution, building organic audiences, the cool part about this is you can get paid to generate, you know, useful niche information, you get paid by advertisers to basically build your audience and then you go and build the products that they ask for. This is something I call the ACP funnel audience

community product. First you start with the audience, then you build the community, then you build the product. This is something that is a business model. I think people who own multiple meme pages, multiple YouTube channels, multiple Instagram audiences, those people are going to do well in this era. So I think number three distribution. The fourth, which is actually not talked about that often, is proprietary data sets. So I think that what you're starting to see is that data is just so valuable. Data is the new oil. You know, there's all these companies like Mercor, Micro One, who are selling. data to the big labs and are getting insane valuations, billions of dollars, hundreds of

millions of ARR, it's absolutely insane. And so that's the big ideas, you know, at the big idea level, which is basically pay people for data, get data that the big models don't have, and then basically mark it up to the big labs. But if you're just a solo founder and, you you don't want to go build something that big and you want to create a business that might generate a few million dollars a year is just how do you just get very useful information and that people cannot get by using their personal agents or going to chat GPT, that sort of thing. And I think thinking about that is a really, really important thing. I think there's going to be this gold rush for getting and acquiring data. I think we're in the first inning of that. And this is just a business that, you know, if you own data, you know, in this AI world, you're looking really good.

The fifth is domain-specific harnesses. Now, I feel like a lot of people throw the word harness around and like, honestly, people don't really understand what it is. So I'm going to take a second to explain to you in just as clear as I can what a harness really means. means and how is it different than a LLM model. So, you know, you can think, you can think of the model or I think of the model as basically the engine of the car, how fast it goes. And I think of the hardness as the tools it can access, the workflow rules, the memory, the checks, basically everything around the engine.

and if we use the car analogy, we're talking about like the body, we're talking about the steering wheel, we're talking about the floor mats, they're talking about the color of the car, the paint, you know, the electrical, everything else. That's the easiest way to explain it. It's not a perfect way of explaining it. You know, I am missing a few things,

but that's like the general way to think about. So if you can take a general model and turn it into a system that understands how an industry works, For example, the example I was using is the operating system for a freight brokerage agent, you're going to be able to have a lot of value. We talked about the gold rush proprietary data sets. I think you're also witnessing now this gold rush around harnesses. I believe that harnesses are the new GPT wrapper.

Two years ago, we saw a lot of people create GPT wrappers. initially for about 12 months people were saying GPT wrappers were useless people weren't going to weren't going to be able to create any sort of lasting value with it or any value with it

and we saw quite the opposite the well we saw a bunch of GBT rappers go nowhere in the same way that startups 90% fail but I think the top 10% a lot of what happened is they turned into harnesses

so they were they started as a a wrapper focused on one model and as that model got better, that service got better. But they started adding things like here. They started adding industry tools and workflow rules and memory. And then they became harnesses. An example of that would be you saw a lot of them in the legal space, Harvey, spell book, I think it's called. So I expect to see a lot more of that. I think there's a lot of opportunity here. And by the way, comment on YouTube for if you ever want me to go deeper into any one of these, just let me know. And I can create dedicated videos with some ideas and that sort

of thing. And also, while you're at it, like this. And if you're on Spotify or Apple, please rate rate a five stars because we've got some, a few low stars. So from back in the day. So let's try to get it up. The sixth is robotics and physical AI. So this one, a lot of people think that it is so far away in the future that it's like the Jetsons, just like really in the future. But I don't think people realize that we are like almost there. I saw this new product called Osmo. I think they raised like six or seven million dollars recently.

and they are literally doing window cleaning as a service. So building owners pay for clean windows, and then you deploy and operate the equipment, or they deploy and operate the equipment. And it's just a beautiful business, right? The hard part is obviously building these companies, right? But I think that you're going to see a lot more robotics and physical AI. And actually the best way to, I saw a really good tweet by my friend Brian Norris.

He said, I think the best way to sell software is by selling hardware. And I think you're going to see a lot of that. So a lot more businesses like that. And for the people listening who are like, I'm not going to go and create a robotics company. What do I know about, you know, all this PhD stuff? Well, I think there's going to be an opportunity for you to maybe buy a few and rent it to people. Or if you're into sales, you can go and sell them. There's a lot of opportunity.

It doesn't necessarily mean you need to be an Elon Musk character to go and, like, figure out what these things are and build them. You can also be on the sales marketing side. And I think there's going to be a ton of opportunity. Number six. Number seven, physical products with a fan following. So this is the, I'm sure a lot of you know that I love coffee. and I'm a bit of a nerd like that. Specialty coffee equipment is an example of people get so nerdy about it

and they're willing to pay high prices for well-design things. And when Fellow came out, like there was nothing like this. A lot of the, this is a kettle. So a lot of the kettles didn't really feel. feel like they were designed for coffee people. And then this came out and it started, you know, they started crushing it. Now they have a huge product suite of different, um, of different products. Like I got a fellow grinder back there. By the way, not affiliated with, uh, with fellow. Just, just, just again, like a fan. Um, and, uh, I think

there's a ton of opportunity to just like create these niche products. I also think with, uh, heart, uh, just AI. like for example, you know, Astra and the latest new models, you can actually design hardware and physical products that were

too niche before. You can go and do that now. So if you have the insight for a particular fan following or particular ICP, you can go and buy I think the device is like the bamboo. It's a Chinese device

and you can go and like prototype some of these new products, and then obviously mass produce it, sell it. Another friend of mine, or a friend of mine, started something called the Minimal Company, and those are phones that are focused on people who don't want to scroll. And I think they did millions of dollars

on their Kickstarter. Again, that's like a fan following. Apple's not creating that product. So there's a lot of opportunity. I think there's a lot of pent up demand for specific products here. And especially the ones I can go viral in that niche. So if you really understand a niche, now is a really good time. I really do want to do an episode around like physical products, how to use AI to create them.

So hopefully you guys are into that. Number eight, compute and energy. We can't forget that every agent. needs chips, electricity, cooling, and somewhere to run. So if you own that scarce input, hey, that is a good place to be. Saw just the other week. Crusoe raised $3.9 billion for its vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform. So you're just seeing that.

I think Michael Dell's son is raising billions of dollars for his, you know, energy company. You're just seeing people need compute, people need energy. These are the scarce inputs of our time. So if there's any way that you can go and be involved in some of these businesses, probably do pretty well. Number nine, health, longevity, and care. I've talked a lot about it on the Startup IDS podcast, on this podcast.

about older adults. I think older adults are missing. It's just like an ICP that a lot of people, especially younger people, are not creating for. But they need products. They need services. And there's, you know, any way we can make their lives happier and healthier,

I think would be a great thing. So I think there's tons of ideas, products, services, that are actually high quality, that have a high NPS. that are exceptional, that you could be creating. And then also, from a service business perspective, care, there's a lot of opportunity there. Helping older adults and just like owning agencies in that space.

For example, caregivers and things like that. A lot here. And obviously, hard businesses to do a lot of those service businesses, to run, but great, great businesses, and also, you know, you're doing a good thing by caring for folks. And then the longevity piece, I mean, I feel like Brian Johnson really kicked off this whole, you know, don't die movement. He really, well, he didn't kick it off. He kind of tapped into it. And he was like, I'm the guy. So, you know, health, maybe that was Huberman, longevity. Maybe that was Brian Johnson.

There's still opportunity to go and be the gal or guy in that space. If you just go down a niche, niche down. But point is there's a lot of opportunity here, a lot of business to be created, and I think a lot of demand to tap into. The 10th is marketplaces and social networks. Now, a lot of people are not creating these products and startups anymore.

When I first came to Silicon Valley, it was just the thing. We're talking 2013, 2014, 2015, that era, creating things like Uber, which matched drivers and customers, creating things like

Thumbtack, which was like services to find a handyman and things like that. And social networks, Instagram, TikTok, things like that. The thing is, on one hand, I love these businesses

because if you're able to create it, you do truly have a moat. But liquidity, meaning making sure you have both the demand and supply at the same time is an art. I feel like marketplaces in social network is more art than science in that way. But I think there's tons of opportunities right now.

Mark Liu, who some of you know, created a marketplace around selling startups and buying startups, trust to MRR.com. So you're starting to see people come back to marketplaces and social networks, but I feel like it's a great thing to own, co-own, be a part of if you can. Personal agents are going to want to access marketplaces. They're going to want to access social networks.

The data that comes from both these things are really interesting. I love these businesses, so I had to put it in there as well. I think just in general, just like real assets. So the example I have here is small industrial workshops rented to local trades. You know, in trades in general, by the way, like electricians, cabinet makers, plumbers, physical assets, warehouses, you know, industrial warehouses, things like that. We forgot, you know, we can't forget that, you know, you need a place to have a location, a process. for a lot of the new world that we're entering in. So literally physical locations and real assets, real estate,

I think still going to be a really interesting business. Vertical agents, number 12. So just giving an agent responsibility for a recurring job in a specific industry. The example I have here is purchasing for indie restaurants. So you have checking stock, comparing supply offers, ask for approval, place the order. I feel like people have been building vertical agents for the last like 12 months, but I still think there's a ton of opportunity to build, like we talked about harnesses

and to build agents. And last but not least is security. People need security more than ever in the AI age. Now, I'm talking about two types of security. I'm talking about software companies like one password. I'm talking about, you know, companies like Cloudflare who have a lot of security AI features. I'm talking about, you know, the example I have here, agent access control for accounting firms that allow you to just read invoices and draft entries that would allow you to do that. But basically, thinking about sensitive workflows and then working through firms existing IT providers and just having access control.

so that data doesn't get leaked and things don't get hacked and things like that. I think that's one piece of it. Just security in the agenic era. Things are going to get hacked. This is going to be more and more of a problem. I think I wouldn't be surprised if one of the personal agent startups or just agent startups, there's like a big, a big hack security breach and things get. put on the internet. I think that might happen. I think it's going to happen. I think it's actually

it's going to happen more and more. So people are going to want security and owning those assets and businesses are going to be great. And then like actually security in general. Like I think there's like Uber. I've got the name of it, but it's like Uber for like you know, bodyguards and you know, you get a car and it's like bulletproof and stuff like that. I think there's going to be more of those businesses. People feel less and less secure. So they're just going to want to pay for security in general. A lot of security businesses. I'm really interested. And that's, that's what I'd want to own in this world. I mean, I'm not saying, like I said in the beginning, I'm not saying to escape the permanent undergross, you need to own a piece of this. But I am

saying these are the only businesses that are left. Owning a piece of these businesses are going to set you up. And this is where it's at. This is a map of the ones that I would pay attention to. The 13 ones, the best ones. And I hope that this has gotten your creative juices flowing. Please do let me know. I read every single comment. I reply to most on YouTube. And thank you for giving me your time. I don't take that lightly. I think it's amazing. I can just come on here and be like, hey, I think that these are the 13 businesses left, the only businesses left to build. And some of you are going to take that in and it's going to impact your lives.

And that's really cool. So thank you again. You're the best. I'm rooting for you. And I'll see you next time.