# 13 Profitable Business Models in the Agentic Era

**Podcast:** The Startup Ideas Podcast
**Published:** 2026-10-06

## Transcript

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.
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, 50s, 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 know, 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 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 why now exists when you have Astra, 5.5, some of these great models that are coming out soon, you actually could get this incredible amount of output.
So I'm 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 logos as a service 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 people actually want to pay to go and do something with other people.
One example of this is this company called Othership.
I heard about them from the founder actually in Toronto where they started.
They've got this neighborhood sauna club where 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 are on to trends...
You know, here the trends are obviously our 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.
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 our 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 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, what does that look like?
And I actually think, now that I'm remembering, I remember speaking to the founder about this, the first version of Othership was literally in the founder's backyard.
He literally 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 it 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 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, I don't have the exact data in front of me, but we're talking a dollar, two dollars.
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...
If you end up wanting to create an offline business, if you end up wanting to create an AI native service firm, starting with the distribution, building organic audiences, the cool part about this is you can get paid to generate 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.
I think that what you're starting to see is that data is just so valuable.
Data is the new oil.
There's all these companies like Mercore, 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.
That's 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 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, 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 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 harness as the tools it can access, the workflow rules, the memory, the checks.
Basically everything around the engine.
If we use the car analogy, we're talking about the body, we're talking about the steering wheel, we're talking about...
the floor mats, you're talking about the color of the car, the paint, the electrical, everything else.
That's the easiest way to explain it.
It's not a perfect way of explaining it.
I am missing a few things, but that's the general way to think about it.
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 around 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 be able to create any sort of lasting value with it or any value with it.
And we saw quite the opposite.
Well, we saw a bunch of GPT wrappers 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.
They started as 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 that in the legal space, Harvey, Spellbook, 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 it five stars because we've got a few low stars 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 Norgaard and 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 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 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 like people get like so nerdy about it and they're willing to pay high prices for well-designed things.
When Fellow came out, there was nothing like this.
This is a kettle.
So a lot of the kettles didn't really feel like they were designed for coffee people.
And then this came out and they started crushing it.
Now they have a huge product suite of different products.
I got a Fellow grinder back there.
By the way, not affiliated with Fellow.
Again, like a fan.
And I think there's a ton of opportunity to just create these niche products.
I also think with just AI, like for example, 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...
particular fan following or particular icp you can go and buy i think the device is like the bamboo uh it's a chinese device and you can go and like prototype um some of these new products and then you know obviously mass produce it sell it uh another friend of mine uh or a friend of mine started something called the minimal company and those are phones that uh 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 that can go viral in that niche.
So if you really understand a niche, that was a really good time.
I really do want to do an episode around 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 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 Ideas 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 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're doing a good thing by caring for folks.
And then the longevity piece, I feel like Brian Johnson really kicked off this whole don't die movement.
He didn't kick it off, he kind of tapped into it.
He was like, I'm the guy.
So 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.
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 and 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.
Trustmrr.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 had to put it in there as well.
Just in general, just like real assets.
So the example I have here is small industrial workshops rented to local trades.
And trades in general, by the way, like electricians, cabinet makers, plumbers, physical assets, warehouses, industrial warehouses, things like that.
We can't forget that you need a place to have a location.
a property 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 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 1Password.
I'm talking about companies like Cloudflare who have a lot of security AI features.
I'm talking about 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 controls 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 agentic era.
Things are going to get hacked.
This is going to be more and more of a problem.
I wouldn't be surprised if one of the personal agent startups or just agent startups, there's 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 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 actually, security in general.
I think there's Uber.
I forget the name of it, but it's Uber for...
and you get a car and it's 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 what I'd want to own in this world.
I'm not saying, like I said in the beginning, I'm not saying to escape the permanent underclass, 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.