Best Online Business To Start In 2022 (9 With No Investment)

You want to start an online business, but cash is tight and the list of options feels endless. Most guides point you toward expensive software, paid ads, or courses that cost more than you want to risk. The nine online businesses in this breakdown each require less than $100 to launch, and in most cases you need nothing more than a computer and an internet connection.

Alston Godbolt is an affiliate marketer and internet entrepreneur who has helped thousands of people across multiple platforms make money online. In this video he walks through all nine models, shows real examples from platforms he runs himself, and explains exactly how to get moving on each one. Here is a full breakdown of everything he covers.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear picture of all nine low-cost online business models
Real platform names and startup cost ranges for each model
Specific earning examples pulled directly from the video
The fastest path to a first dollar for each business type
An honest look at time commitments and income timelines
A decision framework to help you pick the right fit for your situation
A free tool at finder.platformproof.com that matches your skills and schedule to the right income model

Business 1: Selling Digital Products

The first model is selling digital products. A digital product is anything a customer can download instantly: an ebook, a blueprint, a podcast, an audiobook, a printable. You create it once and sell it again and again with no shipping, no inventory, and no restocking. That create-once-sell-forever quality is what makes digital products so attractive as a first business.

Alston’s own example is the 60-Second Business Blueprint, a 43-page guide that walks buyers through going viral on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Facebook Reels. He knew the product would sell because his YouTube videos about TikTok consistently generated heavy engagement, and his Facebook group was full of repeat questions about how to make money on the platform. He identified a real problem, created a product that solved it, and brought it to the market. The whole build took about a weekend.

You have two main paths for selling digital products. The first is through a marketplace like Etsy. Search “printable” on Etsy and you will find thousands of sellers moving printable stickers, planners, templates, and worksheets. If you do not know how to design them yourself, you can hire someone on Fiverr, Upwork, or PeoplePerHour for a fraction of the eventual sale price. The second path is selling through your own platform. Alston uses ClickFunnels, which runs about $97 per month. You can also build a WordPress site for around $60 to $85 to get started. The tradeoff is simple: Etsy brings you traffic; your own site lets you keep more of the profit and own the customer relationship.

The key to making this work is solving a specific, real problem. General information does not sell as well as a step-by-step walkthrough that produces a concrete result. Research what your target audience is actively searching for, build the product around that need, and you will have something the market already wants before you write a single word.

Business 2: Micro Influencing

Most people think influencing requires millions of followers. In reality, a micro influencer with as few as 1,000 dedicated followers can start receiving paid partnership inquiries. The definition of a micro influencer is straightforward: a person with a focused, engaged audience in a specific niche. Companies care more about audience quality than raw follower count because a tight, relevant audience converts at a higher rate than a massive but disengaged one.

Alston demonstrates this with two of his own channels. One YouTube channel had fewer than 2,000 subscribers when companies began reaching out wanting to partner. His TikTok account, at around 47,000 followers, regularly receives direct messages from brands that want product mentions. The arrangement works for both sides: the brand gets targeted exposure to an audience that actually cares about the topic, and the influencer gets paid without having to create or stock any product.

Formats for paid partnerships range from a brief verbal mention at the start of a video to a fully dedicated post or video about the product. The key is to screen every company that contacts you. Make sure they are legitimate and that the product fits your audience. If you recommend something that turns out to be a poor product, your audience trust takes the hit. But when you align the right product with the right audience, micro influencing becomes one of the most straightforward ways to monetize an existing following without building anything new from scratch.

Business 3: Blogging

Blogging is not dead. It is also not oversaturated. New topics, trends, tools, and questions emerge every single day, and every one of them is a potential blog post that can capture ongoing search traffic. A blog can be launched for under $90 depending on the hosting platform you choose, and from a single piece of content it can generate income in several different ways at the same time.

Alston runs his own blog at alstongodbolt.com covering affiliate marketing topics. From one blog post he earns through display ads that show up throughout the page, through affiliate links to products he recommends, and through direct sales of his own digital products. Three revenue streams from a single article is a compelling reason to build the content asset in the first place.

For scale, he points to moneypantry.com as a site operating in the same broad niche that now makes tens of thousands of dollars per month. That site operates identically: ads, affiliate links, and product sales. Every large blog started at zero. The early phase is what he calls sweat equity, meaning you write consistently, build up a library of posts, and wait for search traffic to compound. The process is slow at first and then accelerating. Choosing a niche you already know something about reduces research time and makes it easier to sustain the output blogging requires before the income kicks in.

Business 4: Creating a Course

Online courses share the same create-once-sell-many dynamic as digital products, but they tend to carry a higher price point and deliver more structured, multi-part value. You can create a course about almost anything: cooking, programming languages, photography, affiliate marketing, language learning, graphic design. If someone will pay to learn it, there is a market.

Alston covers two main distribution paths. The first is Udemy. Udemy has its own massive audience and domain authority, so buyers already come to the platform looking for courses. Most Udemy courses sell for $9.99, and the platform takes a cut, leaving instructors with somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of each sale, which works out to roughly $4.50 to $7 per course sold. That sounds small per unit, but volume on a platform with millions of active buyers can add up quickly, especially as your course catalog grows.

The second path is hosting your own course directly. Alston sells through his own member site, which means he keeps a higher percentage of every sale. His affiliate marketing masterclass and Bluehost affiliate course were both created more than a year before this video was published and were still generating sales at filming time. That is the long-term value of a well-made course: the asset does not expire.

A third option is Skillshare, which pays a monthly royalty based on how many minutes members spend watching your content. Alston has courses on Skillshare and receives monthly payments from them, with the amount scaling as he adds more content to the platform.

One practical note: you do not need to appear on camera to create a course. Many successful courses are built entirely from screen recordings or slide decks made in Canva, Google Slides, or PowerPoint. If you have expertise but no on-camera comfort, that is not a barrier to building a course business.

Business 5: Freelance Writing

Freelance writing has one of the lowest barriers to entry on this list. As long as you have a computer or smartphone, you can start today with no upfront cost. You write for other people or businesses rather than for your own website, and the range of what you can write is broad: sales copy, email autoresponders, blog posts, ebooks, social media captions, product descriptions, and more.

The main platforms for finding freelance writing work are Fiverr, Upwork, PeoplePerHour, iWriter, and Higher Writers. When Alston pulled up the writer category on Fiverr during the video, there were over 158,000 active writing services listed. That is a crowded space, which means setting up your profile with a specific niche and a clear deliverable will help you stand out faster than offering to write anything for anyone.

He also shares one practical tip for writing faster: use the built-in speech-to-text feature in Google Docs. Dictate your draft out loud, then go back and clean it up. This one habit can cut your writing time significantly, and it costs nothing. If writing speed has been the bottleneck slowing you down, this is worth trying before anything else.

Business 6: YouTube

YouTube is one of the most powerful platforms on this list because the content compounds. A video you publish today can keep earning for years after you post it. And almost every common objection to starting a YouTube channel falls apart when you look at what actually gets views on the platform.

Alston demonstrates this live in the video. He searches “concrete patios with fire pits” and finds channels with hundreds of thousands of views where people are simply laying concrete. He then searches “time lapse cutting grass” and finds videos, including one titled “mowing tall grass on a vacant property,” sitting at millions of views of people mowing their lawns. The lesson is direct: everything is a niche. If it can be filmed, there is an audience for it.

YouTube channels can generate income through multiple streams running at the same time. The YouTube Partner Program pays ad revenue once you hit the eligibility threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. Affiliate marketing works on YouTube the same way it works on a blog: recommend a product, include your link in the description, and earn a commission when someone buys. Merchandise works through the merch shelf, which integrates with print-on-demand platforms like Spring (formerly Teespring). You design the product; they handle printing, payment processing, and shipping. Alston uses the YouTube channel Victory as a real example of a creator who sells merchandise directly through the merch shelf on long-form videos.

Brand deals and sponsorships are the fourth stream. These are in-video promotions where a company pays you to mention their product. The example Alston gives in the video: “This video is brought to you by Carmex. Carmex is the greatest lip balm in the world.” That kind of placement in a video with even a small but dedicated audience can command a real fee. You do not need millions of views per video to attract sponsorships. You need an audience that trusts your opinion.

Not sure which of these nine businesses fits your skills and schedule?

The Platform Proof Finder matches working adults to their best first income model in under two minutes. Try it free at finder.platformproof.com.

Business 7: Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant, or VA, handles tasks remotely for business owners who need help but do not want to hire a full-time employee. The range of tasks a VA can take on is wide: data entry, email follow-up, blog management, customer support, calendar management, post scheduling, web research, and social media management. When Alston pulls up examples on Fiverr during the video, one listing offers copy-paste work, web research, WordPress data entry, typing, and social media management starting at around $20.

The business model has real scaling potential. If you have solid time management skills, you can work as a VA for multiple clients at the same time, building what amounts to a small remote services operation. Alston specifically highlights local businesses as an underserved market for VA services. Local restaurants and shops often need someone to handle their social media, manage receipts, and respond to incoming messages, but they do not have the budget or the volume of work to justify a full-time hire. Stepping in as a part-time remote VA can be a natural fit that turns into steady recurring income.

He notes in the video that people on TikTok claim to earn six figures per year from VA work alone. Individual results depend on how many clients you manage, what tasks you take on, and how efficiently you structure your time. But the baseline point holds: this is a legitimate online business that requires no startup investment beyond the equipment you already own.

Business 8: Social Media Marketer

A social media marketer manages and grows the social media presence of other businesses. The deliverables typically include posting content on a consistent schedule, engaging with followers, running question prompts, uploading to platforms like Pinterest and Facebook, and keeping a company’s feed active. Like VA work, this is a service most small businesses need but rarely have the internal bandwidth to execute well.

Alston recommends pitching local businesses as a starting point. A local company with a stale Facebook page and no Pinterest presence is an easy win. You come in, build a simple content calendar, start posting consistently, and show measurable follower growth over 30 to 60 days. That track record becomes your portfolio for landing the next client. Once you have two or three clients paying monthly retainers, the income becomes predictable.

The practical upside of social media marketing compared to other service businesses is how much of it can be automated. Tools like Hootsuite and SocialPilot let you schedule a full week of posts in a single sitting. Once the content is queued, the tools handle the publishing automatically. This means you can manage multiple clients without your workday turning into a constant stream of manual uploads. Paying for a scheduling tool is optional at the start, but the cost becomes worth it quickly once you are running more than one or two clients at the same time.

Business 9: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is Alston’s personal favorite model, and it is the one he has built his entire brand around. The concept is straightforward: you recommend someone else’s product or service, a buyer uses your link to make a purchase, and you earn a commission. No product creation required. No customer support to manage. No inventory. You are in the business of connecting people who have a problem with a solution that already exists in the marketplace.

The practical version looks like this: someone goes to YouTube and types “best microphone under $200.” You have a video or a blog post listing the five or six best options in that price range, each with an affiliate link to Amazon or another retailer. The visitor reads your comparison, picks one, clicks your link, completes the purchase, and you earn a percentage. You built the content once; it keeps earning as long as people keep searching for that keyword.

Finding affiliate programs is not complicated. Type any brand name plus “affiliate program” into Google and you will usually land on an application page. Broader searches like “affiliate programs for [your niche]” pull up curated lists of programs already organized by topic. Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the easiest to join and covers millions of products across every category imaginable. Most digital products, software tools, and online services also run their own affiliate programs, often with higher commission rates than physical goods.

What makes affiliate marketing particularly flexible is that it works on any platform where people gather. Alston lists Reddit, Quora, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube as all viable channels for affiliate content. You find where your target audience already spends time, create content that answers their questions, and include your affiliate link. The platform is less important than the match between the content and the audience’s search intent. If people have problems and you have answers, you have an affiliate marketing business.

Which Business Is Right for You: A Decision Framework

With nine options on the table, the real challenge is picking a starting point. Trying all nine at once guarantees you will do none of them well. Use the following to narrow down to one model.

If you want to start earning within weeks: Freelance writing, virtual assistant work, and social media marketing are the fastest paths to a first payment. You are trading time for money directly, with no waiting period for an audience or a content library to build.

If you want to build something that earns while you sleep: Digital products, courses, blogging, and affiliate marketing all have the create-once-earn-repeatedly quality. The tradeoff is that none of them pay quickly. Expect several months of consistent output before income becomes reliable.

If you already have a small following: Even 1,000 engaged people is enough to start. Begin with micro influencing or affiliate marketing. You already have the asset. Monetizing it does not require building anything new.

If you prefer not to show your face or build a personal brand: Blogging, freelance writing, virtual assistant work, social media management, and courses built on slide decks all work without a public-facing identity. You can run a profitable online business with no on-camera presence at all.

If you want the most scalable long-term model: Affiliate marketing and blogging both compound over time, meaning the income from old content keeps growing even when you are not actively working. YouTube follows the same pattern. These are slower to start but have the highest ceiling for passive income without ongoing client management.

Find Your X

Nine business models is still nine decisions. The Platform Proof Finder cuts through the noise by asking you a short set of questions about your skills, schedule, and goals, then pointing you to the one model that fits best. It is free to use and takes under two minutes. Find it at finder.platformproof.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much money do I actually need to start one of these online businesses?

Alston’s benchmark in the video is under $100. Several models, including freelance writing, virtual assistant work, affiliate marketing, and micro influencing, require nothing beyond a computer or smartphone you likely already own. Blogging and selling digital products require a domain and hosting, which Alston puts at around $60 to $85 to start. If you want to sell digital products through ClickFunnels, that platform runs about $97 per month, but that is optional. You can start on Etsy for free or on WordPress for less than $90.

Which of the nine businesses can I start the fastest?

Freelance writing and virtual assistant work are the quickest to get going. You can create a Fiverr profile, set up a gig, and be open for business within a few hours. Social media marketing for local businesses is similarly fast if you already have familiarity with the major platforms. These three models trade your time directly for money, so there is no waiting period for content to rank or audiences to compound. You work, you get paid.

How many followers do I need to become a micro influencer?

The number Alston cites in the video is 1,000. That is the floor where companies start to pay attention. He shows examples from one of his own YouTube channels that had fewer than 2,000 subscribers and was already receiving brand partnership inquiries. His TikTok account at 47,000 followers gets regular inbound messages from companies. The critical factor is not the number. It is that the audience is engaged and focused on a specific topic. An engaged audience of 1,000 people in a tight niche is more valuable to a brand than 10,000 passive followers who never interact.

Do I need to show my face to make money on YouTube or with online courses?

No. Alston makes this explicit in the video. For YouTube, he shows examples in the concrete and lawn care niches where the camera never points at a person and the videos still pull hundreds of thousands to millions of views. For online courses, he notes that you can build an entire curriculum from screen recordings and slide decks made in Canva, Google Slides, or PowerPoint. Face-free online income is not a workaround. It is a fully functional category of online business.

How much does a Udemy course actually pay per sale?

Most Udemy courses are listed at $9.99. The platform takes a percentage, leaving instructors with a 40 to 60 percent revenue share per sale, which works out to roughly $4.50 to $7 per course sold. The volume potential is what makes this worthwhile. Udemy has millions of active buyers who come to the platform already looking to purchase. Alston also mentions Skillshare as a complementary platform that pays monthly based on watch time, so having courses on multiple platforms at once increases total monthly income without proportionally increasing the work.

What is the difference between blogging and freelance writing?

Alston draws this line clearly in the video. A blogger writes for their own website and earns through ads, affiliate links, and product sales. A freelance writer writes for other people’s businesses and gets paid per piece or per project. Both involve writing, but the business model is different. Blogging builds a long-term content asset that can earn passively over years. Freelance writing generates faster income with no audience-building period but also stops paying the moment you stop working.

Can I run more than one of these businesses at the same time?

Technically yes, but starting two or more at the same time is a common trap. Each model has its own learning curve, and splitting your attention early usually means slower progress on everything. The smarter sequence is to pick one model, reach a level of profitability that feels stable, then layer in a complementary model. Many people find that affiliate marketing, blogging, and YouTube naturally support each other once any one of them has traction. A blog post and a YouTube video can promote the same affiliate offer and link to each other, multiplying the reach of the same underlying content.

Is affiliate marketing still a viable business model in 2024 and beyond?

Yes. The underlying mechanism has not changed: people search for solutions online, and they follow recommendations from sources they trust. What has shifted is where people search. Alston lists Reddit, Quora, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube as all viable channels for affiliate content in the same video. As long as people continue to buy products online and use search tools to find recommendations before buying, affiliate marketing remains a functional and accessible business model for anyone willing to create genuinely helpful content.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “Best Online Business To Start In 2022 (9 With No Investment),” YouTube, https://youtu.be/PvusRs-sbTQ
Etsy, etsy.com – marketplace for digital products and printables
Fiverr, fiverr.com – platform for freelance services including writing and virtual assistance
Upwork, upwork.com – freelance work marketplace
Udemy, udemy.com – online course marketplace
Skillshare, skillshare.com – subscription-based learning platform with royalty payouts
Hootsuite, hootsuite.com – social media scheduling and management tool
SocialPilot, socialpilot.co – social media scheduling and analytics tool
Spring (formerly Teespring), spri.ng – print-on-demand merchandise platform