Is It Too Late to Start an Online Business in 2026? – My Honest Take!

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So when even if someone has got a really amazing idea to start their own online business, as the underlying question of did they miss the window? Is it too late to start an online business now? Because AI is coming and it's probably going to take over anyway. Is there still actually opportunity that if I invest all my time and energy into building something of my own, is it going to exist in 3 to 5 years time?

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Now, I want to answer that question today from my own opinions, because the online business space gives very little acknowledgment to the fact that the online business world is going to change alongside the job market. There's so much attention on people's jobs and corporate being lost because of AI, but not that much attention on the fact that the online business world is changing as well.

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And I started building online businesses from scratch, from my living room in London, out of a need for making money, because I had actually quit my job before we went into the pandemic. So I found myself jobless in the pandemic, in lockdown. So I started an online business using the skills that I already had from my 12 year career in fashion industry, and transfer them over into doing my own thing.

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Now I have been building different online businesses, trying different business models over the past six years, and I've found what works for me. And now I've got a business that really works. May not feel like one I work for, which is a mistake that so many entrepreneurs make. They build themselves another job. Now I am here to give you all the information, all of the advice to help you prevent that and build an online business that actually really works, the lifestyle that you want to live.

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And secondly, I went into the world of e-commerce. My whole background had been in fashion and e-commerce and retail industry, so it was only natural that the first business that I started was supporting e-commerce business for the set up. Now, if you remember correctly, everybody in the pandemic was setting up their own e-commerce business and selling products that maybe they had made over and restoring in their living rooms and then shipping out because they had the time, the capacity and the energy to do that.

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I set up my business at the perfect time to create success for myself with that fast online business, because first day of row was online. And secondly, people needed my help. But I still had to start from scratch. I still was starting from zero. I had no business experience. I'd worked in corporate. I've been building five year plans for a 380 million pound business, and I figured if I'm good enough to build it for this 380 million pound business, then why could I not scale down the strategies and build them for smaller businesses?

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So I didn't really have a platform. I didn't have an email list. I didn't have a course created. I had no products. I didn't know what I was gonna sell. But I did have a LinkedIn profile, and I did have the belief that I had something to offer, and I knew that I had all of these transferable skills from my time in corporate and all of that experience that I had.

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I knew I could build something of my own using that, but I still had to put myself out there. I still had to build an audience from scratch. I still had to reach out to people and test offers. I start to do a lot of work for free to get testimonials, to build some credibility behind me, and that meant I went through so many different trial and error periods in the online business space to really figure out what works for me and what didn't, and what felt good and what didn't.

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And that was a lot of trial and error over the past six years, until I eventually figured out exactly what I did want to do. And I always kind of look back and wish that I'd actually started my online business a little bit earlier, or started the process of the online business idea, because I actually had the idea for what I did about three years before I took any action.

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And I do really feel like if you have an idea that if it's sitting on a steam bubbling up for a while, regardless of what timeline we're in, regardless of whether AI is coming, the context of what the future holds, you should be starting it that little inkling that you should be starting something of your own is actually your body giving you information that is actually your brain telling you what your next step in life is.

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Now. Nobody knows what the future holds. With AI, we can be really optimistic or we can be really doomsday about it. Now, I would like to be on the more optimistic side, and I would like to say that regardless of what happens with AI, whatever you build today, it can one be helped built by AI and two, you can pivot and adapt it as this market evolves.

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But you do need to start thinking about AI regardless of what idea you've got for your business, you do need to start thinking about how that is going to impact it. But if you don't even start, then you won't even know. So actually, this period of time right now is a really exciting time to start an online business because you have so many tools available to you to help you build it.

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And anybody that is using AI as an excuse not to build is just procrastinating on something because they don't believe that they can. Now, I won't lie and tell you it's going to be an easy ride for you if you are starting an online business right now, but building any business at any time, regardless of what we're entering in this new AI era is never going to be easy.

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Come and join me on the 2nd of June, because I'm hosting a Free Life Business Bootcamp where I will literally teach you how to build a business around the lifestyle that you want to live and create your offer with. You. Figure out who you're selling it to and give you three step action plans. Take away and actually start building your online business from scratch, regardless if you've got no audience whatsoever, we will be building those first steps together.

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It is completely free to join. It is live, and even if you can't make it, make sure you register because I will be setting up a back up to the session in that I'm actually going to give you access to all of the things I've been building with. I see that you can say that building an online business using AI is really possible, and I will share with you the other things that I believe you need in a business to succeed in this rise of AI.

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There are a lot of things that are harder now. There are more people coming into entrepreneurship than ever before, which does mean that there's more noise online and being able to get someone's attention is a lot more competitive than it was six years ago. So if you just feel like you don't want to show up anywhere online to build traction, or you don't want to invest money into ads, to be honest, then yeah, I would say don't actually bother because you are not going to be seen.

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And businesses that are not seen do not get bought from. So you need to be comfortable with either making yourself your brand or investing money into making it visible. And make sure that you know that that is a bare minimum requirement for when you build a business online, because you need to market it when if you don't market something, you don't get sales.

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So we need to make sure that you are thinking about that before you even jump in. And of course, AI is changing things. There is a lot of things online that used to take loads of time to produce in terms of creating content, or all these fancy presentations or brand that now have to be generated in minutes, like the speed of which I can churn out things for us to use in our online business is actually terrifying, but an amazing opportunity.

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And this can really help you build your business really efficiently and effectively, because you've got this amazing tool under your belt. But it does also mean that there is going to be a world flooded with generic content, generic advice. So you need to be making sure that if you are using AI to build your business, that you are thinking about how you can stand out from all of that regurgitated crap that we are seeing online.

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Because what hasn't changed is that people want to buy from people that they trust. People still want to be able to build relationships with people that they are buying from. Even if you are using AI to build a business or create information for you and find information for you, you still need to be operating your business from a place of personal or brand perspective, the brand or your experience and your way of explaining something.

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If you're going to plan to build an online business right now, you need to be prepared to market the shit out of it, and you need to build something that is genuine, authentic and real because people want to buy from people, humans, not robots. So you need to have something really solid and strong to offer. If you are going to be building something of your own, and make sure that that business model makes sense for your lifestyle and your goals and don't forget, if you come and join the Freedom Business Boot Camp on the 2nd of June, we're going to help you build all of this together.

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I'm going to factor in everything that I've spoken about today, and you're going to walk away knowing exactly which online business model you should be starting based on your existing skills and passions. And I'm going to help you build an offer and figure out how you're selling it, too. In this age of AI making sure that you stand out from the crowd and you have a really clear, unique selling point as to why somebody should buy from you a summary.

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Either way, come and join me in the bootcamp on the second, and you'll be able to get a little bit more clarity on this subject. If you love today's episode, please forget to like and subscribe on your favorite podcast and platforms and I will see you next time.