My First Million

I Ranked the Best & WORST Businesses to Start Before 2026 | Andrew Wilkinson


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Which business model should you start? Get Andrew's cheat sheet with his full ranking and real profit margins here: https://clickhubspot.com/dge


Episode 762: What’s the best business to start in 2026?

Agencies, SaaS, Restaurants, Real Estate, Marketplaces. Angel Investing; Andrew Wilkinson has played every game.

He built 38 companies, lost $10 million, and still ended up with a $300 million portfolio.

This week, @shaanpuri spoke with him about:

  • the best and worst business models to win in 2026

  • starting Tiny with just $4M (now $250M)

  • the truth behind the Twitter hate on Tiny’s stock

  • why buying companies beats building them

    His is not a redemption story. It is the unapologetic reality of building, failing, and getting back up.

    Show Notes:

    (0:00) Intro

    (3:06) MLM

    (4:28) Freelancer

    (5:07) Agency

    (9:33) SaaS

    (14:48) Restaurant 

    (17:03) Marketplace

    (19:43) Short Term Rentals

    (20:52) Content Creator

    (23:06) Real Estate

    (26:16) Fund Management 

    (35:21) Local Services

    (36:36) Investing

    (38:12) Sweaty Startup

    (43:15) Tiny stock performance

    (52:20) The courage to be disliked

    (1:10:21) Inputs v outputs


    Links:

    • Tiny - https://tiny.com/ 

    • Never Enough - https://www.neverenough.com/ 

    • Serato - https://serato.com/ 

    • Rekordbox - https://rekordbox.com

    • Pershing Square Holdings - https://pershingsquareholdings.com/ 

    • Invest Like The Best - https://www.youtube.com/@ILTB_Podcast 

    • The Courage To Be Disliked - https://tinyurl.com/5fk3sa79 

    Check Out Shaan's Stuff:

    • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com 

    • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents.

    • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies!

    Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC

    Check Out Sam's Stuff:

    • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/

    • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/

    • Copy That - https://copythat.com

    • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth

    • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/

    My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano //


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