Do you think its actually possible to start a real honest business in 2026?

We did it a decade ago. No funding. Slow slow growth. Finally doing well..
I think you still can. But it won't happen overnight.

Of course you can. You know what you need first? An idea for a business. You’ve given nothing and just said why it’s not possible.

One question - by “exploit the hell out of others” I’m guessing you just mean…..employ people to work at your hypothetical business? If so, I’m going to assume that this is all a “socialism/communism is what we need“ bait post.

https://www.bellbrosguns.co.uk/how-three-men-in-a-shed-revolutionised-rifles/

Why did you stop?

What an incredibly pesimistic and sad take. It has never been as easy to launch a life changing product as it is today.

Building a business takes time. 10-15 years. That's just the reality of starting a business in anything.

It's absolutely doable to start in practically any branch and make a living. But it actually takes effort.

There has never been a business model that involves little effort, besides gambling and getting lucky.

I thought I'd always want to start some sort of good business ..... I know people who... retired with millions. I do not think anyone could do that today

It seems you equate "starting a good business" with "retiring with millions". I would consider those very separate.

And a CNC shop is very capital intensive to start so yeah, probably not going to start one without a loan from somewhere. This also makes me think you're only talking about huge companies or manual labor work, when plenty of people have honest accounting businesses and live pretty comfortably.

All you need is an LLC. And those are like $50 to register? After that, how honest you are is up to you. The headlines are full of big companies and flashy names, but there are a lot of people out here working for themselves or with a couple of people at a tiny company.

Agreed. I think there are tons of businesses people have never heard of because they serve a specific niche and aren't public facing or household names. I don't think its easy to launch a successful business but it wasn't easy in the past either amd we don't remember all the companies that didn't make it.

Regarding 'honesty,' that probably depends on the market and what your competitors are willing to do. Its probably a lot easier to run an honest local restaurant than some international finance firm. You'll probably need to sacrifice your integrity to reach those higher echelons because everyone else there was already willing to do the same.

I recently saw a mobile mechanic who uses an old ambulance as his repair rig with "EMS" (I'm assuming Emergency Mechanic Service) on the side. I thought it was really creative and a great rig to store and haul tools and equipment.

I started my own handyman business 3 years ago and I don't consider it a scam nor did I need to invest millions up-front. Not even thousands in-fact. I earn a comfortable living from it and tons of gratitude from happy customers.

It's pretty easy to stand out to your advantage by being fair and honest. People notice it and they tell other people too.

There are tons of service oriented small businesses that are honest. Because they don't generally pay a high overhead for things like retail space they can be very profitable as well.

The issue for me is how to make yourself known, and let people hire you instead of doing it themselves.

Any time I have an idea, I think sure but if I was the client I'd just do this myself. It kind of seems a lot of diy businesses dont make sense because anyone can do it themselves and learn on YouTube.

Yeah, I just dont see it as possible. From my perspective:

1. Fix cars: this won't last for more than maybe 5 or 10 years as most cars under 20 years old are unrepairable or getting impossible to find parts for. Need a $20,000 dealership computer to even change a brake pad. And electric cars won't need maintenance.

2. Some sort of programming. I never could really grasp programming much as I wanted to, and anyone today would go to ai or India to have something made cheaply. Not viable at all.

3. Retro console or CRT TV repair: the types involved in that hobby already know how to fix it themselves. Repair is insanely costly and usually out weighs the cost of just buying another thing. This goes for repair of almost anything today.

4. Art: I mean, we have seen that etsy has sloppified. Not viable. Why pay for a t shirt when I can have a much cheaper one with ai slop art. (Normal people do not care if its human made)

5. Music recording /mixing : again, if people want this they are doing it themselves or having ai do it. Theres 0 market for how costly and time consuming it is.

Thats basically my skillset. I have absolutely nothing that is a viable business. Now if I knew how to fix houses or do wood work, that'd be a huge money maker, but I am awful at housework/woodwork. And that usually takes employees as well for a lot of jobs you can't do alone.

Inventing a product...I mean its all been invented. Theres only so much plastic junk we can have made.

No, sorry, I meant exploit as in make a little plastic doodad for 2 cents and have people in China make it for you then sell it for $20. I don't want that. Or have a shipping business where I pay people minimum wage etc.

I have tons of ideas. Theyre all outdated or just not viable in a few years. I really have no clue how anyone does it !