The 3 Most Popular Business Models of 2024

Hey Cashflowers,

This week we are diving into the most popular business models of 2024, their pros and cons, and some of the best advice to succeed with each one.

If that’s something worth a 3-minute read, follow along!

Let’s dive in!

Freelancing

Freelancing has been popular forever and there’s good reason:

It’s the best way to start doing something, build a network, learn skills, and turn it into a real business or agency.

That’s the name of the game with freelancing unless you just want to keep it as a side hustle.

To start, the best way to build up a base of clients is by making a name for yourself through social media branding, good recommendations from past clients, good recommendations from current clients, and your network.

One of the most misconceptualized things about freelancing is how you actually build a network of people.

Newsflash: You aren’t going to network with people by telling them you’re trying to network in the DMs

You’ll network through being valuable to people.

For example, your client base is going to become your network because your skill is valuable to them and their money is valuable to you.

Back to branding though:

The best way to be successful with freelancing is having a brand that people recognize. This starts with your social media profiles, social proof of work you’ve done, and posts that show you’re competent in the field you work in.

From there, when you either do cold outreach or prospects see your account, there are only going to be reasons why you’re worth their time and not reasons to skip to the next person.

For example, look at the cold email wizard on X. Everybody knows he is actually the best at cold email because of the brand he has built around cold email. There are many other examples, but he is just one.

Let’s run over the core pros and cons of freelancing before we move on:

  • Pros:
    • You can choose your hours and workload.
    • There are many different types of services, from writing and graphic design to web development and virtual assistance.
    • With experience and positive reviews, you can increase your rates and attract more clients.
    • The ability to scale is endless
  • Cons:
    • Work volume can fluctuate if you’re not keeping up with gaining clients.
    • You’ll have to charge less in the beginning and learn a skill
    • Freelancers don’t get any benefits that come with a regular job

Ecommerce

Ecommerce is one of those fields that is extremely broad.

While freelancing refers to offering a service to someone in exchange for money, Ecommerce covers any field where you’re selling a product to someone online.

One of the most popular things to do a few years ago was dropshipping, but now the amount of drop-shippers has significantly increased the number of people in the market, therefore saturating it.

Now one of the best ways to sell online is either through affiliate marketing or selling your own digital products.

Either way one thing is key:

Building an audience

Building an audience is important because in the current economy attention is what creates profit.

If you can get enough eyes on a product, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, you’ll make money.

Affiliate marketing this way is nice because you get a profit for each sale without having to deal with any part of fulfillment, customer service, shipping, etc…

This is why we also suggest digital products, as they require many less obstacles to get to the customer, leaving you with a smoother running operation.

Getting to the pros and cons again:

  • Pros:
    • You don’t need to invest a lot in the beginning
    • With the right products and audience, you can scale to do huge numbers and eventually turn it into a real business
    • You can run this from anywhere in the world
  • Cons:
    • The e-commerce market is saturated, making it challenging to stand out
    • Building an audience can be difficult if you don’t already know how to
    • Profit margins can be low on certain products

Content Creation and Monetization

Content Creation is at its peak, and has been for awhile. It’s also only going to keep growing.

Remember what we said earlier about growing a brand? Well growing a brand takes content, and with content, you have to monetize, that’s why this is one of the most popular niches of 2024.

Creating content can become a huge hassle for big brands that are more focused on selling their products and creating new marketing labels, which is where you can come in.

Creating content for an already established brand has its perks: followers, traction, brand support, and most importantly…

A stream of revenue.

With content, you can use all these factors to increase a brand’s stream of revenue from social media, and in turn, take a percentage of the profit you made them.

This can range from taking 5% of 1,000 to 5% of $1,000,000. Either way, if you do it well enough and often enough it’s one of the best ways to cashflow a business in 2024.

Last set of pros and cons before we wrap up this newsletter:

  • Pros:
    • You can create content around your passions and interests.
    • Once you have a library of content, you can earn money through ads, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing.
    • The internet allows you to reach people all over the world.
  • Cons:
    • Building a following and monetizing content can take time and effort.
    • Changes to algorithms or policies on platforms like YouTube or Instagram can impact your earnings.
    • Content creators may experience fluctuations in income due to changes in viewership or ad rates.


-Cheers!

Cashflow Chronicles