Low Bar Podcast

Government auctions, liquidation auctions, and industrial surplus sales are hiding opportunities most people never see. This episode breaks down the auction sites resellers use to find inventory, source products, and build profitable businesses. Shannon Jean is back to walk Ben and Jon through the auction sites, liquidation marketplaces, and government surplus programs where resellers find invento...

Starting a business, making money online, and building real income streams looks a lot different when you’ve actually done it over and over again. This episode breaks down every business BK has started over the last 10 years and which ones he would still start today. Ben walks through everything from mowing lawns and flipping class rings to high ticket dropshipping, Amazon FBA, content businesses,...

Everyone says dropshipping is dead. Meanwhile, Wayfair is running one of the biggest ecommerce businesses in the world on a dropship network. This episode breaks down what dropshipping actually is and why almost everyone gets it wrong. Ben and Jon explain the simplest definition of dropshipping. It is not a business model. It is a method of fulfillment used by companies like Wayfair, Amazon, Walma...

Local business ideas, side hustles, and simple ways to make money offline are everywhere. This episode breaks down what happens when people actually take action on those ideas instead of overthinking them. After hearing an idea on the podcast, Rachel launched a local newsletter for a city she does not even live in yet. Within a day she had engagement, comments, and local businesses asking to be fe...

Building a business, using AI, and making money online sounds simple until your first idea fails. This episode breaks down what happens next and how one operator rebuilt fast. John Murphy ( https://www.friqlabs.com/ ) sold his high ticket dropshipping business, tried launching a cold plunge brand in Italy, and watched it fail. Instead of overthinking the next move, he pivoted and built a new busin...

AI business ideas, side hustles, and ways to make money online are everywhere right now. This episode breaks down the real ways people are actually using AI to make money today. Ben went down a rabbit hole and came back with a mix of practical, weird, and surprisingly effective AI business ideas. Not theory. Not hype. Stuff people are already doing. From AI generated feet pics and fake grandma inf...

Live selling, ecommerce, and reselling on Whatnot and TikTok are creating a new way to make money online. This episode breaks down a live auction business where products sell every 30 seconds through urgency, entertainment, and impulse buying. Kip Roland (X - @kip_roland) spent years selling on eBay, Amazon, and Etsy until Amazon suspended his account. Instead of rebuilding on a platform he did no...

Local business ideas, side hustles, and simple ways to make money offline are everywhere. This episode breaks down a postcard advertising business that can be started with no money by selling ad space to local businesses. Rachel from Big Sky Automation explains how “community cards” work, one postcard sent to thousands of homes with multiple local businesses sharing the cost. The postcards are sen...

Digital products, PDF businesses, and growing a podcast all sound simple until you actually try to execute. A few months ago, Ben and Jon said they would build PDF products, sell them, and grow the podcast. This is the follow up on what actually happened. Both PDFs got built. Neither got launched. And the reasons were different. One came down to time and prioritization. The other came down to unce...

Local business ideas and side hustles are everywhere, but most people overlook the easiest opportunities right in their own town or city. Ben and Jon walk through three local business ideas that can generate real revenue without experience, a big budget, or anything complicated. They dive into how a local TV ad network works, where you place screens in bars, waiting rooms, and small businesses, th...

She stepped away from selling $80,000 coaching packages and rebuilt her business around $17 digital courses. Today that simple funnel generates around $80,000 per month. Cat Howell built an eight figure agency, but after hitting a breaking point she walked away and went through multiple pivots before landing on a simpler model that worked. She shares how that experience changed how she thinks abou...

Reselling books, liquidation pallets, eBay flipping, and live selling on Whatnot. These online business models turn cheap inventory into real profit when you understand the arbitrage. Mindi Reinke ( https://x.com/hey_mindi ) is an eBay book reseller and Whatnot fashion live seller who teaches new entrepreneurs how to start a reselling business. Her reselling journey started with two $1 pallets of...

Most ecommerce businesses fight for 10–20% profit margins. This website runs at 95% margins, generates over $112,000 per year, and is listed for $336,000. Ben and Jon break down the economics behind buying a high-margin content website and why owning a site like this can dramatically increase ecommerce profitability, cash flow, and business valuation. They analyze the listing like operators: traff...

Sports cards and Pokemon cards have become a real side hustle and small business opportunity. From flipping graded cards to cracking slabs and resubmitting for profit, there is serious money in the trading card market. In this episode, Ben and Jon break down whether cracking a graded Pokemon or sports card is a legitimate business model or just calculated gambling. The framework is simple. Buy a g...

Mindset coaching, hypnotherapy, and the psychology of entrepreneurship. Why fear, self sabotage, and the shift from employee to founder hold most people back from starting or scaling a business. Valentina DeFerrari is a certified hypnotherapist, former registered nurse, and licensed massage therapist who works with entrepreneurs on the mental blocks stopping them from taking action. She joined Ben...

Service business owners and small business entrepreneurs leave money on the table every single day. Ben's barber cuts hair for Minnesota Vikings players but doesn't use it as marketing. No social proof, no price increases, just missed revenue opportunities. Some business owners tested the fear. A massage therapist raised prices after Ben coached her and showed the demand would still be the...

Nick Loper has interviewed more side hustlers than anyone alive. 700 episodes, 24 million downloads, and today he shares the business ideas that blew his mind the most. Nick, Jon, and Ben look at side hustles you've never heard of: turning free items into premium products, memberships that help people do chores they already hate, everyday commodities repositioned as luxury goods, and real esta...

Shannon Jean is back, and this time he is screen sharing liquidation auctions and walking through exactly what he buys, what he skips, and why. Ben and Jon watch in real time as deals close, from pallets of appliances selling for a fraction of retail to seasonal inventory being liquidated for pennies on the dollar. Shannon breaks down his sourcing strategy in detail. How to evaluate manifests, cal...

Ben was cleaning his grill and had a simple thought: I would pay someone $200 right now to do this for me. That sparked a conversation about service businesses built around convenience, not complexity. This episode explores low barrier service business ideas hiding in everyday frustration. Businesses that require little startup capital, no inventory, and no special skills. Some are seasonal. Some...

Building a business on Amazon does not require inventory, shipping, or physical products. Fiction publishing through Amazon ebooks has quietly become one of the most scalable digital business models, even for people with no prior experience. Karla explains how her company, Fiction Profits Academy ( https://www.fictionprofitsacademy.com/ ), has helped over 15,000 students by focusing on genre deman...

In part one on OF, we showed how creators build relationships using the FAKE Framework. This week focuses on the CASH Framework: crisis creation, anniversary exploitation, scarcity theater, and hierarchy games. These are the psychological triggers creators use to extract maximum revenue from their audience, and they work shockingly well. Fake emergencies, guilt trips, birthday extraction sequences...

High ticket closing is a skill in online business that can generate real income without starting a company, running ads, or building products. Why do some people choose closing over starting a business, and why has it quietly become one of the most valuable skills in entrepreneurship for people who want leverage without ownership? Kayvon Kay talks with Ben and Jon about how closers convert qualifi...

This episode builds a 75 Hard framework for business. It is about discipline, consistency, and momentum instead of motivation and hacks. If you care about business, entrepreneurship, ecommerce, or building real mental toughness, this conversation is for you. Business 75 Hard rules: 1. Daily ask — One direct revenue ask every day 2. Daily content — Post one piece of content every day on one channel...

New Year’s resolutions fuel a massive business built on optimism, failure, and predictable human behavior. Ben and Jon walk through the hidden economy behind fitness apps, diet challenges, planners, habit trackers, and self improvement products that surge every January. They explain how platforms already know exactly when users will fail, why that failure is expected, and how it becomes a feature...

Americans spend a trillion dollars on Christmas. Billions of it goes to one thing: pretending Santa is real. This is the Santa Industrial Complex. And it only exists because every parent in America agreed to tell the exact same lie. Let's get to 100k subscribers so Ben can be Santa next year! Business is simple. People are lazy. https://lowbarpod.com/ Join the private Low Bar Pod community and...