10 Proven Business Ideas That Can Make You a Millionaire

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Successful entrepreneurs build wealth through strategic business activities, underpinned by disciplined habits. My Rich Habits Study, which examined 233 millionaires (177 self-made) over five years, reveals the behaviors that drive entrepreneurial success.

This article outlines the top ten business activities that are propelling today’s entrepreneurs to accumulate millions, offering actionable steps for aspiring entrepreneurs.

1. Launching scalable tech startups

Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk built fortunes by launching tech startups with scalable products. Musk’s Tesla revolutionized electric vehicles, scaling through Gigafactory production. In my study, the millionaires who pursue innovative ventures accumulated the most wealth in the shortest amount of time: $7.4 million in wealth in just 12 years.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Identify a tech-driven problem (e.g., renewable energy) and develop a minimum viable product (MVP). Then, pilot, pivot and re-pilot your product until you figure out what works and what doesn’t work.

2. Developing innovative consumer products

Sara Blakely created Spanx by designing shapewear to solve a personal pain point, disrupting the fashion industry. In my study, I found that 60% of the Entrepreneur-Dreamer millionaires built their wealth through passion-driven products.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Brainstorm any product that either solves a problem or adds value to the lives of others.

3. Scaling e-commerce platforms

Jeff Bezos grew Amazon by reinvesting profits into logistics and warehousing, dominating online retail. In my study, the entrepreneurs reinvested almost all of their profits back into their businesses.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Start an e-commerce store on Shopify, focusing on a high-demand niche like sustainable goods, and reinvest early profits to scale your business.

Related: Airbnb Is a Social Network Now

4. Forming strategic media partnerships

I learned from my Rich Habits study that successful entrepreneurs devoted a large portion of their time to building “Power Relationships” with influencers and other business partners, who could help them open doors and gain access to working capital in order to grow their businesses.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Partner with content creators or brands to co-develop a media project, like a podcast or YouTube channel, to expand your reach.

5. Creating subscription-based services

Reed Hastings pivoted Netflix to a streaming subscription model, investing in original content like Stranger Things. The wealthy entrepreneurs in my study all shared one common Rich Habits – Pivoting in the face of adversity. Oftentimes, my entrepreneurs would pivot multiple times in an effort to figure out what worked and what didn’t work.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Develop a subscription service (e.g., a fitness app) and test it with a small audience, pivoting along the way, in an effort to refine/improve your business model.

6. Diversification of business profits

Many of my successful entrepreneurs, once their core business venture began to turn a profit, invested a portion of their business profits into real estate, rental properties or wealth management services.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Once your business turns a profit, invest 20% or more of the profits, every year, into alternative wealth-building investments such as: real estate, equities, side business hustles, annuities, retirement plans or passive-income generating investments.

7. Building digital platforms

Mark Zuckerberg scaled Meta by acquiring synergistic platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Launch a digital platform, like a niche social network or SaaS tool, and commit to regular updates to attract users. Then, reinvest your profits into synergistic businesses to help grow your wealth.

8. Create synergistic businesses

Many of the entrepreneur-millionaires in my Rich Habits Study created offshoot businesses that were separate, stand-alone businesses, related to their core business in some way. This helped these successful entrepreneurs build multiple streams of synergistic business income, which acted like a safety net, protecting their wealth in the event one of the streams became impaired due to economic downturns. In my Rich Habits Study, 84% of entrepreneurs had 3 synergistic income streams, 39% had 4 streams, and 27% reported that they had 5 streams or more.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Start a side hustle that is related to your core business or invest part of your core business profits into startups that are synergistic to your core business.

9. Launching health and wellness brands

Richard Branson’s Virgin Active gyms capitalized on the fitness trend, per Business Insider. According to my Rich Habits research data, self-made entrepreneurs 95% exercised aerobically 30 minutes or more every day. This helped improve/maximize brain performance by increasing the supply of oxygen to their brain cells and also boosted their energy levels, allowing them to work and focus longer during each day.

Rich Habit Action Tip: With an increasingly health-conscious society, start a wellness brand, like a fitness app or organic product line, targeting health-conscious consumers.

10. Emerging and growing industry segments

In my Rich Habits Study, successful entrepreneurs identified an emerging or growing industry segment and invested their time and money in building businesses serving these emerging or growing industries. Today, AI and Blockchain are emerging and growing industry segments that will spawn many future millionaires and billionaires.

Rich Habit Action Tip: Find an industry segment that you believe will become a leading industry. Then, create products, services or apps to serve that emerging or growing industry.

This article outlines the top ten business activities that are propelling today’s entrepreneurs to accumulate millions, offering actionable steps for aspiring entrepreneurs.