Chris Koerner: Business ideas for starting with $500, $1,000, and $5,000.

#sidehustle #entrepreneurship #businessideas #chris #smallbusiness #copycatbusiness

Meet Chris, the "King of Side Hustles," a serial entrepreneur who has started over 80 businesses, generating hundreds of millions in revenue. In this interview, Chris shares the foundational mindset required to succeed: overcoming the fear of judgment ("the pain of your problem must be greater than what people think of you"). He emphasizes that now is the best time ever to start a business, thanks to AI tools, low entry costs, and the abundant resources available for testing and validating ideas (like Facebook Marketplace or Web Archive).

Chris challenges the notion of "new ideas," advocating for the strategic art of copying existing successful blueprints. He argues that competition proves a market exists, allowing new founders to start where their competitors are today, saving years of experimentation. He provides a fascinating case study of how he successfully applied this model to his iPhone screen repair business and his $2 million Bucee's e-commerce venture, which he launched after discovering the popular gas station brand had no online presence.

Crucially, Chris warns against innovating on "old problems" (like logistics or pricing structures) where established players have already learned the hard way. Instead, beginners should copy the entire operational model and reserve experimentation for "new problems" or minor tweaks. He closes by preparing to reveal three specific business ideas using a small starting capital: $500, $1,000, and $5,000.