Over the last few months, I've been doing something a little different.
Rather than spending my time analysing, auditing and improving other people's websites, I've been building a rather ambitious one of my own.
And when I say building, I don't mean throwing together a WordPress site, installing a few plugins and publishing some AI-generated articles.
I mean an actual web application. From the database architecture and backend systems to the frontend, data collection, automation and all the little things that need to work together.
It's been one of the most interesting projects I've worked on in years.
And, perhaps surprisingly, it's one of the very few types of online businesses I'd still seriously consider building today.
Let me explain why.
The problem with starting an online business in 2026
I've spent a good part of my professional life working with websites.
Over the years, I've worked on thousands of them, from small independent projects to substantial commercial operations.
And one thing I've become increasingly convinced of is that coming up with a genuinely good online business idea has become considerably harder.
Not because there aren't problems worth solving.
There are plenty.
But many of the business models that worked brilliantly ten or fifteen years ago have become increasingly difficult to justify.