Greg Isenberg — 9 biggest startup ideas right now (AI, B2C, mobile etc)
Source: YouTube Channel: Greg Isenberg (648000 subs) Duration: 1:08:23 Views: 51900 · Likes: 1136 Video: Watch on YouTube
I sit down with my friend Jonathan Courtney, a.k.a. Jicecream, to dig into the 9 biggest startup opportunities I see right now across B2C, AI, mobile, and IRL. We each pick ideas, trade reactions, and pressure-test them live. The conversation ranges from agent-first “action apps” to elder tech, third spaces, hobby retreats, pet health, AI-native media, and the case for selling AI “junior employees” to small businesses. Listeners walk away with a concrete map of where to build in 2026, plus the framing I use to decide which niche is worth marrying.
Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro 01:14 – Idea 1: Unscripted Creator Shows (Twitch model for tech) 07:50 – Idea 2: Action Apps: AI Agent Native Apps 16:39 – Idea 3: Loneliness and IRL Communities 26:47 – Idea 4: Elder Tech: Building for 65+ 33:21 – Idea 5: Adult Hobbies 38:17 – Idea 6: AI Employee and AI Agents 45:33 – Idea 7: Personalized Nutrition/Health 53:08 – Idea 8: Pet Health and AI for Animals 57:34 – Idea 9: AI-Native Media Companies Done Right 01:03:18 – Stacking Ideas: Live + Retreats + Entrepreneurs 01:07:22 – Final Thoughts
Numbered Section Summaries
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Live, Unscripted Creator Shows Jonathan opens with the Twitch playbook applied to business audiences. He argues the polished interview podcast is losing ground to long, messy, live streams where the host just talks. TBPN selling for over 100M is the proof point: low viewership, very high-value viewers. The takeaway is that anti-AI authenticity will keep gaining share as AI sanitizes the rest of the feed.
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Action Apps: Agent-First Mobile I lay out my favorite category. Today’s apps assume a human taps, scrolls, and types. The agent-first version of an inbox, CRM, or expense tool just does the work and shows you the exceptions. This is the mobile-to-mobile-first transition all over again, and incumbents will lag the way Facebook lagged into Instagram.
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Loneliness, Third Spaces, and Niche Communities Jonathan shares the Dads of Marathon Discord — 13,900 members f
Key Insights
I have one goal and one goal only today. It’s to go through the 12 biggest startup opportunities. So, uh the other day I tweeted and it went viral, the 30 biggest biggest startup opportunities, B2C, AI, mobile, and people just wanted more. They they wanted they want to know more. So, in this episode, I want to go through my 12 favorite ones. And well, it’s not just going to be me. It’s it’s my friend J Ice Cream, J J Ice Cream, Jonathan Courtney on the pod. What’s up? Welcome. And you’re going to pick six and I’m going to pick six, right? That’s it. I’m going to pick six, you’re going to pick six. Who knows, maybe one of us will pick seven. You never know what’s going to happen. >> You never know, so you’re going to want to stick to the end. Um I think people who do stick to the end of this episode uh are going to have a good understanding of a bunch of different categories that we are building businesses in. So, we’re sharing the sauce live. We hope that you actually take these ideas and build with them. >> [music] >> And uh maybe you want to start off. Oh, okay. So, >> [music] [music] >> looking through your list, uh the very first one that jumped out to me as something I think that’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger is number eight, which is biggest creator. So, what you wrote is that the biggest creator is going to have this combination of live shows and unscripted and as someone who plays a lot of video games, I’m exposed to a lot of these creators who create who uh put out their content on Twitch. And it was interesting to see what is it TPBN or TBPN, whichever way around that is, the tech show that’s playing on X uh all the time. It was interesting to see that hit the tech scene because it’s been in gaming for a very long time. And I think some of the things that the tech like world can learn from gaming is this more unscripted kind of, you know, off-the-cuff kind of streams. And I just have a couple of examples if you want to see because I follow a lot of these streamers and I try to emulate them in my content. And I think it’s it connects with one of the things you said like later in your list, which is like it’s a bit anti-AI because it’s live, because it’s unscripted, because things can go wrong, people actually want to watch. It’s very, very human. So, I’ll just take over the screen for a second and show you uh Twitch. So, Twitch I think most of you know twitch.tv. It is a place where people live stream. And this is an example of a live stream. So, this is actually a relatively popular streamer, um a guy called Jeff Gerstmann. So, he’s just one of the people I watch and I pay to watch his channel, and he does these like three to four times a week, three to four hour long streams where he just sits there talking unedited, like as messy as it can be, and just chats to his audience and reacts to his audience. And pretty much everyone I follow, this guy is live right now, Druski. He plays a game called uh Marathon. If any of you guys are playing Marathon, it’s a great game. You should play it. But this is a perfect example. So, right now, and this is a smaller channel, but right now, you know, 247 people are watching this guy live. Um people are paying A lot of people are paying to watch this guy live, and he’s just sitting here playing a video game that he wants to play anyway. And this is something that also scales up to like something that’s a bit more official, like let me show you uh Giant Bomb. So, these guys are Let me show you the kind of funny guys. So, they also stream live every single weekday. This is more close to what you see with the TVPN. What actually is it? By the way, it’s I I it’s hilarious cuz you remind me of the people who like the old older people who’d be like chat GTP, you know? Yeah, I still I still can’t remember any of these things. What is it TVP >> TVPN. >> TVPN, yeah. And And by the way, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, well,
Transcript continues…
Chapters
- 00:00 — Intro
- 01:14 — Idea 1: Unscripted Creator Shows (Twitch model for tech)
- 07:50 — Idea 2: Action Apps: AI Agent Native Apps
- 16:39 — Idea 3: Loneliness and IRL Communities
- 26:47 — Idea 4: Elder Tech: Building for 65+
- 33:21 — Idea 5: Adult Hobbies
- 38:17 — Idea 6: AI Employee and AI Agents
- 45:33 — Idea 7: Personalized Nutrition/Health
- 53:08 — Idea 8: Pet Health and AI for Animals
- 57:34 — Idea 9: AI-Native Media Companies Done Right
- 03:18 — Stacking Ideas: Live + Retreats + Entrepreneurs
- 07:22 — Final Thoughts