3 Businesses That Run Themselves (+ how my business does it)

With the right systems, almost any business can become a business that runs itself—but online businesses make it much easier to achieve. Instead of listing out difficult and time-consuming in-person businesses, I’ll walk you through 3 types of online businesses that run themselves, which you can start working on today.

At the end of this post, I’ll also share how I built my own business that practically runs itself.

1. Online Courses

Online courses have transformed the way people share knowledge. Whether you're teaching digital marketing, cooking, or personal development, once set up, these courses can become completely automated–from enrollment to certification–with minimal manual upkeep.

Their versatility is a game-changer. A course can be as simple as pre-recorded videos or as complex as a program with live sessions, community access, and premium features–all while keeping things scalable.

Benefits of online courses

Creating and selling online courses offers several compelling advantages that make them ideal for building a self-running business. The nature of course content, combined with modern automation tools and delivery platforms, creates a scalable business model that can thrive with minimal ongoing intervention:

• Online courses have a high return on upfront effort. Your initial investment of time and resources continues paying dividends as each new student can access and benefit from your work without requiring additional effort. This long-term payoff makes the intensive creation phase worthwhile.
• Online courses establish you as an expert in your niche. As students experience success through your teachings, they naturally become advocates for your expertise, leading to organic growth through recommendations and testimonials. Your reputation grows automatically as more students complete your course and share their success stories.
• Online courses generate multiple revenue streams. Beyond basic course sales, you can create premium tiers with additional support, develop course bundles, or offer advanced modules for graduates. Each tier can be structured to require minimal ongoing effort while maximizing revenue potential through various price points.
• Online courses offer flexible production options. You can create video courses, simple smartphone recordings, slide presentations with screen recordings, or comprehensive text-based materials–there's a format that matches your strengths and resources. This flexibility means anyone can create impactful courses regardless of their technical expertise or budget.
• Online courses grow in value over time. Unlike many business assets that depreciate, well-structured courses often appreciate as you gather success stories, refine materials based on feedback, and build your reputation. This unique characteristic allows you to increase prices while maintaining stable costs, leading to greater profitability as your course matures.

Creating online courses isn't just about generating income–it's about building a sustainable business asset that grows in value over time. When done right, courses can become one of the best businesses that run themselves because of their overall value.

Creating evergreen course content

Evergreen courses are educational products that remain relevant and valuable over extended periods, unlike trendy topics that quickly become outdated. These courses focus on fundamental principles, timeless strategies, and core concepts that stay applicable regardless of market changes or technological advances. Here are some examples:

• Personal Finance Fundamentals: Teaching budgeting, saving, and basic investment principles that remain consistent despite market fluctuations (this also happens to be the core at IWT, as well).
• Public Speaking and Communication: Covering timeless presentation skills, body language, and audience engagement techniques.
• Photography Basics: Focusing on composition, lighting, and camera fundamentals that apply across all equipment types.
• Writing and Storytelling: Teaching narrative structure, character development, and editing principles that work across all mediums.

Once created, evergreen courses can be sold repeatedly without requiring significant additional effort, making them a robust source of passive income.

How IWT creates online courses

Online courses are the backbone of my business at IWT, which has just turned 20 this year.

One of my programs, "Money Coaching with Ramit Sethi," exemplifies how a well-structured course can create lasting value. It combines comprehensive personal financial education with monthly coaching calls, an extensive library of resources, and an engaged community all on their journeys to building their Rich Life. By automating content delivery while maintaining personalized support through strategic live interactions, this course has helped thousands of students transform their relationship with money while requiring minimal day-to-day management from our team.

Once you've identified your expertise and created valuable content, you can automate many things, including student enrollment and content delivery, making it possible to help thousands of students while maintaining a lightweight operation. The key is creating systems that deliver consistent value without requiring your constant presence.

These courses are just one arm of my business that runs itself, but we’ll talk more about this later in the post.

If you’re looking for low-cost, high-profit business ideas and more information about passive income, make sure to read my articles:

• What is passive income: all you need to escape the grind in 2024

• Your Passive Income Blueprint: Realistic Strategies And Steps

• 5 Low Cost, High Profit Businesses (Bonus: You can do all 5 of these from home)

2. Blogging and Monetizing with Ads

In an age where content is king, blogging is another excellent self-running business model. What makes blogging particularly attractive is its low barrier to entry combined with its massive potential for passive income through various monetization channels.

One of the best things about blogging lies in its compound effect–as your content library grows, so does your traffic and revenue potential, all while requiring less active involvement over time.

Why blogs are self-sufficient businesses

Starting a blog requires minimal costs, often just a domain, hosting, and basic content management software, making it accessible for beginners. In fact, my entire business was built around a blog I started in my dorm room when I was still in college.

Blogging allows you to create evergreen articles that attract readers over time. High-quality, SEO-optimized content can generate consistent traffic for months or years, generating ongoing ad revenue. The traffic you bring in can be converted to leads in your email list, where you can continue to nurture them.

Creating an automated blog system

What makes blogs particularly effective as a self-running business is their operational efficiency. Many blogging platforms allow you to schedule posts in advance, so you can create content in batches and set it to publish at optimal times, reducing the need for day-to-day management. You can even hire an assistant to help with scheduling, freeing up yourself even more.

Unlike product or service-based businesses, blogs with ad revenue don't require customer support, freeing you from handling inquiries, returns, or complaints. This hands-off approach and automated content scheduling make blogs incredibly low-maintenance once established.

Building multiple income streams

Once your blog consistently attracts traffic, you can monetize it in various ways. Keep in mind that no business generates income instantly; it takes time and effort to set up each revenue stream. However, with the right strategies, the following 3 income streams can become more passive as your blog grows.

• Display Advertising: Once your blog has established traffic, ad networks like Google AdSense can display ads on your site, generating income from clicks and impressions without active involvement. As your blog’s traffic grows, so does your ad revenue potential without requiring a proportional increase in workload.
• Programmatic Advertising: Work with automated platforms that optimize ad placement and pricing in real-time, maximizing your revenue per visitor.
• Native Advertising: Create sponsored content that matches your blog's style while generating additional income.

Beyond traditional advertising, successful blogs often establish multiple revenue streams that complement each other. Here are a few other examples of things to implement alongside your blog for more passive income:

• Online courses strengthen your blog's ecosystem. Since we discussed how powerful online courses can be as a standalone business, combining them with a blog creates an even stronger foundation. Your blog content naturally leads readers to your courses, while your courses bring students back to your blog, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of growth and revenue.
• Affiliate marketing partnerships become natural extensions of your content. As you build trust with your audience through valuable blog posts, recommending relevant products or services feels authentic and helpful. After creating detailed product reviews or resource pages, these continue generating commission income for months or years without requiring constant updates. We’ll talk more about affiliate and sponsorship programs later on, too.
• Digital products solve specific reader problems. Whether it's templates, worksheets, or guides, these downloadable resources address pain points you've identified through your blog content. Once you've created the product and set up automated delivery systems, they sell continuously with minimal maintenance.
• Premium memberships create predictable recurring revenue. By offering exclusive content, community access, or special resources behind a membership wall, you build a steady monthly income stream. While you'll need to maintain value for members, you can batch-create content and schedule releases in advance.

As with any business, each of these revenue streams builds upon the others, creating a robust income ecosystem. The key is gradually implementing each stream, perfecting your systems and automation before adding the next. This approach allows you to build a passive income system that grows with your blog's audience while maintaining a manageable workload.

For a step-by-step guide on starting a blog and earning money, read my post How to Start a Blog in 2024 (& gain loyal readers).

3. Affiliate and Sponsorships

Affiliate marketing and sponsorships represent one of the most hands-off business models available today, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to build income streams through strategic partnerships and automated systems.

Starting an affiliate business

Starting an affiliate or sponsorship-based business requires minimal upfront investment. You can quickly begin promoting products or services with a website, blog, or social media presence. Most affiliate programs are free to join, requiring only an application and approval process.

Here are the requirements and commission structures for various affiliate program types.

Consumer Products (Amazon, Walmart)

• Basic website or social media presence
• Initial content demonstrating product knowledge
• Entry-level commission rates

Digital Products (Coursera, Udemy)

• Established audience in education/learning
• Content focusing on skill development
• Higher commission rates

Software/SaaS (Shopify, HubSpot)

• Professional online presence
• Business-focused content
• Premium commission structures

These different program types demonstrate the flexibility of affiliate marketing–you can choose the programs that best align with your audience, content style, and business goals. What works best for your business will depend on your niche, audience needs, and the type of content you create.

Creating passive income systems

Affiliate links and sponsored content can generate income passively. Assuming you have a good offer, once content is published, it can continue earning revenue over time with minimal ongoing work. For instance, a well-optimized product review can generate commissions long-term, especially when targeting evergreen products or services.

Content promoting affiliates or sponsors can be evergreen (e.g., blog posts, videos) and continue to attract views and clicks, enabling you to create it once and benefit from it long-term. While sponsorship content might be time-sensitive, as brands will have their own deadlines, most affiliate content can generate revenue indefinitely if properly maintained and updated.

Building automated revenue streams

Modern affiliate programs make tracking and optimization nearly effortless. Affiliate programs and sponsorship platforms often provide dashboards that automatically track clicks, sales, and commissions, making monitoring earnings without manual tracking easy. An assistant/team you hire can help you monitor income tracking, allowing you to make higher-level decisions without getting caught in the weeds.

The hands-off nature extends to operations as well. Affiliates and sponsors handle product fulfillment and customer service, freeing you from the complexities of shipping, returns, and inventory issues. This means you can focus solely on content creation and relationship building while your partners handle the operational details.

What makes affiliate marketing particularly attractive is its scalability. Affiliate marketing and sponsorship income can scale as your audience grows without significantly increasing the workload, making it ideal for a "set it and forget it" model. Your content can reach more people and generate more commissions as your audience grows without requiring proportional effort increases.

What Makes It Easy For Online Businesses To Run Themselves

The beauty of online businesses lies in their inherent ability to operate independently through automation, systems, and digital infrastructure. Let's explore the key elements that suit these businesses for autonomous operation.

Automation tools and systems

Online businesses can leverage automation tools (e.g., for customer service, marketing, and inventory management) to handle routine tasks, minimizing manual involvement that is much harder to replicate when managing a physical business. Modern tools like Zapier, ActiveCampaign, and Shopify automate everything from email responses to inventory updates. This automation extends beyond basic tasks to complex workflows, enabling businesses to operate smoothly with minimal human intervention.

Scalable business operations

Online platforms and digital tools often allow for seamless scaling (handling more orders or traffic without drastically changing the core operations), making it easier to grow without adding complex processes or hiring more staff.

Even if your online business is just starting out, you can still build robust manual operations by building strong SOPs that your team and assistants can follow. These systems create a foundation that supports growth without proportional increases in workload or complexity.

Location-independent work and low overhead costs

Online businesses aren't restricted by physical location, which reduces the need for on-site staff and allows for remote work, making it easier to manage operations from anywhere.

Online businesses can avoid many traditional costs (rent, utilities, in-store staffing) without a physical storefront, allowing you to allocate more resources to automation and digital management. This also frees up your time to work on the business rather than get caught up in day-to-day operations. The savings on overhead can be reinvested into tools and systems that further automate your operations.

Digital customer management

Since customer communication happens online, it's easier to standardize and automate responses, sales processes, and follow-ups, reducing the need for real-time, face-to-face interactions. Interacting with your customers online also makes it easy for you to get testimonials! Every email that a happy customer sends to you becomes a testimonial you can use as social proof to strengthen the positioning of your products and services. This digital-first approach enables consistent, scalable customer service that maintains quality while reducing manual effort.

Global business operations

Your business is always on around the clock without needing staff to be physically present, allowing you to earn revenue passively and reach a broader global market. This continuous operation means your business can serve customers and generate revenue while you sleep, creating truly passive income streams. The ability to reach customers across different time zones expands your market potential without requiring additional operational complexity.

Here Are A Few Things To Consider When Building A Business That Runs Itself

Think and plan ahead of how much initial time and costs will setting up your business take. Many entrepreneurs underestimate the upfront effort required to create a truly automated business. Also, factor in how much time you would ideally like to spend maintaining your business once it's set up. This would be as low as you'd like, but it probably won't be zero, and you won't be hitting your ideal number at the start. Being realistic about these time commitments helps set proper expectations and ensures sustainability.

Creating effective systems

Creating a strong foundation with automated systems is crucial for building a business that truly runs itself. The key is to focus on elements that can be systematized and automated from the start rather than trying to retrofit automation into manual processes later.

Here's what successful self-running businesses prioritize when it comes to content strategy and scheduling:

• Create batched and scheduled content strategy
• Schedule blog posts, social media content, and emails in advance
• Creating content in batches lets you publish consistently without daily involvement
• Plan content themes and topics months ahead
• Build content templates to speed up creation

These systems form the backbone of your automated business, allowing you to maintain consistent output while reducing daily involvement. The goal is to create processes that can run without your constant attention while maintaining high quality and effectiveness.

Managing your team

Creating a reliable team is essential for any self-running business. Outsource repetitive tasks by hiring freelancers or virtual assistants for recurring tasks, like data entry or blog post scheduling, so you can focus on growth-oriented activities.

Build strong SOPs: Document key processes step-by-step so that tasks can be handled by team members or outsourced without you needing to micromanage. When your team has clear guidance and proven processes to follow, they can operate independently while maintaining your standards.

Maintaining your operations

Even automated systems need regular maintenance to continue running smoothly. Plan for regular 'maintenance' days: Schedule time periodically (e.g., weekly, monthly, or quarterly) to check in with your team or review and optimize automated workflows, tools, and systems to ensure they're functioning as intended. You could get your team members to report to you at your preferred cadence to give you a pulse of the business.

Test and refine your processes regularly. Review and improve your business processes periodically to address bottlenecks and ensure the systems remain effective and self-sustaining. Repetitive issues can be addressed in SOPs, and consider building a 'company wiki' that all your team members can adhere to without your intervention.

Remember, the goal isn't to create a business that requires zero attention but rather one that maximizes output while minimizing your necessary involvement. Regular maintenance and optimization ensure your automated systems continue to operate effectively while requiring minimal day-to-day input from you.

How My Business Runs Itself (IWT Behind The Scenes)

After exploring various self-running business models, let me show you exactly how I've implemented these principles at IWT. This behind-the-scenes look demonstrates how a business can scale while maintaining efficient, automated operations.

Creating value through free content

IWT offers a range of content for readers at every level for free. Blog posts and my email newsletter provide valuable resources on personal finance and allow readers to learn more about IWT. We've designed our content strategy to build trust and demonstrate expertise before anyone spends a dollar with us. Signing up for the email list is an easy first step to having the best content delivered directly to my readers.

Monetizing through evergreen content

Our paid content strategy revolves around sustainability and scalability. My evergreen courses are available year-round, with occasional launches that include live coaching calls for those who join during specific enrollment periods. This hybrid approach allows us to maintain consistent revenue while creating excitement and additional value during launch periods.

Building automated content production systems

The success of IWT as a self-running business comes down to a few key systems:

Email automation is the backbone of our operations. Most of the emails I send are pre-written and automated, saving me countless hours of manual work. My team supports this process by managing some of the emails, ensuring everything stays efficient, consistent, and on-brand.

We’ve applied the same approach to our blog posts, using a streamlined system that allows us to deliver high-quality content regularly without requiring my hands-on involvement every day. These systems free up time to focus on growth while keeping the business running smoothly.

Creating location-independent business

From the start, IWT has been designed to operate without needing a physical office. The team has full flexibility to work from anywhere, which makes the business highly adaptable and remote-friendly.

Most importantly, IWT is structured to run smoothly even in my absence, allowing me to take vacations while my team keeps the business operating smoothly. Every self-running business should strive for this level of automation and systematic operation–creating value and generating revenue whether you're actively working or not.

Building a business that runs itself isn't about completely removing yourself from operations - it's about creating systems that allow your business to operate efficiently with minimal intervention. Whether you start with online courses, build a blog, develop affiliate partnerships, or combine these models as we've done at IWT, the key is to focus on automation, strong SOPs, and scalable systems from the start.