If you’re tired of working in a 9 to 5 job and are done working under someone, then you might want to check out some home business ideas that you can carry out from the comfort of your home and earn decent profits to sustain your lifestyle. Your first reaction is that you might not have anything special that you can monetize. What if we told you, you don’t need a special skill, just some inventive ideas to sell products and services? Well, our list of business ideas will help you get a clear picture of how to set up your own small business.
List of Business Ideas to Start from Your Home
There are tons of small businesses that you can start without much thought. But the major issue with any business is the capital. You will need money to start and maintain a business however small. But there are home business ideas that might not need as much investment as others. Here is a list of small business ideas that can not only be started with small capital but also be scaled up as the business grows
1. Sell Products Online
Many home business ideas are built on the simple proposition of importing products in bulk and selling them individually for a profit. If you are someone who travels, you might have come across unique products that are difficult to obtain in your market. Or say you have identified a niche market and know the type of products they would buy.
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In any case, if you can come up with a solution to the problem of storing and shipping the products, you're en route to setting up one of the most profitable home business ideas on earth.
And as the name suggests for such businesses, you can use your home as the storing unit in the initial stages of your business. This gives you the option to validate your home business ideas and assess your business model before you expand with additional storage space and employees.
2. Sell Homemade Products
As a maker, you open a plethora of home business ideas that you can bank on. The best place to start is by finding ways to turn your favorite hobby into a business. Even if you have to build or create your products in another location—may it be in a studio, commercial kitchen, or workshop—you can store and sell them in your own home.
When you control almost all of the aspects of the production and sale, you can focus on improving every detail of your product from cost to quality. You are the boss and you decide every aspect of the business from making to selling. This also gives you the opportunity to directly connect to your target audience, in turn helping to improve your product.
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Once you have a homemade product or craft that you know you can sell, you can either sell it on third-party websites like Etsy or build your own branded storefront on Strikingly. Selling your handcrafted creations is a great way to share your passion while gaining the appreciation and recognition that you deserve as an artist.
3. Start a Dropshipping Store
The two home business ideas discussed above require you to maintain inventory in your home. But there are other profitable home business ideas to pursue that don’t involve storing and shipping products.
Dropshipping is a type of home business idea where a third party produces, stores, and ships products on your behalf. Your duties would be limited to marketing the products and handling customer service. You basically are a distributor to third-party's products who takes on the financial and time-based costs of marketing. A small margin befitting your services is your reward for making the sale.
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Ensure that your dropshipping supplier (local or overseas) needs to be someone you can trust to deliver a consistently great customer experience after the sale. Remember to do your due diligence or it might put the reputation of your business at risk.
4. Start a Print-on-Demand Business
Another best home business to start right away is a print-on-demand business. Just like the dropshipping model, with a print-on-demand business, you don’t need to hold any inventory or ship anything yourself. All you have to do is analyze the market and find out niche print-on-demand products to sell.
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These could be anything from books, hats, backpacks, blankets, pillows, mugs to shoes, hoodies, phone cases, watches, and more. Depending on the supplier you choose to work with, you can get the right type of print-on-demand products and sell your designer products. Even if you don’t have any design skills but have a great print-on-demand idea, you can hire designers who can do it for you.
5. Offer Online Services
We have spoken about home business ideas that involve products. But there is another category of home business ideas that are even simpler than products to start selling at home. Services are great for someone who has a lot of time in hand and skills that they can carry out from the comfort of their homes.
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Offering skills as services can be an easy option in this list of small business ideas as it does not require you to have any additional expertise. If you have creative skills such as designing and painting, or even business skills such as marketing or business administration, you can start your own home business.
Sustaining service-based businesses often require a lot of networking and marketing to find suitable clients. If you look at online options, you can take the help of third-party websites to help you procure clients. An easier way to bypass this problem is by creating your own personal website on web hosting platforms such as Strikingly. As long as you design an attractive website, you don’t have to worry about searching for clients.
6. Teach Online Classes
In the current scenario, a new class of online jobs such as teaching has emerged as one of the most profitable home business ideas in the last couple of years. And we aren't talking about teaching classroom subjects. The internet era has made it easy for anyone from any corner of the planet to teach people anything. There is a range of different skills, tips, and tricks that people are eager to learn. You can narrow down some categories that you can teach and start an online class.
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You can also decide the class size and length depending on your schedule and comfort. If you can manage large groups, you could look into training sessions and courses. If you do better one-on-one then you can consider tutoring, mentorship, or masterminds.
Other home business ideas such as self-learning online courses are also similar to this. Your major resource is content. There are various platforms like ScreenFlow that can capture your screen and voice while you walk students through the material.
Whichever method you choose, online teaching is the best home business to start because it requires low overhead with the major investment being time.
7. Productize Your Service or Expertise
A downside of running a service-based business is that you’re paid strictly for your time, skills, and effort. This can make things difficult as you need to constantly find work, engage clients and make constant efforts to grow your business. An easier alternative for those who are short on time and need a more sustainable option? You can convert your service or expertise into an online course.
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Some of the best home business ideas are based on the art of “Productizing” your service or creating physical or digital products that package up your expertise and streamline the service you offer. Some of the most common fields that are increasingly looking for online resources are online photos, ebooks, digital templates, designs, etc.
8. Grow an Audience You Can Monetize
If you’re good at engaging audiences with great content, a great business idea is to start a blog of your own. There are numerous websites like WordPress and Strikingly, where you can start a free blog website. You could even start a youtube channel if you’re into video content creation such as a podcast or a vlog.
Once you have a band of loyal followers you can open to other home business ideas such as affiliate marketing. You endorse certain products and behave as a social media influencer for your audience. You can earn good profits from selling other products or services or accepting payment for sponsored posts to give brands a chance to connect with your audience.
An important thing to keep in mind if you’re considering a business as a social media influencer. These kinds of businesses depend heavily on trust and loyalty. It takes quite some time to build and needs constant care to maintain. Thus consider this option only if you are ready to put in an initial commitment without many returns. But if you’re able to build a following around something you love it can be one of the most fulfilling and enduring home business ideas of them all.
9. Get Involved With Pets
Another booming concept in the list of small business ideas is pet influencers. If you are someone who knows their pets really well or has a really adorable pet, you can convert him or her into a social media star. Once you have a good size of followers, you can promote various pet products or even start your own pet products with a professional pet website.
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Even if you don’t have pets of your own but are really good with them, you can take care of other people’s pets. There are apps like Rover that help pet owners and pet professionals (walkers and sitters) to connect. You can even consider turning your home into a pet boarding space. People who travel a lot can drop their pets at your place for a fixed time period and amount of money.
10. Play Video Games
This might surprise you, but playing video games is one of the highest-paying home business ideas out there. You have many platforms that you can use to stream your gameplay for millions of other gamers to watch, such as Twitch. And if you’re wondering how much it’s worth, online gaming is estimated to be worth more than $1.5 billion, and a Twitch streamer can get up to 100,000 viewers at a time. But for this, you will need to have some level of expertise in gaming.
Making money from playing video games depends on finding a suitable sponsor who will host the games on a platform. Every game however big or small has a fan following of its own. So, just find the most popular game and start developing your skills. Or pick a game that you’ve played fairly well. Record your gameplay and send it to companies that host that particular game. Next thing you know, you’re a game tester for reputed firms.
A Platform to Market Your Home Business Ideas
Coming up with a business idea is just one part of establishing a successful business. You need people to know about your business and then make a transaction with you. In case you have a store, it is easier for people to know of your existence. But if you’re sitting at home and organizing a small business, it can be difficult for customers and clients to find you. Thus, Strikingly is a platform that is made for you and many other entrepreneurs who look to establish an identity for themselves. At Strikingly, your home business ideas are represented as a website on the internet. The website is basically a virtual representation of what your physical store would look like.
Once you create a free account with Strikingly, you can use our free website templates to create your own page. The templates are customizable, meaning you can edit every aspect of the website with a simple drag and drop option. If you don’t like the design, don’t be alarmed. You can change it by selecting the one you like and saving your change.
Coming up with the most profitable home business ideas can be quite challenging, But when you do, Strikingly is here to support you in all your website building needs. You can start building your business and website with ease. So, why don't you join Strikingly and experience the magic yourself?
