Easy businesses to start

Is it time to do your own thing? Maybe, you had a business that was disrupted by a major shift in the economy. Or, perhaps your employer shut down. Or, you just finally want to go out on your own and take control of your own destiny. Here are plenty of ideas to get you goi...

Starting your own business can be even easier and faster than you think. It may require real work and some hustle, but it’s still better to do for yourself, with all the upside potential, than for someone else.

While some of the easiest and least expensive businesses to start may seem small, they don’t have to be. Consider how you can get going fast and then, quickly scale them to be true startups worth over $1B, and worthy of receiving big funding.

These are all things you will want to include as part of your business plan. For instance, if you are thinking about starting a bar, be sure to check out this bar business plan. Below is a video where you will learn how to write a business plan.

If you’re thrown into the position of needing to start your own business to create an income, some of the criteria you may want on your ideal business model checklist includes, being low cost, quick to get sales coming in, solves a problem people are willing to pay for now, centered around something you enjoy, and have related experience in. This ensures a short learning curve and that you’ll stick with it.

Here are 11 easy businesses to start that might check all the boxes for you.

1. Affiliate Marketing

Put simply, this really just means promoting other people’s existing products and services. This way you don’t have to wait to create your own or take a big gamble. Consider that Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon are all really affiliate marketers. They are some of the hottest and fastest-growing companies. They just act as the connector to other people’s inventory.

2. Pet Care

If you love animals there are many ways to build a pet care business. From dog walking to pet grooming and boarding houses or helping facilitate pet adoptions, take your pick. You might be amazed at how big this need is, and how much people are willing to spend on their pets.

3. Freelance Consulting

This can be a great transition to make for former executives. It can be free of the typical corporate politics and diversify your income, so that you are not relying on any one company or industry for your livelihood. In a few hours, you can build your own website and menu of services and reach out to your network. It means that you can work from home, on your schedule, and charge a nice hourly rate. Suits are totally optional.

4. Cleaning Services

We’ll always need cleaning services of some kind. House cleaning, commercial cleaning, you name it, it needs to be cleaned. There is a lot of scalability in this field with valuable contracts up for grabs. There are plenty of niches to choose from including specialty cleaning to eco-friendly cleaning, helping the elderly, and homes and apartments, which are being sold and leased.

5. Personal Shoppers

Now more than ever people need personal shoppers and concierges. This can be for household supplies and groceries, for take out meals, and just about anything else you could want at home, as well as for things which are time-consuming to evaluate and comparison shop for online. Vacations, cars, gifts, etc.

6. Recruiting

We may be in a new era of high unemployment in the USA and worldwide. At the same time, many other startups and companies are hiring. There is just a big disconnect between these two groups. Acting as the middle person here can be a highly lucrative and in-demand position.

7. Personal Assistants

With more and more professionals moving to work virtually and open their own businesses, the rise for personal assistants is growing. So will the need for general personal assistants in the wake of COVID-19 and the fear that some will have of going out as usual.

8. Become A YouTuber

Some of the data suggest that becoming a popular YouTube star and ‘going viral’ isn’t nearly as easy or profitable as the hype. Yet, the need and demand for the masses to find information and specifically how-to videos for just about everything online just keeps growing. Apply your expertise to help others this way, and you can make a good income and spin off many revenue streams. All you need is a mobile phone with a camera and a YouTube account.

9. Online Tutor

Online tutoring may be an even more reliable business than trying to become famous on YouTube. From school kids to college students to others transitioning to opening their own businesses, there is a huge demand for online tutoring. You can charge by the hour, semester, or class. You can even recruit other tutors and focus on being the matchmaker between them and students.

10. Call Center Reps

There is a huge need for remote phone staff these days. You can be a sales rep or customer service agent or run a whole team or multiple teams around the world. Find your niche and there should be no shortage of work and customers available.

11. Domain Name Flipping

Website domain names can be just as valuable as their underlying businesses. Yet, they can often be picked up and resold for great profit margins. You can purely flip the domain registrations, the entire business, or build up the associated sites and resale the business and revenue stream after increasing its value.

If you want to turn these gigs into even bigger businesses, talk to a fundraising consultant who can advise you on finding investors and taking it to the next level.

BIO

Alejandro Cremades is a serial entrepreneur and the author of The Art of Startup Fundraising. With a foreword by ‘Shark Tank‘ star Barbara Corcoran, and published by John Wiley & Sons, the book was named one of the best books for entrepreneurs. The book offers a step-by-step guide to today‘s way of raising money for entrepreneurs.

Most recently, Alejandro built and exited CoFoundersLab which is one of the largest communities of founders online.

Prior to CoFoundersLab, Alejandro worked as a lawyer at King & Spalding where he was involved in one of the biggest investment arbitration cases in history ($113 billion at stake).

Alejandro is an active speaker and has given guest lectures at the Wharton School of Business, Columbia Business School, and at NYU Stern School of Business.

Alejandro has been involved with the JOBS Act since inception and was invited to the White House and the US House of Representatives to provide his stands on the new regulatory changes concerning fundraising online.