Good small business ideas?

Gaze

Gaze

Donor
MBTI
INFPishy
Seeking helpful advice on starting a small home based business.


It's difficult to find competitive and marketable ideas. Looking for suggestions. I'm sure others have thought about this as well, so ideas and links to sites with good and useful information based on experience would be helpful. What have you tried? What worked? What didn't work?
 
I kinda think there's a few ways to approach this. Do something you love. Do something you know will make money. Do something you know how to do. If we're lucky we find something that offers us all of those. A lot of it depends on whether or not you want to be able to live off of this home based business or if it is something to supplement your income and create a profitable and enjoyable pastime.
 
Hmm, I think first thing you have to consider is what are the resources that you have (skills and finances). Second, I think listing at least five things you'd love doing will narrow down your choices. And lastly, is this small home based business going to consider online marketing?
 
Capitalism strikes:

If I give you an idea and it proves successful I want a 20% share of all profit.
 
You can get into picking, I have been doing it and its a profitable hobby. Think of it like an online pawn shop. I specialize in 1st edition books, coins, sports cards, consumer electronics etc. But there are TONS of places to get things cheap and resell at a profit.
 
Find a type of food your area lacks. Open a cart/truck/shop that specializes in it.
 
If you live in a suburban neighbourhood, you can do the following

- Get a licence to open a home day care
- Become a distributor for some sort of healthcare/beauty [or another product that can be sold from the privacy of your home] products and sell them to people at home by inviting them for special business development parties.
- There may be an opportunity in opening up a small home-based recycling centre in your own home. I'm not sure how that works, but I read somewhere that people can make decent money doing so.
- Learn how to make hand-made jewellery and sell at various trade shows/exhibitions [something I myself did for a while]

I also ran a web-development company from my home for a while before I moved on to something else. It was decently successful. Basically, I would go out and talk to small business owners and make their web-sites. I didn't do any programming myself. I had a small group of freelancers who would do the work while I would simply manage everything from getting clients to the freelancers.
 
Buy a Cotten candy machine and sell cotton candy in a crowded area like a farmers market or something. Ridiculous margins, low start up cost.

Open a taco truck and go to construction sites.
 
The food truck/cotton candy idea is a good one; I've helped people who own food trucks and you can set up at fairs/monthly antique shows (some cities have those) etc. I worked at one at a large antique show that recurred monthly, and the long and short of it was you absoutely worked your butt off for about one week a month, but you would clear probably -- oh, $3,000 - $5,000 each time. Roughly. Not bad for working one out of every four weeks!

Also, being someone who holds estate sales for people can be hugely profitable. You can help people hold garage sales or estate sales and get approximately 30% of what you sell, working mostly weekends, and the startup is quite low.

Good luck in your enterpreneurship!! :) I <3 good ideas & hard workers!!!

(P.S. I freelance but that is totally different topic. Working for yourself can sometimes mean working far harder than at a regular 9 to 5 job!)
 
I run a tutory with my father. Core subjects from grades 3-12. We charge the same amount as what babysitters would charge. We use a lot of online and library material.

We familiarize ourselves with the provincial curriculum, and gear our lessons towards preparing the students to succeed in school. They can also come for homework help as well. All you need is a relatively spacious room with a chalk/whiteboard (you can obtain whiteboard markers for real cheap on ebay- 48 markers for $30). I suggest doing some research and preparing your lessons and worksheets in advance before starting.
Our tutory is very successful, and it is also a very fulfilling part time job. You might think that through the advent of a many youtube video tutorials that there would be a lack of demand for tutoring businesses, but on the contrary- there is still quite a large demand for that one on one communication geared specifically to the student and his or her work.

If you are interested and need more information, feel free to contact me.
 
Inflation is driving down the purchsing power of peoples money; this means that people will tighten their belts. The first thing they will cut spending on is luxuries so make sure what you sell is essential to society

Developing a skill or product that is always in demand will mean that you have something to trade whatever happens to the value of money
 
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I think that selling Jesus stuff to die-hard right wing Christians would be pretty easy and profitable.

There was an episode of South Park where Cartman started up a Christian rock group-- he didn't even have to be good because Christians will buy anything that praises the lord/Jesus and what's even better is that they're afraid of mainstream culture because of how evil it is, so you don't have so much competition.

Actually, it seems like anything targeting the right wing market would be pretty easy to make and sell… though they do tend to be less educated/poorer so it would have to be something affordable.
 
Apone said:
I think that selling Jesus stuff to die-hard right wing Christians would be pretty easy and profitable.

There was an episode of South Park where Cartman started up a Christian rock group-- he didn't even have to be good because Christians will buy anything that praises the lord/Jesus and what's even better is that they're afraid of mainstream culture because of how evil it is, so you don't have so much competition.

Actually, it seems like anything targeting the right wing market would be pretty easy to make and sell… though they do tend to be less educated/poorer so it would have to be something affordable.
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Wow!
 
I want to open a small home based business. I wanted at one point to do something with used or antique books but the market is too competitive in that area. I have so much books around, and I'm not sure anyone would buy them. I've thought about tutoring but there are so many tutoring agencies in the area. It seems much of the ideas I can think of seems to have over saturation markets.
 
Maven said:
I want to open a small home based business. I wanted at one point to do something with used or antique books but the market is too competitive in that area. I have so much books around, and I'm not sure anyone would buy them. I've thought about tutoring but there are so many tutoring agencies in the area. It seems much of the ideas I can think of seems to have over saturation markets.
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Ideas are dime a dozen. Implementation and efficiency are everything.

What are you personally good at, and what you can keep doing 24/7 or until you drop? These are the key questions. Once you find your area, competition will be a secondary concern.
 
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A few key pointers from what I've learned in business.

- If you're working from home. You can take advantage of taxes. I'd go over with a CPA if you have the time. Learn about deductions and exemption as it can vary from individuals and states.

- Whether selling a product or providing a service. Keep records of everything from bills, invoices, documents, insurance policies, etc. Also, organization is essential. Of course if you like to keep things minimized and decluttered try scanning and keep a digital copy, except for critical physical documents such as a business license.

- Learn Microsoft Excel to help keep track of revenues. QuickBooks is also a good program to keep track of business as well.

- Depending on how large you want to scale. If it's just a side hustle to make some extra $$$ here and there Excel will suffice. However, if funding allows market and advertised the hell out of your business. Otherwise good old fashion word of mouth still works (most of the time).


There, Will's somewhat business advice for business stuff and thangs.

Cheers!
 
Pin said:
Anything in the trades is good.
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