20 Small Business Ideas and How to Start Your Own

Home » Entrepreneurship » 20 Small Business Ideas and How to Start Your Own

The idea of own a business is often one that flies through everyone’s mind at least once throughout their lifetime. However, a few people get the chance to try their little ideas which could eventually become active incomes. To begin with, most people have a preconceived notion and probably the wrong opinion about starting a business which stops people from taking any steps at all. Hence, this article seeks to show you the best business to start and how to start your own business.

There are a lot of small business ideas out there, but within this text are the best home business ideas and what exactly makes up successful small businesses. A small business is usually a private setup that has few employees and is run by a sole proprietor or a small partnership of two or three.

Depending on how the business is set up and what goals are in place, revenues and profit can be large. The big issue with starting a business is usually the initial cost, but with most small businesses, finding this cost is relatively easy. From friends, family, and even yourself, the money to start is often easily acquirable. Blogs are often quick to say, financial independence is an enormous advantage for small businesses but oftentimes, it takes quite a lot of time before that happens. However, if you are structured, things will begin to fall into place faster than expected.

The positive side of starting a business includes being your own boss, flexibility, location, more money over time, better work/life balance. In addition, you get to choose the people you want to work with, connect on a more personalized level with your clients. These positive benefits are very attractive and can easily be attained when you know what business to start.

How to Start Your Own Business from Home?

So, what are the core steps on how to start your own business from home? A simple answer is just start, but a broader and safer approach is to follow a set of well-curated approach.

Process of starting a home business

First, we require a personal evaluation and niche determination. You need to assess your talent and examine your skills to see what exactly you have within your human and skill toolbox. However, small business ideas require little skills.

Furthermore, ask yourself questions. For instance, will it be a full-time business? What areas and niches are easily accessible to me? How do I combine my talents and skills to run a small business suitable for a location such as my home? Surely, the honest answers you derive would give a lean focus. Now, you have a few niches.

Next, analyze your industry, evaluate your target audience, and determine your business type between sole proprietorship or partnership obviously. For instance, do you have a friend or family that you can run your select small business? After, start the planning process by registering your small business depending on the country, small businesses usually have government help. After, get the funding, and set up space within your home for business. Certainly, this gives a work-like feeling. Now, try out your service or product with family and get feedback to help improve. Finally, start out.

Support and Promotion

In between these processes, you would need help with product development and branding, and many more. Hence, as a small business, you need to rely on outsourcing certain areas such as product development. Furthermore, using Integrated Communication tools for sales and marketing would help get better and effective results and reduce cost. IMC tools are applicable in advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, mobile marketing, sponsorship, public relations, sales promotion, social media marketing which Roboket offers at affordable prices. With the help of AI, you can grow your audience and increase business growth with Roboket. Above all, good business ideas aren’t enough, a solid support and promotion system is required.

In terms of niche selection, you need to make sure your core strength aligns and would be a critical factor in your success. Therefore, if you need to learn something new, Google and YouTube are always there to help with finding resources. In particular, platforms such as Pluralsight, Udemy give solid tutorials in digital and other skills. Also, platforms such as Etsy, eBay can help with selling your homemade products.

In conclusion, following the above process and source, you are one step closer to making the home run for your small business ideas. Now, let’s move to the list of easy businesses to start and make you one of those successful small businesses.

20 Small Business Ideas to Start from Home

Successful small businesses premise on delivering values, services to a customer that are unforgettable. These values, services, products can come from various places. However, for a newcomer, it is easy to become side-lined by a lot of industry or niche areas that you become lost on what business to start. Therefore, this section is positioned to help in carrying out a crucial and important step in how to start a small business at home. For this purpose, I have curated 20 of the best small business to start, especially in this new decade.

1. Freelancing

Average income: $19 per hour

Market size: >$1 trillion

Expected progression: 2% (yearly)

Capital requirement: Depends on the niche.

Other requirements: Usually requires a laptop, internet connection, skills, and connections (online outsourcing).

This new decade started on somewhat of a grim note with the presence of COVID-19. However, with this new situation came a budding increase and opportunity for the remote and freelance community. More jobs are available to more freelancers from writers, designers, developers, virtual assistants to translators. Right before the COVID-19 pandemic, the freelance market contributed $1 trillion to the US economy alone. In addition, about 31% of freelancers made more than $75,000 a year with 57 million freelancers in the US alone. With software developers having the potential earning of $1000 per hour and copywriters, $250, there are endless possibilities with freelancing.

According to Skillcouter, 60% of freelancers who left their job earned more. Besides, freelancing, depending on the niche in which you specialize, is profitable and provides flexibility. However, managing finances, taxes are big issues and, therefore, require more commitment to avoid financial setbacks now and in the future. With this in mind, a piece of good advice is to start while you have a 9-5 job before you begin full time if you intend to, talking from experience. Likewise, freelancing could be seasonal and therefore, it is important to make sure you have constant savings in place. Finally, learning and updating the skill toolbox is important to stay relevant. If you are inclined towards constant learning, freelancing is one of the best businesses to start and easy home business ideas.

If you want to be super productive when you work from home, you need to follow some guidelines.

2. Interior Design

Average income: $26.94/hour ($56,040/year)

Market size: 114 billion USD

Expected progression: 4% (yearly)

Capital requirement: $1000 – 5000

If creativity is your thing and you love to make spaces beautiful, interior design is definitely one of the best small businesses to start. With the continuous desire by a lot of persons to have their places or events to tell a story, interior design is a sure bet. In terms of being a home business, interior design is largely contract-based and could be easily projected from the inner walls of your home via portfolio platforms or independent websites, or Instagram. Evidently, with a large following, you should be getting those jobs in no time. However, promotions and marketing are hugely important to succeed, and therefore, outsourcing such areas especially when inexperienced is effective. The lowest 10% of interior designers earn just $25,000 per year and the top 10% earn over $86000 per year with an expected job increase of 13% within the next decade.

YouTube:

3. Massage Therapy

Average income: $29,349 per year or $21.98 per hour

Market Size: $18 billion (2018)

Expected progression: 22%

If you are familiar with the famous TV series, Friends, you might remember the very lovable character, Phoebe. She was a massage therapist who had flexible hours and was able to work based on her schedule going to people’s homes giving a more specialized service. You can be like Phoebe. Though the average income might be low, it is quite adequate to have savings running. You can run a blog (obviously about massage) along with it to bring in extra income, especially with affiliate marketing.

The best small business to start isn’t all about the niche alone, but more about the quality of service that is provided, the trust, and the recommendation you can garner. Most massage therapists are sole practitioners (76%). Of all therapists, 56% work at the client’s home/office and 26% in the therapist home, so you are not alone. 46% work other jobs. Board-certified massage therapists can earn an average of $7,000 more a year, so you might want to get certified.

4. Tutoring

Average income: $17.62 per hour

Market Size: $96.218 billion

Expected progression: 7%

With the job market requiring more than just the typical degree, more and more people will pay to learn a various skills, digital or creative. Whether it is music or coding or marketing or art, you can develop yourself with the necessary resources that can give a great learning and practical experience. Even with the normal academic tutoring, promotion, marketing and branding can help increase revenues. With the internet, you can access more people and teach more people via platforms such as Udemy, Teachable, YouTube. Teaching is definitely one of the top 10 small business ideas that you can implement, and can be done both offline within your community or online with a larger audience.

5. Event or Party Planning

Average income: $42,449 per year

Market Size: $1.1 billion

Expected Progression: 10.3%

Capital Requirement: $8,050

Just like interior design, event or party planning can be done straight from the walls of your home with dependence on a good portfolio set. Depending on the area or region of the country you are in, it is definitely better to research the areas that have high event probability and find means to promote around those regions. Unlike freelancing where you can use platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr which already have the promotions in place, sales and marketing have to be done independently and often via outsourced partners such as Roboket. Starting a small business such as event planning requires constant dedication and must be done with effective forecast and analysis in mind. Your community and family is good starting point.

6. Blogging and Podcasting

Average income: $32,800 per year

Market Size: $400 billion

Expected Progression: 16%

Capital Requirement: >$500

Usually blogging is rather a passive income means than an active income means. However, with time and dedication, and effective direction, it can become a serious money-making medium. Blogging often requires you to depend on a niche. With a niche, you can easily manage your growth and eventually break through. Though, depending on what exactly your goals are such as giving your piece to the world or showing directions to a relatively small or large topic, the audience can vary. Consequently, with an increasing audience, more money. Platforms such as Google AdSense help with monetizing the audience or web traffic generated. It is easy to set up using mediums such as WordPress and hosting via GoDaddy or HostGator for as cheap as $9.99.

Often it is better to often complement blogging with your small business such as freelancing, tutoring, marketing, and so on. Affiliate marketing is definitely one of the big highlights of it. You can partner with businesses to drive your traffic to their site to buy your partner company’s product. With every successful sale, you get a commission. So with the massage therapist business, if you have oils you use, you can partner with the companies that make those oils to help increase their sales with some commission. Podcasting is quite similar to blogging and can bring more revenues if you have quite an engaging podcast series. The goal with both blogging and podcasting is to increase engagement and traffic, and with the help of IMC tools such as Roboket, you can increase revenue within a shorter period. I feel blogging is probably the best small business to start.

7. Personal Assistance (or Online Virtual Assistance)

Average income: $15.85 per hour

Market Size: $3.7 billion

Expected Progression: 34.0%

So you know how to use some software such as the Microsoft Office Suite, social platforms, devices or know how to manage and carry out orders, personal assistance is probably the best business to start and one of the easy businesses to start. With more and more people wanting specialized help with various activities, it is quite lucrative to start such a business. Platforms such as Upwork, PeoplePerHour give you an opportunity to carry out your business as a virtual assistant.

8. Airbnb Hosting

Average income: $924 a month

Market Size: $38 billion

We often ask what business to start when many times the business is sitting right under our roof. Airbnb Hosting. This business is very lucrative, especially for a generation or an age requiring more personalized and connected temporary living space. If you love to have people and live in an average or highly visited region, Airbnb Hosting is probably one of the top 10 small business ideas you can implement. Platforms such as Airbnb make it easy to get customers in. All that is required is home preparation on your path. However, I regard this as a complementary business as it is usually seasonal and you can’t totally rely on such for financial independence. However, with time and constant improvement and promotion, your home can become a highly recommend the 5-star temporary live-in experience.

9. Property Management

Average income: $53,683

Market Size: $13.57 Billion

Expected Progression: 8.8%

Do you have some management and communication skills up your sleeve? Can you manage people’s property? Then, property management could well become a lucrative small business, especially within a small community. You could easily start with your family members that have properties that they don’t live in, and manage it well. With experience and promotions comes more revenue. You can even start a blog about DIY property management and get additional revenue from there.

10. Clothing boutique owner

Average income: $40,531 or $12.03 per hour

Market Size: $1.18 trillion

Expected Progression: 7.5%

Especially in emerging and developing economies, the cloth industry is large. If you can know about fashion and have a little experience with salesmanship, try owning a local boutique that resonates with the local community and builds your small business around those relationships. You can make use of social media to increase the buzz around your clothing business. With continuous delivery and emerging trust, peoples’ involvement in your clothing business would be massive. You can as well use IMCs to grow your sales channel and bring in more customers from far and wide, especially starting a small business as dense as the clothing business.

11. Ecommerce Store and Selling On eBay

Average order value: $45 per order

Market Size: $6.2 trillion (2026)

Expected Progression: 7.9%

Capital Requirement: Depends on the niche.

Ecommerce is one of the biggest subsets of the internet industry. With technologies such as WooCommerce, you can build a successful home business without having to do a lot of work. Using IMC tools in sales and marketing, you can grow sales channels and even build a brand out of them. Platforms such as eBay also give room to sell almost anything. Anything. You can specialize in a small niche and become a commanding force or be more general. It all depends on you. You can even run the eCommerce platform without ever seeing any goods at all via dropshipping.

12. Car Sales

Average income: $39,903

If you have some experience with salesmanship or have worked with some dealerships, you can start your dealership from home, but more favorable is car resales. Often, many automakers in developed countries have their sales partners, and it is often difficult to start. However, by buying used cars and reselling after some upgrade and refurbishing, you can make a lot more. It all depends on your options, capital, and financial risk capability.

13. Travel Planning

Average income: $33000

Market Size: $1.6 trillion

Expected Progression: 2.7%

With more automated travel agency platforms online, one can be skeptical about starting a travel planning business. But some people want some personalized travel experience that AI or automation can develop. This is where you come in. With a personal touch, you can give the perfect vacations to couples or individuals, or even organizations. Using IMCs tools in advertising would go a long way to open doors and opportunities for you. Travel planning is one of the top 10 small business ideas to start, especially if you are in a highly visited place such as Hawaii.

Average income: $54,431 per year

Market Size: $9.2 billion

Expected Progression: 14.1%

A vast majority of the world is on the internet and on various social media platforms. This situation has given rise to a $9.2 billion market for social media managers. Entities, organizations, and individuals usually outsource their social media presence management to experts. You can build yourself in this area and make your earnings. However, this comes with practice and long-term engagement, development, and target of your own audience. With your own audience, you can help entities and easily land gig jobs and even long-term jobs (or contracts). Facebook, Twitter are there for you to make money.

15. Videography and Photography

Average income: $43,114 a year

Market Size: $48.9 billion (2021)

Expected Progression: 3.1%

Capital Requirement: $5000 – $10000

Though it requires some heavy capital requirements, you can be sure to make more of it back if you build yourself and give fantastic shoots. It is more about the service than the promotion. You need to deliver and have the right gadget. You can even sell some of your photographs. Recommendations from your clients go a long way. Family and friends are a significant starting point. With the help of the internet, photography and especially videography with good editing is one of the best businesses to start.

16. Plumbing

Average income: $53,910

Market Size: $75.042 billion

Expected Progression: 6.0%

You might already be one who works for a corporation or civil engineering firm. You can try getting some gigs outside work to build trust and following. The community where you stay can be a good starting point. Build the local momentum and try to expand to other cities or areas. It will take time, but with effective marketing and promotion via IMC tools you can get more openings.

17. Woodwork

Average income: $16.39 per hour or $30,548 per year

Market Size: $4.2 billion

Expected Progression: 3.7%

You love carpentry and even make most of your furniture and wooded items at home. Remember, small business ideas are often things we love. You can turn this love of yours into money. You can even learn if you fancy it. On platforms such as Etsy, Craigslist, or eBay, you can sell some of your fancy and beautiful works. You can try to research wooden items that are in demand and make them and post them via the listed platforms. You can build a website and create an Instagram account to showcase your works and even accept custom orders. Keep learning and improving your craftsmanship and more money is yours. Also, try to create stories with your works, give an enjoyable experience and soon one of your good business ideas is revenue means.

18. E-Sports

Average income: $3,000-to-$5,000 per month

Market Size: $1.1 billion

Expected Progression: 33.7%

With more investment pumped into the industry, you can take advantage of it by streaming your games and playing competitively. Though, if you will earn more, join a team. However, you can build a brand around yourself via solid promotion and earn even more play from the comforts of the four walls of your home.

19. Life/Career Coaching

Average income: $30,000 – $40,000

Market Size: $15 billion

Expected Progression: 5.4%

If you are tending towards the end of your long and illustrious career, you can do this and mentor people around for quite an impressive fee. With experience and some experience, you can mentor and give guidance to many people. You need some good interpersonal and leadership skills to carry along with your clients. You can start with family and friends and move up the chain. Try some promotions to push yourself out there. Alongside, you can write an eBook or a hardcover on motivation and make some extra cash. Even a blog isn’t bad.

20. Catering

Average income: $13.60 per hour or $26,153

Market Size: $130 billion

Expected Progression: 6%

You love to cook and find joy in the kitchen, you can as well turn your joy into money. Catering is good business if you can create a good sales channel. If you know an event planner that might be a plus. You get to work fewer hours and pick your projects and even try a few new things when you are comfortable.

If after these comprehensive lists of small business ideas, you don’t know what business to start, do your research. For instance, analyze your strengths and weakness, talents, and your willingness. Also, try to understand why you want a small business. Also, re-read the step process on how to get your home business ideas to reality. Easy businesses to start are not scarce, it’s the process and involvement that often matter.

Related Articles:

Conclusion

In conclusion, find the home business that works for you. If you intend to still maintain your current job, find a small business that works with that such as dropshipping. With effective and good business ideas, you can shape your home business whether it’s freelancing or drop shipping or travel planning to a specialized and different feel than regular businesses won’t provide. At long last, you have implemented one of your many good business ideas, using Integrated Communication software for sales and marketing helps with expanding your audience and customer base, increasing revenue and profit. Specifically, platforms such as Roboket use AI to help improve the entire process in terms of sales and marketing in order to be more effective and get to the demography. Successful small businesses are not rare or hard to develop, however, dedication and consistency are required. Therefore, never forget those.

Finally, learning and relearning are important factors that will drive improvements within your small business.

20 Small Business Ideas and How to Start Your Own