In order to build a successful business, you must create a product or provide a service that other people deem as helpful enough that they are willing to pay money for it! However, this is easier said than done.
In fact, the majority of businesses fail in the longterm. This might be a depressing fact, but as the billionaire owner of the Mavericks basketball team says:
“It doesnt matter how many times you have failed, you only have to be right once.” – Mark Cuban (Side Note: He has a pretty good book on business).
If you’re searching for your first business idea or recently failed and are in the process of giving it another go, I hope this list will be a helpful starting point! Should you decide to give a crack at any of these ideas, be sure to leave a comment on this article letting me know!
Also – I highly recommend checking out BlueHost if you are going to start a website for one of these business ideas, as they’ve hosted all of my websites and have pretty good customer service.
1. Start a Maid Service
Don’t believe me that someone in this day and age can start a businesses that is full of competitors? Check out this Reddit thread “First $2 Million Year and a quick look back!” The entrepreneur replaced his full time salary within the first four months of operation.
The great thing about being able to successfully render one type of service to a group of customers is that there is the strong possibly that you will be able to render other forms of service, whether that is yard keeping, snow blowing, or offering moving services.
2. Become a Consultant or Freelancer
If you already have an existing job and are looking to venture out on your own, consulting or freelancing for a business will give you a first-hand view of the problems they experience on a daily basis and the products they’ve bought to solve those problems.
Although working as a contractor yourself is not a longterm strategy to building a business, it’s a great opportunity to learn a new industry and come up with businesses ideas that can help your customers. Finally, this entry point into business can also turn into a service-based businesses, like a marketing or PR agency.
3. Make an eCommerce Store
More and more, software tools like Shopify and WordPress + Woocommerce are making it easy to set up an online store where you can sell goods like Amazon. In fact, there is a growing group of entrepreneurs who have successfully launched an ecommerce business and tell you how they did it, like Ecommerce Fuel and MyWifeQuitHerJob.com!
The key with this business is to find the best suppliers, manufacturers, and product niche possible. You could either white label another’s product or design your own.
4. Delis, Dry Cleaners, Restaurants, and more.
The easiest way to come up with a small business idea is to track how you are spending your money on a daily basis. For me in NYC, I frequently spend money on delis, dry cleaners, and restaurants. What do you spend money on?
As you might guess, it’s very easy to generate business ideas in your surrounding area based on your consumption behaviors. The downside is that since these businesses are thought of most often, there is a lot of competition.
If you go to a local city or even your neighborhood shopping centre, pizza houses, burger joints, and sandwich delis are all over. The main question to answer with this type of business is how can you be different and what kind of location can you obtain?
5. Start a Food Truck, Catering Company, or Take Out service.
If food is your passion, then you might want to look into starting a food truck, catering company, or take out service, because a full fledged restaurant it a sizable investment.
The key with this type of business is to understand the local laws regarding the preparation and sale of different types of foods. What licenses do you need to own? What precautions must you take?
One of the great things about the evolving web is that you can now also raise the initial capital that is needed to make your dream a reality through crowdfunding. Keep in mind, that you will still need to develop strong relationships in your local community and start with a great product to be successful.
6. Launch a Tutoring Company
Chances are, a local city or neighborhood is ripe with high schools and colleges that have parents that care about their kid’s education. How can you help them pass exams or get into the college of their dreams? This answer might take the form of an essay-writing, proofreading, or extra-curricular teaching service.
When thinking about this business, credibility and accessibility to students/parents are two key pillars to being successful.
7. Child and Pet Care
Depending on the aspirations for your career and your skill set, a child or pet care business might be good starting points to learn about accounting, marketing, sales, and what it takes to build a successful business.
Keep in mind that people are extremely careful with those that they entrust their child or pet to and you must overcome the initial skepticism that comes with being a new service.
8. Offer Web Development or Design Services
You may or may not be the tech savvy one amongst your friends, but if you are, why not offer this skill to local businesses? Most business websites are not terribly difficult to create from a back end development standpoint. I’ve used WordPress for all of the websites for my own companies.
If the business is looking to create a complex web or mobile app, you’re either going to need those technical chops (ruby on rails, django, php/laravel, swift/objective C) or you can take advantage of your network and refer the business to an established development company for a cut of the sale.
Remember that a good looking website is a must for a business owner, so you either need those design abilities or explain to the merchant that you will be helping them set up a pre-created website theme.
9. Examine what you are good at and what you like
In the past, I’ve read through posts like these trying to pick out a business idea to take a whack at. I even went so far as starting a service that would scan physical books into ebook formats (wasn’t profitable enough).
But, after four years since starting to get involved in entrepreneurship, the projects that turned out best both drew on skills that I was good at and were ideas or projects that interested me. The great thing about liking a particular industry or customer base is that it gives you the ability to work without it feeling like work. You can look up from your desk and suddenly realize that hours have gone by.
Although this isn’t always the case, I’ve think that examining yourself is the perquisite for unearthing the best business idea for you that is a fit for both your skills and your inclination.
Let me know if you decide to go with these in a comment below!