By Mercy Meuni
8 Easy Business Ideas with Low Startup Costs
Whether you are fed up with your job, dealing with a layoff, or just looking for a change of pace, starting your venture is both daunting and exhilarating. Every business requires effort and commitment to succeed. The earning potential of your business will depend on the hard work you put into your venture.
Capital is often a challenge to budding entrepreneurs, hindering them from starting businesses. Fortunately, if you are short of cash or just starting, there is a wide variety of easy business ideas that you can launch without breaking the bank. With some of these ventures, the only investment required is your time.
To succeed as an entrepreneur, you will first need to research business ideas with low startup costs and potential for growth. You need to identify opportunities that are in demand for your business to thrive. With time you can reinvest your profits back into your business and grow it further.
Let’s take a look at some of these easy business ideas with low investment requirements.
1. Blogging
Blogs have evolved from simple online journals to sites that cover all areas of life and have the potential to be monetized. You can earn from your blog by creating sponsored posts, selling products such as online courses and Ebooks on your blog, affiliate marketing, advertising, and selling freelance services. With just your time and costs of setting up a website, a blog is a great easy business for the everyday person.
When starting your blog, your prime focus should be on providing value to your readers. People are always seeking useful information, and a steady stream of helpful material will help you cultivate a loyal and trusting audience. Your blog should not be all about pushing your products and services. Aim to educate, inspire, and entertain your audience through your content. Once you’ve built an audience, it becomes easier to monetize your blog.
There are currently over 500 million blogs in the world, and an estimated 2 million blog posts are made daily. With such vast amounts of content, you need to ensure that the quality of your blogs is excellent to stand out from the crowd. When the quality of work you create is superior, your readers keep revisiting it, and new readers will find your blogs. A successful blog is not built overnight. It requires patience and consistent effort to grow an audience. However, it is worthwhile in the end as the content you create will exist on the internet forever and generate a passive income in subsequent years.
The Huffington Post is one of the most successful blogs of all time. It was launched in 2005 by Ariana Huffington and grew to be one of the most popular news websites and political blogs. Ariana Huffington later sold it in 2015 for a staggering $315 million to AOL. Today, this blog generates about $14 million monthly and is valued at over $1 billion. The Huffington Post is a testament to the unlimited growth potential of a well-run, relevant blog. Some other blogs that have excelled include Engadget, a blog that covers gadgets and electronics, and Moz, which deals with search engine optimization.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an easy business idea that creates a way to earn online without creating a product. It entails promoting a parent company’s products and making a commission from each sale that is a direct result of your marketing efforts. You will be assigned a unique referral link used to track all your sales.
The affiliate marketing industry has grown exponentially. It is predicted that this industry will exceed the $8 billion mark by 2022, almost double its value in 2015. Affiliate marketing is a viable business opportunity that offers an entrepreneur a chance to earn with no initial investment.
To succeed in this business, you need to pick the right product to promote to your audience. The commodity should be capable of satisfying the buyer’s needs, manufactured by a trustworthy company, and have an impeccable reputation. The trust of your audience is vital in this business, and you need to maintain it. One way of inspiring confidence from your audience is marketing products that you have tried.
There are numerous affiliate networks that you can join to get started in this business. ShareASale, Amazon Associates, Rakuten, CJ Affiliates, and ClinkBank are some of the best platforms that you should consider. You can leverage a blog and social media to reach wider audiences and maximize your sales.
3. Tutoring
Imparting knowledge and witnessing the transformation in your customers can be a deeply fulfilling venture. Teaching a subject or skill is the basis of the tutoring business. There will always be a demand for tutoring services at all levels. Some students will require extra assistance to master a subject or a skill. English speakers will often want to learn a foreign language. Individuals who are not native English speakers, on the other hand, may need help to refine their speaking and writing skills.
Tutoring is not limited to academic subjects. You can teach skills such as cooking, playing an instrument, singing, and sports. Tutoring presents an opportunity for you to utilize your education and skills while earning a living. A perk associated with this business is its flexibility. As a tutor, you can work either part-time or full-time, depending on your number of clients. You can also work with clients from their home, your home, or an alternative location such as a library.
The internet has been a game-changer for the tutoring business. Tutors are now able to give lessons online via video conferencing tools, an aspect that instantly avails millions of potential clients. All that is required to start this venture is a keen understanding of the subject.
4. Pet Sitting/ Dog Walking
If you are an animal lover, this might be the perfect business for you. According to a 2019- 2020 survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association (APPA), 67% of U.S. households, which equates to 84.9 million families, own a pet. In the U.S., it is estimated that pet owners will spend $99 billion on their pets in 2020.
Most pet owners consider their pets to be an extension of their family. These owners are, therefore, willing to spend money to keep their animal friends happy and comfortable. This aspect presents a business opportunity with low startup costs.
Whenever pet owners are not able to take care of their pets, you can step in to feed, walk, and play with their animal(s). A little bonus in this business is that you get to stay in shape while walking dogs!
5. Concierge/ Errand Service
The majority of the working population live insanely busy lifestyles and therefore lack the time to perform simple, day to day tasks. Others find chores to be too mundane and are willing to pay someone to complete the tasks.
Starting an errand service will mean taking on an extensive range of jobs. Some of the most common chores include; grocery shopping, taking pets to the vet, setting up IKEA furniture, picking kids from school, preparing meals for families, dry cleaning runs, shopping for presents, etc. Your target market should be the residents of affluent neighborhoods as they are more likely to pay to avoid tedious chores.
You can also start performing errands on sites like TaskRabbit. Such sites make it easier to get clients, and you can set your hourly rates. The only downside is that you’ll lose a percentage of your earnings to the company.
Referrals are vital in growing an errand service business. As such, you need to provide services that exceed your clients’ expectations. A mobile phone and a dependable means of transport are enough to start this easy business.
6. Sell Bath, Body, and Spa Products.
Making bath, body, and spa products is a relatively easy process. And a passionate entrepreneur can transform this skill into a thriving business. Some of the most popular products that you can craft include soaps, creams and lotions, cleansers, body scrubs, and facial masks. By watching available online tutorials, attending related trade shows, and lots of practice, you can perfect your recipe for these products.
A key selling point for your products can be that they are handmade. Consumers appreciate the effort and time that goes into handcrafting a product. You can further distinguish your products by incorporating unique scents and packaging.
Trying to create every aspect of your merchandise can doom your business to failure. A great strategy would be to focus on the elements that you excel at and outsource the rest to experts. For instance, a graphic designer could create your business logo and labels for your products. And you could acquire bottles for your commodities from suppliers.
You can sell your products directly to friends and family, through local gift shops, at craft fairs, on your website, or through other websites such as Etsy. By selling online, you can reach customers worldwide, increasing the growth potential of your business.
7. Social Media Management
In the digital era, it has become crucial for a business to boost their visibility by maintaining a social media presence. Businesses require social media accounts on different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. It may be time-consuming and tedious for a company to create regular, quality social media content. A full-time employee tasked with social media management may prove to be too expensive for a business. Hence the need to outsource these services.
As a social media manager, you will plan and post content on behalf of clients. You’ll need to grow a following for your clients, devise marketing strategies, and interact with customers on behalf of your employers. You can find customers by directly inquiring from businesses with social media presence or offering your services on freelancing sites such as Upwork and Freelancer. You can charge your clientele monthly.
This business allows you to work remotely from any location in the world. If you love being on social media, you can earn from doing something that delights you. You can polish your social media skills by utilizing tutorials that can be easily found online. The key requirements for starting this business are a computer and a reliable internet connection.
8. Dropshipping
The dropshipping business is the embodiment of a low-risk venture, with an immense potential to grow. This entails making sales without ever handling the commodities. As the seller, you’ll find a client who wants a product and purchase said product from a third party manufacturer or supplier. Who then directly ships it to your customer.
With the dropshipping easy business model, you eliminate the need for initial capital to purchase inventory upfront. Not to mention saving the space to store inventory, and shipping and packaging costs. The appeal of a drop shipping business lies in the low overhead, the flexibility of location, and the little investment capital required.
To get started in the dropshipping business, you’ll need to select a niche to focus on. Your decision on the choice of products to supply should depend on the profit margins, shipping costs, and the demand for the products. Your pick for a manufacturer or wholesaler is crucial to the success of your business. An unreliable wholesaler or one who supplies low-quality products will reflect poorly on your business. You can ensure you remain credible to your customers by initially ordering from suppliers to gauge the quality of their products and their reliability.
Marketing is the backbone of the dropshipping business. You can use social media ads, display ads, and search engine marketing to advertise your business. It is essential to also incorporate long-term marketing techniques such as SEO and content marketing into your business. They will help you reach potential clients globally.
The easiest way to get started in the drop shipping business is to use an e-commerce platform such as Shopify. This platform has a variety of apps that are instrumental in increasing sales. You can run a dropshipping business from any location in the world. As long as you have a computer and access to the internet, you’re set.
Final Say
These are only some of the easy business ideas that you can start with little or no capital investment. Once you make the first few sales, you can reinvest the profits and expand your venture. By doing this, you can effectively build a business with little capital.
What other business can you start at little to no cost? Have you started any business at a low cost? Share your easy business ideas with us in the comments.
Sources
https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertadams/2017/03/02/top-income-earning-blogs/#6f7eaf7d2377
