Looking for great business ideas you can launch on a tight budget? Start here. By Ryan Robinson Updated October 13, 2016 ...
Looking for great business ideas you can launch on a tight budget? Start here.
Updated
October 13, 2016
Starting
and successfully growing a business is without exception, a
difficult endeavor.
Most
seasoned entrepreneurs will tell you that building a company from
the ground up is hands down one of the most trying, yet rewarding,
experiences of their lives.
Starting
a business takes so much more than just a great idea. You need a
winning combination of great opportunities, determination, passion,
time, and for most businesses, a bit of funding to get your idea off
the ground.
Today,
we're focusing on 12 low-cost business ideas that you can get
started on (and start seeing results) in as little as just a couple
of days. Here's even more
business ideas you
can start while you're still working at your day job.
1. Start a Niche Website.
Picking
a hyper-specific topic that has proven search volume (you can check
Google monthly average search volume for specific terms using
the Keyword
Planner Tool),
will give you the opportunity to become an authority in a relatively
small space if you can create a lot of value for the existing
audience.
If
you start generating highly valuable blog content, videos, images,
or other engaging pieces of content around a topic like camping
with babies,
and can slowly build up your regular audience, this authority
placement will afford you many different monetization opportunities.
From affiliate sales, to ad revenue, sponsored content, and paid
partnerships with well-known brands, you can start generating
revenue as soon as you have a steady flow of traffic coming to your
site.
2. Launch an Online Course.
Are
you an expert within a specific domain? If so, there's without a
doubt an audience of people who'd be willing to pay you for an
accelerated learning experience that'll get them up to your level of
expertise.
Just
recently, I launched my first online course on how
to win freelance clients,
and it's been immensely successful because I have a vast amount of
experience in starting and growing a freelance business. Perhaps
your skill set is drastically different. You could be a writer,
marketer, designer, or even a nurse, technician, or in retail sales.
Whatever your experience is in, there's a way to teach others how to
become more successful, make more money, get started quicker, or
advance in their careers within your niche.
Once
you've chosen your topic, easy-to-use online course platforms
like Teachable and
Udemy can get your course business off the ground in a matter of
hours.
3. Sell Digital Downloads.
Creating
and selling
digital downloads like
eBooks, in-depth guides, templates, and case studies, are incredibly
great ways to generate relatively passive income online.
Once
you create a piece of useful content that'll help an online audience
accomplish something within their lives or businesses, it's just a
matter of getting your digital goods in front of that group of
people.
You'll
want a basic website in place, so that you have a destination to
bring in targeted traffic with related blog content and other useful
information about what your digital download is going to help them
accomplish.
I've
been creating and selling eBooks for a number of years. On
average, it takes me just a couple of days to research and write a
high-value eBook that's a few thousand words in length. From there,
I'll identify forums, websites, and social media channels where my
target audience spends time online and start promoting the digital
download there.
4. Start a Podcast.
Recently,
podcasts have become increasingly more lucrative as a source of
sustainable income. If you create a podcast on a specific topic,
such as launching
startups like
Rocketship.fm accomplishes very well, and you interview well-known
figures in the industry, you'll quickly amass a high number of
regular listeners if you learn how to market it well.
Once
you've grown your listenership to a reasonable level (shoot for at
least a thousand listeners per episode), you can start bringing on
some premium sponsorships. It's not uncommon to charge $2,000+ per
month to established sponsors to get their product or service
message in front of your targeted audience.
5. Become an Online Coach.
Again,
if you have a marketable skill set that you're passionate about, you
can offer your coaching services in a one-on-one style setting.
Tools
like Savvy.is and
Clarity.fm offer you the opportunity to quickly hop on and offer
online coaching sessions at your pre-determined hourly (or by the
minute) rate. What's more is that these communities already have a
built-in user base of people seeking career guidance, life coaching,
and actionable learnings on how to clear their obstacles.
6. Fulfilled by Amazon Clearance Arbitrage.
Amazon
FBA clearance arbitrage is the practice of scouting out goods that
are currently selling on Amazon (with the fulfilled by Amazon
designation), and tracking down those items at a lower cost from
stores in your local area.
It's
surprisingly easy to pull off, and Nick Loper of SideHustleNation
has been experiencing a
good amount of success with it over
the last year. I'd highly recommend checking out his detailed
breakdown of how he regularly does this. There's even a scanning app
for smartphones that'll let you instantly detect the clearance
arbitrage opportunities while you're going through local stores.
7. Remote English Tutor.
Teaching
English as a second language can be a very lucrative side business,
and it takes absolutely nothing to get started, aside from access to
a computer with video chat abilities (and Skype).
If
you're a native English speaker, there are countless people in
foreign countries who are willing to pay $25/hr or more for you
to teach them English via video chat platforms like Skype or
FaceTime. Indeed frequently
has job postings up, requesting remote English teachers and tutors.
8. Start Freelancing Within Your Industry.
Just
about every job can be done on a freelance (even remote) basis in
today's digital world. What's even better is that you can start
a freelance business while you keep your day job.
From
writing to editing, graphic designing, developing, marketing,
video production, business consulting, and more, there are tons of
great websites that regularly feature highly paid freelance gigs.
Start with looking around for industry-specific forums and contract
job posting boards, as those will always have more engagement, but
sites like LinkedIn's
ProFinder, Upwork, and Freelancer.com are
great starting points for bringing on your first clients as well.
9. Launch a Photography Business.
It's
relatively inexpensive ($60 - $150) to rent even a very nice
DSLR camera from a local camera shop for the weekend. If you take
some time to practice and learn techniques from pro photographers
online, you should be able to pick up the basics fairly quickly.
From there, you can get into portrait photography, very lucrative
wedding photography, and even specialize in something as niche as
newborn photography, all with great scalability potential if you
live in a decently populated area.
Once
you've learned how to navigate your camera (or smartphone camera),
you can very easily start monetizing your skills. From selling
prints, to doing commercial and private client shoots, building up a
large following on social networks like Instagram and Facebook,
teaching online
photography courses,
doing in-person workshops, and selling your advice, the
opportunities are limitless.
You
can even start a profitable blog, sharing your skills with others
online. Let's say you have a knack for capturing incredible star
trail photographs at night. Thousands of people are searching each
month on Google, wanting to learn how
to take star trail photographs,
and offering your blog content, video tutorials, and an online
course they can upgrade to purchase, is a fantastic way to generate
online income with this skill.
10. Refurbish Used Electronics and Resell Online.
We've
all seen the advertisements offering to purchase our old (or even
damaged) smartphones at low prices. These opportunistic
entrepreneurs are putting their technical skills to use and fixing
up these electronics, and reselling them either in-person or online
(often to customers internationally).
There's
a huge market for expensive gadgets like iPhones in many foreign
countries, and consumers in those countries without the ability to
purchase directly from Apple, turn to eBay, Amazon, and other online
retail destinations where they pay above-retail prices to get their
hands on the tech goods they want. If you can start buying up and
fixing damaged iPhones locally, you could net a healthy profit by
later flipping them online.
11. Become a Tour Guide.
Do
you live somewhere with frequent travelers?
If
you love meeting new people from around the world and have an
in-depth knowledge of the area you live in, then starting your own
local tour business could be a great opportunity that needs little
more than a clean vehicle and cheerful demeanor.
Learn
from Erik
at Vantigo on
how he started a VW van tour bus company in the SF Bay Area
while he kept his day job, and grew it into a sustainable full-time
source of income for himself.
12. Start a YouTube Channel.
There
are many YouTube users generating a healthy income from ads on their
regular videos. Some of them even make well
into the millions each year.
All
it takes to build a healthy YouTube following is to identify high
search volume topics, develop your own unique spin on creating video
content, and learn how to engage well with your audience. From
there, you'll be able to start implementing ads on your videos and
if you want to take it a step further, launch your own website which
gives you even more monetization opportunities.
Where
are you going to get started?
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