Starting your business from home and making money from your safe environment – it’s a dream for many.
Now that we have faced the years of pandemic, an increasing number of people have done their work at home and and now they have no intention of returning to the office. They’ve experienced what it feels like to work in an environment without unnecessary conflicts, compulsory coffee breaks, and needless traffic jams. And many people are not willing to let this go. They just keep fighting for preserving this privilege.
Many of those who were forced to return to the company, decided to leave their jobs and start their own business from home. Nowadays, opening a business in your own home is not complicated and the possibilities are certainly (almost) endless.
Let’s see some ambitious and profitable opportunities that will allow you to build a business. I’ll also give you some tips for the humble beginnings.
Why is it easy today to open a business from home?
The development of technology, the ever-faster internet connection, and the continuously increasing amount of information all allow basically any person to open a business directly from home.
Some might ask themselves: ’Is it necessary to have some particular skills to have my own business?’
Well, I have to remain on the safe side: it depends. Certainly, there are some areas that require quite a lot of knowledge, you you need to invest your time to learn the details: website development or digital marketing fall into this category.
In other cases, however, you may already possess some skills (maybe you can paint) that you can start utilizing right away.
Tips for the beginnings
I have built three businesses in 3 years so I have seen a lot of what you will have to face soon.
I started my first business at the of 28 without any prior experience, without any examples in front of me, without any guide from others.
That’s why it took a year to start earning real money. The second one was much faster 😊
I’ve clearly made some mistakes you don’t need to repeat. So here are my tips for the beginnings of your new business.
1. Make sure you have all the knowledge when you start
Yes, it’s important. Probably you shouldn’t quit your daily job unless you have appropriate knowledge in your new field. Of course, if you have enough savings that you are willing to sacrifice, you can do it right away.
On average, it takes 1-1.5 years to learn a new profession that allows you to work online. Whether it’s web design, search engine optimization, or social media marketing, learn while you are still employed and make sure to create a portfolio.
2. Choose an area that interests you but also meets the market needs
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when starting your business from home.
Innovative ideas are always great but if you come up with something new, first you need a market analysis to check if there’s a demand for your product or service.
Though people often try to scare others with the idea of saturated markets, there’s still need for good web designers, social media managers, or English teachers out there.
Just check what more you can add and how you can differentiate yourself from the services provided by others.
3. Learn the ability to sell your products or service
If you are about to start a business in marketing, you are really lucky.
(Let me tell you a secret: once your business is active, you will probably have not time to advertise your services, so you’ll need to hire someone anyway 😊)
If you want to do something else, you need to learn the basics of marketing.
If you want to do everything by yourself, I advise you learn the basics in the following fields:
- SEO
- Blogging
- Social media marketing (at least two channels)
- Facebook ads or Google ads
4. Write a solid business plan
When starting a business from home, your business will be your GPS. You’ll have to plan how to get to the final destination. Let me warn you – you may need to replan your route every now and then. But that’s okay.
Why do you need a business plan?
This is how you will determine your business milestones – goals you want to reach in the long term. You will be able to plan the timeline and budget to reach what you’re aiming for.
In general, your financial plan should include:
- A business overview
- An operation plan
- Market analysis
- The description of your products or services
- Sales and marketing
- Competitive analysis
- Management team
- Financial plan
- Projections
5. Come up with a marketing plan
Marketing will be crucial when starting your business from home.
Often, the lack of an effective marketing plan will result in you spending money on different ads without any results. You don’t want to do that.
You have to set your marketing goals, you have to pick which channels to communicate on, how much you want to spend on online ads.
It’s important to define your brand’s voice, your target audience. You will need a timeline and you need to track the metrics that are important for your business.
How do you want to communicate with your audience? Do you want to send newsletters? (Don’t believe the gossips, they are STILL incredibly effective.) Would you prefer YouTube videos? Great, the time has come to learn about these tools if you want to be responsible for your own marketing.
Business ideas can you start from home
Now that we have covered the basics in a nutshell, let’s see some great business ideas that allow you to work from home as your own boss.
1. Selling handmade products
If you have some skills and like to create objects from scratch, craftsmanship is probably an activity you would really enjoy. For example, you could create:
- Candles
- Jewelry
- Artwork
- Clothes
- Wooden furniture
Whatever you want to create, you can transform your simple passion into a real opportunity to do business from home. To start selling, you need to open a webshop.
2. Start a dropshipping business
You probably like the idea of having an online store, but you don’t know what to sell. It might be a good idea open a dropshipping business from home that also has low start-up costs.
Dropshipping is a type of e-commerce where sellers don’t need to stock the products they sell. In fact, the goal is to collaborate closely with suppliers who will manage the inventory and ship the products directly to customers.
3. Buy products in bulk and sell them online
Another way to start making money online is to buy a stock of wholesale products and sell them individually at a higher price. It’s important that when you buy in bulk, you will need to have access to a much lower price.
Create your online store and start utilizing your marketing strategy.
4. Start a subscription business
Well, selling the same service monthly is better than selling it only once a year, right? All you need to do is change your mindset.
In recent years, subscription businesses have been a real trend.
Just think of the many subscriptions that most people have now, like Netflix or Amazon Prime.
The subscription is a fantastic work from home idea because it grows a sustainable income through recurring earnings. Some subscriptions you could activate:
- Language teaching
- Online yoga
- Website building course
- Online cooking course
You may also build a subscription business with goods instead of services:
- Snack boxes
- Healthy food subscription plan
- Make-up
- Coffee subscription box
Your opportunities are literally endless.
5. Teach online
As I’ve mentioned at the beginning of this guide, you may need to have some skills to work from home.
This is the case with online teaching.
Therefore, if you have the required skills or knowledge (and of course the talent and patience for teaching), consider sharing your know-how through online video calls.
As a matter of fact, this was the second business I’ve built!
The most popular subjects include languages, mathematics, science, but you may also teach people how to do business.
There are no limits when it comes to what you can teach. Just make sure that there’s a market out there who want to learn that subject.
6. Sell services online
The demand for digital services is increasing every single year.
Businesses need talented marketing professionals, web designers, or developers. There are certainly jobs that are in demand more than others.
What kind of services can you sell online? The list is almost endless, so here are a few examples for you:
- Web designer
- Developer
- Translator
- Copywriter
- Photo or video editor
- Social media manager
- Search engine optimizer
- Virtual assistant
- Accountant
- Marketing consultant
- Business management consultant
- Financial advisor
Some of these ideas certainly offer higher returns than others, but also require a much higher level of competence.
7. Sell digital products online
If you’re not planning to teach online or sell a service, you can always pack your knowledge into a nice digital product.
Selling digital products is an excellent idea because you do not need to stock and, once created, you can sell it as many times as you want.
What are the digital products you can start selling?
- Video courses
- Ebooks
- Spreadsheets
- Photos
- Illustrations
- Animations
- Software
- Audio (music, samples, podcasts, etc.)
- Research (statistics, reports, etc.)
8. Build your online audience and monetize it
Do you have a passion for creating online content that relates to a certain topic and, therefore, a niche? That’s great.
If you want to start your business from home, your goal will be to create an audience in different ways such as:
- Growing an Instagram account
- Creating a YouTube audience
- Writing a blog
- Creating a following on TikTok
Once you’ve built your online audience, the next step is to monetize it. To do this, you could sell online courses, digital products in general, or use affiliate marketing.
My closing thoughts
Starting a business from home is now a clear concept.
You have no problem with accessing the internet and finding the information you need to open a business and start earning seriously with online tools.
In some business areas you will need more than one skill. For others, however, your current knowledge may be enough.
If you want to get serious about your online business, my advice is to never stop learning and always keep up to date.
Remember: slow and steady still wins the race! And you may not be so slow after all.
Until next time… Peace & Blessings.