Well, if you become popular on Youtube you can earn a lot of money. Directly from Youtube if you’re really big, but also from side contracts Youtube stardom should fetch you. When you have a list of people who are trusting you, following you, or admiring you, you are able to sell them. The difficult part is standing out.
You need to start out with a good location and you need to do some marketing to get going. This business may also end up being more work than you envision. Something will often need repair, every guest will seem to have a special request, and there will frequently be some renovation or upgrade project you will want to work on. But if you like meeting and entertaining new people, and have lots of energy, this can be good solid business.
If you’ve always wanted to publish your own book as a side business idea, there never been a better time than now. That’s because access to self-publishing tools and marketplaces has never been easier and more affordable. This eBook writer currently earns up to a couple of thousand bucks each month from six ebooks she published; while you can reportedly demand around $1000 per eBook project serving as a ghostwriter. My good friend, Caroline Beaton used freelance writing as her side business idea to eventually go from secretary to self-employed, while focusing on her own personal development and looking inward to discover what she’s truly passionate about.
Online Post Office: Believe it or not, your business will not be 100% digital. There’s a very good chance you will need to send paper statements, invoices, presentations or more to your clients and vendors. Instead of venturing out to the post office every day, it might be worth investing in a postal scale so that you can weigh your packages from home. Online services, like Stamps.com, allow you to also print out the exact postage you need, making a visit to the post office unnecessary. You can evenschedule pickups with the United States Postal Service at your home.
You can make good money at this business but you need great locations that provide enough volume to make it worthwhile to service provide a decent return on your investment. I have even seen some entrepreneurs try selling snacks at companies without any machine at all…totally on the honor system. Still another variant you could do is provide coffee, soft drinks or basic snack food for a company location and try to get the company to pick up the cost as a benefit for its employees.
Before you get excited about starting your home based business idea, you first have to make sure you have the right tools in place. The main tool is a speedy Internet connection. Most home based businesses will require some sort of Internet connection. With a good Internet connection, you can also take care of a phone and fax. Isn’t technology great?
Washing windows for retail stores is about as simple as it gets. Just get your cleaning supplies and knock on the doors of retail stores, asking if they want their windows cleaned. If you get some takers you could arrange to make it into a regular service.
Anyone with a knack for style and design can offer interior design services to clients. And it isn’t a requirement to have a separate office. So you can do much of the brainstorming and administrative work from home.
This is a good solid service business. But it is competitive, you need to have fully qualified service providers, and you need to look into licensing. No matter how good a service you run, when you deal with the elderly especially there is always legal risk. You can mitigate the risk by incorporating, by getting insurance and by being sure your staff follows accepted medical protocols.
Countless small businesses start out their web presence using a WordPress hosted website (myself included) before needing to upgrade to other solutions for various reasons. Many of them will pay several hundreds of dollars for someone to get their business idea set up online. If you have the patience to learn how to do it yourself, it’s an extremely valuable skill and can be turned into a very lucrative side business idea—especially if you sign up for affiliate programs with companies like Kinsta, who offer high quality managed WordPress hosting plans that allow you to collect fees from the clients you refer their way. Plus, with the skills you pick up from this side business idea, you’ll be able to spin up other profitable website ideas like my friend Andy’s been able to do with his site, AwesomeStuffToBuy.
As the saying goes, one person’s trash is another’s treasure. Without people cleaning up everybody else’s junk, the world would be a lot messier than it already is. This business idea might not be glamorous, but you get to make the world a cleaner place while earning extra side income. To start, you’ll likely need a sturdy second-hand truck and standard equipment like shovels, wheelbarrows, sledgehammers, rakes, and garbage cans to launch the foundation of this side business idea.
This is similar to the banquet facility business but built around a facility that is ideal for weddings. People will pay a lot of money for a wedding venue that excites them! You could provide the catering and related services yourself, allow customers to bring their own caterers or require your customers work with a particular caterer that you chose.
There’s a huge growing market for mobile phone accessories, and plenty of handmade sellers are raking in 6 and sometimes 7 figures from their phone case businesses. You can get your own phone case business up and running as a side business idea in a matter of days with turnkey solutions from Case Escape, my previous company, and you can now get ready-to-go kits that’ll give you everything you need to start a phone case business. Once you’re up and running, you can sell cases on Etsy, Amazon Handmade, and Fancy. During our first year of selling phone cases as a side business idea on our Etsy store, we made around $60,000 in revenue from that selling channel alone—not to mention additional sales from fairs, trade shows, promotional products vendors, parties, events and other online marketplaces. From there, the sales only continued growing and we graduated from side business idea to full-time company that I ran with my best friend for multiple years.
Like graphic design, Web design requires skills that can take years to acquire and perfect. But if you have them, the market is there for creating attractive, useful Web sites for all sorts of organizations. Starting a Web-design business does require some up-front investment, particularly in software, although candidates to start Web-design firms might have those applications already.
To succeed at car resale, you need to find a great source of used cars at a good price. Sources to buy cars include: car dealer auctions, bankruptcy auctions, new car dealers selling older cars they don’t want on their lot, government car auctions, and rental car agencies. You can also watch for bargain priced cars being advertised by individuals, but you need to snap up the best deals before someone else does. Focus on just a couple cars at a time, so that you can try to keep your overhead low by operating out of your house, and keep your profits up by choosing your cars carefully.
The selling costs are remarkably low on the Etsy website. But you will be competing with some awesome looking crafts, so make sure you create some great stuff that is highly distinctive. Then take perfect photographs and write up snappy descriptions. Try to build a following by developing a related line of goods
As a web developer, you’ll build incredibly valuable skills that are in extremely high demand. You can get up to speed on building websites in as little as a few months with inexpensive or free online education programs like Treehouse, the Web Developer Bootcamp on Udemy and Codecademy.
Planning vacations has become much easier for individuals in recent years thanks to lots of new online tools. But companies and large groups still often need help when planning and organizing travel arrangements. So if that’s something you enjoy, you can offer your services to clients.
She just created an online store and sold all of her products via her website.  If you aren’t creating your own product you can always find a product to dropship – that way you don’t have to store any inventory in your home.
If you speak like James Earl Jones or Scarlett Johansson, quite a number of digital publishers (including game developers, animated film-makers, and training video producers) pay good money for voice talent and the time investment isn’t too intensive—making this a great side business idea. You can find these publishers looking for voice-over artists on sites like PeoplePerHour, Freelancer and Upwork, as well as their calls for talent directly on their websites or through voiceover agents. If you do pursue this as a side business idea, be prepared to invest for the long-haul as it can be a very competitive industry.
Information may be abridged and therefore incomplete. This document/information does not constitute, and should not be considered a substitute for, legal or financial advice. Each financial situation is different, the advice provided is intended to be general. Please contact your financial or legal advisors for information specific to your situation.
We don’t manufacture as much in America as we used to, but the phrase “American made” still means a lot to some people. Artisanal items are also popular, making now a great time to start a furniture-making business. This might not be the easiest idea to start from scratch, but if you already own the equipment you need, you can start producing pieces to sell at fairs and online on sites such as Etsy.
My book publishing business often bought books from packagers. What is a packager? Typically, a book packager would sell to a publisher a completed manuscript with the pages already laid out, and a book cover all ready to go. Book packagers tended to sell more complex book projects, such as books that were heavily illustrated or books that were “packaged” with another component. For example, we bought a book about chess, boxed with a small chess set, from a book packager.
Yes, graphic design is hyper competitive. But everyone wants a little different style. So, if you get a highly appealing design in front of your prospective audience you can be successful. For this business, I would go crazy having a fabulous looking website with a totally “kickass” front page! Then I would use SEO techniques, social media, and every other marketing tool I could think of to drive traffic to it.
As a personal chef, you would spend your time whipping up delicious meals for those who don’t have time to cook but do have money to burn. The best way to make a name for yourself as a personal chef is to offer meals that fit stringent dietary or allergy requirements.
With social media at your fingertips, this is the single best time to build a brand online. It wasn’t that long ago that you needed to hire a PR agency to create brand identity and awareness. But now, if you are determined and diligent enough, you can build a brand by creating quality content every single day and leveraging social media outlets to attract and engage an audience.
You should also consider home owners’ associations in your neighborhood and consider the potential impact of your business on neighbors, especially if the business will increase traffic or noise in the neighborhood.
Hi Aira. I have tried this 2 x and its nearly impossible to get known and followers – let alone people to participate. Its so hard. I really began because I hoped they would lead to people advertising on my Blogs and earning an income – and overcoming my depression by being busy.
Who actually enjoys packing-up for a move? I don’t. And, if you’re like me, I was more than willing to hire someone to pack and load my belongings. Since you don’t need to purchase anything other than boxes and tape, which will be included in your final price, there isn’t much of an overhead to start.In addition to, or as a separate business idea, you can also start a moving company. Purchasing a truck may be pricey, but you could start by investing in a truck and trailer and moving larger items locally, like when someone just bought a new fridge or moved across town.
Many parents seek out tutors to help students with schoolwork in areas they are struggling with. Consider hiring yourself out as a math, literature, or science tutor (or whatever else the kids are learning these days). Experience with kids and with schools is a major plus here.
Then you can move into more actionable online courses like Modern Web Design on CreativeLive and Learn Web Design and Profitable Freelancing on Udemy will teach you everything from foundational web design knowledge to earning your first freelance income as a web designer. On top of that, you can take even more immersive courses and learning experiences with access to direct instructor feedback and personal mentorship with platforms like Treehouse, LinkedIn Learning and General Assembly to get up-to-speed even quicker with this career path and listen to my podcast interview with Ian Paget about how to become a freelance designer as a side business idea.
I have worked for Community Colleges, traditional non-profit universities, and a for-profit university. I cannot warn you enough to stay away from for-profits. Total snake oil salesmen who would steal from their own grandmas.
Great! It was really helpful specially to those mom out there wherein they want to earn money but then they need to stay at home. That legitimate home based ideas and opportunities was really great. Thanks for sharing it and I’ll share that ideas with my friends. Thanks again.
Thanks Oak, and I agree that many of these are for when you have a lot more time than money. We put in a lot of time (at least initially) starting our internet publishing business. In fact, you can often substitute time for money in many ways when starting.
Many businesses seek out freelance graphic designers for logos, custom letterheads, infographics, and web design work. With digital visual assets becoming ever more valuable online, graphic designers have plenty of opportunities to make money remotely from home.

Whether if it’s a new business or family that just moved into town, you can can refer them to restaurants, accountants, lawyers, landscapers, babysitters, or vendors. You’re biggest costs is networking, marketing yourself to the community, and placing ads online and in the Yellow Pages.
A lot of car repairs don’t require a car lift and you can do them at the customer’s location. Not only does it eliminate the cost of owning a service bay, but it saves your customer the time to drive and wait at a service station.
I always recommend people start in an industry they know well – as long as there is money to be made. In addition, an Internet-based business has very little overhead expenses and so in turn, you can get into profit a lot faster. Those would be my two recommendations for anyone looking to start a small or home-based business.
If you have the right touch, this business can be a goldmine, and very personally rewarding. One of my business school classmates changed into this career later in life and did very well, specializing in putting together highly talented teams for well financed startups, and early stage ventures. The typical head hunter makes endless cold calls–but at the higher end firms networking is much more important.
Fiverr.com takes a dollar of each $5 sale, so you might wonder how sellers make money. It’s all about the extra services. Many of the logo designers there keep it really simple for a basic sale (add a company name to a template), but offer extra services that can add $100 or more to an order.
A personal concierge handles everything from managing schedules to running errands like taking clients to the airport or their dog to the vet. In a nutshell, it’s being someone’s personal assistant. But, depending on the market, it can make you some serious bank.
It’s clear there are more opportunities to start a home based business without spending thousands of dollars. Thanks for the very doable suggestions and ideas. I used do engraving and eBay. Now I blog. I love to share information about making money online ethically.
Gardening is really big. Many people like to do their own gardening but they can use a little bit of help! That’s where you come in! Maybe you specialize in flower gardens or vegetable gardens, or even something more exotic. You will need solid expertise, but you will find a clientele willing to pay for it.
Sometimes I’d do a little touchup work, such as a new wood trim or a coat of paint, occasionally I would contract out an engine repair, and always I would clean them the boats. Like any trading business, you need to find out what sells easily and at what price, and what you want to stay away from. Brand name outboards, specifically Boston Whalers, sold well for me. Sailboats, on the other hand, took forever to move.