Do you need a business idea? Here are 10

You don’t need a lot of funding to start some businesses – just energy, passion and the drive to succeed.

Today, more and more individuals are considering starting their own business, and for good reasons. On average, one might have two and three careers during their work life. Those leaving one career to another often think about their second or third career move being one they can manage as a side hustle. The good news: creating a second incoem stream is within the reach of almost anyone who wants to take a risk and work hard. Experience, training, or licensing may be needed. 

1. Accountant

Create a flier outlining your services. Before you do that, you need to know what those services will be. Do you want to simply do bookkeeping for a small business? A more involved level of accounting would be to work up balance sheets, income statements, and other financial reports on a monthly, quarterly, and/or annual basis, depending on the needs of the business. Other specializations can include advising and filing tax returns for employers and employees, and checking account records to ensure that everything is captured correctly.  

2. Ride-sharing driver 

Getting paid to drive during your free time is a great way to make extra money. It won’t likely replace a full-time job but can be a lucrative extra revenue stream. According to Nerd Wallet, here is a break down of the income you can expect: “To make an annual income of $50,000, the average Uber driver needs to provide 60.21 rides each week, while those working for Lyft need to give 83.76 rides a week, and Sidecar drivers would have had to provide 72.03 rides in a week.”

3. Cleaning service

There are many directions this business can take. You can focus on retail businesses and keep your customers clumped into one or two blocks. Restaurants are in great need of daily thorough cleaning and can be a great source of steady clients. You can also target homes. Many times with cleaning services you don’t have to spend a lot of money on advertising or marketing because your customers will come by word of mouth.

4. Consultant 

To be a consultant, you need to have expertise in a certain area so you can market yourself as an advisor to others looking to work in that area. Perhaps you managed several large warehouses in your career with a drugstore company, you did all the marketing for many years for a large shoe manufacturer, or you set up a chain of beauty supply shops or take-out restaurants. You can use this experience to help others do similar things without making the same mistakes that you made along the way. A calendar, diary or an app will likely come in handy to ensure that you are keeping tabs with all your clients, and sending invoices on time.

5. Electronics repair

This business is similar to the computer repair business, but you can take on all sorts of electronic equipment besides just computers. With smaller electronics, you will need to be prepared to have customers bring items to be repaired to you, as you would have difficulty recovering the cost of driving around picking up broken equipment and returning them there after. You may also want to encourage people to give you their old electronics so you can use
them for parts.

6. Event planning

One of the first things you need to do is visit every potential event location with which you plan to work. Work with the marketing manager to tour each site and learn what is available at each location. Start a database that will allow you to sort venues by varying features, such as the number of people each site holds. Also find out whether equipment that your customers will require are available on site, will you need to arrange for rental chairs, for example. Then when you are beginning to plan an event with a client, you can find out what the key parameters are for the event and easily pull up the three or four sites that meet the basic criteria. 

7. Interior decorator 

Market your talents to building contractors. People purchasing new homes can often be overwhelmed with the choices and possibilities in home decorating. Design some questionnaires for each major element and each major room in the house. Find out how the homeowner will use the home–are there children? Pets? Does the woman of the house wear high heels? Do the home’s residents neglect to remove shoes? How will each room be used? Where might task lighting and ambient lighting be most
appropriate?

8. Marketing copywriter 

If you can write copy that gets people excited about purchasing what your client has to sell, you can make good money in this business. Those who aren’t experienced in the field can take a course. You can enrol in a college or university that offers mass communication courses. An online platform like Youtube can also go a long way as some experts share “how to videos”.

9. Personal trainer

Advertise your services in places where everyone goes, like restaurants and grocery stores. Having a website is a good idea – people want some privacy in their decision-making when it comes to getting fit. They can go to your website and determine if your approach to personal training would work for them. It is important to emphasize the safety aspect of using a personal trainer. Help clients get fit and charge them either per day, weekly, or on a monthly basis.

10. Property management

Your job, in the case of rental units, will be to make sure the property is running smoothly. For seasonal properties, you will most likely spend your management time making sure the property is ready for seasonal visits and well-maintained when no one is around. If the owners go away for six weeks in the winter, the property manager makes regular checks on the property. You will be the contact number if the security system operator needs to contact someone about a breach in security.