Published on April 12th, 2019
There has never been a better time to start your own home-based business that it is today. There are more tools, platforms, and opportunities than ever to start a venture that you can run out of your home.
The great thing about home-based businesses is that it doesn’t even have to be out of your home. You can do it from a coffee shop down the street or in a cafe in Paris.
Many home-based business owners choose to work out of co-working offices, which has become super popular in recent years. Co-working offices allow people who run their own businesses but don’t have employees to be around other professionals.
Here are some common home-based businesses that are easy to start and with a large demand pool to draw from. These are businesses that you can run from anywhere, from your bedroom to a shared desk in a co-working space.
1. E-commerce Business
E-commerce is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. The demand for products of all kinds has grown dramatically over the last decade and it will continue to grow as the world’s population continues to explode and many go from poverty into the middle class.
While demand is growing every day, the brick and mortar retail stores are on the decline. You can see it with recent bankruptcies of America’s largest retailers.
So where are all of those customers going? They are going online to purchase their goods. That’s why online stores like Amazon and eBay has become the leaders in retail in recent years.
It’s easy to start your own e-commerce home-based business. First, you need a platform that will list all of your products onto the world’s major marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.
There are platforms like Shopify, Magento, Big Commerce and Channel Advisor that will do this for you. You can start small on all of these platforms then grow to the enterprise suit as you grow bigger.
You have to keep a few things in mind, even at the premium levels. The Enterprise Magento pricing will not include customization. You may have to hire a developer to tailor it to your needs, but that will cost you extra beyond the normal pricing.
2. Conference Event Planner
If you aren’t very technical but enjoy organizing parties and other events, becoming a conference event planner may be the business for you. As a conference event planner, you would help companies and associations organize conferences.
A lot of work goes into organizing these types of events. You have to find and book a location, including hotels, restaurants and convention halls.
Then you have to get attendees registered and figure out a way to communicate with them. Then you need to start sending them messaging as the conference approaches with relevant information.
Once the event starts, you have to make sure everything is on schedule and everyone is doing what they need to be doing at the right time. Whether it’s keeping track of catering, conference speakers, group leaders, the technical team, the production team or the registration table, it takes a ton of coordination to pull of an event.
3. Real Estate Agent
One of the largest industries of home-based businesses is real estate agents. There are many agents working out of real estate offices, but a large portion of them work out of their homes.
Most don’t stay home for long, however. In fact, working at home too much may be a signal that your business isn’t doing well.
Good real estate agents would ideally be on the road meeting with clients, showing homes and closing contracts. They use their homes as their base where they keep all their files, hang up their whiteboards and showcase their sales awards.
4. Catering
Many white collar workers choose to ditch the cubicle for a kitchen. Many go into catering when they first enter the food business because of its low startup costs.
You just need to make sure you have all appropriate licenses and that you get permission from the city to use your kitchen for commercial use. Once that’s done, you’re off to the races!
Catering is a great way to start your culinary career. You can do it out of your own home and don’t need any employees unless you want to have them.
5. Web Designer
Designing websites used to be solely the realm of highly technical people who could code and make really nice graphics. That’s no longer the case.
There are many plug-and-play website companies that make it easy to develop a really professional looking website in just a few hours. They typically have tons of good looking templates, graphics, and images you can use out of the box.
Even though it’s easy to make a professional website these days, that doesn’t mean people want to do it. There’s still a learning curve involved.
That means that even if you can’t code, you can build a home-based business around building websites for other people.
These are just 5 common home-based businesses that millions of people are successfully operating today. They have a low barrier to entry and anyone can do them.
