Ever wondered what it would be like to be your own boss? Given the time and circumstances we are in today due to the coronavirus pandemic, getting started with a home business no longer feels like a far-fetched side hustle.
This seems like the perfect opportunity to give your home business idea a chance to turn into something concrete. To help you navigate better, we’ve answered a list of some pertinent questions related to starting a business from home.
What is a home business?
As the name suggests, a home business is a business practice that is carried out from the owner’s personal residence.
Usually, home-based businesses are small in scale and often run either by the proprietor alone or with the help of his/her family members or few employees.
How to start a small business at home?
Running a small business at home isn’t as easy as it sounds. Your entrepreneurial journey will be packed with hurdles that can be overcome with proper planning and systematic execution.
To give you a basic idea of what you’ll be in for, here’s an outline of what you’ll have to do to start a home business:
- Narrow in on a small business idea
- Identify who your target audience is
- Select a suitable name for your business
- Research about your competitors
- Create a business plan
- Formulate a short-term and long-term strategy for lead generation
- Complete the legalities associated with starting a business
- Set up a dedicated workspace in your home
- Start a website or register with an eCommerce store
- Create a buzz about your business with content marketing
- Grow your business with eCommerce tools
What kind of business can I start from home?
Depending on your experience and investment, there are quite a few businesses you can start from home.
To give you some ideas, we’ve made a list of the easiest home-based business which are also very profitable:
- Sell homemade products such as papier-mache, home-made wine, etc
- Sell freelance designing or writing services
- Sell custom packages for finance, tax or legal assistance
- Sell ready-to-use business plans, itineraries, or any other type of custom planning services
- Sell online courses for students at home
- Sell handmade paintings
- Sell online courses as a personal trainer for yoga or fitness
- Become a home-based baker or chocolatier
- Sell custom business templates
- Sell photographs clicked by you
How can I start my own business with no money?
Starting a business without any money is a tricky affair, but it isn’t impossible. First, ask yourself what the basic necessities for your business are in addition to a computer, Wi-Fi, electricity, and other running costs.
If you are extremely low on budget, you can cut corners by starting a Facebook page instead of designing a website.
You can also get listed on an eCommerce site to sell your products.
However, you’ll eventually need money to keep your business going. Think about creating a strong pitch deck that you can send to investors.
You can apply for a bank loan and also keep an eye out for funding opportunities.
What is the best home business for women?
Starting a home business is a great way for stay-at-home mothers and homemakers to pursue a career of their choice. Subject to their qualifications and work experience, some of the best home businesses for women include:
- Blogging
- Freelance Writing
- Graphic Designing
- Consultancy Business
- Food Service
- Cooking Classes
- Fitness Training
- Therapy or Counselling
- Song or Dance Training
- Home Tutoring
What business can I start with $20000?
$20000 is quite a substantial amount to start a number of home businesses. Here are a few business ideas:
- Photography – Invest in good equipment and set up a small photo studio in your house.
- Printing – Take up a lot of personalized printing jobs.
- Food Service – Set up your own professional kitchen on a budget and cook up a storm.
- Handicrafts – If you are an artistic person, you can make and sell a whole lot of things at home.
- Dropshipping – Pick your niche, secure a supplier, and set up your eCommerce website.
What business can I start with $10000?
If you’re looking for a business idea for $10000 or less, you might want to consider something that involves minimal operational costs and limited touchpoints. Within $10000, you can start a:
- Day Care – You can cover your licenses and insurance within $10K and use the rest to furnish your space in a kid-friendly way.
- Second-hand retail store – Retail arbitrage can be a profitable business if you have an eye for shopping and selling.
- Audio and Video Editing – It’s a great business idea once you have the right training, equipment, and editing software.
- Home Salon with Grooming Products to Sell – You’ll need a clean facility, a wide range of products and tools.
- Pet Grooming and Pet Products – It’s perfect for animal lovers who have a knack for grooming.
What business can I start with $5000?
Since $5000 is quite a restricted sum, you can start a business that has the least amount of paraphernalia. Some home business ideas under $5K are:
- Copywriting – You only need a laptop, internet, and a clear mind
- Website or Graphic Designing – In addition to your laptop, you may need design software and tools.
- Real Estate Consultancy – You can get proper training and kickstart your consultancy.
- Teaching – Cooking, music, art, language, you can start a class for a host of things at home.
- Baking – You can cover the cost of your ingredients and appliances used to bake.
What handmade items are in demand?
People love buying novel items that are unique and not mass-produced. With websites like Etsy, handmade items are in a lot of demand. Some of them are:
- Handmade soaps
- Customized t-shirts, mugs, keychains, mobile and laptop cases
- Scented candles and incense sticks
- Jewelry
- Ceramics and enamel products
- Cakes, cookies, bread
- Personalized gifts and gift cards
- Home décor items like coasters, magnets, frames
- Handwoven garments
- Baby items like blankets, onesies, beanies, and toys
Is buying a franchise a good idea?
Purchasing a franchise means buying the rights to legally use the expertise, processes, and intellectual property of an established business. The franchise fee depends on how big the company (franchisor) is.
Investing in a franchise is a good idea as it makes an existing business model available to you, without you having to start from scratch by yourself. There are comparatively lower risks involved and you have a prevailing brand name to bank on.
However, there is lesser autonomy in running your business and along with royalty fees that can dent your profits. Conduct thorough research and highlight your estimated costs and revenue before making a commitment.
The importance of a community cannot be overstated, especially in times of crisis. Community support is crucial for emotional well-being as well as for gathering practice advice on how to manage the crisis better.
So, we turned to our community of business owners across sectors to seek their wisdom on how to deal with the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses.
These pieces of advice come from real experiences of small business owners and are a reflection of how they are dealing with the situation themselves. We hope these gems of wisdom will help you with your business during these challenging times.
50+ Small Business Owners Share Their Advice for Dealing with the Impact of COVID-19 on Business:
Stay positive
1. Keep a cool head; look for other opportunities.
2. Take a deep breath and look at your operations. The “changes” many businesses are facing right now are another stage of business evolution and while things will change, I’m confident many will thrive and evolve.
3. If you are fortunate enough to weather the storm, be positive, and continue to invest in your long-term future. The global pandemic won’t last forever and this could be an opportunity to come out of this ahead.
4. Stay calm. You’re in business because you’re innovative. Rely on that and stay calm. You might even find new ways to serve customers as their needs change.
5. Don’t give up! Think smart, not hard.
6. Stay safe, this will hopefully end soon!
7. Stay creative and weather the storm.
8. Everyone’s business is so different it’s hard to comment. I would say that this an opportunity for people to be still and reflective. Through this process, solutions will come. It may be that you completely change the focus of your future work. It’s frenetic out there. There is so much noise, it is difficult to see the wood for the trees. Slow down. Be still. And breathe.
9. Wait it out.
10. Make smart short-term decisions with the hope that this will not last for more than a few months.
11. Keep working on the backend so that when it lifts, you have fresh products to deliver.
Pivot, Pivot, PIVOT
12. Be agile and adaptable to take business affairs online.
13. Be flexible.
14. Pivot to solving immediate user problems.
15. Pivot if you can, sell online, take this time to explore other possibilities.
16. Adapt yourself.
17. Come up with new offerings that will attract clients.
18. Look around to find a way to repurpose your business or apply your model to other contexts
19. Create a new way of business.
20. Diversify your income stream.
21. Don’t focus on where you’ve been, focus on where you need to go next. If your business model doesn’t make sense anymore, don’t get caught up in regret; get ready for what you need to do now to make it work.
22. See what opportunities lie ahead, and do it before others do.
23. Be ready to offer alternative products or services, and offer varieties to consumers so as to keep the business going.
24. Identify where you can grow fast, what can you improve and what you can come up with during this time
Lend and seek support
25. Be compassionate to yourself and your team.
26. Put your own concerns behind, pay your employees, take care of your clients.
27. This isn’t forever, we’re going to be okay. Support your fellow team members and together we can make this work.
28. Find a group of business owners in your industry at various stages to form a support group.
Take everything online
29. Operate completely online, it makes a huge difference when it comes to maintaining a plan for continuous operations.
30. Plan for your business to move online.
31. I would recommend they keep as much of their work online as possible and to not give out personal information like addresses or phone numbers. I do all client communications exclusively through email or video conferencing.
32. Take advantage of the current change in thinking re: online technologies.
33. Focus on remote sales/revenue.
34. Online businesses are the key to the future. There has already been a massive shift towards online business in the past decade and I feel the virus will only give more of a push towards online commerce.
35. Having a good online store has been crucial. Running sales worked very well for us as it seemed people were willing to spend money.
36. Make improvements to your online presence.
37. Create more online products.
38. Moving a retail store online, or adding an online component to your restaurant doesn’t need to be intimidating. This is a perfect opportunity to start small and be kind to yourself. It doesn’t need to be perfect!
Reduce expenses… FAST
39. Reduce spends, increase savings
40. Cut expenses and think fast, and really act fast if you see that your business does not fit the current situation and the needs of your customers.
41. You don’t have time to sit and wait, you have to change quickly.
42. Build savings.
43. Reduce spending and try to find a way to get more clients /customers.
44. Cut your expenses ASAP.
45. If you are self-contained and self-funded at the moment, you only need to continue to do what you are doing.
46. The best time to prepare for a crisis is 3 months before it happened. The second best time is now. Make sure you have funding in place for these sorts of things and ensure you can transfer to a homework environment for all employees.
47. Plan ahead and reduce spending on concurrent platforms.
Logistically speaking…
48. Utilize the resources on cleaning the foundations and preparing for the re-bounce.
49. Work closely with the manufacturer so you get new stock quickly.
50. Choose the less delayed shipping methods, and encourage new possible customers to place orders
51. Offer discounts. Reduce margins. Move stock.
52. Be diligent in finding new suppliers.
53. Ride the wave. Focus on consistent business to sustain volumes. Don’t think of margins, volumes will drive the near term focus
54. Have a plan in place and if possible, move services like phones, etc to IP phones that can be diverted to staff homes and have a remote working setup.
So, there you have it! Advice from 50+ business owners just like you sharing their experiences for the benefit of the small business community. If you have any tips, suggestions or advice that you’d like to share, mention them in the comments below!
Resources & Guides to Help you Start Your eCommerce Business from Home:
List Of Trending Products To Sell Online In 2021? 30 Ideas You Didn’t Know!
300+ Unique Brand Names of Online Stores and eCommerce Startups
eCommerce Website Starter Guide: Take Your offline Business Online
Conclusion
While the world is looking for ways to combat the sense of lull during this lockdown, you can get your creative juices flowing. Ideate and evaluate on a constant basis till you come up with an ironclad home business idea.
