10 Online Startup Ideas - Start Business Online

Are you employed full-time? Perhaps you own a brick-and-mortar company? Do you have some spare time in your weekly routine? Have you ever wondered what it might be like to not to commute to the office everyday?

We are living in exciting times. Times of The Internet.

Never in the history information from so many sources was available almost instantly. You can access business insights, connect with your friends and partners using a phone driving a bicycle (not recommended). Within a second we are able to share our memories, announce news, sell and purchase goods from almost all around the world.

What would perfect online business be like?

A perfect part-time (or full-time?) business would have to be very easy to start, require little time, money and technical expertise, be easy to maintain with just a few hours a week and have a proven track record with a high probability of success.

There’s actually one other important criteria—it has to be perfect for you! Experience has taught me there is no “one size fits all” perfect business. You’re much more likely to be successful if you do something you find fun and interesting.

Here is a short list of ideas that are fairly easy to get started with:

1. Start an Online Shop

Over the past one decade, people across the world have become quite accustomed to buying things online. Today, it may seem that everything is available online, but that’s not true. If you regularly follow start-up blogs, you will see unique niche marketplaces are being introduced to the market. This clearly tells us that there is still scope for new e-commerce stores.

This thought is further validated by the fact that currently, only few percent of the total retail space is online. For people interested in opening an e-commerce store, the bottom line is – there is an abundance of opportunities in the online retail space and If you have a business idea that caters an existing need or for which need can be created, go ahead and start it.

If you are wondering how to open an e-commerce store, there is quite a good selection of platforms out there. For single store set up, most recommended ones are Shopify, Volusion, & BigCommerce. For multi-vendor store (the likes of Etsy, eBay, amazon) YoKart and Cscart are the considerable solutions.

This one is probably a little more technical then the others.. Give me a shout of this is something you might need a hand with and I’ll be glad to help you out.

2. Become a Business Coach

f you possess a great deal of business experience and knowledge, why not create a business that helps aspiring entrepreneurs find success? You can use your skills to help new business owners get off to a good start and help experienced entrepreneurs keep up with demand.

To show off your knowledge and skills and bring in clients, you can also write articles about business on platforms like LinkedIn.

Anyone with people skills and the ability to help can become an online coach. Although it’s recommended you take some courses and get certified, the coaching profession isn’t highly regulated yet, which means anyone can call themselves a coach.

It’s affordable to start. Odds are you already have the equipment needed to start; a computer. You can download Skype for free and buy a quality set of headphones for under £50. You should also have a website, coaching contract and perhaps homework materials, but again, those can be had for less than £100.

3. Specialized Retailer

People who are considering getting involved in e-commerce by starting their own online store often ask a question “What product can I successfully sell online?”

It’s probably the hardest question of them all. The truth is that the online marketplace is crowded with existing vendors, big and small, and almost everything that a person might want to purchase can already be found online at a good price and under reasonable terms. The key is to find a niche – a narrow target audience.

Specialized stores are already a niche profession. When that’s the case, it’s best to set up an online store to reach those customers who are seeking your specific products. There’s an audience for everything, whether it’s making doll house furniture or creating organic dog food. Through a web-hosting service with an integrated shopping cart feature or with e-commerce software, your business will be operational in no time.

Many vendors will even ship products to customers on your behalf, which means you don’t need to own a lot of inventory.

4. Social Media Consultant

here are 2.307 billion social media users. This has spurred businesses to take social media marketing seriously. 81% of small and medium sized businesses are using social media. 94% of these use it for marketing purposes. Large businesses including the Fortune 500 take social media marketing seriously too.

There are over 50 million business pages on Facebook alone and over 2.5 billion comments are made on these pages every month.

In 2016 businesses spent $23.68 billion on paid social media ads. By 2018 this figure is expected to reach $35.98 billion. This shows that businesses are investing heavily in social media marketing. Hence, there is a ton of work for social media managers now and in the future too. The pay is also very good.

Larger companies can hire an agency or full-time staff member to run their Facebook and Twitter accounts, but small businesses often have to handle their own social media marketing.

With so many responsibilities, business owners are often too busy, overwhelmed or undereducated about the importance of social media to spend time developing and implementing a great social media strategy.

As a consultant, you can help them determine the best tactics, posting schedules and content for their target audience. As their follower count grows, so will your business. You can train yourself to understand the fine art of social media marketing and offer to either take over their social marketing efforts or to provide consulting services on the matter

5. Resume / Cover Letter Writing

What’s the first thing a person needs (besides persistence and thick skin) when they go job-hunting? A really good resume. That, plus a good cover letter, is what separates the wheat from the chaff when prospective employers pore through paper piles of hopeful applicants. Unfortunately, most people have no idea how to write a winning resume.

If you have a flair for the written word and a way with people, you can come to the rescue with a resume service.

It’s a tough truth to swallow, but a standout resume and cover letter can make all the difference when you’re applying for a job. While listing career accomplishments might seem like an easy task, the fine art of “humble bragging” eludes some of us.

Find work by helping others to get hired with the aid of stellar resumes. Capitalize on the increasingly important social media branding bandwagon and offer to fix LinkedIn profiles as well.

The advantage of starting a resume writing service is that it has very low start-up costs, can be run from home (or anywhere) full or part-time, and doesn’t require any specific education or training, although people with a background in human resources or recruiting are at an advantage.

6. Assistant / Task manager

Aside from freelance writing jobs, you can offer your services on the internet as a virtual assistant. There are several busy business people or organizations that are willing to hire and pay virtual assistants to help to handle some of their job responsibilities.

Do you have impeccable organizational skills? What about cleaning skills? Can you quickly and efficiently carry out these tasks? Maybe it’s time to put those skills to good use by becoming an online personal assistant or task manager. Companies like TaskRabbit or Zirtual allow you to sign up for tasks you want to complete — including data research, virtual assistant or running errands — and begin building clientele.

As a virtual assistant you can handle various job roles for mutable of clients; you can hand roles such as responding to emails, online marketing, products listings, blogger outreaches research and report writings.

7. Affiliate Marketing

f you’re a person who loves leaving customer reviews on sites like Amazon, stop doing it for free.

Word-of-mouth advertising is still a huge lead generator for many companies, and a lot of businesses are willing to share a portion of their profits with persuasive individuals who will promote their products to the public. If you have a personal website with a large following, this might be easier to accomplish.

The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to invest the time and effort to create a product to sell. You can begin selling something as an affiliate as soon as you have a platform to sell it on.

There are few very important rules to bear in mind when promoting products that are not your own. You don’t have to use these rules in order to become an affiliate or be successful at it, but it’s what has helped people to grow their affiliate income tremendously over time.

Only recommend products as an affiliate that you’re extremely very familiar with—preferably products that You’ve used before and have helped you achieve something. If You’re not confident in the product and You don’t feel it will positively help people, You shouldn’t promote it.

Never directly tell anyone to buy a product. Always recommend products based on your experience and in the context of what You’ve done or what You’re doing.

8. eBook author

Another easy way you can make few pennies from the internet if you are good with creative writing, so as to sell as eBooks (electronic books) – books in soft copies and they can be downloaded online from any part of the world.

There are countless numbers of subjects that you can write about and of course there will be ready market for such subject.

One of the easiest ways to generate monies from selling eBooks is to start writing self – help books or books on ‘How To’. For example, if you are good with graphics, you can write a book on ‘How to create your own logo’ there are loads of people out there that will be willing to pay for such book.

Achieving authorship is easier than ever. With e-readers now a staple in most households, self-publication has become a reality for many writers who might never get picked up by publishing companies. With the right marketing tools, you can successfully publish your own books on anything from cooking and weight loss to real estate.

Hectorpreneur’s advice from successful e-Book authors offers tips for writing content that sells.

Ebooks are cheap and easy to make and from one eBook you can continue to generate incomes as long as the information that it contains is still pretty valid and useful.

9. Handmade Craft Seller

The Internet is a great marketing space to display, promote and sell your handmade items to customers all around the world..

Online sites like Etsy and ArtFire are platforms that make it extremely easy for crafters who can produce a steady supply of quality handmade items, like crocheted blankets or unique painted glassware.

Start-up costs are extremely low if you purchase your materials in bulk from a craft supplier, and if you can turn around orders quickly, you’ll be making a profit in no time at all.

It’s even possible to turn your store into a full-time gig. There are quite a few advantages of having a more tailored solution such as Perch Shop. Perch Shop is a free add-on for the Perch and Perch Runway content management systems.

It enables you to add product listings, a cart, and checkout with different payment providers to a site with lots of control and minimal fuss.

You can see physical products with inventory control, digital downloads and website memberships, and manage things like shipping, multiple tax rates and product options with ease.

The design, layout and customer flow through your store is all set by you, using the flexible Perch template system. So you decide how your store looks and works – you’re not just theming someone else’s design.

Whether you have just a handful of products on Perch, or are creating a full store with Perch Runway, Perch Shop puts powerful e-commerce at the hands of any web designer.

10. Buy and Sell Domains

Another interesting and money making business that you can start on the internet is to start buying and selling domains. All you need to do to start this type of business and of course make money is to look for domains with potential for sale, buy them and then source for those who are interested in buying such domain.

It might be risky to buy and on to a domain name, but the truth remains that you are likely going to sell at a price that is far more than the price you purchased it; it is similar to real estate investment – some domain name appreciate with time.

This is a list of some of the highest prices paid for domain names as noted in the news and media. However, this list is limited to only domains that were sold for more than $3 million. But the list does’t end here.

The idea is simple. Buying something at a cheaper price and selling it at a higher price. This simple idea works really well when it comes to domain flipping.

Conclusion

Overall, the Internet itself is overflowing with one money making opportunity after another. While making money online for most people isn’t their primary source of income, it can net a very solid supplement stream of incoming pennies each month.

There are some online entrepreneurs, however, that are managing to mine gold due to all the effort, persistence, and time they’ve invested in order to make that dream come true.

Can one of these online money making options work for you?

Put in the time and see where it leads to find out. There’s something there for everyone. Whether you want to get your hands dirty or just earn an income passively, there’s plenty there on my list of online business ideas. I hope I given you some inspiration to start something yourself!

Huge opportunities are out there, but ultimately, choice is yours. You can keep going after small fishes by staying in your comfort zone, or you can catch a big with a little bit of extra efforts.

Damian