Twenty-Five Ways to

A Business TodAy

While some of these ideas may seem small, it’s important to remember that many of today’s most successful businesses started out with similarly small business models, often unrelated to what they are famous for today. For example, Pearson, the education publishing giant, started out as a construction and contracting business. Twitter was spun out of a podcasting company. Obscure, small beginnings can often blossom into thriving businesses.

Anytime is the perfect time to begin a side job, project, or consulting work. you never know what smallstart can be turned into a booming business.

While this list does feature some business ideas that require technological knowledge, all of the required skills can be learned quickly. Getting started can be as easy as asking the teenager down the street to do the “heavy lifting” on the tech side, or searching Google for an answer. Initially, the learning curve for any new endeavor can be steep, but the potential long-term rewards are real.

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives, and led them well.” - Theodore Roosevelt

“Everything is easy once you know how.” - Attributed to many

Recently, we’ve noticed some great emerging opportunities for those who want to start a business. We have filtered these opportunities down to the top 25 that can be started today.

Traditional.These opportunities are pretty basic, and you can get started with them right away. We put a unique spin on them to show how simply they can be started and grown.

Consulting is a booming business. We introduce two methods well suited for professionals of all stripes, as well as two brand new technologies that are making it easier than ever to book clients.

Consulting.

We broke the top 25 ways to start a business down into

five categories.Tap on any of the

categories below to jump to the related ideas.

Technology.

While these opportunities are technology-oriented, they are all easy to learn, and you can start them right away with minimal knowledge of tech or programming.

Publishing.

Until recently, breaking into the publishing industry was nearly impossible for small newcomers. That has all changed, and technology has obliterated the traditional barriers to entry. Now is the time to start publishing. We describe some near-term opportunities that are perfectly suited for students and professionals.

Service platforms.

These online platforms offer an incredible place where

educators can get in on the ground floor of emerging

trends. These platforms are

well suited for starting

service-based businesses that require

little to no start-up capital.

Participation in many of these

platforms is analogous to being listed in the first Yellow Pages. Most of these platforms

are well funded, and

have budgets dedicated to promoting

new entrants—potentially

you!

Instead of teaching and re-teaching every great lesson plan, why not record them and build up a great library of instructional videos perfect for Udemy, or any other Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) provider? Although MOOCs are usually the domain of college-level courses, parents of home-schooled children are increasingly turning to these online resources to supplement their children’s learning. The Udemy platform is a lot like any online university course. The student body consists of anyone wanting to learn more about a certain topic or skill. The experts who deliver the courses are people with relevant topical knowledge or skills.

To launch your course, all you need to do is create a free account, upload your lecture videos, and write descriptions for each. You can price your course as you see fit, or offer it for free.

Teach an online class.

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2Did you know that many niche experts are routinely paid between $500 and $10,000 for a single speech? There is a reason the reward for public speaking is so large: it can be unnerving, and it takes courage! Local clubs and civic organizations routinely look for local speakers who are helping the community through their work. Are you opinionated on a topic? Volunteer to speak at a local event. Make sure to record your speech and scrutinize it. With practice, you will improve in just a short amount of time. As you perfect your speech and your technique, you will be ready to deliver it to a paying audience.

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Become a public speaker.

3 Initially, offer tutoring to students at your own grade level, or in your field of curriculum expertise. For example, if you are an expert at AP Math, become the premier AP Math tutor in your area. You’ll have little competition, and will help struggling students. You can begin advertising your services by posting an ad on Craigslist, or pinning a flyer to your local coffee shop’s bulletin board. Have fun by testing different advertisements to see which one gets the highest response rate.

Become apersonal tutor.

If you’re already technology-inclined, offer your tutoring services via Skype or Google Hangouts. You’ll eliminate the need to travel, and you’ll be able to service a much larger market. You can advertise on bulletin boards, Craigslist, or LinkedIn. Alternatively, you can start a blog, and with some sweat equity, it will be fairly easy to show up high in Google search results for phrases like “math tutor in your city and state.” For scheduling, use Google Calendar or Schedule Once Mailer. You can take payments via your blog with PayPal or Gumroad. Helping a hard-working student for one hour each night is a great way to earn a couple hundred extra dollars a week.

Become an online tutor.

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5 Go to any local business and help them with what they need. If it sounds simple, it’s because it is! They will probably need help with social media, technology, getting more customers, or hiring the right people. These are all things you can do on a service basis. Once you get comfortable identifying what certain types of businesses need, you can replicate that service offering to other businesses. With a little ingenuity, you can even “productize” your service offering. Productizing your service offering simply means that you offer staple packages based that make offering your services to businesses in a more convenient way for you, and for them.

From Service To Products.

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SquareSpace and Shopify (www.Shopify.com). Once you feel comfortable, start setting up blogs or e-commerce websites for others, and charge a small fee. Website building is a skill that’s in high demand, and will enable you to help anyone from fellow educators to local businesses.

set up websites and blogs.6

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www.Tumblr.com

www.SquareSpace.com

Tumblr and Wordpress make it surprisingly easy to start a blog. Likewise, setting up a website can be a breeze with

Affiliate marketing is a process by which you are paid for promoting and selling other people’s products. This marketing model is the foundation of many successful businesses, like Mary Kay, Avon, Apple, and Amazon. In the world of online products, affiliate marketing usually works by providing you with a special link to a product that you in turn share with your social network, or post on your blog/website. When people click on these special links and make purchases, you get a percentage of the sales made. Most companies have free affiliate programs. Be cautious of affiliate programs that have monthly fees, or are not free to join. While some affiliate programs are complicated to set up, there are newer ones that are fairly simple.

Take advantage

of affiliate marketing

opportunities.

7TradiTional

This job just entails sharing content and responding to customers on various social media platforms. There are a huge number of education startups around the country that are constantly searching for social media community managers. Many local businesses desperately need help building a social media community, but can’t afford to hire a social media “guru.” As such, they would be happy to hire relatively inexpensive freelance managers who enjoy social media. If you spend a lot of time on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, you’re probably well suited for the job. If you’re addicted to Pinterest, many companies would love to pay you to pin for them.

Technology

Become a social media community manager.

Upwork is a great place to find freelance work of many kinds. The demand is huge for writers, editors, proofreaders, designers, and many other professionals. On Upwork, you can specify your hourly pay rate, create a profile, and start applying for jobs. Potential clients post their jobs, and you bid based on the amount of work the job entails. If you’re awarded a job, the client funds an escrow account. After you deliver your work, the money is sent to your bank account. Many companies can’t afford to hire full-time employees or temporary staffers. These employers are canvassing sites like Upwork to find qualified applicants for freelance work. Although most projects are small, some can extend on for several months.

Join Upwork.com

Service PlaTformS

10.Join Freelancer.

11. set up an etsy storefront.

Freelancer is similar to Upwork. If you sign up for freelance or consulting projects on Upwork, copy and paste your profile into Freelancer as well. It’s a great way to double your chances of landing freelance assignments.

www.etsy.comWhile Upwork and Freelancer are great for consulting and freelance work, you may be more of an artisan. Have family members raved about your arts and crafts skills? Are you addicted to crocheting? Etsy is the easiest way to set up an online craft store. It is extremely simple, and in a single afternoon you can be selling your creations on Etsy. Just browsing the other storefronts of local creative types can be a lot of fun. Seeing what’s available will give you plenty of ideas about opening a store of your own. Etsy is a marketplace that’s growing quickly, and perfect for artists and craftspeople.

Do you want to open an e-commerce store? Shopify is the easiest and cheapest way to set up a fully functioning e-commerce store. You can sell anything from lesson plans to t-shirts. Getting set up with a free trial only requires a few clicks. In moments, you can have a live website. If you don’t want to ship products yourself, you can link your store to fulfillment centers, and have them take care of delivering orders for you. This is a great, turnkey solution for people who want to get into e-commerce.

www.shopify.com

12. set up a Shopify store.

www.freelancer.com

ew Shopify stores are emerging at an

incredible pace. Shopify can’t keep up with

demand, and has opened up its doors to outside

consultants. If you can set up your own Shopify store,

you can be paid to help others set up their stores.

Once you know how to set up a Shopify store, register

yourself as a partner on the site. You can then start consulting, and

help others who are trying to figure out how to open a store. Shopify experts are paid anywhere from $500 to $5,000 to set up a single store for clients. This is based on the level of customization required. But once you figure out how to set up a store yourself, you’re enough of an expert to help others who don’t understand the basics. Making an extra $500 every weekend helping others set up a store is a quick way to build a business. Once you’re familiar with the process, setting up stores for clients can take as little as one to three days. If you can set up two stores a week at $500 per store, you could potentially earn $4,000 a month of side income. Considering that several hundred new storefronts open daily on Shopify, becoming knowledgeable about e-commerce can quickly turn into a thriving business.

13. set up Shopify stores for others.

www.shopify.com

MicroLancer is a new freelance site for

graphic artists. If you’re a talented designer,

MicroLancer is a great place to offer your services. It’s similar

to Freelancer and Upwork, except that you create

a profile and offer your design services. MicroLancer’s parent

company offers graphic resources to thousands

of consumers daily. This greatly improves

the likelihood that many potential customers

will browse your MicroLancer profile.

www.microlancer.com

Join microlancer.

14 15

Rent unused space with

airbnb.

www.airbnb.com

Airbnb is rapidly becoming a household name, and rightfully so. The service enables you to rent out any extra space you

have in your home, allowing you to literally turn your home into an instant bed and breakfast. You

can put your home or apartment on Airbnb right now, and make money this week. Check out other listings to see how to

advertise your space. All of the technical details are handled by Airbnb. To get started, just take pictures of the space you would

like to rent, and upload them to the site. The photos don’t

have to be amazing. Renters will find your listing and request to stay with you. Renting a room

through Airbnb is a great way to help subsidize the mortgage.

Join Taskrabbit.

TaskRabbit is the best place to find professionals to hire for

quick, service-related tasks and errands. Individuals and

businesses use TaskRabbit to contract out chores they just don’t have time to complete.

The job listings on TaskRabbit range from running errands to

basic office work. You can offer your services for hire, or hire others on TaskRabbit. If you think you’re too busy to start a business this summer, try

contracting out some of your time-consuming errands on

TaskRabbit. The extra time you save may enable you to spend more time with your family, or

make it possible to start a business.

www.TaskRabbit.com www.Zarrly.com

sell services on

Zarrly.Do you make the best

chocolate-chip cookies in Mississippi? Are you the best

classroom organizer your school system has ever seen?

Zarrly lets you instantly put up a storefront to sell your services. They take all the work out of setting up a website, building traffic, and finding customers.

Whether you’re selling cookies, cakes, homemade goodies, or organizing services, Zarrly is a

great place to do it.

16 17

www.Fiverr.com

This is probably the quickest and easiest place of all to start a service-based business. Fiverr is a marketplace where service providers offer up brief “gigs” for $5. While it might not seem like a lot, many gigs take providers only minutes to complete. Examples of gigs include reviewing and editing an article, or writing a 300-word blog post. Best of all, service providers can include more services to extend their gigs. For instance, many writers on Fiverr charge only $5 for writing a 300-word blog post. But, to get more writing or research included in the article, you must purchase a $10 or even $20 service. Fiverr integrates this seamlessly into the customer experience. Teachers and educators with years of experience proofreading can easily price editing services at $5, $10, and $20 depending on the amount of editing. As you can see from the listings on Fiverr, this is a community where the gigs range from very valuable to hilariously trivial. There is some opportunity here for professionals who will treat their gigs like a serious business.

Join fiverr.

18Publishing

As you browse our business ideas for publishing, keep in mind that publishing a book can be as simple as:• Typing your content in Word• Outsourcing the cover• Outsourcing the editing • Outsourcing the publishingYou can hire someone for design, editing, and publishing services on sites like Fiverr (www.fiverr.com),Freelancer (www.freelancer.com), or Upwork (www.upwork.com).

conSulTing

Fiction sells briskly on Amazon. The length of these e-books ranges anywhere from 50-page pamphlets to 1,000-page tomes. Works of fiction that sell for only $2.99 on Amazon routinely pull in hundreds of dollars a day for relatively unknown authors.

There has never been a better time to publish nonfiction books and how-to guides on Amazon. Did you just land a job as a teacher? Did you just get promoted? Can you instruct others on how to accomplish similar feats? You may be surprised about the demand on Amazon for nonfiction. Plus, Amazon will actually market your books for you. When you publish your book, Amazon will send out targeted emails to their customers who may be interested in your work. They’ll also show your book in the sidebars of Kindles belonging to readers who have purchased similar books.

19. Publish a

nonfiction book.

20.Publish an

educational guide covering

a domain you know.

Thousands of people around the world might want to learn something you know. Check Google search terms to see if putting what you know into a guide makes sense.

21.Publishing

fiction.

Where do you work now? Chances are you have a

million ideas to make the job and company work better. If nobody at your current

company listens, there are a million more who will, and

be glad for the insights. Don’t disclose any trade

secrets though…

Consult for Businesses.

online research.

With so much publishing activity taking

place, researchers are more sought after than ever. If you enjoy problem solving and are detail-oriented, there is a wealth of part-time jobs

involving researching articles and book topics for other

individuals and businesses.

www.in.linkedin.com

Linkedin consulting.

www.Clarity.fm

This site is probably the best place to offer experience-based advice. Imagine if the first Yellow Pages

were being printed right now. Imagine you could claim your spot as the ONLY consultant or tutor for a specific niche. This opportunity

exists on Clarity. The site is a way for experts on any subject to dispense their knowledge, and be compensated for their services. Simply set up a profile and list

the subjects in which you are an expert. You specify the times you’re

available for phone consulting, and clients can book times as they browse your profile. Clarity handles

the billing and details.

Join clarity.

The byproducts of your professional work can be in high demand. Did you just set up an

awesome LinkedIn account? Are other colleagues envious of

your LinkedIn recommendations, skills, and keywords? You

can set up and help optimize accounts for other professionals.

LinkedIn is the new resume of the future. Becoming a LinkedIn

expert is one example of learning a skill, and offering consulting

based on it. It’s also a great way to network and future-proof

your own job.

24 25

Join liveninja.

This site is similar to Clarity, except that it is video-based. This is the perfect place to offer guided homework help for children of busy families. Just like Clarity, you will need to set up an account, and LiveNinja handles the rest. By setting up accounts on both Clarity and LiveNinja, you can double your chances of being hired.We hope you enjoyed our list, and found some business ideas that are a good fit for you. A small start today can turn into a booming business down the road!

www.LiveNinja.com