1. Write a Book. Turn your passion into a mission to educate others - write a book and self-publish it.
That's exactly what Helen Georgaklis, Founder of the 99 Book Series did!
"This book series, which became the first ever to publish all 13 books digitally was started with 2 things- an idea and determination. I had no money as I had just been left by my ex with a 2 day old. Picked up the phone,starting calling, started networking online, started working the 'barter" system again and 4 years later, 13 books, another 15 authors writing for us as we work towards international expansion in 2011! Didn't have a dime to spend- but had heart, desire and ambition. Our first 2 years, we spent zero and we built a site and designed the first original covers! www.99-series.com - For under $1000.00 we created a new trend!"
2. Start a blog with Google AdSense, Chitika ads, an Amazon store, an eBay store, text link ads, or sell your own products or services
3. Become a distributor or representative for a network marketing company or party plan company
4. Start a business selling items on eBay
"I am an eBay Top-Rated Seller and eBay instructor who loves to teach people how to start businesses on eBay. I started out by selling items around the house and now sell approximately 150 items and $3,000+ per month. eBay is not a joke. eBay offers people the opportunity to start their own businesses for very little money - even if they live in rural areas.
When I'm not selling on eBay, I am a teacher at a local adult school where I help people earn high school diplomas. I work 30 hours per week at the school and am still able to run my eBay business. You can start a business, and you can start one today. The key is to get educated. If you are interested in becoming an eBay seller, find an eBay Education Specialist in your area or contact me for more information.
5. Start a business selling books or other items on Amazon
6. Buy items in bulk from sites like www.liquidation.com and sell them individually
7. Start a website to sell products or services
8. Create an eBook or report you can sell online - Information is free to create and people will pay for it if it's valuable!
9. Turn your hobby into a business - how can you monetize what you do already? If you collect stamps, find out how you can make money buying and selling collectible stamps. Become an expert at what you're already doing.
10. Start a paper route
11. Distribute products door-to-door
12. Become a consultant and help companies in your area of expertise
13. Become a coach or advisor and help people in your area of expertise
14. Build your personal brand and use it to sell products or services you believe in
15. Create your own product or service to help others
16. Create a YouTube video that goes viral
17. Create an iPhone or Android application
18. Create a newsletter that educates others
19. Create a Social Media following on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Digg, Reddit, or elsewhere
20. Buy and sell coins, jewelry, antiques or other rare items
21. Create coloring books
22. Create audio books
23. Start a Tumblr Blog
24. Become a representative for a direct sales company like Vector (which would not be network marketing)
25. Buy real estate with no money down - this is called Wholesaling where you get a contract or option to buy a property and sell that contract to another real estate investor for a premium
26. Raise money from private investors and invest in your area of expertise
27. Start a hedge fund (Glen Bradford did - see www.globalspeculation.com)
28. Help people do things they're too busy, stupid, lazy, or uninformed to do (organize offices, clean homes, mow lawns, babysit kids)
29. Manufacture a product at home and sell it (Please consult an attorney and your city's zoning laws before doing so.) This is how I started my first business at age 13! My dad and I started manufacturing SAD Lamps for Seasonal Affective Disorder in our garage at home. If I can do it, you can do it!
30. Start a Squidoo Page about whatever you want and earn money from the ads and product sales - or just donate it to charity!
31. Create an Online forum or social network using a site like Ning where people can connect and talk about their favorite hobby - which just might be your favorite hobby!
32. Create instructional CD's, DVD's, videos, or programs to educate people
33. Create instructional retreats, seminars, or conferences to educate people and sell tickets
34. License a patent or technology that you or someone else invented to a company that can commercialize it. Universities all across the United States and the world have millions of uncommercialized patents and processes that you can create a business with - with little or no cost. Just call up a university and ask for the Technology Transfer Office - then ask for all the patents and processes they have for sale in the area of your interest.
35. Write and/or record a song
36. Write a play, movie script, or theatrical performance
37. Create a business with options or other financial contracts
38. Become a professional photographer and charge people money to take good pictures of them
39. Join an Affiliate Program and market other people's services and products - all at no cost to you, and you get paid whenever someone buys through your affiliate. It's like a join venture with a massively successful company such as Amazon or Squidoo or thousands of others.
40. Become a tester or reviewer! People get paid to test video games, review movies, test consumer products, cars, new products, websites, and just about anything else you can dream of. If you love something or have a hobby you're passionate about, consider being a tester or reviewer in that area.
41. Import products. There are so many high quality, low priced products in other countries. Find a way to import them and sell them! When I traveled to India back in 2006, I saw so many incredible crafts and products that were incredibly cheap. Anyone could import them and sell them at a 100% markup easily anywhere. Why aren't you doing that?
42. Become a book reviewer. You can review books on Amazon.com and build your personal brand. Some book reviewers on Amazon have such a following and have built up so much respect for themselves that they get free books all the time sent to them and their opinion and reviews can make or break the sales of a book on Amazon.
43. Sell Commodities. No I don't mean futures contracts. I mean sell commodities! Ever heard of gratitude rocks? People actually just pick pretty stones and sell them as gratitude rocks for $5, $10 or even more. Not only are they earning money, they're helping educate others about the importance of gratitude in their lives. What are you grateful for?
44. Write Software. Write software that people want, that people can use that will help them and sell it online.
45. Turn your job into a business. If you have a job now, see how you can turn your job skills into a business. If you keep the accounts accurate for your employer, you could start hiring your accounting and financial consulting services to other businesses in the area.
John Schulte wrote a book on the subject of starting a small/home business. "The Direct Marketing Toolkit for Small and Home Business"http://www.nmoa.org/directmarketingtoolkit/
John says, "My input is that for a person to start a biz on a shoestring ($1,000) they must first outline their skills/abilities and what they have on hand already to start. With a $1,000 you can "start" almost any business, but it's not enough to sustain most things and get yourself some cash flow going unless you have some kind of base to work from.
Service businesses are the best bet to start on a shoestring.
For example, a laid-off carpenter would most likely already have tools and building skills, so it would be wise for him to come up with a business in that area and use the $1,000 for working capital for supplies and promotion.
The key would be having a narrow focus.
For example:
- General Handyman
- Building Picnic Tables or Outdoor Furniture
- Building Dog Houses
- Building Bunk Beds
- Building Garden Trellises, Raised Planting Beds, Planting Benches
The other type of business for a carpenter would be to buy and sell tools to other carpenters. He already has the knowledge of what tools are good and needed in the eyes of other carpenters, and also the pricing area of tools. This could be both used and new. Of course, the carpenter would have to have some social people skills needed for selling."
46. Make crafts and sell them. Kids do it all the time with things like bead bracelets and bead animals. You can learn how to it online at various websites like www.craftsforkids.com
Bead Animal
47. Community Education
48. Jewelry Making
49. Bread Baking
50. Selling Eggs. Just buy chickens, build a coop, feed them mainly on your lawn and scraps and sell their eggs for $3 a dozen. - Thanks to Christine Shuck of Creative Solutions for her entrepreneurial spirit and contribution for business ideas #47 - 50.
51. Publishing Consulting Business. This is pretty cool - I'm quoting here from Shel Horowitz (@ShelHorowitz) of www.guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com
"29 years ago, I started the home-based marketing and publishing
consulting business I still run. Total startup was $200, of which $12
went to marketing, $12 for office supplies, and $176 for a very used
IBM Selectric typewriter I bought at a school auction.
I'm still home-based, but now have clients on three continents. And I
still run on a shoestring.
Today, assuming I already had a computer and a broadband connection,
I'd be able to do it for $9 (the cost of a domain), using methods I
talk about in my books, including Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green:
Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet. Using
social media takes only time, not money. Setting up a website can be
done for nothing with WordPress (and many Internet service providers
include room for a small website). Payments can be accepted with no
upfront cost using Paypal and Intuit Payment Network. Yes, it is
possible to skip the domain, but I wouldn't recommend it; just last
month, I was all set to explore doing some business with someone and then I noticed his website had a Tripod address-FAIL!
Pretty much any consulting business that doesn't require specialized
equipment can be started at basically no cost. Information marketing
can also be started on this budget. Neighborhood-oriented services
(e.g., pet sitting, in-home cooling, personal shopping) might even be
able to get away without the domain, at least for a little while."
52. A Property Management Company. Quoting here firm Matt Landau, Owner of Los Cuatro Tulipane,
"Regarding [starting a business with $1,000 or less], with around $500, I started whats now the most successful property management company in the historic district of Panama City in the Republic of Panama. The start-up costs involved contracts with owners, building a website, and some grassroots PR while perhaps most importantly identifying the right niche (considering at that time, there were no accommodations in our neighborhood - a UNESCO World Heritage Site called Casco Viejo). Running the operation like a hotel (focusing on nightly vacation rentals), we kept overhead and only hired staff (maintenance, cleaning, guest services) when demand required it.
53. Decorate homes for the holidays. Everyone wants to have a pretty home for the holidays - lend a hand and earn some extra money doing it.
54. Decorate yards for special occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries.
55. Start a dog walker, pet sitter, pooper scooper business (Only if you love dogs!)
56. Start a Renovation Company. Are you an auto mechanic or computer geek? Then you probably have all the skills necessary to buy and sell used and renovated cars or computers.
57. Start a tutoring business! Teach another language, musical instrument, computer, cooking, chemistry, whatever you have to offer.
"I started my SAT prep business, Study Smart Tutors Inc, from my college dorm at USC in 2007 for WAY less than $1,000.
At the beginning, I spent about $50 on some SAT books on Amazon, found some cheap business cards online, and made a really terrible website myself. All in all, I spent about $175 total.
With such a low start-up cost, my business was profitable literally on day one and we have yet to look back. Now having been in business for three years, I still take this same bootstrapping approach to spending, and therefore maintain huge margins on all our services.
I highly recommend a tutoring or other personal service business for those looking to start a low-investment yet high-margin business!" - Thanks to
Jack Friedman of www.StudySmartTutors.com
58. Start a massage business
59. Start an aromatherapy business
60. Start an intuitive counseling business - Thanks to CeliaSue Hecht for contributing ideas #53-60. Learn more from her and download her E-Guide to getting cold hard cash in your wallet at http://sites.google.com/site/celiasueink/
61. Start a Lawn Mowing or Landscaping Business. Thanks to Roman Price of www.LifePulp.com, quote,
"I started my lawn cutting business for under 1,000. Bout a small trailer 400 bucks, lawn mower, 250, blower and strimmer 250 and had 100 dollars left over for business cards.
I charged 20 dollars a cut, front and back and a turn-up of the soil in the gardens. I was able to do 2 houses as long as they were on the same street and averaged $40 per hour. Not bad for a 17 year old kid."
62. Start a Marketing Communications Business
"Back in 2006, I launched my business of providing marketing
communicationsÂwith no money. I had a computer already and Internet
access, which is about all that's needed to be a writer. Even if the
person had nothing, buying a phone, inexpensive computer, and Internet
access would definitely be less than $1,000. That means low overhead
moving forward, so better profits!"
All the best,
Amanda Collins
Chief of Staff, The Grammar Doctors (www.grammardocs.com)
63. Become a Registered Investment Advisor.
"I was able to start my business as a Registered Investment Advisor for less than $1,000. Let me know what questions I can answer for you.
Start up costs included:
Series 65 Exam Fee -$135.00
Domain Registration and Web Hosting Fees -$141.17
LLC Filing with State of Georgia -$100.00
Georgia Investment Advisor firm Registration -$250.00
U4 Filing for individual as an Investment Advisor Representative -$50.00
Fingerprint card from local police department -$10.00
FBI Federal Criminal History Report -$18.00
Total Cost: $704.17."
Thanks to Alex R. Foster, Registered Investment Advisor, of AF Capital Management, LLC
64. Start a Public Relations Business
65. Start an Event Planning Business
"I started my PR/Marketing and event planning firm in 2008 for next to no money. I designed my own website with a free template and pid $9.99 for my domain name then $4.99 a month for hosting. I used vista print to buy marketing supplies such as shirts, key-chains, fliers, postcards, and hats with all under $300. I created company introduction letters that I mailed to prospects.
I placed my website link on various sites for free with a reciprocal link on my site. I also volunteered my expertise on Micro Mentors which also helped build a base and show my company as a matter expert."
For more and origin: www.tcorsonk.hubpages.com
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