Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2014, amid Spain’s economic crisis. Remarks such as virtual assistants having “still not taken off” in Spain, whole families unemployed, the boom in TV talent shows and Facebook as the go-to ad channel for small businesses reflect that time.
Continuing our series on businesses you can start with no money or very little investment, here are some varied ideas that can be very profitable in this changing world, which is causing as many headaches as it is creating business opportunities.
While many of these ideas might start out as a way to earn some extra money, they can perfectly well end up becoming a steady source of income or a full-time business. It all depends on each person’s approach and creativity.
We’ve already written an article explaining the steps to start a business with no money. So without further ado, here are some small business ideas you can start while investing practically nothing.
Which businesses can you start without investment that can still be very profitable?
1. Leaflet distribution company
Even though we live in a highly technological age, many small and medium-sized businesses, and even large companies, still prefer their offers to keep landing right on their potential customers’ doorsteps. Setting up this kind of company, or distributing advertising leaflets part-time, requires no upfront investment.
2. Personal assistant
The role of the personal or virtual assistant still hasn’t taken off in our country (Spain). If you have good communication skills and can handle basic programs like Office, you can sign up several companies and take care of their calls or their backlog of tasks. If you decide to do it more professionally and become a virtual assistant, you can help companies and self-employed workers project a more professional image.
People have asked me how much some companies would be willing to pay for this service. The truth is that if you offer them an affordable flat monthly fee, many professionals would be happy to outsource these tasks. Maybe it’s simply a matter of getting out there and looking for clients.
3. Technology consultant for small businesses
If you know how the internet and social networks work, you can offer your services to help a small or medium-sized business build its image online, and help it attract potential customers by running ads on social networks like Facebook.
4. Corporate blogs
Most companies have a website these days, although according to Google’s own data, small and medium-sized businesses still have a low rate of online presence. Perhaps more important than knowing how to build one is the time someone at a small company would have to spend creating their own corporate blog, so we might be able to reach an agreement to manage and maintain its content afterwards.
5. Personal trainer
If you know about training, and even sports nutrition, this market is starting to emerge in Spain, where many gyms are even subcontracting outside personal trainers.
That way, the gym doesn’t have to keep paying when it loses a significant number of customers, and it can call on external personal trainers when there’s a one-off surge in sign-ups. These days a personal trainer can also make money with their own blog or by uploading series of training and advice videos to YouTube.
6. Sales agent
The no-investment business par excellence: you sell something you don’t own (it belongs to someone else) to a buyer and earn a commission for it.
If you have sales skills, there are many companies today that don’t want to add salespeople to their payroll but do want to sell their products. So you can use your sales skills to become a commercial agent for different companies, building a large and varied client portfolio and earning a commission on every product sold.
If you manage to build up a broad client portfolio, you can end up with a very profitable, full-time business in this fascinating profession.
More ideas you can start with no money at all
7. Eastern therapies
From teaching yoga or tai chi to all kinds of Eastern and/or spiritual therapies, this is a business many people start in their own living room, charging their students a low fee and building a community around these practices. If you know these disciplines, go for it.
8. Self-defense classes for women
Women could be a good customer base for this kind of service, since we’re not going to teach them hand-to-hand combat. It would be enough to teach them how to escape or break free from an attacker and then run. It can be as productive as it is entertaining and fun if you put together a good group of women keen to learn how to defend themselves.
9. Dropshipping business
Dropshipping is basically selling products without having to store them or keep them in stock. So anyone can start this kind of business with no money. That’s how the young man we talked about a few days ago got started: to earn some extra money he began selling clothes to his Facebook contacts, and before he knew it he was turning over millions. (Read: how to open your own online clothing store for free and make money selling your designs.)
10. Image consultant
This profession, which used to focus on the luxury market, is starting to take off. If you have a taste for clothes and understand the etiquette for each occasion, you can start your own image consulting business.
11. Professional demo recording
YouTube gives new artists the chance to promote their songs, but some lack the experience to do it professionally. Nowadays you don’t need a big recording studio to record a demo professionally. With the right software, you can create a demo, or even an album, on your computer to a completely professional standard. If you know how, you can make money offering this service, given the boom in TV shows searching for music stars.
12. Budget home decor
The other day we looked at several business opportunities aimed at bargain-hunting customers. One of those ideas was budget decorating. As in any business where you act as the middleman, you can present your design and get in touch with suppliers with almost no investment. The arrangement can be either buying the materials from the supplier and marking up the price to the end customer, or becoming a sales rep for the various suppliers and earning a commission on sales and services.
More businesses with no investment
13. Video editing
If video editing is your thing, you can offer your professional services to a very wide range of clients, from companies making promotional videos to couples looking for someone to turn their wedding video into a film with titles and captions.
14. Selling home-cooked food
If cooking is your thing and you’re aware of the damage modern eating habits are doing to people’s health, you already have the essential motivation to sell this idea to people who don’t have time to prepare a healthy meal and are tired of living on fast food and canned food. That’s how Big Dipper was born, a major company specializing in home-cooked food for children, whose founder started out very recently in her own kitchen, selling her cooking to her neighbors.
15. Clothing alterations
With the crisis, more and more people prefer to mend rather than buy, and many don’t know how to take up a pair of trousers or alter a jacket. The number of people doing alterations from home has grown considerably, and it has become an economic lifeline for many homemakers whose entire families are unemployed.
16. Mobile hairdressing and beauty services
One way to avoid the cost of opening and running a salon is to offer your beauty and hairdressing services in clients’ homes. This also gives customers the advantage of not having to go anywhere, and you can be available at weekends to get a family ready for weddings or first communions.
17. Selling handmade products and accessories
There are great ideas online for making all kinds of products at home to sell, including all sorts of wonderful products made with people’s own Instagram photos. Here are some examples of product ideas you can make at home using nothing but photos from social media. You can also make handcrafted items such as gloves, hats and so on.
18. Custom clothing
When we shared our micro-business ideas, we talked about an entrepreneur who customizes sneakers. Today, if you’re passionate about art, or about creating your own design and printing it on a T-shirt, it’s easier than ever both to make it and to get the word out. See the case of Threadless, whose founder brings in 35 million selling designs created by the users themselves, giving them the chance to earn money from their designs.
There are plenty of business ideas you can start while investing practically no money. I invite you to look at some of our previous articles, where we suggested ways to make extra money from home, some of them more extreme than others.
See also: 8 realistic ways to make money fast online. There are lots of money-making opportunities out there, although some are rather dubious; in our modest opinion, these are some realistic ones.
We also shared 6 business ideas for young entrepreneurs, which likewise required no investment.
And finally, if you’re thinking bigger, about businesses that look set to be profitable from now on, we also offered 14 ideas you can start in sectors we expect to keep growing.
Featured image: Mark Fischer, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
