SES 108: 25 Successful Business Ideas for 2020

 

Last updated on 5th May 2020

Starting your business can be a daunting experience and it feels like planting a sapling. Initially, you have a to invest your money and valuable time. You expect nothing in return then while all you do is take care of it. But, once your business starts rolling and starts to blossom, it’s worth the hard work and patience. Isn’t it?

Just like saplings or seedlings that grow into trees, many businesses fail to sustain and grow, while many businesses die out within 1 to 3 years of the launch. There can be a number of reasons for the failure, but the one that’s prevailing these days, is the lack of awareness – awareness to identify a best-selling business niche. 

I come across many individuals every now and then, who’re ready to start a business but don’t know where to begin. And it’s sad to know that they’re trying to figure out ways and searching for that one breakthrough idea for their business!

Do you think breakthrough successful business ideas will come knocking on your door? Do you think that one awesome business idea will go announced just like that? No, that’s never going to happen. All the business ideas or simple ideas becoming successful businesses today – they all started small.

Generally, an entrepreneur looks up on the internet or observes the surrounding, identifies a problem that people face, then builds a product as a solution to that problem, and then offers or sells that product or service as a solution to people.

So, what exactly does it take to be an entrepreneur? All you need to do in order to become an entrepreneur is look for a kickass idea to fill the void! This is exactly where this book comes into play, since I wrote it to help individuals and entrepreneurs to guide them with little direction for a successful business launch and boost revenue. In this section, I’ve included 25 various successful business ideas from all fields and areas of expertise. I’ve also included special insights and stats after a lot of research and analysis, to help you get started like, compound annual growth and market size. This calculated data (special insights) will help you understand the type of potential a specific business idea has, before you jump in and start your own business.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter where in your career you are at. As long as you’re willing to put in your efforts and work hard for your dream, I guarantee there will be one or two business ideas suitable for you too. So, let’s jump right in!

 

 

1. CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

Today, when everything revolved around the internet, it is hard to believe the internet without the content. Everything that you see, read, any webpage that you visit, is all different types of content on the internet. They say, ‘data is the kind!’. Yes, that’s right, today the content is everything. The content creators usually create content and then populate those social media apps or platforms and specific webpages, wherever the data is consumed by the users online.

As a content creator or a content developer, your sole job is to come up with a comprehensive content strategy for all kinds of business niches that require your services or the kind of service you provide. Your aim is to develop a content strategy on the basis of search keywords, data analytics and other data related to generated targeted business results.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Knowledge and understanding about marketing	16.8%	Current size = $800 Billion	USD 300 minimum and above approx.
Good communication skills		Expected to reach $1200 Billion by 2025

If you like sharing your ideas on social media, and if you’re passionate about marketing and writing content in general, then you should definitely consider starting a career in content development. There are infinite number of business opportunities in the field of content creation and development, since this is the evergreen field and is going to grow in future too because of the demand of the content.

Content development is not just blogs, articles press releases, product descriptions, website content, user manuals, or marketing emails. But all categories of data or content can be developed in the form of text (written), video and audio format.

First of all, you should know about a lot of new and modern marketing tools and platforms and all the facets, in order to be good at content development. Because when you know how to market any kind of content and bring it in front of the users online, then only you’ll be able to create or develop a good content. In my previous book, Online Marketing HACKS, you can get all the marketing knowledge you should have to do business today and all the free + paid tools and platforms for online marketing required for a business. You can learn everything about content creation and online marketing at your own pace from my book.

For example, if you’re managing a client from real estate, then your job should be to create and develop a huge ton of content to inform and educate the new prospects and potential customers who will be then converted from business leads to company sales, eventually.

Apart from all the learning and understanding of content development, you must have good command over English language and have excellent communication skills. Marketing is subject to change with the technology. So, make sure you keep yourself updated about the marketing industry.  

 

2. DIGITAL MARKETING

The services of a digital marketing company are being used by almost all major businesses all over the world. It is said that businesses go wherever their customers are. And generally, the customers happen to be on digital platforms, where they are constant scrolling through social media, browsing the webpages on the internet and doing mails online.

The use of social media interaction allows brands to receive both positive and negative feedback from their customers as well as determining what media platforms work well for them. As such, digital marketing has become an increased advantage for brands and businesses. The use of digital marketing in the digital era not only allows brands to market their products and services, but also allows for online customer support through 24/7 services to make customers feel supported and valued.  

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Knowledge and understanding about marketing	16.8%	Current size = $800 Billion	USD 300 minimum and above approx.
Good communication skills		Expected to reach $1200 Billion by 2025

As a digital marketing firm/agency, or as a digital marketer, your job is to engage digital marketing customers and enable them to interact with the brand or your business, via servicing and delivery of digital media. Users with access to the Internet can use many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc.

Did you know digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet? That’s why your digital marketing business should leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and your business website to connect with current and prospective customers. 

By using Internet platforms, businesses can create competitive advantage through various means. To reach the maximum potential of digital marketing, firms use social media as its main tool to create a channel of information. Through this, a business can create a system in which they are able to pinpoint behavioral patterns of clients and feedback on their needs.

In order to stay on top of the game and always be successful, customer satisfaction is the key to a successful digital marketing agency or business.

 

3. DRONE EXPERT/DRONE VIDEOGRAPHER

If you have a keen interest towards making videos and drones, then you should consider getting into the business of drone videography, since this thriving business has a growing demand. In order to understand how big of an opportunity in the drone videography, you can combine creativity with drone-flying and video making skills.

Initially, drones were used just for surveillance and military purposes. But now drones now have other creative and commercial uses like aerial photography and product deliveries.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Unmanned Aircraft Operator Permit from DGCA + DGCA Permit for Commercial Use	54%	Current size = $5.9 Billion	USD 40,000 and more aapprox.
Must have unique identification number for all drones		Expected to grow to $63 Billion by 2025

If you become a drone videographer, then you will focus on video and aerial photography of the subject. Over the last few years, drone videography has gained immense popularity in the weddings. For a wedding videography segment, using drone in the whole filming process and aerial shots are becoming popular. Why drones are heavily used in weddings? Because these days, people are peculiar about how their pictures and aerial shots look, in order to create long lasting memories. Drones can be used to cover various aerial angles a create an outstanding perspective of the wedding.

You should practice learn and practice regularly and become a great drone pilot, if you want to be good at drone videography. Many institutes offer drone workshops and trainings for interested people. In order to fly a drone, you should have all legal registrations and required permits.  

Another commercial use of drone videography is commercial movies and documentaries. The crew involved with the movie making, are always on the lookout for someone who can help and assist them with the high-quality drone videos. You can offer your drone flying services to such movies and commercial documentaries, once you have the license and have gained good experience at making videos with drones. Other business categories that need drone videography to promote and advertise their products are Tourism, Real Estate and Travel.

 

4. BOX SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE

A subscription box service is precisely a delivery service that sends a bunch of selected products to the customers every month. The box can include different variety of products on the basis of customer’s preference/choice and needs. 

The concept of a subscription box is not an old one. But this business niche has gained popularity over the last decade. If you spend good time of social media platforms and e-commerce, then you’d have seen subscription box at least once.

This box subscription service can be offered to the customers in a wide range of products like – men’s grooming, makeup and beauty, fitness products, apparels, groceries, pet supplies, books and branded essential products.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Well-designed website with e-commerce tools	60%	Current size = $110 Billion	USD 1,500 minimum and above approx.
Partnerships with right vendors and influencers		Expected to reach $200 Billion by 2025

So, if you’re interested in any of these categories and are looking such business opportunities, then you must consider launching your own box subscription service. Right now, the market business opportunity for a subscription service is really high.

A good subscription box service generally offers great convenience and exciting possible ways for prospects and customers to try new products at discounted price. To get started, firstly do your bit of research and identify the business niche you want to focus on. Once your niche is ready, you can start curating the relevant products from the network of vendors and setup the online marketplace for customers to place their orders.

A good social media presence and partnerships with influencers and other brands can boost your brand and improve customer acquisition. Awesome customer service and quick delivery can help you stand out in the crowd and build business loyalty, while bringing in more new leads. Regular promotion and advertising also help with brand awareness!

 

5. ONLINE TEACHING & ONLINE COURSES

If recently you looked up on the internet about something like a new hobby to learn like guitar, or home gardening sessions or anything, then chances of you finding relevant courses and online learning tools are same. That’s the power of the internet – it makes everything available in seconds!

Because of the availability of the data and information, teaching has gradually moved to the online world, where it disrupts the old traditional teaching methods.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Computer with mic, webcam and headphones	44.3%	Current size = $130 Billion	USD 1,000 minimum and above approx.
Strong WIFI connection		Expected to reach $300 Billion by 2025

Online teaching space is booking right now. So, if you join the online teaching industry then you’d insanely successful. In order to get started, you can first get acquainted with this industry and how it works. I’d even recommend taking a few classes on the subject that you wish to teach in near future, or that you’re comfortable in, just to understand what it feels like.

Once you learn and understand everything about this business, then you can immediately design and create your own online course with all the required video tutorials, tests and assignments. Make sure your course material is easy to understand and is well planned.

Before identifying your potential customers, you should pick your niche beforehand as then your possibilities to teach anything will be limitless. You can either promote and sell your online courses from your website, or you can publish it on platforms like Udemy and Skillshare, or host it on Teachable. It’s advisable to build good relationship with your students online, as it will eventually help you in creating your own community of loyal students who will learn from you. You can also host Q&A sessions to discuss questions or queries your students might have, and conduct weekly activities to engage them even more in the learning process.

 

6. HEALTH + FITNESS COACH

The fitness industry is booming at a rapid race. And because of this rapidly growing industry, there’s a growing demand for health and fitness coaches today. People are making a lot of efforts to stay fit and are constantly becoming health conscious. One can define a great fitness routine as a good balance between the correct physical training and appropriate nutrition. 

If you enjoy the field of health and fitness overall, and like helping people achieve their fitness goals, then becoming a health and fitness coach is the best option for you.

On social media, the fitness and nutrition industry are highly active and therefore, is a very popular business niche.

By posting about health, fitness and nutrition regularly on social media platforms, can help you connect and interact with a large group of audience. With time, when people get familiar with your work and services, you can start coaching your clients.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Training and certification in Health & Fitness	12.8%	Current size = $32 Billion	USD 1,200 and above approx.

As a fitness and health coach, your job will be to develop customized fitness plans for your clients on the basis of their health and fitness goals. The client might want to lose weight, or gain weight, or build muscle mass. So, responsibility will be to create customized fitness plans for them. Help motivate your clients to stay on the right track to fitness and achieve their goals.

In order to be good as health and fitness coach, you should have the right training and the relevant certifications too. You should also have a deep understanding of how a human body works.

There are a number of opportunities for a health and fitness coach in gyms and hospitals. In this business niche, plans that are result-oriented and word-of-mouth are your biggest strengths. Most of the new prospects and clients usually come through referrals from your old previous clients or customers. A business website will be of great help that can showcase your work or services and testimonials from your previous clients.

 

7. E-COMMERCE & FBA

E-Commerce is the first thing you should consider when you want to setup your online business. This one segment of business in many countries has exploded like anything while gaining momentum, and has no signs of slowing down.

E-Commerce and FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is your solution when you want to setup an online business and wish to sell products from your store.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Company & LLP Registration, VAT Registration	51.3%	Current size = $120 Billion	USD 2,000 minimum approx.
Payment Gateway		Expected to reach $200 Billion by 2026

If you want to setup your own online store and start selling your products using e-commerce tools, then implement any of these methods given below:

• Partner with Amazon as a part of its FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) program: All you need to do is invest in the inventory and merchandise, and the products will be stored in the warehouse and fulfillment centers by Amazon. How does it work? So, when a customer orders a product, Amazon ships the product to your customer on your behalf. You don’t have to worry about anything, since Amazon takes care of the order handling and shipping. If you join the FBA program by Amazon, then you’ll be able to take advantage of Amazon’s infrastructure which is already in place. Here, Amazon charges just a small amount of fee for in exchange of the services when you join the program and become an FBA Associate of Amazon.
• Sell your own products from your website: Setup your website and start selling your own products from the website using e-commerce tools. Unlike the Amazon FBA, here you’ll be responsible for the complete technology, website domain registration and hosting, and end-to-end supply chain. If you’re planning to manufacture or design products and sell them on your website, then you need a full-stack web developer, a payment gateway, point of sale, logistics partner and other e-commerce tools for your online store. Initially, kind type of business will require some big investments in the beginning, but it’ll be all worth it.

• Other Marketplaces: This is another easy option for an e-commerce business. If you want to sell your products via other marketplaces apart from your business website, then you can totally do that using social media marketplaces like Instagram and Facebook. When it comes to textiles and consumer electronics, this is a popular choice of selling, since sellers and business owners are able to reach out to a larger range of audience on social media platforms.

No matter what option you choose to implement to run your e-commerce business, it will be profitable with the appropriate business strategy!

 

8. PODCAST

Generally, a podcast takes after a chat show to present the entire conversation in the audio format. Influencers, online marketers, leaders and entrepreneurs invite their peers and other personalities on their podcast to talk about the relevant topics and issues.

What is a Podcast? Well, a podcast is an audio show usually hosted by an individual or a business. The most common format of a podcast is an interview format, where the invited guest or influencer is interviewed on the relevant topic.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Recording & Editing Software + Podcast Hosting Account	57.3%	Current size = $2.1 Billion	USD 500 and above approx.
Microphone and Headphones		Expected to reach $5.4 Billion by 2023

In podcast, the conversations are casual, fun, educational, spontaneous and can be relatable. The guests invited for the podcast, share their information, tips, tricks and special anecdotes from their professional and personal lives. So, people can tune into and listen to such conversations anywhere and everywhere totally free. Some people even enjoy listening to podcasts while travelling or while working out, instead of listening to music. These days, podcast has replaced music and radio as an alternative that people enjoy listening to.

You can go ahead and start your own podcast, if you have knowledge on a particular niche, or if you have important questions for a specific niche in the industry, or if you simply want to share your knowledge with your audience and the world.

Did you know starting a podcast is actually straight forward and less expensive? Starting a good podcast just requires good quality microphones and headphones, since the content is going to be in audio format completely. And the quality microphones and headphones will ensure the great quality of your podcast and will attract more and more listeners for the same. If you’re really thinking of starting your own podcast episodes, then you can create an account for hosting your podcasts on platforms like Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts and Anchor.

Besides the very common interview format, some other formats of podcasting are reading specific excerpts from published content, experts talking directly or giving tips to the audience, and latest news roundup.

Since the podcast has gained popularity with time, a lot of brands and businesses are using their advertising budget for the podcast platform. You too can market your podcast using ads to reach out to more listeners. If you want to turn your podcast profitable, then advertising is the way to go.

You shouldn’t miss out on tapping into this giant segment that’s going to grow even more in the near future. Also, there are a lot of opportunities available in the podcasting space like collaborating with the brands and other businesses that appeal to your business and to your audience.

 

9. AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate marketing is considered to be one of the best ways to make money online. Affiliate marketing is nothing but marketing or advertising someone’s products or services. Once you make a sale from the marketing, you get a commission for the same. This is how almost all businesses work in affiliate marketing.

The three major elements that conduct affiliate marketing are:

• Vendor, who develops or manufactures the product
• Affiliate, who markets or advertises the product
• And the Customer (end-user) who buys the product.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
A website or a blog + good traffic (email lists)	27.3%	Current size = $2.1 Billion	USD 200 and above approx.
Social Media presence		Expected to reach $6.8 Billion by 2025

If you want to get started as an affiliate, then you should identify the products and services that you would like to advertise or promote to your target audience. Let’s say you review consumer electronics on your website. There, you can include your affiliate link through which your subscribers and visitors purchase your best-buy or your recommendation. Thus, whenever a user or a visitor buys a product using your affiliate link, then you get a commission for that sale.

Some of the popular categories of products in affiliate marketing are – consumer goods, online courses, web hosting tools and services, fitness and pet care.

If you have a website or can design one, and if you wanted to start your online business, then you can easily start making money with affiliate marketing. Firstly, focus on building your audience and build your email lists, because your audience will eventually become your potential customers.

Pick a particular niche and then begin advertising relevant products from that niche. You can promote those products in the form of articles and blogs on your website or on social media. Plus, you can even market those products by creating videos online for YouTube, where you can get many eyeballs on your product.

You may not get results in the beginning, but changing your business strategy and then figuring out which strategy best works for you, will be a good idea if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing.

In order to get started with this domain, partner with a bunch of good affiliate networks online. Amazon offers an Affiliate Program that’s one of the best programs so far, when it comes to affiliate marketing. Try to generate more and more traffic for your blog or website, by advertising your content on social media platforms and via email marketing. The more traffic you get, the more sales you can makes. Hence, the more commission!

 

10. VR GAMING ARCADE

Virtual Reality is gaining popularity and in the last decade, VR Arcade has managed to grab a lot of interest all over the world. One of the advantages of VR Gaming business, is the popularity of the VR Arcades. Some people are damn excited about this technology and want to learn more about the same, while some people want to experience it to understand the reason for all this hype!

If you’re looking thinking of starting a business in the VR Gaming niche, then setting up a VR Gaming Arcade is something you should consider to begin with. Because of the popularity of this niche in the market, and the continuous business growing in the VR Gaming and its application, the number of opportunities will increase even more in the future.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
VR Compatible Hardware	55.3%	Current size = $37 Billion	USD 28,000 to USD 32,000 approx.
Gaming License		Expected to reach $45 Billion by 2022

VR Arcades are more like the gaming centers that were so popular two decades ago. The Virtual Reality (VR) Arcades function in a similar fashion just like those old gaming centers. But, the only distinguishing factor between the two is that VR Arcades go furthermore and provide a complete immersive experience to the players (customers).

As far as the cost goes, it is bit expensive to buy the appropriate hardware and software that supports virtual reality and is compatible with it. The best option here is to have your own VR Arcade.  

A gaming arcade requires gamers. So, to setup your VR Arcade successfully, make sure you have a bunch of dedicated gamers at any given point of time. When you get into this domain, the majority of your investment will go into the technology infrastructure and the VR gaming hardware for installation. This is probably the only huge upfront investment in the VR Arcade business.

Did you know that the gaming niche has been the most successful and profitable niche in the business industry? And gaming being the most profitable business segment, setting up your own VR arcade will help you stick to the same (gaming niche). People who are real gamers – who have a thing for VR and also those who cannot afford a fully-fledged home gaming system, will be your ideal customers. Since, the ideal customers for the VR arcades and gaming center in general are young adults and teenagers, the arcades are becoming popular hotspots for hosting gaming competitions, birthday parties, staff outings and much more.

If you’re setting up your VR Arcade gaming business, make sure your arcade has enough space for players to swing, move around and wave. Since Virtual Reality Arcade gives both physical and visual immersive experience, the home gaming setup does not offer this feature. 

 

11. DROPSHIPPING

Since the immense boom in the e-commerce industry, dropshipping business has become a lot popular if an individual wants to start a business. If you’re interested in e-commerce domain, then setting up a dropshipping business will be damn easy to get started.

If you didn’t know already, dropshipping is an online retail business that operates as a platform connecting all the wholesalers with end consumers. Also, dropshipping business doesn’t require a warehouse to store products or ship them.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
A computer with good WIFI + good online storefront	29%	Current size = $112 Billion	USD 1,500 and above approx.
Network of vendors for your niche industry		Expected to reach $200 Billion by 2025

Shopify is the best option to go if you want to setup a store. And once your store is ready and running, you can work on promoting your store as well so that you can get more customers for your products. There are two easy ways to advertise your online store:

• Set up pages on Facebook and Instagram and regularly post about the kind of products you have and about your store in general. You can even boost your marketing by running social media ads.
• Publish regular blogs or articles on your website regarding the products you sell and also leave the link to your online store for visitors and members to check out.

All you need to do is advertise and market your store more and more. Because, the more you promote your store and products, the more traffic will generate, and hence, the more traffic will get converted to sales. In the end, this process will help you generate good revenue for your business.

If you want to get started with dropshipping business, this is the best time as the domain is exploding like anything. With the feature to scale your store and your business, you don’t have to worry about logistics and overhead costs. You should have your business niche ready and your products that you wish to sell in your dropshipping store.

Before you put up the products though, do your homework! Do your research on the kind of products that have a strong potential in the market, before you actually start promotion. Some of the best-selling product categories that have proven to be successful in this niche are fitness products, apparels and consumer goods.   

 

12. CAREER GUIDANCE + CONSULTATION

Finding the right job is an extremely difficult these days. With every passing year, thousands of new jobs are added to the market as per the new technologies and industries. No to forget, there’s a gap between what the market wants and the talent available at its disposal. So, you can say career consultation and guidance has become the need of the hour, more than ever.

As a career consultant or a career guide, it will be your responsibility to work with the clients through every phase of the job search and help them find the right job. Fresh graduates, individuals who’re not happy with their jobs and experienced candidates looking for a career change or career switch, can ideally be your clients. The good thing about career guidance and consultation is that you can conduct it from anywhere in the world. You just need a smartphone, a laptop and an internet connection to get started. When you’re starting out, you should identify your particular niche and focus only on career guidance in that category only. Some of the niche examples are media & entertainment, healthcare and IT & technology.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Deep knowledge of business sectors + understanding of job placements	6.8%	Current size = $12 Billion	USD 1,000 and above approx. (as per the certification you choose to opt)
Degree in psychology may be desired, but not required		Expected to reach $20 Billion by 2025

Today, most of the jobs that hire exclusive and promising talent, didn’t exist few years ago. Similarly, jobs that are available today, might not exist in the future.

As long as people need jobs to support their living, they’ll need help finding those jobs. So, if you like helping people with the right job opportunity and help them achieve their goals, then working as a career guide or career consultant is something, you may want to consider. Industries and organizations undergo huge haul, because of which a lot of chaos and overwhelm is created. Thus, amidst all of that, you can guide your clients help them pick the right career path.

You can guide people on career based on their resume, relevant experience, LinkedIn profile updates and interviewing skills. You can even check for their networking skills and confidence. In order to stay in the game and be ahead of the others, you can help the clients with the appropriate certifications and courses for the interviews and their next career switch!

Always remember – the personal branding and testimonials will be the cornerstone of your business in career guidance and consultation. So, it might be a good idea to design a business website for a good digital presence on social media.

 

13. APPLICATION DEVELOPER

Virtual reality and Augmented reality are the two buzzwords especially in the tech field, since their applications are highly versatile. Any sector or field that is focused on creating and offering future-oriented technical services and products, will continue to use and adopt VR/AR applications.

If you’re someone who’s a tech enthusiast, and is really interested in AR and VR sector, then this is one domain you should definitely explore, as both AR and VR technologies are in the novelty phase. This tech space is about to undergo an explosive growth in the years to come. So, if you start your business in this niche, then you actually have an opportunity to ride that high tide.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
High interest in technologies	63.8%	Current size = $20 Billion	USD 1,000 and above approx.
Knowledge and experience in programming languages		Expected to reach $580 Billion by 2025

You should be familiar with programming languages like C#, C++ and Java, if you wish to become an application developer in AR/VR. If you’re just starting out and you’re a beginner, there are a number of boot camps, webinars, workshops and online classes, where you can learn these technologies in detail. You should also have an in-depth understanding of 3D technology.

Although AR and VR are considered to be siblings, they both create dynamic immersive experience to the end users. Besides video games, the technologies have now evolved are used in engineering, travel and tourism, real estate, entertainment, healthcare, military and education.

For a little more context, in retail industry, the AR/VR enables customers to ‘try’ apparels without having to physically try them on. This kind of simulated environment can help a customer determine how a purchase might look like.

 

14. BUSINESS CONSULTATION

Business consultation is becoming a new thriving business. If you’re someone who is interested in working with individual clients on business and growth strategy, improving number of sales, team and management conflicts, or business challenges in general, then you should try becoming a business consultant.

Giant businesses, corporations and industries are always looking for fresh talented business consultants and associates, to help their teams independently, with the business. There are a number of agencies out there who are ready to hire you if you have a few sound years of experience in handling business issues.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Video gears to record and edit videos	21.8%	Current size = $112 Billion	USD 1,000 and above approx.
Video making and editing skills		Expected to reach $119 Billion by 2025

In order to be a successful business consultant and provide your services, it is important to build and maintain a strong digital presence online, as a personal brand.

Solving crucial business problems can be a little difficult and tricky sometimes. The business consultation sector is growing like anything and even offers the flexibility to work on your own terms.

Wondering who will your ideal customer be? Well, any brand or organization with a problem in-hand is your ideal client or ideal customer. To get more and more clients, you can design a business website as per your personal branding, and write blogs with your case studies and describe the type of business cases you have worked on so far in your career. This will help the corporations and agencies looking to hire, understand your skills and your past experiences.

Although, it is highly advisable to stick to just one business niche in terms of consultation. Once you have some good year of experiences assisting brands and industries with their business strategies, then you can try to shift another niche in the same line for your own business growth and expansion.

 Some of the best examples of niches wherein you can start offering your business consultation services are – consumer goods, electronics, e-commerce, automobiles, retails, etc.

 

15. TRAVEL PLANNER

Travel Planner is mostly equivalent to a travel agent. Both the terms travel planner and travel agent belong to the travel industry. But both offer varied set of services to the customers and end-users.

In particular to this business idea of travel planner, a massive social media presence can add a whole lot of value to your business. If you really want to succeed as a travel planner, then maintaining good engaging pages on Instagram and Facebook, will be helpful for your business. This way, you’ll be able to reach to a wider range of your audience and also bring in new leads for the business.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Passion for travel	13.16%	Current size = $700 Billion	USD 5,000 and above approx.
Willingness to help other plan their travel/tours		Expected to reach $1134.55 Billion by 2023

If you have a passion for travelling, and if you also like helping your friends or family members or colleagues, plan their next travels and holidays, then you should undoubtedly consider this business domain and become a travel planner.

In the beginning, you won’t have enough finances to manage everything. Therefore, you can start this business as a part-time job and a side-hustle. And then, when after a couple of years when you have the financial stability completely, you can start doing it full-time as a full-fledged business.

This is once financially viable business model for someone who likes to travel and really wants to help the end-users with their travels.

As a travel planner, you can make some of the best decisions in terms of travelling for your clients by helping them decide where to go, where to eat, which airline to book, and so much more. Your clients will be interested in your suggestions on where to eat, what to do in a particular city, what places to visit, where to shop. They’ll be more than happy to take your suggestions to make their travel/holiday memorable one.

Tourists usually, want to explore the local culture like authentic food and local folk clothing of the place or country. Your job as a travel planner is to help these tourists and clients, even first-time travelers, help them with your guidance and suggestions. Just FYI, a travel planner will be able to suggest anything, if he himself has visited those places or eaten in those restaurants. Only, then he’ll be able to give away the recommendations to the clients and tourists.

Also, make sure to keep in mind the client’s budget before you start planning the entire travel or tour. The budget will help you filter out other hundreds of options in the choices of travel.

 

16. SEO CONSULTANT

Do you think there’s any business that doesn’t need the goodness of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Every company, brand, organization has their own digital presence in the form of their official business websites, on the internet. And to be visible on the internet, they need to be optimized for search engines.

SEO is integral part of every business’s digital marketing strategies. An SEO Consultant works with numerous businesses by helping them update their website regularly on the basis of SEO trends. The job of an SEO consultant is to develop right business strategies to help the business rank them higher on a search engine result page, and work on various individual webpages. The SEO consultant also optimizes blog posts, works on link building strategies and assists with both online and offline SEO strategies of a company or business.

So, if you’re an online marketer or a marketing enthusiast, then you should consider taking this business opportunity. You can begin by organizing complementary SEO audits and help organizations identify areas where there’s room for improvement. Once they realize how valuable your services are, they’ll be more than eager to hire you as SEO consultant on their team.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
In-depth understanding of SEO	29%	Current size = $112 Billion	USD 400 and above approx.
		Expected to reach $119 Billion by 2025

Another alternative is to help businesses setup and build in-house SEO teams. You can do all of this from the comfort of your home, which is the best part of the business domain.

As you know, SEO is a dynamic field and all the search engines are updating their algorithms in order to offer a seamless experience. Young startups and small businesses can be your ideal clients, who are looking to grow their digital/online presence. Since young and growing startups are in the initial stages of developing a strong SEO strategy, your services and experience will be immensely helpful to them. It’s also advisable to keep yourself updated about what’s happening in the industry!

 

17. VIDEO EDITOR

Did you know YouTube is the only platform for videos that has single-handedly grown unprecedentedly in the video creation space? Every firm, every business today, wants to create video content to reach out to their target audience. Similarly, every user or every individual wants to create videos for personal branding or simply to maintain their digital media presence.

Videos are considered to be the best medium to reach to a larger audience at a wider scale, either to deliver a business message or to promote newly launched products in a business. If you wish to promote your own content or product, then the best way is to create videos and post them on platforms like YouTube.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Video gears to record and edit videos	21.8%	Current size = $112 Billion	USD 1,000 and above approx.
Video making and editing skills		Expected to reach $119 Billion by 2025

So, individuals especially content creators, who can creative dynamic videos and edit them, are in high-demand in the market. If you like storytelling, and are passionate towards video content and love using cameras to share the story behind the shot, then you should actually start your own video making business.

Any business or brand who requires video for their branding or products, will be your ideal customer. Your customers or clients could be from educational space or from advertising space too. You might even get an opportunity to create promotional videos for businesses. Your customers are not just limited to big brands and companies. Photographers who shoot events, movies or even documentaries, can be your clients, with whom you can work once you gain some experience with your craft.

To be good at videography, you should have sound understanding of the whole process of making and editing a video. You should know what goes behind the scenes, for a shoot. Generally, the process of creating a video starts from an idea. From there, you can move forward to creating and recording good quality videos around that idea and then edit the whole footage for the last step before it is published or before it goes live to the audience.

With time, you should be able to edit the video, i.e., taking the raw footage and then transforming it into a presentable and sophisticated final video. Audio quality, noise cancellation, color correction (if required), video aspects ratio – are some of the many factors to tap into when you’re editing a video.

After years of your craft practice, you could find your own way and work with big entertainment companies that produce content for online streaming service platforms like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hotstar, etc.

When it comes to possibilities and business opportunities, this domain in particular has no limits and boundaries.

 

18. CHATBOTS

Have you ever visited a website and have found a little box that pops up at the bottom of the screen? This is the kind of box that asks if you need help and if you want to chat with a specialist. It also asks your email address in order to send the relevant information you request for. These little pop-ups are nothing but chatbots.

The new chatbots are becoming every company and every business’s important part of marketing. Chatbots are virtual robots that can be seamlessly be integrated with user friendly messaging apps, in order to mimic to normal human conversation. Chatbots offer a seamless experience to visitors and customers at a number of digital touchpoints.

For basic functionalities, every small-scale business and established companies use chatbots. Clients or businesses from sectors like real estate, banking, IT, retail and e-commerce rely a lot on chatbots, since the market opportunities are huge in those sectors.

If you’re a business savvy and can anticipate conversational patterns between a customer/visitor and a business, then you start your career by working as a chatbot creator and offer your services to clients on a consulting basis. You don’t need any prior experience in programming to create chatbots, as they are easy to learn and implement. Once you gain good experience creating a few chatbots, you can approach brands and companies and help them with their business challenges. Preparing a demo is really helpful, as it will increase your chances of getting the client and closing the deal,

The chatbots have the ability to handle large volumes of data. Thus, they’re easy to operate, work non-stop and are cost effective. Business purposes like business lead generation, customer services and customer engagement are some of the uses of chatbots.

 

19. 3D PRINTING

This particular domain has shown unprecedented growth. Many industries like medicine, dental care and aerospace and defense are all dependent on 3D Printing, since it is a significant part of the manufacturing field.

3D Printing is a process of creating and building models and prototypes usually designed using digital designs and software like CAD. 3D printing has helped industries stay edgy and agile too. To think faster, many industries rely on 3D printing which makes their business faster!

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Fundamental Knowledge of 3D Printing	35%	Current size = $10.1 Billion	USD 13,000 to USD 19,000 approx.
Printers & raw materials for 3D Printing		Expected to reach $34.8 Billion by 2024

Did you know 3D Printing plays a crucial role in product development especially for heavy-duty industries such as defense, high-tech and manufacturing. The whole process of product development becomes efficient and easy with 3D printing. Industries usually try out a couple of prototypes before finalizing their final designs. Thus, in order to lower or prevent the production costs, such industries trust 3D printing, since it reduces the cost of production.

If you’re experienced in engineering and particularly manufacturing space and if you know everything about 3D technology, then you must consider starting your own 3D printing business. Many studies show that 3D printing is going to face an enormous growth in the future. So, if you setup your 3D printing business, then you could actually build a successful business and be a part of that huge growth.

You should have a reasonably good understanding of the 3D technology and how it works, in order to get started. Your initial investments will majorly cover the printing equipment for your business. Also, start networking. Because a good network of vendors will come handy for constant supply of raw materials you will need to create or develop the desired prototypes.

Once you build your network of good vendors and have setup everything, then you can begin to approach other business and industries and offer them your 3D printing services.

So, any company or business that needs 3D printing or modeling, will be your ideal customer. For example, a health-care company will use your service for experimenting various designs, before they actually like and finalize one prosthetic design. Similarly, if your customer or client is in automotive sector, then they would use your 3D printing service for new car prototypes, before they finally decide on the final design for their new car.

 

20. ORGANIC STORE

The awareness of the health problems caused majorly by the use of pesticides and chemicals in the farming industry, is increasing like anything. People like to be self-aware and want to know everything about the stuff they consume and how it is grown. In urban areas, the population is increasing and so are the health concerns, because people are becoming more aware. Therefore, the demand for the organic food has increased immensely over the last few years.

There’s a great demand for the organic food all over the world, but there aren’t enough joints for consumers to buy them. Thus, you can try to bridge this gap by setting up a well-designed store for all kinds of organic produce, like fruits, pulses, vegetable and grains.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Company & LLP Registration, VAT Registration	24.3%	Current size = $120 Billion	USD 2,000 minimum approx.
Payment Gateway		Expected to reach $320.5 Billion by 2025

Apart from providing just organic food to the consumers, you’ll also be able to help the local farming societies with their organic farming procedure.

Did you know that organic food is much more nutritious than the traditional conventional produce? It’s a fact. What makes organic food different than the conventional one? Organic food is generally grown with natural fertilizers like compost and manure.

Another reason why people are shifting to organic food, is it doesn’t contain any kind of preservatives to boost the longevity. This is why the organic food is super rich in vitamins, fatty acids, minerals and natural antioxidants.

One of the most important factors that affects starting this business is the location. So, choosing the right location for setting up your organic store depends on favorable lease terms for the same. Other factors that determine your store’s success are produce affordability and availability.

Once you decide on the location, hire qualified staff who have knowledge on organic farming, and then carefully source your organic inventory. These things will help you get a kick start. After a few years when you get a hang of the business, you can expand your organic store with other food categories like beverages, personal care products and skin care products.

 

21. IMAGE CONSULTANT

Do you have an empathy towards needs and goals of an individual? Do you enjoy working with people one-on-one? Are you interested in professional grooming and personal development? If your answer is YES, then dive into the business opportunity right away.

If you really see building your career in image consultant, then should undergo any of the image consulting training programs from any of the educational institutes and thus, get certified. You can search for business institutes that offer program in image consultation to begin with.

If you believe you have got everything and have all the required skills, you should certainly consider a career option or a business opportunity in image consultation.

Everyday work situations and activities can be a little unique and gratifying in image consulting, compared to other business niches.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Training and certification in image consultation	9%	Current size = $130 Billion	USD 3,000 and above approx.
		Expected to reach $200 Billion by 2025

To break it down, image consulting is nothing but coaching and guiding the clients on crucial aspects of individual personality development and grooming. Some of the features of Image Consultation, are – helping the clients understand the overall significance of physical appearance and how to look sharp with good grooming tips, teaching them good communication skills and public speaking, teaching the clients how to own their personality with confidence, help them table etiquettes, soft-speaking & socializing mannerisms, and lastly showing them a roadmap to develop and build a strong personal brand.

Apart from one-on-one consultation, you can conduct workshops and seminars on a regular bases for educational institutes and corporations who’re looking for image consultants. You can offer to train the students and staff of the organization, respectively.

Once you have successfully completed your training and have become a certified image consultant, you can start advertising and promoting your services and business on online forums and social media platforms. This step will help you in closing the deals and taking the clients swiftly. Fresh graduates, mid-management employees, small business owners and fashion designers could be your first ideal clients if you launch your image consultation business in this domain.

 

22. PET CARE

Petcare and grooming services are one of the most trending service industries in the world today. The industry is still thriving and growing to be one with a promising future. If you have empathy and affection towards animal, then opening a pet care and grooming center will be the best business option for you.

This industry is becoming is immensely popular in metro cities, where most of the people own a pet or two. And since urban population is working all the time, they don’t want to leave their pets alone when they go to work. This is where pet care center comes into play. In a pet care and grooming center, the pets get all the love, attention and affection and are taken care very well. Pet care center can be clubbed with pet grooming services or can also be run individually.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Passion and empathy towards animals	13.9%	Current size = $120 Billion	USD 5,000 and above approx.
Required permits and registrations		Expected to reach $320.5 Billion by 2024

In order to setup a pet care center, you should have a clean and safe environment for both pets and your staff. Most of your funds might go in getting the place right with all precautionary measures.

When you’re new in the business, it is highly advisable to build a good social media presence, so that you can create your brand image and bring in more business leads too.

Setting up a pet care center sounds easy and it’s a little tricky. It’s not simple. You should have a pet first and gradually understand the nuances of being a pet-parent. Then, after a couple of years of talking care of your own pet, you can think of setting up your own pet care center. If you don’t have a pet, then volunteer at any of the nearby pet daycare or grooming service center to get acquainted with pets first-hand and also understand how the business works.

If you open your own pet care center, you’ll have to take care of more than one pet. So, you’ll need additional help. Before hiring your staff, make sure each staff member shares the same passion for animals and is very well trained. Since, a pet care and grooming center generally has play areas, good outdoor space and rest areas for all pets. Thus, your pet care center should be spacious enough for all kinds of pets to run, move around and play freely. When looking for pet care spaces, finalize the one that is well spacious and has a lot of space, even for overnight boarding.

When hiring your staff for pet care and grooming center, always hire at least one good experienced dog trainer and groomer in your team, as it will make a really good difference. Also, learn and understand more about animal psychology and behavior, before setting up your business in this domain.

 

23. WORDPRESS THEMES

WordPress has about 61% of the market share in terms of Content Management System. So, almost all major website your blog that you visit every day is designed using WordPress. The market share just proves to show how massive this domain is and so are the business opportunities involved in the business.

There are hundreds of free and premium WordPress themes in the market. Thus, make sure your theme is discoverable by the visitors on the internet. Focus on graphic elements, design and your theme’s layout.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Should have Programming Fundamentals	7.2%	61% of CMS market	USD 500 to USD 1,000 and above approx.
Familiar with WordPress platform		Expected to reach $77.4 Billion by 2025

If you know the basic fundamentals of programming languages like Java, HTML, CSS and if you like coding and programming in general, then developing WordPress themes is the way to go. It’s not that easy initially, but it will be worth it later.

Every small-scale business needs a business website to keep an online presence. And you can contribute to such businesses, by developing interactive, creative and well-designed WordPress themes.

Before you jump on to designing the themes, first take some time for your research and understand what kind of themes work best and what type of themes are popular at the time. You can even filter out the theme categories with your niche and then learn about WordPress themes relevant to your niche industry.

Some best examples of the best-selling themes are generally designed for real estate, doctors, bloggers, lawyers and photographers.

Besides the great interactive WordPress theme that you develop, also design a theme demo that covers the design, graphics and theme layout. This free theme demo will help end users check and understand how their website will look using your theme.

Either provide and give away a free version of your themes on WordPress. Later, you can offer an upgrade to the premium version with other add-on features in your theme. Ensure that your theme is responsive enough, because that’s the basic requirement for all the end users and visitors when they install your WordPress theme. You can even document the screenshots showing the users how they can install, configure and activate your theme.

 

24. LANGUAGE TUTOR

If in life, you’ve had the opportunity to learn a foreign language, plus you can write and speak the language fluently, then you can probably offer your services to people who is in need to learn the language you teach.

If you’re fluent in any foreign language, then you can start immediately by teaching the foreign language in nearby local schools and educational institutes and multinational corporations. Almost all the educational institutions are always looking for foreign language teachers. Similarly, employees of many multinational companies and giant corporations have international trips, where English is not the primary language for communication. Thus, you can organize workshops and seminars for such firms and companies and teach their employees any foreign language that you know!

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Should have Proficiency in at least one foreign language	13.2%	Current size = $122 Billion	USD 1,000 and above approx.
		Expected to reach $600 Billion by 2025

At present, there are a huge number of opportunities for language tutors, especially foreign language teachers. The opportunities aren’t limited to foreign languages. If you’re a certified English teacher or tutor, then you can have a promising career in teaching the languages.

In tier I and tier II cities and metros, the demand to being able to speak, write and read English language is relatively higher. So, you can conduct online teaching classes to teach basic English from such locations too. Besides this, you can even take one-on-one clients for language tutoring. If you can teach any foreign language like German or French with English, then demand of your teaching services will go up drastically.

For foreign languages like French, Mandarin, German, Japanese and Spanish, you can even pursue another career too like translator, consultant at migration offices, interpreter, or diplomatic departments of any country with foreign languages.  

 

25. COOKING CLASS + COACHING

If you’re someone who enjoys cooking and likes to showcase a variety of food dishes at family functions, parties and other festivals, then this one business opportunity you would surely like. There’s been an increasing demand for cooking classes. People in urban areas, shift to other places because of family or job, away from home and then miss the easy home-cooked food. However, the convenience of having freshly prepared food delivered at your door step through an app, is just a click away!

But nothing beats the taste and comfort of a warm home-cooked food. Isn’t it? Also, with the different varieties of cuisines, people now like to experiment with various dishes at home. Also, the home-cooked food is a bit cheaper and damn healthy, compared to the outside food in restaurants.

Requirements	Compound Annual Growth	Market Size	Investment
Cooking skills + desire to teach others	5.6%	Current size = $6.9 Billion	USD 500 minimum approx.
Basic cooking equipment		Expected to reach $10 Billion by 2026

If you understand food very well, and if you have a number of cooking tips and tricks up on your sleeve, then you should really start your own cooking business.

If you have a lot of interest in cooking and love trying out new dishes every time, then you can share your skills and knowledge by teaching others how to cook. Create videos for the wider online audience for YouTube. For the personalized experience, you can conduct an in-person cooking class.

For the in-person gatherings, you can arrange your cooking classes at home for a small group of people. You can begin with the basic knife skills, understand various spices, benefits of greens, and other skills and lessons of cooking that is important to learn as a beginner.

If you have space and enough budget, then you can even setup a cooking studio after you keep conducting classes for your audience regularly. Being active on social media too boost your efforts for your cooking class business, as social media presence helps your hard work to a great extent by reaching to many new users and visitors worldwide.

Once you gain some confidence and experience in teaching others how to cook, tailor or simply categorize your classes as per the level of skills required, like – Beginners Level, Intermediate level and Advanced Level. Offering a variety of cuisines will be the best way to launch a business venture.

 

Executive Summary

With the growing digital economy and technology, more and more people want to start a business and be their own boss. A right business idea is all you need to make it work and to make it big.

You may not realize it but even your hobbies can transform into small business ideas with the help of online marketing. All of my discussed small business ideas can help you earn a pretty decent income even though you start it small. Don’t ever opt for a business idea just because someone else is doing it. When you work hard and listen to your truecalling, that’s when you become a successful entrepreneur.

Why entrepreneurs prefer small business ideas? Because small business ideas don’t really require much capital and you can start right away if you have the skills and knowledge.

It might be a little tough in the beginning getting all pieces put together in the right way, but with dedication and patience, you will be able to successfully launch your business and establish your empire from home!

Picking a specific business ideas is purely a personal choice. You can find numerous other possibilities and try your hand at them as well, but coming up originally with small business ideas that produce high income, is kind of tricky and time-consuming. So, I’d say choose your passion wisely from my list of ideas above, and turn your dream, your passion into a sensational reality.

Are there any online business ideas that I’ve not listed in this blog? Let me know in the comments below.

Recommended Reading on DixitaGaliyal.com: If you’re interested in how to start a business in just a week, check out my review on the same here – How to Start a Business in just a Week?

 

 

 

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