Best Eight Small Business Ideas of 2021

2020 has been a rough year for many businesses. But challenge also means opportunity. With social distancing and COVID-19 accelerated the growth of online shopping, the landscape is changing rapidly as businesses move online.

As Naval said on twitter about How to Get Rich (without getting lucky): The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven't figured this out yet.

In this article, we will introduce some low-cost, COVID-proof online businesses that you can start from home.

 

 

1. Start an E-commerce Business

There are multiple ways you can go with e-commerce, such as Amazon FBA, drop shipping, or selling products on your own website. 

A drop shipping business is one of the best ways for beginners to start a business, since you don’t have to fulfill orders or ship them yourself.

Drop shipping is a process where the seller accepts customer orders but does not keep goods sold in stock. Online retailers post products from wholesalers, and the drop shipping suppliers manage all of the shipping. The retailer just has to generate online orders and send the shipping information to the wholesaler.

Because of no physical location of the warehouse, you can run your business from anywhere you want.

Here’s a breakdown of how drop shipping works:

?? Selling products online is a simple process:

?? Choose your e-commerce platform.

?? Create your online store.

?? Find your niche market and validate your product ideas.

?? Add product information to your store.

?? Set up settings for taxes and shipping.

?? Test your shopping cart functionality and do final QA checks.

?? Attracting customers to your e-commerce store

While it’s easy to launch an e-commerce site, the challenge becomes how to get website traffic.

Look into affiliate marketing to boost your sales.

 

2.Affiliate Marketing

It’s a term that gets referred to often when talking about how to make passive income. 

What is affiliate marketing? 

To put in in a simple way, Affiliate marketers promote products of other people and earn commissions on their sales. It is a great form of passive income and the perfect business model for bloggers.

Affiliate marketing is a popular tactic to drive sales and generate significant online revenue.

According to one blog income report study, bloggers making between $7,500 — $25k per month make 38% of their income from affiliate marketing.

 

How to get started?

1) Develop a rapport. Cultivate an audience.

2) Make it personal.

You’ll achieve an impressive conversion rate while simultaneously establishing the reliability of your personal brand.

3) Start reviewing products and services.

Focus on reviewing products and services that fall within your niche.

4) Use several sources.

Test a variety of marketing strategies to see which one your audience responds to the most. Make frequent use of this technique.

5) Choose campaigns with care.

Take the time to study the demand for a product before promoting it.

6) Stay current with trends.

There is serious competition in the affiliate marketing sphere. You’ll want to make sure you stay on top of any new trends to ensure you remain competitive.

 

3.Writing, Designing, or Developing

‘If you can't code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.’

Depending on your talents and area of expertise, you can start a business in the field of writing, designing, developing and anything that has zero marginal cost.

You can do these by freelancing. Freelancing means you don’t have to commit yourself to long-term projects. Instead you can work as per your free time. So, you can easily select something which suits your schedule. 

‘Code and media are permission less leverage. They're the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.’

 

 

4.Create a YouTube Channel

It can be a YouTube channel or a Tiktok account. Similar to what’s mentioned above, it’s about sharing your expertise and giving people what they want. And become an influencer.

First, pick a niche you’re familiar with to create engaging and unique videos. The more entertaining content you post, the more views and subscribers you’ll gain over time.

Many wildly-popular YouTubers earn millions by posting videos. An average YouTuber earns around $3 to $5 per 1,000 views.

‘You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.’

 

5.Online Teaching

You can get paid for speaking English. How awesome does that sounds. 

It not only sounds easy, it is actually easy to start. All you’ll need is a laptop with internet access. The best part about online teaching positions is that not only can you get paid for speaking English, you can also find opportunities to teach English online with no experience.

Take the online teaching platform VIP Kid for example.

Beijing-based VIPKID is one of the best paid online teaching jobs if you are interested in teaching English online. All lesson planning, grading, and curriculum development are taken care of so you can concentrate on inspiring your students.

Requirements: Some teaching or mentoring experience, a bachelor’s degree, and an appropriate laptop or desktop computer with a headset and camera. US and Canadian citizens only. 

Average salary: ~$14-18 USD per hour, with additional incentives available. 

Other platforms include Lingoda, Magic Ears, Italki, SayABC, DadaABC etc.

 

6.Phone Case Business

There are more than 2.5 billion smartphone users in the world, and the number is increasing every day.

With new phones being released yearly, users are constantly on the hunt for a new case. With every new phone model, you have a new product.

Building a business around making and selling your own phone cases comes with a variety of benefits:

It’s easy to hold inventory and ship due to their small size.

They’re relatively low cost to produce.

You can sell them both online and in an offline kiosk.

Print-on-demand to start with lower risk or buy in bulk for better margins.

Every new phone model offers a new opportunity to cater to the 44% of smartphone owners who upgrade every 2 years.

You can easily list your collection of new products on e-commerce giants like Amazon and eBay. Once you start making some money, you should then look into launching your own e-commerce website on a platform like Shopify to improve your profit margins.

 

7.Stock Photographers

If you have a DSLR and decent photoshop skills, then you can easily sell your images to stock photo websites including Pexels, Unsplash, and Shutterstock, among others.

Every time a client uses your photo, you get paid with a markup amount. 

There are a number of reasons getting into stock photography is quite alluring:

Anyone with high-quality photos to upload can get in

You don’t need to have a strong portfolio

You can decide how much time you want to devote to it – whether you want to make it a part time gig or a full-time enterprise

You have full creative control over what you do

While you can never ride forever on the images you upload, it can provide a largely passive income once you get to a certain point

The portfolio you build making stock photography can later be used to secure more traditional freelance jobs

 

8.Child Care

There is always a demand for compassionate childcare professionals. 

It is a lucrative career option if you love being around kids.

As you gain experience, you can also open your own day-care center to look after the kids and expand your business.

To increase your chances of finding success in this arena, you might want to earn formal certification in childcare.