In this post, we’ll preview locating the best business opportunities for entrepreneurs seeking to launch their own business. There can be little doubt that starting a business is among the riskiest activities one can become involved in. With failure rates for new ventures topping 91% annually, it seems the risk, to most anyway, is either not worth taking or if so and failure occurs, never making the effort again. When such doubt is coupled with the ongoing downturn in worldwide economies, it appears our best and brightest are no longer asking ‘why not’ start a business rather ‘why’. The savvy entrepreneur must take a broader view and understand the same forces which shape economic downturns have the ability, at any minute, to easily increase their fortunes. What are those forces indicating right now? If anything other than NOW IS THE TIME to begin planning and launch of your dream business, don’t listen!
When we refer to an economic downturn, it is in no way indicating negative gains in GDP (gross domestic product) rather not experiencing high single or double digit, quarterly growth. News flash – despite what ‘naysayers’ are proclaiming, the economy is still growing just at a much slower rate. Further; there is plenty of business capital to be had from both traditional and non-traditional lending and investment sources. We could offer mega investments of the last few years as proof of this reality such as Facebook, Twitter as well as others but for those not planning the next billion dollar social media company, more practical ventures could be the ticket. Let us be clear; we are in no way discouraging the ambitious to forego launching what may seem the un-obtainable dream. If it is on your heart and fills every waking moment, go for it! There are few things in life, including experiencing failure, worse than living with the question “what if…”
But what type of business should you start immediately? Here at SBDC TV, we intentionally and with much forethought, avoid ‘jumping on the band wagon’ of popular start up ideas and instead offer, for your consideration, only those that are tried, tested and most importantly, measured for effectiveness.
Here are business ideas to consider starting immediately and won’t break the bank;
- Freelance Service Provider – what is most important here is to capitalize on skills you either already have or can quickly master, market and form a solid sales base with. There are myriad websites available, most for no charge, to market your skills and earn cash ASAP.
- E-Commerce – in previous posts, we’ve encouraged those who desire starting more traditional businesses to capitalize on this ever growing trend. No matter what product or service, there is a niche market waiting with credit and debit cards in hand
- Internet Publishing & Broadcasting – today, everyone is a publisher and according to the data, this is a large reason for the failure of once mighty publishers and book sellers such as Border’s Books. Whether blog posts, Google Hangouts or other, anyone with a bit of creativity and tenacity can immediately begin a profitable Internet publishing company
- Research – tools once reserved for the best capitalized companies have now been made available to even the most remote parts of the world. In particular, the Internet is a tool for much more than reading news, watching videos and following your favorite websites. People across thousands of industries will always require targeted information and those who take advantage of the world’s most complete database (Internet) will quickly find themselves leading a profitable company
- Mobile and Social Gaming – an example is a popular Facebook gaming APP known as Farmville. Although most believe technical programming and design skill is needed, nothing is further from true. The explosion of gaming has created innumerable markets which can be seized on immediately
- APP Development – does launching an APP business mean huge expense and time consuming training? NO! With online software generators, anyone, even those with no coding experience, can quickly design great APPS for business
- eBook Publisher – we’ve given examples of Internet publishing and research as viable options for launch. In particular, mastering research using only the Internet, provides an opportunity to develop expertise on any industry topic. Aggregate your research, blog posts and other online publishing assets into a cohesive, topic specific eBook and watch the cash roll in
- Marketing Coach – if you’ve ever tweeted, posted a Facebook update, socially shared a great article or even uploaded a video to Youtube, you already have the necessary skills to become a marketing coach. For those thinking – “Well, everybody knows how to do those things so who would pay for them” – think again. As all ideas in this section suggest, many desiring to start a business have no clue where to begin. If lacking the most basic knowledge, is it so hard to believe entrepreneurs wouldn’t require marketing training as well?
For the above ideas to have made our list, the following factors were considered;
- We’ve personally tested and proven them profitable
- Requires minimal cash investment except for $97 covering a custom business domain name (website address) and hosting for one year
- Easily learned and can be launched within a few weeks
- Very few barriers to market entry
- Allows entrepreneurs to maintain a full-time job while building sales and profits part-time
- Capitalizes on skills one already has
- Non-cash intensive maintenance
- Online based allowing for the top benefit of self-employment – free time
- Niche market specific allowing immediate market access
- Low expense, high profit
When starting a new business and especially for the cash strapped (who isn’t), most important is harnessing the creativity you were born with! For instance, some dream of a day when the doors of their branded restaurant will open. It is no secret restaurants suffer much higher failure rates than other traditional businesses and often within the first year. Instead of investing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront, why not begin with a trendy new food truck? Although such creativity applies to many types of start-ups, here are the benefits of starting small and building a viable business model which can then be scaled;
- Allows for testing ideas without large capital commitments
- Builds company brand identity and reputation
- Provides immediate local market access
- Refines smaller scale management processes which can then be scaled for expansion
- Builds a solid P&L (profit and loss) statement for future third party investment
- Builds confidence of owners
- Provides beta test data
- Mistakes are not financially catastrophic
- Sources buy-in from vendors, banking institutions as well as potential business partners
- Allows building on strengths and improving weaknesses of business model
We can’t say this in any stronger terms; the time to begin is right now! Although most coming across this post will be under-taking their first venture, many will have done so previously and experienced some form of failure. OK, it happened, but is this an excuse to continue on in a job and/or career you hate? That failure is past and it is time to ‘get back up on the horse’. Our company launched in 2000 and suffered more than 6 years of set-backs before success was achieved. However – all roads have led here and if we survived to ‘live the dream’ why can’t you?
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