10 SMALL BUSINESSES IDEAS YOU CAN START TODAY
Owning your own small business can give you more freedom, higher income and more pride in the work you do. But coming up with business ideas can be a struggle.
We have created a list of 10 small business ideas with a low start-up cost. You will also be able to learn the relevant skills on the job.
To do this you must be a quick learner, have good social skills and be committed to making the small business work.
Follow our list of the 10 small business ideas you can start today!
Contents
- Photographer
- Upholstery
- Portable masseuse
- Gardening / Landscaping
- Personal trainer
- Dog walker
- Home cleaning and organising
- Painting business
- Handy man/women
- Nutritionist
1 – Photographer
Our first small business idea is photography. Are you someone who can always get the right picture? Or do you love capturing moments through a lens? Then a Photography business might be for you.
Photography can be flexible and profitable allowing you to have a good work-life balance.
Some things to consider when starting your photography business are:
- your niche, will you be a wedding or nature photographer? Work with models or get into sports photography? The possibilities are endless in photography but picking one will make you stand out and build a strong portfolio in that niche.
- Equipment, Will you need multiple lenses? A tripod? There might be a few things that you need to get started but getting a list of the necessities is a good place to start. you can always add to your kit as your business grows.
- customers, Will you be taking pictures for individuals or working freelance for magazine companies? figuring this out will allow you to plan your marketing strategy for your business to get more high-quality leads for work.
2 – Upholstery
If you are creative and good with your hands, another idea for your local business is upholstery. This is the process of restoring, redecorating and repurposing furniture using new materials, padding, colours and textures.
Anyone can get into the craft of upholstery, especially if you have studied joinery or textiles or art in general.
Some things to consider when starting your upholstery business are:
- Skillset, working out what skills you have and what skills you might need to improve. Are you good at sewing, matching colours and understanding textures? Or do you need to improve your painting skills and woodworking skills? understanding where your skill set is at and what you need to improve will help you and your business get to the next level.
- Equipment, are you going to need a sewing machine? staple gun? woodwork tools? Build a list of tools you need to get started as well as some tools you have in mind once you are more established. For example, when I first started my painting business we hand-sanded everything. Now we use a dustless sander for almost everything.
- Marketing and Sales, this is a great visual business. This means your products speak for themselves and attract customers based on appearance and functionality. Try building strong social media platforms displaying your products and services. work hard on getting high-quality pictures and videos and maybe give customers further insight into how you make your products.
3 – Portable Masseuse
Another small business idea is being a portable masseuse.
Are you good with your hands? (not like that!) If you’re someone who loves giving their partner massages or have studied sports physio at some point, this might be a great option. Many people are looking for good, reliable masseuses. For a lot of people traveling to the local spa is impracticable, time-consuming and expensive.
Here are steps in portable masseuses. This is a simple small business to set up that can grow quickly and become very lucrative.
Some things to consider when starting your masseuse business are:
- Qualifications, will you need to take a course to understand massaging better, learn new techniques and meet other people in the industry? It will also reassure your customers if you can say you are a fully qualified masseuse.
- Image, This is very important to think about when setting up a business that will be serving customers in their own homes. Making sure they feel comfortable with a stranger in their home is the number 1 priority. This comes down to your image and how you carry yourself. Wearing clean/smart clothes, arriving on time, smiling, and being happy to talk to the customers will give them confidence in your character.
- Equipment, What equipment will you need and what is the budget? massage table, towels, oils, and candles are all things you might need when starting up. Be sure to get a list and start gathering the equipment you need for your first customer.
4 – Gardening / Landscaping
Do you have a green thumb? Or love working outside? then a gardening or landscaping business might be for you. Whilst landscaping comes with a bit more experience a gardener can transition their business into landscaping by learning new skills and gaining more confidence over time.
Starting a gardening business is both profitable and scalable as the entry to work level is relatively low meaning it is easy to find a helping hand once you get busier.
This is a business for people who are not shy of work and who love getting stuck in.
Things to consider when starting a gardening/landscaping business:
- Equipment, a big one for this one is equipment. You will probably need a lawnmower, string trimmer, rake, shovel and a good handful of other things. this might be expensive when starting. A good idea is to get some essentials and rent larger equipment as and when you need them until you can purchase your own.
- Travel, as a gardener you will be travelling to multiple houses a day 5 days a week. It might be worth investing in a van or large vehicle to get tools from one job to the next. This is a large expense so you might need to do some saving up for this.
- Marketing, Your best marketing strategy for a business like this is building good customer relationships and getting jobs through word of mouth. If you are good at what you do then word travels fast and customers will come to you in abundance. Make sure you interact well with customers and do jobs to professional standards
5 – Personal Trainer
Our fiith small business idea is becoming a personal trainer.
I feel like people think this is a saturated market but good personal trainers come around once in a blue moon. If you have a real passion for fitness and bettering yourself and others then personal training could be the right local business venture for you.
With the ability to work in your local gym or build a brand and gain traction in multiple locations, personal training can be as rewarding as it is lucrative.
Things to consider when starting your personal training business:
- Your USP (Unique selling point), When every gym has 10 personal trainers how do you stand out? try niching down on a sport. are you a boxer? a cyclist? a footballer? There’s a good chance that other gym goers love the same sport as you and want to improve their performance by having tailor-made workouts for their specific sport.
- Marketing, How are you going to attract these new customers? 3 ways I’d suggest are building up your social media channels with pictures and videos of clients doing their workouts. posters dotted around your local gym with information about you and the service you are providing. finally, wear a T-shirt with your business name and “personal trainer” written across the back. then everyone can see you in action with customers.
- Qualification, Are you a fully qualified personal trainer? If not, become one. Courses aren’t long and aren’t expensive but it gives you great credibility and some gyms might not let you operate there without it.
6 – Pet Sitting or Dog Walking
I know, I know. so cliche. But this is a really good business you can start today. If you love looking after dogs then this a great way of earning money whilst doing something you love. In the busy world we live in people are always looking for someone who can walk the dog while they’re at work. or can look after their dog whilst they’re on holiday.
Once you build up a good reputation and gain quality clients you are sure to earn a good and steady income.
Things to consider when starting a pet-sitting or dog-walking business:
- Legals, with this local business you are going to be working closely with people’s beloved pets. If anything goes wrong you want to make sure yourself and your customers are protected. ensuring you have the correct insurance to cover unexpected accidents would be a must for me. You can find more information about this here.
- Marketing, how are you going to find customers for your business? the best place to start is friends and family. Ask people you know are busy and have pets and offer your services. Wear a t-shirt with your business name displayed on the back so other people know who you are and the services you provide. Finally, I would look to have leaflets made and post them through doors in your local area, handing them out at parks and other dog walking areas would also be a good idea to get new leads.
7 – Home Cleaning or Organising
Do you have a knack for cleaning and keeping your house in order? Starting a cleaning service might be for you!
With lots of pathways into this industry and niches for you to tap into, there is money to be made by starting a cleaning business. Once you are established building a team of cleaners can be easy and scalable with the right systems in place.
Things to consider when starting a home cleaning or organising business:
- Speciality, will you be a residential cleaner, cleaning and helping people create ways of organising their house? Or do you want to work with businesses cleaning offices and people’s workspaces? There are pros and cons to both pathways but neither is better than the other. It all depends on what you prefer to do and the market around you.
- Equipment, when starting you will need some basic cleaning equipment to get you through your first few jobs. the goal here is to reinvest money earned into better and more efficient equipment. This is easier to do if you have some form of savings to live off for your first month of business.
- Image and Marketing, it goes without saying that someone running a cleaning or organising business should look clean and well organised. make sure to have a set work uniform for cleaning and one for meeting new customers. Finding new customers will be a lot of word of mouth as well as targeting local Facebook groups to get involved with your community.
8 – Painting Business
Now I’m a little more biased with this one as it is what I started when I first ventured into starting a local business. Starting a painting and decorating business is both rewarding and profitable. You will need to enjoy painting and be fairly good at it to get started (but your skills will grow as you go along).
It is hard to come by good tradesmen nowadays so if you can build a good reputation for yourself and your business within your local community you will be inundated with work and have the option to niche down, increasing your profits reduce workload.
Things to consider when starting a painting business:
- Equipment, there are a lot of things you need when running a painting business you just need the essentials to do a good job. Rollers, brushes, scuttles, sandpaper etc… as you become busier and start gaining higher standard job leads you can purchase more tools and upgrade tools.
- Image and Marketing, a massive part of our success as Coastal Painting Service was our branding and marketing. focusing on creating a logo and name that sticks in people’s heads as well as targeting large traffic platforms such as Google and Facebook. We have created a business that gets multiple strong leads every week.
- Travel, when starting it might be hard to find a place to keep all your tools as well as getting to and from jobs. I started in my little car and kept all my tools in the boot with the back seats down (it wasn’t glamorous). I made it a top priority to save up a lump sum to buy myself a cheap van for £1500 3 months later. This made storage and travelling a lot easier. Plus, it stopped my car from smelling of paint.
9 – Handy Man/Women
Similar to painting and decorating, people struggle to find local handymen who are good a their craft and are reliable. If you enjoy assembling furniture, moving large furniture, repairing small things around the house and any other “handyman” activities then this a good business for you.
Whilst this might not offer massive profits it is a respectable business to start and if done well can earn some good money. The great thing about this is that most tasks will be a few hours so you can start this business on the side as something else.
Things to consider when starting a handyman business:
- Customers, your customers are going to be people who struggle with these DIY projects. Disabled people, elderly people and some men and women aren’t inclined to getting their hands dirty. It’s up to you to find these customers and win their trust. I would recommend starting a Facebook page showing what you offer and joining local Facebook groups in your area.
- Travel, When starting you will most likely be able to work out of your car as you will only have a small collection of tools. Once you figure out what services you’re offering and the tools you need you might need to upgrade to a van.
- Pricing, As you are someone who does many different tasks it might be hard to come up with a pricing structure. Going into this I would look to charge hourly at the beginning. then I would start to work out average prices for individual tasks. for example; small sized flat pack build is £40, a medium flat pack build is £50 and a large is £60.
10 – Nutritionist
Do you have great cooking skills or know how to eat a balanced diet? Becoming a nutritionist could be a great local business to provide. From doing meal preps for people or organising someone’s diet to reach their personal goals. there are many ways you can become a nutritionist.
A lot of your customers will be sportspeople or business people (with too little time to put meals together themselves). With this in mind try tailoring your meals and approach to each customer’s specific needs and build good personal relationships with each customer.
Things to consider when starting a Nutritionist business:
- Marketing, as a lot of your customers are going to be healthy people trying to better themselves you will need to tailor your marketing to these people. Showing off healthy food options, your fitness and lifestyle are all ways to gain new customers for your business
- niche/USP, are you going to be creating diet plans for people? Will you meal prep for people at the beginning of the week or will you just educate people on the right foods and supplements to enhance their performance? whatever you decide to focus on, work hard to establish your business around your USP and people will come to you for that specific need.
- legal, If you do plan on cooking for people you will most likely need to get the right insurance. having public liability and catering business insurance are the two to look at.
Conclusion
Starting a business is never easy but the best thing you can do is start today. By getting started you are going to learn new skills and learn from your mistakes which will help you grow faster than any blog post or YouTube video can.
There are many different business models to choose from. It is best to choose the business that you want to start based on what you enjoy doing and your skills at hand. Work to your strengths and be open to learning new skills. Concentrate on building strong connections with customers and your local business will thrive.