With big changes for many due to a global pandemic, new small businesses are sprouting up all over the United States. As more and more people learn to work remotely, many of these new businesses are run out of people’s homes. From kitchen tables to family living rooms, business owners are learning new ways to use technology to make an income without leaving the house. With this new trend has come to some pretty creative ways to make a living based on what people already know. If you’re considering opening a business from your house but aren’t sure what type of business to start, here are some things to think about.
Insurance Agents
Are you trained in property damage? Do you enjoy helping people recover from injuries or illnesses?
Many smart new business owners are working with what they already know. For people once employed in the health or car insurance industries, they’ve taken their knowledge about things like product liability insurance and brought it home. Opening insurance sales agent companies where they work to sell insurance to customers, they’ve become small business owners in markets they’re already familiar with.
For jobs that require logical thinking, like running an insurance agency, this idea is one of the least costly to start up. After getting licensed to sell things like commercial property insurance, key person insurance, commercial auto insurance, and more, it’s really a matter of their own small business filing fees, office equipment, and phone and internet service. Whether selling workers’ compensation insurance or doing the market research for customers curious about business income insurance, these savvy entrepreneurs have managed to work around stay home and shutdown orders while maintaining and even growing incomes by starting an insurance company from the comfort of their couches.
Indie Publishers and Digital Content Creation
Do you crave peace of mind? Are you good with technology and helping people to learn new things?
For the more creative types who love to write and read, becoming an indie publisher and taking advantage of the self-publishing industry has become popular. Again, taking skills they might already know, like how to run an import/export business from your home, they are creating digital eBooks and learning modules to sell to those stuck at home. The import and export business is a complicated one to navigate, which is why someone with experience importing or exporting raw materials or other merchandise and new products can provide just the information that a new business owner might be looking for, in the form of an eLearning course. Where the eLearning market is growing almost as quickly as new opportunities for remote businesses, these entrepreneurs are making the most of digital marketing sales platforms to generate not only active but passive income, too.
Whether operating as hybrid presses who charge authors the way vanity style publishers do for publication or splitting royalties with authors and picking up the tab for design and editing, indie publishers are making the most of social media platforms to get the word out about books, too.
Freelance Ghostwriting
Are you willing to give up vanity for the bottom line?
For people who like to write but don’t know much about publishing or types of business insurance, another popular startup from home has become ghostwriting gig work. Offering high demand services like writing autobiographies or non-fiction stories, these former journalists or authors are trading in bylines for big checks and the ability to stay at home. Again, this business has little startup cost other than office equipment, the internet, and some upfront service for hire marketing. For these savvy writers around the U.S., making a living from home is filling the gap between traditional employment outside the home and homeschooling kids.
Job Placement and Resume Services
Do you enjoy helping people reach their potential?
For those with connections to the human resources industry, one small business idea is to begin a job placement service. Again, the startup costs here are low. With the right software, a computer, and some know-how, people with connections in their communities are finding ways to help unemployed friends and neighbors with specific needs around finding new work after business closures. This group of business owners is spending their time at the kitchen table working on other people’s resumes and helping to make important decisions about the next steps in a career.
While the pandemic has been challenging for everyone, these successful business owners offer stories of hope. All have found ways to take what they already know and to reimagine their skill sets into new businesses at home. A great way to get through a pandemic, it’s likely that life after the pandemic will show a different way of working all together thanks to these new business owners and the technology that ties us into a global market. If you’re considering a startup business, consider what you already know and how you could start your next dream from home.