You might have signed up for my 20-days free entrepreneurship course and you followed every single step you possibly can. But you felt like you are no where since day one because you had little or no money to start up. In the back of your head, you are wondering, “What are the easy businesses to start with little or no money?”

And before we go down into something really serious on super-duper easy ways to start a business, I have a quote from Chris Guillebeau (author of The $100 Startup), “To succeed in a business project, especially one you’re excited about, it helps to think carefully about all the skills you have that could be helpful to others and particularly about the combination of those skills.”

The quote above should be a mantra for every entrepreneur out there who want to succeed in life or business. Things you would need to think after reading this post are:

• Do you have any expertise (the things you really, really know deep inside)?
• Do you have passion for the expertise above?
• Do you see the opportunity gap in the market right now?

Another quote from the one and only, Guy Kawasaki, “Entrepreneurship is a balance mixture of opportunity, passion and expertise”.

You do not need to have a lot of money in your bank account just to start a business and you certainly should not wait for the right time to start one. Yes, you can start a business … right now!

Don’t let the financial issue turn away your entrepreneurship ideas. So here are 5 business ideas to start with little or no money at all.

Article of the week: 15 Entrepreneurship Ideas For College Students

1. Selling handmade crafts

Believe it or not, this is one of the most lucrative industries in the world. If you are looking for easy businesses to start from home, go with handcraft products. Bear in mind that these products can be sold over and over again as long as there is a demand for it.

And if you think that handmade crafts are just a small business niche, take a look at these:

• Abe’s Market is one of the biggest online portal selling (specifically) natural and organic goods.
• Etsy is the largest online market selling (almost) everything homemade, from clothes to jewelry.
• Bonanza is pretty similar to Etsy and according to some sources, it has gained over 10 million visits on a monthly basis.
• eBay is a no-brainer. Probably the most popular, one-stop location for any products and yes — including handmade products.

Here’s a simple trick to start an online business and start marketing money.

You are recommended (in almost all cases) to market your products in several platforms to increase visibility and increase your reach. While putting all your eggs in various baskets is a good marketing strategy, it is also important to make sure your inventory are kept up to date to avoid shortage.

If selling homemade products turns you on like your husband or wife do, then read this article by Lifehacker for some additional marketing resources.

 

2. Start a drop shipping business

Compared to thousands of business ideas to earn some money, drop shipping is one of the easiest businesses to start with.

Basically, drop ship is business venture between you and another business partner. In this case, your business partner is the one providing the products and shipping procedures.

You, on the other hand, is in-charged of marketing and selling. The more you sell, the more you’ll earn. That simple, right?

Here are the exact steps to start a drop shipping business with no money at all.

• Focus on only two sites; eBay and Amazon
• Find for product(s) which have a number of sales and usually above $50 (bigger sales = bigger paycheck)
• Collect information of the seller, price, product, reviews etc from both sites and plot them into Excel (one of my favorite productivity tools by the way)
• Analyze additional information such as the lowest price product, seller details etc
• Sell the product on either eBay or Amazon (whichever gives you more sales revenue)

The above concept is simple. Let’s take for example, you have this product (yet to purchase) on Amazon sold at $50 per piece. If you sell the same product on eBay for $65, you make $15 per sale, right? Once you made a sale, you will receive information of the buyer’s address etc. Enter the exact details into Amazon and the seller will ship the product directly to the buyer.

Make sense?

But here’s the catch. Amazon and eBay (along with a dozen other online portals) have strict restrictions on this because it creates a lot of scam cases. Therefore, if you are going to do this for a living, make sure you are taking every precaution you can think of to protect yourself, your buyer and most importantly, from these online portals as they can shut you down overnight.

Of course, you can reach out to the company directly and apply for an authorized seller/reseller.

Related article: Top 25 Productivity Apps For Serious Entrepreneurs

 

3. Domain flipping businesses require little money for start up

If you love Internet and have a little ‘trader instinct’ in you, you will love domain flipping. This business is requires a little investment but the returns is extremely high.

Are you wondering why is domain flipping is included in easy business to start?

The answer is simple. Buying a domain is cheap and the process of selling a domain is very addictive. Seriously!

Domain flipping can make you tons of money, real fast if done correctly. Of course, it is not the easiest to make money with but with proper strategies like this one, you will soon be making more money than you can ever imagine.

Here’s how to start domain flipping.

• Find new/expired domain names or buying the ownership of a current domain
• Develop the domain (usually the website design and content) and sell at a higher price

And yes, this is just that simple!

Here are several challenges you will face (or need to be ready for):

• Domains you bought may have lesser or no value at all
• You may require to sell a couple of times before finally being able to find the right buyer with the right price
• Every sale has a 50-50 chance of success (pretty positive, right?)

That’s why I recommend this simple training on domain flipping for those who are serious in making thousands of dollars in this industry.

 

4. Starting a blog (and make money)

2 million blog posts are published daily and there are over 500 million blogs out there. I must be crazy to recommend this blogging business — so, you thought.

The truth is, people are making money from blogging and believe it or not, you could too!

Blogging isn’t the fastest way to make money but it is certainly one of those easy businesses to start with little money. And the “little” I just said is like literally, a few dollars a month at most!

Imagine this: Your investment to start a blog is $4 per month and revenue gained from your blog is $100 a day. How does that sounds to you?

Before we dive in and discover how you can easily make money from blogging, let’s understand a few concept of blogging.

Blogging facts you need to know:

• Not all niche or topics will generate money from you
• Make money from blogging is possible but it takes time
• Blogging requires passion and only blogs that are constantly updated will get better ranking and traffic
• Understanding on SEO, search engine and content marketing are vital to ensure success in blogging
• Using a good web hosting company is more important than ever
• Choose a proper domain name for branding

Yes, it is possible to make money through blogging but it takes time. Darren Rowse from ProBlogger had explained it better than anyone in his award-winning eBook, ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.

So, how to start a blog and make money fast?

The first step is to ensure you have the proper blog setup; purchasing a domain name, getting a good web hosting, putting on a nice theme and installing relevant plugins to get the site ready.

When it comes to choosing a domain name, it is highly recommended to get domain names that are relevant, unique and most importantly, easy to remember. Also, in terms of Top Level Domain (TLD) extensions that come into play, always try to search for those with dot com, dot net or dot co for better search engine visibility in the future.

For web hosting, there are many web hosting services at different prices. If you are on a budget, go for BlueHost that offers professional web hosting under $5 per month and as well as free domain name registration. BlueHost is powerful because it one of the leaders in web hosting industry and they have 1-click install features to help beginners to install a website with hassle. Plus if you need help, there are friendly customer service consultants you can reach by phone, live chat and email. CLICK HERE to see BlueHost latest promotion and deals.

Blogging is a business and while it is among the easy businesses to start, don’t take blogging lightly. You should, at all times, maintain a professional look and it takes a to get a really good website theme. Of course, I only use StudioPress for all my blogs because it is professionally designed and it comes with in-built SEO features. Here’s the theme gallery for some inspiring ideas.

Lastly, it is the plugins that will make your blogging life 5x easier. Plugins help to speed up your work process, help to increase productivity level and perform tasks you may have no experience or knowledge in. Remember to install plugins that are vital only as too many of them will pose a security threat and slow down your website loading speed as well. Here’s a list of recommended plugin to use:

• JetPack
• Contact Form 7
• Thrive Leads
• W3 Total Cache
• Yoast SEO
• Easy Social Sharing Buttons
• WordFence Security

How to monetize a blog or website?

Depending on your niche, there are several ways you start a blog and make money fast. Here are a few common ways:

Google Adsense

Sign up for a free Google Adsense account (I bet you had done that before) and copy the snippet code into your blog to display the ads. Google Adsense only allows you to place up to 3 ads per page.

Important note: Banners with bigger sizes usually generate money than smaller ones.

Affiliate sales

If blogging is one of those easy businesses to start (which you have in mind), focus on affiliate sales. Bloggers such as Pat Flynn makes a lot of money just by selling affiliate products. Here are two example of excellent affiliate programs to participate in especially when you are in the WordPress industry:

• StudioPress (35% commission per sale)
• WP Engine (a minimum of $200 per sale)

Banner advertising

High traffic blogs can leverage from this. For most advertisers, paying for banner advertising on blogs is cheaper than bidding for Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. For starters, you could easily earn around $30 per banner per month for blogs with traffic below 1,500 visits per month.

You see, it is really easy to start an online business (and earn some passive income). And it only takes you like 5 minutes to start a blog from scratch!

Popular article worth reading: 10 Startup Guides On Ways To Save Money

 

5. Freelancing business

Do you have expertise than you can leverage? It can be as simple as copywriting, proof reading and even data entry.

With the power of Internet, you can reach out to the world — and yes, even people who are located on the another side of the globe! Freelancing business is extremely popular among college students and you can even start freelancing with no money at all.

So, how do you determine your freelance expertise?

• Soul searching
• Using your current work and outsource your experience to brands and companies that require it
• Finding your passion (such as social media marketing, writing etc) and turn that into a freelance service

Starting a freelance business is easy and cost effective as you are not required to have much (or any) initial investment. At most, just a blog page with WordPress at the back.

The only challenge in freelance business is the fact that you are competing with professional agencies and it could turn ugly real fast. You are competing not only for the same amount of business but as well as pricing and even manpower (you are working alone, remember?).

If you want to perform some marketing on a tight budget, you can leverage paid advertising using Facebook Ads or Google Adwords on a smaller scale; e.g. $15 a day on advertising.

 

Easy business to start with little or no money – Recap

While there are many business you can start with, these 5 are probably the cheap and easy businesses to start with little money. They take less than $50 to start up and in most cases, you can start anywhere under 60 minutes.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and if you have not signed up for my free entrepreneurship mastery course, you can grab yourself a (limited) spot here!

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