8 Businesses You Could Start This Week

What does Sam Walton and Laura Cattano have in common? They both started out with a simple idea and turned it into a successful business and brand.

Sam Walton worked as a retail employee, when he got the idea to buy a small five and dime store. These humble beginnings eventually became Walmart, a multimillion dollar global store with over 11,000 branches worldwide.

Laura Cattano worked in a restaurant and followed her heart. She is now managing her own business. She accomplished that in less than a year with a small budget of less than $500. Cattano’s clients are now totaling in the thousands with many major fashion magazines having featured her work.

As these examples show, basic ideas such as a small retail store or opening a restaurant can grow substantially if you put in the work. Here are 8 examples of businesses that are easy to start.

1. Logo Designer

If you are artistic, with basic design skills, access to a computer and designing software, you can offer your services as a graphic designer. This field is very broad, but you can start out with something as basic as logo design.

This is an in-demand service, as new businesses are always being formed, or old logos are revamped. Work up a couple of samples which you can show to your prospective customer.

2. Freelance Writer

Do you have a knack for words? Are you able to verbalize through the pen? Then content writing might be your thing. Writing is such a huge field, as content is needed for blogs, and articles are needed for various publications, be they online or offline. Payment is done per post or per hour.

Although you might start with low paying gigs, it can quickly escalate to higher paying work, if you put in the time and show that you are good.

3. Photographer

If you have an artistic flair and love prancing around with your camera, then photography is a great career to venture into. You can niche down to either wedding, nature and travel, stock photography and many other subcategories.

All you need is your camera, preferably a DSLR, but any latest smartphone might also do. Other necessities are a computer, good lights and software to edit the images. The internet is rife with many good tutorials.

4. Web Designer

Although you might hear rumors that this niche is saturated, it definitely is not. There are still tons of jobs available every day for web designers. If you understand HTML and CSS, you can immediately start selling your services as a web designer.

The best way to go about this is to combine various services and package them up. That way you can become a jack-of-all trades with your web design business. Make sure to spruce up your skills with some good tutorials before you start and knock out a couple of good samples to show to potential clients.

5. Tutor

Tutoring services are growing in popularity by the day. If you love the academics or have experience in a particular subject area, then you could offer your services as a tutor.

Becoming a tutor allows you to work with your students face-to-face. This is preferred by many as they can receive specialized attention, helping them to hone in on a particular problem.

Tutoring such as SAT prep and prepping for AP subjects is very popular. You can advertise your services in your local community or online, where you can tutor via Skype.

6. Video Creator

Video production has become the buzzword in any industry, and good video editors are hard to come by. Businesses are constantly on the lookout for fresh talent to produce their videos.

What you would need though is a good camera. You can start out with a good DSLR capable of shooting at a high frame rate or if you have the money you can opt for a good 4k camera for under 500.

Apart from a camera, a computer with a good graphics card, editing software and tons of time, is all you need to start.

7. Social Media Manager

Are you constantly chatting up a storm on social media and posting regularly on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? Well, then you could get paid for posting for others and managing their online social media profiles.

This can be a very profitable venture to go into as many people do not know how to market their brands with social media and are willing to pay someone to do it for them.

8. Translator

If you are multilingual you might want to become a translator. Companies that do business internationally need their materials to be translated to the language of the intended business partner.

You can easily find work online on job boards like Upwork or Fiverr.