Business start-up ideas

Looking for business start-up ideas?

We’ve got a great list of ideas for you that are low cost and easily set up. In most cases, you won’t even need to set up a website as you can market your services and products on Facebook Marketplace!

First on our list makes use of second-hand goods-

Second hand bookstore

This is one of the easiest businesses to start up and is a great way to recycle!

If you can get your hands on textbooks and higher learning material, this can be quite lucrative. You can easily ask for donations from friends and family to start your inventory. Using Bookscouter.com is an excellent way of finding out how much your books are worth.

If you’ve got some cash to spare, you could browse through some second hand book stores and purchase some good deals to onward sell.

To add to this, you can even set up an online store on Facebook (for free) and sell your books there. No fuss!

A last note – when pricing your books, take into consideration their age and condition to avoid out-pricing your products and not selling anything.

Bookkeeping services

If you’re good with numbers, this is a great way to bring some extra money into your household. Target small businesses who may need assistance with their books. You can start this up for next to nothing and don’t have to have certification to sell basic bookkeeping services.

As with the second hand book service, you can network and promote your services on Facebook which eliminates the need to set up a physical office.

A fantastic resource that goes into detail on this start-up idea is from Xero.

Tutoring business

Depending on your strengths, you can market yourself as a tutor in a niche area. Not much is required in the way of starting up a business using this idea. You need to have received good marks for the subjects you’re tutoring on (at least 80%). Subjects to teach can range from academic, musical, linguistic, computer science and many more.

The demand in South Africa is for tutors in Science, Accounting, Math and Life Sciences (formerly Biology).

You can even find various old exam papers online to give to your students. This will help you assess where their strengths and weaknesses are and how you can help them.

Dog walking & pet sitting

By far one of the best start-up business ideas if you’re an animal lover.  But just being an animal lover won’t help when considering this start-up idea. You need to have knowledge and experience of pet behaviour and how to deal with them.

If you feel you’d like to gain more experience with dogs or other pets, consider volunteering at your local animal shelter.

We’d suggest marketing your services in areas that have lots of working professionals. The more active you are in this area, the better reviews you’ll get and the more business you’ll generate. You could even consider branching out to plant care, mobile grooming and assisting people with errands. Just make sure you have the relevant insurances in place.

Photography

You’ll need both a decent camera and good eye for this. If you tick these 2 check boxes then you could freelance as a photographer.

Choose a few niches that you prefer to photograph (e.g. pet portraits, weddings & events, maternity shoots etc.) and build up a portfolio to show potential customers.

You could sell your photography online as stock images too which can be quite lucrative as well as a great time saver!

For an excellent article on this business start-up idea, check out this link.

Writer/ copywriter

Crafting a compelling narrative isn’t just reserved for authors. You will need motivation for this line of business if it’s what you decide on. Networking and marketing are important factors to focus on, in order to get your name out there.

There is much to consider when looking to start a business in copywriting. Things like niches and work options play a big part in this. We’ve found this great link helping people like you start their own copywriting business.

And don’t forget- if you decide to run with one of these business start-up ideas, check out our products for just this here.