6 Business Ideas For A Startup

Admit it. You’re burned out on the corporate world. You’re done with the long daily commute and spending hours of your day in traffic. You’re done with the backstabbing colleagues who steal credit for the work you’ve done. And to add insult to injury, the work is dull as dishwater, and you don’t get any respect or much of a paycheck either.

What should you do? Quit and apply for another job? Chances are it’s a variation of the same thing because of your resume. But, here’s the thing: You are not your resume! Just because your first entry level job gave you certain skills, doesn’t mean you’re condemned to the same line of work for the rest of your working life. 

How do you break away from indentured servitude? That’s easy—do your own thing, become an entrepreneur. Think about it: you can own your own business. You can do things your way, and a little hard work goes a long way because you’re the direct recipient of the fruits of your labor. The good news is that it’s not that hard to make money without working for someone else. And what’s more, you can be your own boss and keep most of the money.

Here, then, are 7 ideas to point you in the right direction.

1. Own a Franchise

If you have some savings or can raise funds, owning a franchise is one of the most profitable ways to hit the ground running. You don’t have to invent the business from scratch and you don’t have to figure out how to manage and market the business if you’ve never acquired any business experience. Here’s a tip: choose something that people already know, like, and use a lot. A UPS franchise is a case in point. Everybody knows what UPS does and people frequently use its services.Naturally, UPS franchise profitability will depend on how hard you work and the volume of your store's sales.

2. Run an Online Store

Another option is to own a virtual store. You can drop-ship physical products. All you need to do to get started is to pick a theme, build a website, source products from suppliers, make arrangements with fulfillment services, and use e-commerce software to manage customer transactions.

3. Revamp Custom Screenprinting

Screen printing shirts or customized apparel is an old business model, but it can be tweaked for a new generation with live screenprinting. When you own a screen printing company, you can offer logo creation, re-creation and multicolor separations. You can offer live screen printing services, featuring live sublimation. And you can do nifty things like plastisol printing, waterbase printing, and high-quality discharge. You will be able to manage large orders if you focus on printing for brands because a large number of employees will be wearing the same type of shirt. 

4. Become a Career Consultant

Many young people fresh out of college have no idea what they want to do with their lives. You’ll be helping them find their first jobs. In addition, you’ll find many people who are burned out on a career that has not worked out for them and they are looking for a new path. You’ll be helping them find their dream jobs. As a consultant, you’ll be making a huge difference in the world, changing people’s lives for the better. Your work will consist of helping people get clear on what they want to do, teach them how to write resumes that get interviews and coach them how to interview well.

5. Leverage Past Business Success

Perhaps you’ve acquired a lot of knowledge from many successful things you’ve tried online from selling your own information products to earning a living as an affiliate to running your own e-commerce store dropshipping products. Perhaps, too, you know how to make a profit on eBay. This is knowledge that other people will gladly pay you to learn. You can advise people on how to take great product pictures, how to price products, and how to write product descriptions. You can help them set up a website, run a blog, promote their ideas on social media, and launch an advertising campaign. Incidentally, when it comes to teaching people how to make money, online marketing is just one of any number of possible directions you can take. You might, for example, be good at selling at flea markets. Think about what you know and see if you can become some type of business consultant.

6. Make Money from Your Art or Craft

Perhaps you’ve spent years learning how to paint portraits, make pottery or weave baskets. With just a little planning, you can turn your hobby into a business on a website like Etsy. However, whatever your craft or the platform you use to sell it from, Jess from Create & Thrive suggests that you don’t compete on price. She says, There will ALWAYS be someone selling something similar to what you make for much less than you. Even other talented crafters and artisans. You need to do the hard work to figure out what price you need to sell your goods for to make a decent living, and that’s the price you need to sell it for. This is hard. It can be confronting. It will probably take you out of your comfort zone.But if you’re serious about making a living from your craft, it’s something you need to do."

There you have it! 6 ways you can change your life for the better if you're serious about wanting to become an entrepreneur.