I want to start a business but what business to start?
There are many reasons why you are considering starting a business right now, whether is to achieve financial independence, to have a more challenging life, or to be your own boss and stop working for others. To me, having a business is a no-brainer. Although there are many ways you can achieve financial freedom, having a business is the most fun way to do it. Starting a business is challenging and it carries risks, particularly concerning legal matters, but that should not dissuade you from starting one. While the current economy may not be optimal for starting a business, I believe opportunities persist even in the most challenging situations. There is no ‘perfect’ time to start a business, the best time to start is always now.
Before you start a business, take the time to assess your strengths and areas of expertise. Consider what you are good at, what you are passionate about, and the topics that interest you. Whether you enjoy engaging with people, know how to code, have a passion for cars, or are skilled in persuasion. Start by analyzing your strengths and maximizing them. It will give you a significant advantage in launching and succeeding in your business. However, if you are unsure about your strengths and lack profound knowledge in any specific areas like me, here are some business ideas for you. Moreover, you can also start learning how to be observant and pay attention to what is happening around you, look for unsolved problems and think about how to provide a solution. This is how many millionaires and billionaires are made.
Below are the 8 business ideas for 2024, listed in no particular order.
1. E-commerce – Dropshipping
A lucrative business to consider starting is dropshipping. Dropshipping allows you to test products without holding any inventory. The supplier ships products directly to your customers. It is the side hustle that I am currently doing. As I have mentioned in the other posts, I have experimented with it for over a year inconsistently and have made some sales, but it comes with its challenges. Learning every aspect of a business, from product and market research, finding suppliers, video filming and editing, marketing, building websites, running paid ads, to hiring employees, can be tough, with many skills I have yet to master and some completely unexplored. However, dropshipping is highly scalable and it offers a great opportunity to master numerous skills. Many millionaires began their journey with dropshipping before transitioning into a personal brand, like Davie Fogarty, the founder of Oddie – a wearable blanket.
In addition to traditional dropshipping of physical products, there’s a growing trend in dropshipping digital products. It eliminates concerns about delivery and supplier issues. Note that the goal of dropshipping is to transition into a sustainable personal brand, as competitors can undermine your sales by selling the same products.
If you want to start a business and have no idea where to begin, I would honestly recommend dropshipping because you can learn so much from this and perhaps find what you want to do along the way.
For dropshipping, I strongly recommend Shopify which is the platform I am using. It is beginner-friendly, allowing you to build websites, set up payments, and integrate your store with suppliers effortlessly. While there are other options such as BigCommerce and WooCommerce. I find Shopify the best due to its $1/month for 3 months plan. This allows me to experiment with different products without significant without having to be fully invested until it becomes profitable. If you are interested in trying dropshiping, you can use my link below to sign up for Shopify.
https://celestialmillionaire.com/shopify
(Obviously, this is the longest section because it’s the only business I’m currently involved in and have experience with. However, I am not suggesting it’s the best business to start in 2024.)
2. E-commerce – Print-on-demand
Print-on-demand is similar to dropshipping where you don’t need to hold an inventory to sell your product. However, it demands a more creative approach as you are selling customized items such as apparel, mugs, phone cases, etc. If you are an artistic person who has a unique taste and style, you can have your design printed on items by a third-party provider that handles the printing and shipping for you. You can test your ideas and designs this way without having to put a lot of capital in case your ideas don’t work out. It is an alternative business you can start apart from dropshipping.
3. Selling handmade products
The difference in selling your handmade product is the lack of need to source a product. This is for people with hands-on skills, such as making necklaces, bracelets, or home decorations. The advantage here is less competition since the product is exclusive to you. Additionally, you can customize them to tailor to your customer’s needs, making your product even more unique.
Many people have made a fortune this way, however, there is a limitation. It is less scalable since you are still trading your time for money, and you only have 24 hours in a day. You can potentially hire someone to help you with the business but that means you have to train them to do what you are doing, and there is no guarantee they will be as good as you are.
4. Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA)
When thinking about what business to start at first, SMMA was my other option. It is also a very promising business that can generate 6-7 figures a year as seen in the case of several YouTubers such as Brian Jung, and Sebastian Ghiorghiu. SMMA offers a diverse array of services, including content creation, assisting influencers in managing and optimizing their social media accounts, and helping companies run and optimize their ads. Pick an area you wish to specialize in, find your niche, find your prospects, and provide values for them. The good thing about this business is you have a high profit margin compared to selling physical products because there is no product cost. However, it is competitive and it might not be the best option for those introverts who are afraid of communicating with clients every day. However, this should not stop you since learning how to communicate with people is an essential skill in every business.
5. AI Startup
In the wake of the ChatGPT explosion last year, the incredible capabilities of AI have captivated the imagination of many. What AI can do is very impressive and the potential of building an AI startup is vast. It involves identifying a problem and then providing a solution that can be solved by AI. Gather data and train your AI until it does what you want it to do.
A friend of mine working in IT, successfully created a simple AI software for summarizing and organizing data. According to him, basic coding was sufficient to build a project like that. However, I believe that the level of difficulty escalates if you wish to tackle a more complex problem. This will demand a set of skills and probably a team to be successful in this industry.
6. Becoming an influencer/YouTuber
In the current era, becoming an Instagram influencer, TikToker or YouTuber can be an extremely profitable career. The key lies in identifying a topic you are passionate about or possess extensive knowledge in, whether it’s skincare, beauty, fashion, finance, food, cooking, or gaming. Posting content regularly content that provides value to your audience is the foundation for building a following.
Once you have enough followers and have enough trust from your loyal followers you can start promoting products that give you commissions. I have a friend who is an Instagram skincare influencer with over 100k followers which is doing more than fine right now. I was so surprised when she told me she was earning more than the average income while still studying full-time at Uni. (She was reluctant at first to tell me how much she was making LOL, all she said was “Not much”.)
Becoming a YouTuber is another viable option, especially for those comfortable with appearing on camera. YouTube pays you for the views you have on your videos and it can be a significant amount if you have a crazy number of views. Furthermore, the views can accumulate, which means you only have to pay once and YouTube will continue to pay you even after years.
Once you build enough trust and an audience, you can do the same thing and promote your or other people’s products and get affiliate commissions. You probably know Jimmy Donaldson, if not you might know him as Mr Beast, a very successful Youtuber who started up by just posting YouTube videos. After he rose to fame and had enough audience, making money cannot be easier. He also started his brands, Feastables and Beast Burgers, and was offered $1 Billion for his YouTube channel, which he turned down (Read this post about the $1 billion deal he declined).
So before you say no to being a public figure, think about how much money it can make you.
7. Blogging
If you are someone who enjoys writing or again, has a passion for a particular topic, you can start a blog and share your knowledge with people. It can be about literally anything, cooking, traveling, finance, investing and it can be a specific niche, such as a cooking blog targeted to busy moms. What is better about blogging is that apart from including affiliate marketing you can also run ads on your website. You don’t have to rely on people buying the product you recommend but get paid by Cost Per Mille (CPM) – per 1000 impressions made, or Cost Per Click(CPC) – someone clicking the link. It is a very scalable business model in which you can earn up to 6 or even 7 figures.
For web hosting the one I am using right now is Hostinger. It has a reasonable price and you get everything you need to start your blog. Sign up here.
8. Selling Online Course
Selling online courses is one of the most common businesses you can see on social media right now. If you have a particular skill that you are an expert in you have had success in a particular field, you can monetize the skill and start selling online courses. For instance, If you know how to build websites, if you have success in dropshipping or SMMA, you can start by giving free basic courses to your audience and then persuade them to sign up for your courses. You can hire experts or people to do most of the work for you, make videos for your students to follow, and give additional feedback and advice through meetings. You can get a huge reward by dedicating a small amount of your time, by becoming a mentor.
These are only the business ideas I would consider starting but you can start a business in any industry. The next business you can start can be a problem that your friends or family complain about every day. It could be the products you use every day such as a bottle, a hairdryer, or even a coat hanger (A tiktok link to a simple but genius innovation). It does not have to be a completely new idea or product, it can be a small tweak or a slight improvement to an existing product. Be observant and keep your options open, be sensitive about the things happening around you and to problems and think about how you can provide a solution.
It can be quite daunting at first to start a business, it can be overwhelming and you might be disorientated and not sure what to do. You are likely to be reluctant to start and worry about insignificant things. Stop thinking too much, and just do it. Take a step at a time, don’t think about the next 5 or 6 steps ahead if you are overwhelmed or confused. JUST FOCUS ON YOUR NEXT STEP. You might not know where it is going, or what you have to do later down the road but they don’t matter now.
When I started dropshipping, I didn’t know how to build a website, didn’t know how to find a product, didn’t know what to do at first and it was so overwhelming. There was so much to learn and just thinking about it made me want to give up. But I came across probably a YouTuber, or a quote in a book saying that if you don’t know what to do, JUST FOCUS ON YOUR NEXT STEP, and if you are afraid to start, just take a small step at a time. Break it into tiny small steps, you will feel more confident and more comfortable as you complete these small accomplishments and it will become clearer to you as to what to do after you take each step. It is like going through a twilight forest full of mist where you cannot see very far in the distance. But as you take a step and walk forward, the view becomes clearer and clearer. If you want to try dropshipping, register an email if you don’t have one, next, sign up for Shopify using that email, subsequently, scroll on Tiktok to look for a product, come up with a name, and so on. Don’t start when you feel like you are ready or launch your store when everything is perfect, do it and learn it on the way.
Finally, here are some websites where you can get some data, reports and gain some ideas on what market or industry that are expected to grow in the next few years, which I hope can give you some ideas on where to start. Hopefully, this post has been beneficial to you, feel free to email me if you have any questions and I will see you in the next post.
https://www.ibisworld.com/global/industry-trends/fastest-growing-industries/
https://www.statista.com/studies-and-reports/
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