7 Businesses You Can Start At A Low Cost

Business Ideas You Can Start With A Low Cost In 2020

Are there really businesses you can start at a low cost? With today’s digital technology, you can. A start-up business can be established with little to no money and have the potential to scale.

Each of these ideas is very simple to start, and most can be done as a sole proprietorship at first (meaning you don’t have to file any legal documents to get started, though you will want to do that if it starts to take off).

See if there are any ideas below that fit you well. If you find an idea you like, do a bit of research or seek out a guide on how to get started in that area.

1. Event planning services

If you're a highly organized, detail-oriented individual who loves putting parties together, you might have the right personality to launch an event-planning business. Working for weddings, birthday parties and class reunions, event planners make it easy for others to host an exciting party. LinkedIn, cold calling and planning a few pro-bono events will help give you the proper experience. This will also help you build up a solid database of vendors and contacts so you can help your clients orchestrate the event of their dreams.

2. Tutoring

Tutoring is also one of the businesses you can start for less than $100. It used to be more difficult to market your tutoring services, but online platforms make it easier than ever.

If you’re able to help students with academic subjects, sign up with a website like Tutor.com. If you prefer to tutor people on a wider variety of subjects, like chess, sports, cooking, or singing, try Wysant.com.

Tutors commonly charge up to $50 per hour, and although these websites take a healthy cut of that, they provide a no-cost way to start. From there you can build a local clientele and start hiring others to work for your business.

3. Bicycle Repair

In many parts of the country, this business tends to be seasonal, but you can find ways around that. Rent a storage unit and offer to store people's bicycles over the winter after you do a tune-up and any needed repairs on them. If you want to cater to the Lance Armstrong wannabes, you can have business all year round. These road race riders are training through snow, sleet and dark of night. Some of them work on their own bicycles, but many of them don't, so you can get their business all year. And if you keep Saturday shop hours, you can be sure you will have a group of enthusiasts coming by to talk all things cycling.

4. In-home dog care

In a similar vein, if you love caring for animals, consider setting up a doggy daycare business. You can operate during business hours, for folks who need someone to watch their dog while at work, or you can look after dogs for people while they are out of town.

In addition to being low-to-no-cost, the skill set you need is pretty self-explanatory: experience with caring for dogs, and ability to patiently and carefully look after them. If you’d love to start a dog care business but haven’t spent a ton of time around dogs, consider volunteering at an animal shelter first.

5. Graphic Design

While having a formal background in graphic design is absolutely going to be helpful, it’s also relatively easy to learn the foundations of graphic design on your own. An increasingly easy-to-use Adobe Illustrator and even more easily accessible tools like Stencil and Visme are making it so that just about anyone with two opposable thumbs, a bit of creativity, and motivation can earn a side income doing things like designing (and selling) images like these motivational quotes that can be printed onto posters and sold on platforms like Etsy. Or you can find a local startup, small business owner, or photographer who could benefit from some extra help designing or altering images.

6. Home Bakery

The only thing better than the smell of grandma’s chocolate-chip cookie recipe baking in the oven is watching cash roll in as customers order those delectable treats. Home baking is an approachable business idea in that it involves doing what you’re probably doing a lot of, anyway, if you love to bake. You probably have all the equipment and expertise you need to get started.

7. Social media consulting

Larger firms can hire an agency or full-time staff member to run their Facebook and Twitter accounts and blogs, but small businesses often have to take care of their own social media marketing. With so many other responsibilities, business owners may be too busy or overwhelmed to spend time coming up with a great social media strategy. As a consultant, you can help them determine the best tactics, posting schedules, and content for their target audience. As their follower counts grow, so will your business.