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Starting a business is a dream for so many people. It can seem daunting, however, without a concrete idea of where to begin. One way to approach starting your small business is to begin at home.
Starting a business at home offers flexibility: It can be as low-lift or labor intensive as you want and easier to fit with your existing work or personal schedule.
This guide will give you 19 home business ideas, along with benefits and considerations before you begin. Consider these ideas a jumping off point to help you zero on the business you’d like to start.
Why start a business at home?
You no longer need to be in an office, warehouse, or physical space to start your business. In Squarespace’s 2024 Entrepreneurship Report, we found that many small businesses start as side gigs born from deep interest.
Starting a small business at home is an excellent low-risk entry into your industry and business of choice, whether you want to sell a product or provide a service. You can determine what you do and when, how often, and if you want to scale.
For example, you may already have a full-time job, but have an interest in woodworking, custom-making charcuterie boards. You can create these boards at home, sell them online, and see if there’s a growing interest in the products, all from home.
There are a number of benefits to starting a business at home:
Turn a hobby or existing skill into something profitable
Adaptable to your schedule and workload
Lower overhead costs without space rentals or staff
Potential tax incentives for your home business
19 business ideas to start at home
When thinking about starting a business at home, first consider what you’re interested in or where your hobbies lie, and if a small business from those ideas makes sense for you.
Below is a broad list to give you an idea of the mix and type of businesses that you can start. Some are product-based, others service-based, with a mix of creative and tech-oriented ideas. Each can begin at a small scale with minimal resources.
1. Sell handmade crafts and goods
If you make homemade crafts, jewelry, accessories, or any goods (e.g. candles, ceramic mugs, etc.), you can monetize your hobby and creations by selling them online. This is a cost-effective way to sell something you already create as a personal hobby and start selling without buying from a wholesaler.
2. Try virtual personal training
Some people prefer working out at home, but crave the expertise and accountability of a personal trainer. Virtual personal training can easily be done at home via live sessions with a group of participants or pre-recorded videos, available for purchase as a download or subscription. It requires your own gym or fitness equipment and a space and camera to film sessions, but you don’t need to leave and go into a physical space to provide clients with the training they desire.
3. Sell original art and photography
You can start your own art or photography business. If you create original works of art, such as illustrations, collages, or paintings, you can sell these online at home or even in general goods shops, shipping them out to be sold in brick and mortar stores. The same goes for photography. With photography, you can sell your images as stock photos or shoot from a home studio and sell packages to clients.
4. Start a dropshipping business
A dropshipping business is one where a business sells and ships items from a third-party supplier. For example, you can sell clothes this way. That means you don’t have to manually track or handle inventory and shipping and returns. With dropshipping, you often don’t pay your supplier for a product until you have an order.
This is an ideal business to start at home because the start-up costs are relatively small, and it can scale as much as you want it to. You don’t need a space to store, sort, and pack orders. It’s an easy foot in the ecommerce door.
5. Offer media editing
Podcasts and visual media are everywhere. Editing these can be a lucrative at-home business option if you have the experience and tools.
Podcast episodes need an audio editor to cut and arrange episodes, while video editors can cut and splice together episodes of television, movies, short films and social media content. If you decide to do this from home, you can determine how much you want to do, making this a casual gig or an option for full-time work.
6. Start freelance writing and editing
Freelance editorial work is an excellent business idea to do at home and another one that can be part- or full-time as needed. This can include a variety of writing types, like journalism, content marketing, copywriting, or content strategy and consulting. It might also include structural or copy editing.
Depending on your strengths and interests, you could work across different industries and topics.
7. Use your expertise in a consulting business
Not every home business idea needs to involve a product. You can provide a service to your customers by way of a consulting business. This is a great choice for people with training or experience in a specific niche, like dietitians, financial experts, or marketing professionals.
With consulting, you can use your experience to help others. This is also a good way to build your professional brand or start exploring a career change. You can provide necessary context, advice, and strategic insight to clients all from the comfort of your own home.
8. Sell print on demand merchandise
Similar to the dropshipping idea, a print on demand business doesn’t require you to hold or maintain any inventory. For example, you can put an original design on a number of different products, such as pillows, t-shirts, and mugs, list them in your online store, and a print on demand provider will print and ship for you every time there’s a purchase.
Like with dropshipping, you won’t pay for the cost of producing an item until you get an order. That means your costs are low and you don’t have to estimate your inventory needs. Since there’s low financial risk and low startup costs, it’s simple to fit your needs. Squarespace offers a Custom Merch integration to sync print on demand items with an online store.
9. Teach online courses, classes, and workshops
If you have a certification, an education background, or expertise in a specific subject, you may want to consider selling workshops or online courses. Tutoring may also be an option.
Some examples could be an online course on baking bread from a bakery, language tutoring and courses, or home DIY workshops by an interior designer. If you don’t want to do live teaching, you can create digital products such as downloadable videos, pre-recorded courses, or PDF workbooks.
This is a great at-home option because it helps you reach a wider audience, especially if the coursework doesn’t require timely attendance. However, you’ll need the space and equipment to film any lessons. Platforms like Squarespace have tools to upload and run your courses from your website.
10. Provide online therapy
Many therapists are taking their work digital in an effort to make their services accessible to a wide range of clients, either through private practice or online therapy platforms.
If you have the space, you can take client therapy sessions from your home. A couple of things to keep in mind here are client confidentiality and the secure digital system you use to meet with them. Make sure the space you use for client sessions is free of distractions and uncluttered, so they feel at ease and focused.
11. Coaching
Coaching, like career, life, or health coaching, is a lot like therapy. These are often discussions between a coach and a client about a specific topic or path, equipping them with materials and your expertise so they can reach their goals.
Depending on the type of coaching you do, you can reach more clients with an online practice, unlike therapists that are licensed in specific states. As a therapist would, make sure the space where you take client meetings is undistracting and has everything you need to offer the best guidance possible.
12. Buy products and resell them
If you’re looking to start a business that doesn’t rely on goods or items that you’ve already made, you can try ordering them and then reselling for a profit. This is an efficient and fairly easy way to start working on a business at home with low overhead costs or time commitment.
There are a few ways you can approach this. You might simply find products you know are going to sell based on trends, buy them in bulk from a wholesaler, and resell the items in your own store. You can also take a niche approach, like hunting for vintage finds or collector’s items and reselling them for a markup. Many business owners do this by tapping into an interest they already have and creating limited-time sales drops to build anticipation.
13. Create content
Another way to start a business at home is to become a content creator. Many content creators get their start by creating videos or posting pictures around an interest or hobby, like offering their expertise on fitness, fashion, or skincare. It can be a way to build community and dive deeper on one of your interests. And you have the potential to earn income via affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and branded posts. Creators with large followings may sell their own merch and create premium content or subscriptions for their followers.
14. Become a social media manager
Whether you have social media management experience or are working on deepening your skillset, you may be able to offer those services from home. If you have prior experience creating brand social media or managing a brand account, create a portfolio and pitch yourself to potential clients.
If you don’t have work samples to show yet, you can try making example content or using your own social media profiles to show what you can do..
15. Try affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make passive income. Affiliate links are unique URLs you post to websites or social media platforms. If someone makes a purchase from that unique URL, you earn a small percentage of the sale.
If you have a following for your website or social media already, affiliate marketing is an ideal small business to run at home. You may need to create content for the links you share, but it only requires access to the internet to get going.
16. Design websites and portfolios
Every business needs a website, even if you’re looking to create a small business at home. If you enjoy making websites and have a skill for visual design, you can offer your services as a website designer.
Website designers often have different specialties, like using custom code to build a site from scratch or further personalize a website template or a complete package of website design and copywriting. Some website designers specialize in creating specific types of websites or specific platforms, like Squarespace.
17. Consider publicity
Like freelance writing and editing, you can offer freelance publicity services from home. If you’re experienced in writing press releases, communications, and memos for businesses, or putting together press kits, you can try doing this at home in a freelance or full-time capacity.
Like other home business ideas, it helps if you have a specialization. Lean into your prior experience to guide what you decide to focus on, like book publicity or the beauty space.
18. Try pet services
Dog-walking, pet grooming, and pet-sitting are all things you can do from your own home—or someone else’s. If your neighbors or friends go on vacation or need to leave town, you can take care of their pets.
This is a great word-of-mouth business and one you can assess on a case-by-case basis. If you’re especially good with certain types of animals or specific pet scenarios, like nail trims, consider adding that to the repertoire of your available services.
19. Interior design consultation
If you have a love of finding focal pieces for home or office spaces, or know exactly which textile and texture go well together, you may want to consider offering interior design consultations. There’s often a level of expertise required for something like this, like a certification, degree, or prior experience and examples. Often, you can determine the level of investment and work you can handle, be it creating mood boards or material selections, and tailor your service offerings accordingly.
How to start a business at home
Before embarking on any business venture, there are a few steps you need to complete and some considerations that ought to be top of mind.
Create a business plan. You’ll need to write a business plan complete with goals, audience, and goals. This doesn’t have to be formal, but helps you create a foundation for your business. Make sure to include competitor research and a budget too.
Define your budget. Set a manageable budget to get started. Do you need funds for raw materials because you’re making something to sell? Or do you need some money set aside for tech and programs to complete your work?
Consider your resources. Do you need staff? Can you do this on your own? What about materials? How much time and effort do you need to set aside to do this work at home? Take a realistic look at your resources—from time to money and everything in-between—from all angles.
Validate your idea. It’s OK to start small. Test out your idea on a small scale with potential customers and people you know before committing major time or budget to your home business. Once you find an idea that clicks, invest in scaling up.
Think about legal and licensing considerations. You’ll need to figure out important administrative elements of your business and structure. For example, will you be a sole proprietor or LLC? Will you separate your personal finances from your business ones? Do you need a special license to sell products and sell out of your home?