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50 Best Small Business ideas to Start With $1000

Creative Business ideas

Do you want to start a business but you have under $1k? If YES, here are 50 profitable small business ideas to start with $1000 or less.

Asides the expenses involved in starting a business, it can also prove to be a very scary venture to an amateur entrepreneur. What most people fail to understand is that this is not always so. It is possible to make huge profits from a little investment as long as it is a business opportunity with potentials.

There is a variety of potential businesses from which you can select. A lot of them require little funds to start up but will depend largely on what skills you have and your previous knowledge of the business. With an initial investment of $1,000 or lower than that, these are some businesses you can start.

Business ideas to Start With $1000 or Less

1. Resume Service

One of the reasons why a lot of people miss out on good job opportunities is a good resume. Describing why your skills and experience make you best suited to a job can be tough. For this reason, lots of people prefer to hire a resume service to help out.

This idea is suitable for individuals who have had experience in management, administration or working in human resources. In addition to experience, you also have to be very skilled in using words.This business idea is good for making extra income from the comfort of your home.

You can run it as a part-time business, and it does not require any capital as long as you already have a computer in your home.

You can also offer other services in addition to writing. Some of these services can include preparing for an interview, how to handle an interview, how to dress for an interview, and making follow up calls. Your basic marketing strategy will be through word-of-mouth.

After this, getting good reviews and testimonials from your clients will promote your business. You can also help in building LinkedIn profiles and writing cover letters in addition to writing resumes. These additional services are essential in making your resume service unique when compared to others. This uniqueness helps to reduce the competition significantly.

2. Personal Shopper

Many people are usually occupied with a lot of things leaving little or no time for them to go shopping. If you are looking to make a lot of money and you enjoy shopping, you can start a business by assisting people in doing their shopping.

You should look to market your services to those who don’t like going shopping and those who don’t have the time to go shopping.

Also, on special occasions like weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and child births, some people prefer to hire people to choose gifts for such special occasions. Your services may also be useful in picking collectibles, antiques, artworks and office décor for interior designers and collectors.

You can also choose to provide services to people who can’t move around very quickly like seniors. They will need you to help in getting personal products, clothing, and groceries. Big corporations also pay personal shoppers to obtain gift items to give to their business partners, executives, customers, and investors.

Making profits as a personal shopper is quite easy and requires no experience. All you need is creative mind, good taste, an outgoing and friendly personality. This will help you communicate and spread your business to people from various walks of life.

3. Home based Alteration Service

Offering services where you make alterations to fabric and garments can help bring in lots of profits for you. What makes this idea great is that you can work from home. If you have a sewing machine and excellent sewing skills, this is a great business to invest in.

There are lots of people who require alteration services you can work for. Your customer base can cover bridal boutiques, consignment clothing shops, dry cleaners, drapery studios, fashion retailers and costume shops. You can also make businesses that offer clothing rentals to your customers.

As a simple way to market your services during the initial stages, you should begin by making phone calls to businesses you feel will need your services. You can offer to pick up and deliver the garments for free within a short time.

You should also provide high-quality work at reasonable prices. If your prices are quite affordable, your clients will be able to capitalize on this by offering it free to their customers. This will provide regular jobs for you. You should invest your capital on a dependable means of transportation and sewing equipment.

4. Valet Parking Service

Valet Parking Business

A valet parking service can be offered at special events. To start this business, you will need to be friendly, have a driver’s license and also a means to get a third-party liability insurance. This is a great business because it can be done part-time and it requires little cash investment.

With a crew comprising of two or three people, you can make as much as $70 per hour. When added to tips which you receive, this can be a very profitable part-time business. To make your business stand out, you should make uniforms for members of your crew.

These uniforms should have the name of your business and your slogan to leave a positive impression on the guests. This helps boost your business through referrals from guests. You should market your services to wedding planners, charity groups, and corporations that host events and conventions.

5. Children’s Party Service

According to a report by The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, on the average, $370 is generated in revenue for hosting a birthday party for children. This report shows that parents are willing to spend a lot on a birthday party for their kids.

To start a business in this line, you will need to be a great party planner and also enjoys being around children. There are different ways you can go about this business.

You can choose to host parties at a reserved park or space you have rented and then send the address to your clients and their guests to show up. You can also choose to be mobile whereby you go to the location of your customer. Your service rates will usually depend on different factors.

These factors include the kind of games, the menu and also if you are hosting a special theme party. The tasks that will be required include making plans for the party, making arrangements for food and drinks, decorating the venue and planning the different games the children can enjoy.

6. Cake and Cupcake Bakery

Bakery Business

Some people enjoy baking as a hobby. If you are one of such people, then you can easily turn your hobby into a means of making money. You can start by baking from your kitchen and sending out samples as a means of marketing.

You can also communicate with event coordinators, party planners, bridal shops and companies that offer catering services to enlighten them on your specialty. With little initial capital, you can bake, decorate and sell cakes for birthdays, anniversaries and weddings.

You can market your business on social media platforms and also set up a website where you can upload pictures. If you want to go larger, a bigger kitchen which will be suitable for commercial purposes will be needed. This can be gotten by renting a space that would provide room for baking and selling wholesale.

This business is quite profitable if you choose to sell as retail. This is because the price at which you sell is quite high when compared to the cost of the ingredients used in making the cake.

7. Personal Chef

Becoming a personal chef involves making gourmet meals at special events like birthdays, corporate luncheons and house parties. As long as there is a kitchen where you are needed, you can provide your services. With excellent cooking skills, you can become a personal chef for hire while moving around.

For events where the budget does not cover full-scale catering services, the services of a personal chef have emerged as a better alternative. With a small initial investment to start-up and the choice of making it a full-time or part-time business gives this business idea more advantage over a full catering service.

With your services on a small scale, you can easily manage the business from your home. A lot of your customers will be those organizing a small gathering where full catering services are not necessary.

You can market your business by talking to people. There are also business associations you can join. Community social clubs are also a good way to network, and they also help in promoting your business by telling others about your menu and the business.

Based on the food you required to prepare, you can vary your rates. You can also form partnerships with events coordinators and party planners to get regular business.

8. Direct sales representative

Companies such as Mary Kay and Avon would need you to give out information about their products to people around you as a sales rep. To become a sales rep, you will need a starter kit. With about $100, you will get everything you require to start. You can choose to sell the products online, or you can also host a sales party where you can display products to sell.

9. Consulting

To become a consultant, the primary requirement is to have the experience as well as vast knowledge on a subject or a particular area. The initial expenses usually involved in starting a consulting agency are incurred during marketing. This can include putting up adverts, creating business cards or making a website.

10. Senior home companion

A senior citizen is usually used to refer to people who are above 70 years of age. Such people are usually alone and require attention. You can provide company for such people for a certain amount of time per week. You can also advise people on how they can care for their family members.

11. Tutor

Becoming a tutor is very easy. Most students already have the study material needed, making it very cheap to start a tutoring business since you won’t need to buy a lot of materials. The only requirement is a sound knowledge on a particular subject. You can offer your services to college students as well as high school students.

12. Freelancing

With various websites such as Upwork, it is easy to get freelance jobs which can provide you with profits. To become a freelancer, you will need a good laptop, connection to the internet and a skill either as a web developer or a writer.

13. Vlog with YouTube

Making and posting videos on YouTube is very easy now. With the camera on your phone, your tablet or your laptop, you can make videos anywhere and upload them to YouTube. There are different areas you can cover in your videos. You can choose to make reviews of movies, games, or general knowledge you know people will need. With enough subscribers, you can start getting ads to make profits.

14. Handyman

Being a handyman is another area where there is a lot of demand for services. If you are skilled at working with your hands, this is a good business to start. You can choose to repair broken pipes, making repairs of electrical equipment in the home or replacing broken outlets for electricity.

15. Menu planning

Menu planning is advisable for anyone who enjoys work which revolves around food. Menu planning involves drawing out a meal schedule for people who can’t make the right decisions on what to eat. You don’t need to prepare any meal, so it doesn’t require any additional resource making it a low-cost business to start up.

  1. Write books-: If you enjoy writing, you can write cookbooks, short novels, and instructional manuals. Publishing your books can cost little if you take advantage of the book publishing field provided by Apple and Amazon.
  1. Flooring business-: If you have knowledge of how to install floors, you can offer your services to others. This is a profitable business since you are only interested in flooring the area. There is no extra cost as materials will be provided.
  1. Parking lot striping

Parking Lot Striping Business

You can start making new stripes for parking lots with a spray paint and a straight edge tool. With these basic tools, you can save up money to get better equipment which you can use.

  1. Business planning

Business planning involves making a plan for a new business. If you have had success running a similar business, new start-ups usually pay to consult a more experienced individual to offer guidance and assistance through the initial stage. This is a good way to make money from your experience and knowledge.

  1. Green cleaning service

With more people becoming enlightened on the need for environmentally friendly cleaning alternatives, you can tap into this by offering green cleaning services. Making use of natural and eco-friendly products, you will be able to differ from other regular cleaning services.

  1. Grocery delivery

Delivery services for grocery are very popular among a lot of grocery stores. As popular as it is, there are some that do not provide this services. You can choose to make a trip to the Grocery Store for people and deliver the groceries to their home for a fixed rate.

  1. Window cleaning-: Window cleaning can prove to be one of the most detested household chores. With a little investment, you can begin a window cleaning business. Finding people who would pay to have their windows cleaned can be very easy also.
  1. Programming

Programming can be very lucrative since there are lots of different languages you can learn. You can choose to learn one or more of these programming languages and then provide your services to others. Some languages you can learn are Ruby, Java, C+, etc.

  1. Secretarial services

If you are skilled in proofreading, typing and transcribing materials, you can provide you services to individuals. With a good laptop or a computer and a printer in case you need to make hard copies of materials, you can start making profits. Small businesses also hire such services which make it a sound investment.

  1. Catering-: Starting a catering business can be very easy since you can choose to cook from the comfort of your home. This is advised if you don’t have enough capital to rent space for a restaurant and you have good knowledge of how to cook.
  1. Creating information products

Writing an eBook or making instructional videos can be a good way to make profits off your knowledge about certain things and experience in some areas. With capital to buy a domain name and host a website, you can start up a very lucrative business.

  1. Domain name buying

Buying a domain name is usually very cheap when it has no owner. Selling these domain names can provide you with lots of profit. A business that needs a domain name that belongs to you will usually pay a lot of money to get it from you.

  1. Pet grooming

Like humans, pets also need to be properly groomed. They need to have a bath, get a haircut and have their nails cut also. You can start a pet grooming business with a little or no investment. To someone who loves pets and has the skills to perform these grooming tasks, this is an excellent way to make money doing something you love.

  1. Tax preparation

A lot of people are not familiar with some of the latest tax regulations and will usually have difficulties when it comes to calculating taxes. If you are good at doing calculations and you keep up to date with new tax laws, you can turn this into a business. People are always willing to pay for someone with this skills to assist them when the tax season comes.

  1. Project management

Being a project manager, it is easy to get hired by small businesses from time to time. This is because most small businesses usually don’t have project managers. To prevent projects from failing, they are always ready to outsource some duties to a project manager.

  1. Holiday decorator

As much as everyone wishes to decorate their homes and offices, not everyone has the skill and time to perform this task. For these reasons, they usually hire people to decorate for them. With a little capital and excellent decorating skills, you can make profits from this business.

  1. Tour guide

Tour Guide Business

If you are very familiar with everything about the area you stay in, you can use this knowledge to make some money. Tourists will usually need someone to guide them around and show them interesting spots. You can do this for a certain amount of money.

  1. Affiliate marketing

Running a blog with lots of subscribers is essential to becoming a successful affiliate marketer. All you need to do is post a special link unique to you on your blog. This link redirects people to a purchase site for a product. You get a commission based on how many purchases are made through your link.

  1. Mobile repair

In a mobile repair service, instead of having to wait for a customer to come to you, you go to the customer. With the right skill and a proper means of transportation, you can start up your business. Services you can offer can include furniture repairs, computer repairs, etc.

  1. Computer repair and maintenance provider

There are lots of computer owners today who don’t have the technical know-how to perform some basic tasks like troubleshooting. In case their computers need to be updated, or it crashes, they will require the services of an expert to fix it.

  1. Blogging

Creating a blog is quite easy and usually depends on what topic you wish to address on your blog. Choose a topic you are very knowledgeable on to build up your blog. As the blog grows and you start getting regular visitors, you can decide to become an affiliate, charging for advert space or for subscription.

  1. Event or party planner

Birthdays, weddings and similar events usually require someone to take care of making plans for how the venue will be arranged, food for the guests, etc. For someone that enjoys planning, this is a business that can lead to lots of profit.

  1. Social-media consultant-: A social-media consultant is someone who helps individuals as well as businesses in maintaining their social media presence. Some businesses are willing to pay as much as $400 per month to hire people who provide such services.
  1. Managing web design

Learning how to develop a website can be very easy with lots of websites that teach this for free. You can offer this skill to businesses that need someone to manage and maintain their websites. You can also hire someone to do this if you are not well skilled. In both cases, you need to make your rates cheaper than it would be if your clients were to hire a firm that specializes in managing websites.

  1. Virtual assistant

If you wish to work from home and are familiar with the tasks of a personal assistant, then you can become a virtual assistant. Your primary job will be to respond to emails, keep schedules and respond to phone calls. You may also help in marketing the services your clients offer via phone or on the internet.

  1. House sitter/pet sitter

This business is quite easy to start-up. You can market your business by talking to friends, neighbors, and friends. If anyone wants to travel on holiday or for a business trip out of town and needs someone to look after their home or pet, you can offer your service. This business does not require any investment when starting up.

  1. Bookkeeper

The services of a bookkeeper are important to individuals as well as businesses. They help in arranging files and keeping them tidy and neat. A lot of people usually don’t have time to perform these tasks, so they hire people to do it for them.

  1. Auto repair/detailing

Starting an auto repair shop is best if you have a garage, but you can also start without one. With the skills, knowledge and the tools required, you can start a mobile auto repair service if you don’t have enough capital to rent a garage space.

Another idea is to start a car detailing service. This can be an alternative to auto repairs if you don’t have the essential skills. Having the desire to work with cars is what is most important.

  1. Snow removal

This business can be done as a part-time business. This is because it is largely dependent on the season. Most people will pay someone to work on their driveway and walkways anytime it snows. All you need is a shovel, and also a snowplow can make things easier.

  1. Personal concierge-: Being a personal concierge means you assist someone in doing most of the things they need to do but do not have the time. You take care of stuff like making travel arrangements, event planning, grocery shopping, etc.
  1. Painting addresses on curbs

Most businesses and individuals usually like the idea of painting their address on their curb. To get this done, they are willing to pay someone to do it. To start-up, you will need to get an address kit, spray paints and also market your services.

  1. Life coach or mentor

Being a coach or mentor, you guide people through personal projects. You can offer guidance for projects like starting a business, building a good relationship and losing weight. You can charge per hour, and your rates can increase the more experienced you become.

  1. Flipping websites

Flipping a website means you build a website, gather a following or broad audience, and then sell it for profits. To create the website, you need basic web designing skills, or you can hire a freelancer. When you decide to sell the site, you can use sites like Flippa to meet buyers.

  1. Dropshipping

In Drop shipping, you can sell products without actually having an inventory of the products. All that is needed is to sell the product on behalf of the supplier. The supplier then handles the shipping of the product to the client. This business does not require a lot of capital, just a website where people can purchase the items.

50. Dog walker

To become a dog walker, you should be great at handling dogs. You can get a dog handling certification by making use of online resources. To start your dog walking business, you will need some leashes. To market your services, you can speak to your neighbors, friends, and also distribute flyers around the neighborhood.