Skip to Content

20 Best Small Scale Business ideas in Chennai

Chennai is the capital city of the Indian state of the Tamil Nadu and a metropolitan city. Chennai boasts of one of the longest natural beaches in the world called the Marina Beach that runs along the shoreline of the city. Chennai has emerged as an educational hub of the country as many renowned institutions have opened their branches here.

A city where tradition and modernity co-exist in light of a rich heritage and cultural past, Chennai is fast becoming one of the most sophisticated metropolitan. With its historical features, ancient temples, dance and art forms, Chennai is popularly known as the Gateway to South India.

As it is, the very mixture of the past and the present in Chennai creates an environment that is suitable for entrepreneurial business without the pressure that is experienced by businesses in the western world. Without wasting time, here are a couple of business start-ups and opportunities in Chennai that a savvy entrepreneur would like to get involved with:

20 Best Small Scale Business ideas in Chennai Tamil India

1. Charm Jewellery

With the mix of the old and the new, you can start a business selling charm jewellery to the tourists, especially if you carve a niche for yourself by allowing your customers to create personalized charms for themselves and their loved ones as souvenirs. This is a quaint business idea that is sure to appeal to the earth friendly crowd who love such trinkets.

2. Yoga / Exercise Teacher

If you are fit and can teach people how to live the healthy lifestyle, then you can start a yoga class at any of the available gymnasiums present. On the side, you can make extra money by advertising your personalized classes for individuals who want to train from their homes and become a personal yoga/exercise instructor.

3. Customer Experience Expert

Most companies do not have a clue about their customer experience. You can setup a website of the top 50 retailers, collate findings from customers and staff; then send it off to the companies involved and charge them consultancy fee to inform them how they can improve their weaknesses.

4. Food Delivery Service

You can build a website that allows clients to pick out their preferred meals from different restaurants and have you deliver them. You can charge the restaurant money for the delivery service and also collect a fee from the clients for using your service.

5. Delivery Service

You can branch out from delivering food to running errands for people; from picking up their laundry to walking their pets. In the rural areas, you can branch out by offering your services to households with elderly people living in them. You can start a care/ delivery service focused mainly on the elderly.

6. Car Pooling

As a busy metropolitan city, Chennai has a lot of people trying to use the public system of transportation and often enduring large crowds. A savvy person with knowledge of bystreets and back roads can start a car pool business for residents who live in the same area. You can plan pick up times and drop off times and charge individuals who would rather have you drive them to and fro their different destinations.

7. Research Business

It has never been easier now to access information that you need. Unfortunately, a lot of individuals and businesses do not have the time to sit down and properly do the research they need for their businesses. If you are very methodical, and have a knack for organizing information, you can go into this business.

8. Night Time Delivery Service

With the advent of eBay and other online shops, most people order a lot of stuff to be delivered at home but most times due to global time difference, they often are not at home when the deliveries come in. You can liaise with the delivery companies and their clients to let you set up a depot where the parcels can be delivered during the day, then at night when the consumers are at home, can be delivered to them.

9. Fashion Boutique

Fashion always sells; and indigenous designs mixed with western designs even sell faster. You can open a boutique where you can sell mix and match fashion pieces and accessories for both the locals and the tourists.

10. Book Apps

This would be a business service where your clients can get the first chapter of their favorite novels to read via email; the customers register their preferred genres and authors and every time there is a new release, they get a copy of the first chapter to read. You would make your money from charging publishers a fee to add their books to your collections as well as charging customers to sign up for the service.

11. Eat Out Adviser

A lot of people do not know good restaurants to eat out from. You can charge restaurants a fee for you to advertise their services in high traffic areas; especially where a lot of tourists stay and shop. You can also charge shop owners too for you to promote their services.

12. Speed Dating Service: A little corny, I know. But you’d be amazed at how many people would sign up for a service that allows them to meet people who share the same values and ideals.

13. Organic Food Vendor: In a city that is proudly vegan; most guests to the city have no knowledge of the local markets where they can get their fresh food items. You can offer this service to them.

14. Beauty Clinics/Spa: You can create a space where people can come relax and refresh themselves while catching up with each other.

15. Paint Ball Centre

You can set up a paint ball centre where weekend warriors can come and act out their action movie fantasies while relaxing. As a side business, you can also use the location to rent out for personal and corporate themed parties.

16. Dance School

As a city that is mixed with the traditional and the modern, if you know how to dance the indigenous traditional dances, you can make a fortune teaching dance to locals and tourists who are bitten by the Bollywood fever. As well as being a medium to keep fit, it is a social gathering where people of different races, professions can come and mix together for the love of dance.

17. Night Club: Do you have a love for crowds? Can you run the hottest place to be for the night party people? Then opening a night club that is stylish, hip and has a bar is the business for you.

18. Private Art Gallery: If you have a love and appreciation for arts and crafts, you can display and sell works of both local and international artists in your gallery.

19. Homemade Pizza Café: If you have a flair for creating authentic pizza recipes, you can start off your own pizza delivery chain and deliver homemade pizza and sauces to clients who prefer homemade pizza to the store bought ones.

20. Condiments Shop: A lot of condiments, sauces and food items most expatriates desire are not easily found in Chennai. You can set up a shop that deals exclusively with cooking condiments.