There are many reasons why the Indian economy is such a wonderful place to be an entrepreneur. Starting a small business of your own is not a scary and dangerous thing anymore – anybody with the will and passion can do it.
If you’ve been thinking about starting your own business, whether as your primary source of income or as a supplementary income source, we have a list of wonderful startup ideas for you and even some tips and tricks on how to get started.
Table of Contents
What is a Startup?
A startup is any business in the initial stages of operation. This is a crucial stage since business owners undertake the most risk at this time.
The word “startup” today brings to mind a lot of things – flexible work culture, technology-driven innovation, young and fresh minds.
Startups are generally funded by venture capitalists or angel investors. A startup with a value of more than $1 billion is called a unicorn, and India is home to multiple of them!
Best Startup Ideas
Anybody can start up. All you need is an idea worth selling and the desire to make your business work! People from all walks of life can start their own businesses. In this blog, we’ve listed startup ideas for homemakers, college students, retired folks, and even salaried employees looking to explore new avenues.
Startup Ideas for Homemakers
A homemaker looks after the family, the daily upkeep of the house, and other household tasks. While this work is definitely not easy, a lot of homemakers are looking to become more financially independent and put their minds to use!
Being able to start a business from the comfort of your own home is important for homemakers since their primary work through the day is still to take care of their family. So here are a few startup ideas for homemakers!
Home Bakery
If you have an oven and a recipe book, you might be able to start your very own bakery. There are dozens of highly successful bakeries that started out as a small business run out of a homemaker’s kitchen!
The best part about starting your own bakery is that you don’t need to invest much capital in the early stages. You probably already have everything you need right in your kitchen! All you need to do is buy a little more flour and sugar, and you’re good to go!
Tiffin Services
Similar to the Bakery, you could also put your cooking skills to use and start your own tiffin service. This would be useful to college students and employees living away from home who yearn for a home-cooked meal!
The tiffin dabba service, especially in big metropolitan cities has boomed significantly in the past decade. More people are leaving home to study and work, and all these people are homesick! You could bring them a little taste of home, packed in a neat little dabba.
Daycare Center
If you love children, this is the one for you. Start a daycare or creche center, for working parents with children who need taking care of. It would help if you took a quick course in child education and development, but this is not a necessity.
You might need to look into licensing if you want to scale up, but the process is quite straightforward.
Tuition Center
If you have a college degree or expertise in any of the school or college subjects being taught, start a tuition center from home. Students today face immense pressure to perform well in school, and most parents look to coaching outside of the school system to improve grades.
Starting a tuition center from your home can be done even online today – you only need a stable internet connection and a computer device!
Startup Ideas for College Students
The “broke college student” trope is a well-established one. College students are seen as being perpetually financially unstable, thanks to expensive college fees and the rising cost of living in the big cities that these colleges are in.
Starting a business also has another benefit for college students: experience. Starting and running your own business would look great on your resume, and brings invaluable experience to the table.
If you’re a college student looking to start your own business for the money or for the experience, we have some stellar ideas for you.
Resume Building
Designing and writing a resume is both an art and a science – but most importantly, it makes for a very lucrative business model. If you have experience with or are willing to learn designing software or websites like Canva or Adobe consider a resume-building business.
This startup idea is great because you need practically zero capital. Creating a resume can be done entirely online. Also, the demand for good quality resumes will never go down because there will always be people looking out for jobs!
Online Fame
Apps like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Spotify are today being built around creators and influencers – and there is a lot of money and experience to be made!
Whether it is posting a vlog of your day or a tutorial on how to get through a particularly tricky level of your favorite game, you too could go viral on the internet!
But what happens when you do achieve a certain level of fame? You don’t have to achieve PewDiePie levels of fame to start making money and a name for yourself – even with a relatively small viewership, you could start advertising for brands and more!
Upcycle Shop
On Instagram and various other social media, you will find dozens of “thrift stores” that sell upcycled secondhand clothing, books, electronics, and other goods.
All you need is a decent camera and you’re good to go! You could choose to sell things that you already own, or you could buy clothes at wholesale prices for cheap, and resell them in your store.
Online Tutoring
Being a college student is stressful, but it is good for one thing: you have specialized knowledge in your field of study! You can choose to use this knowledge to make money before you even get your degree by starting an online tutoring center.
If you don’t want to teach your field of study, you can still teach school students basic subjects like Mathematics, Social Studies or English, depending on what you know best!
Startup Ideas for Retired Folks
Being retired doesn’t mean being bored all the time. In today’s world, retirees are living quite an active life! If you are retired and want to start a business just to keep yourself occupied, or for the fun of it, here is a list of some solid startup ideas for you!
Financial Advisor
With age comes wisdom! Nobody will want to take financial advice from a 20-something upstart; being able to understand the nuances of handling money only comes with experience, and you have plenty of it.
You could start a consulting firm for individuals and small businesses to help them through a financially rough patch, or even just to help them better deal with money!
Bed & Breakfast
This is a retirement dream for many folks – renting out a part of your home as a B&B to tourists or vacationers! You stand to make good money, especially with apps like AirBNB and OYO, which allow you to market your home to potential guests with ease.
Starting a B&B doesn’t require as much consistent effort and capital as the other ideas – all you need is an extra room or two in your house!
Career Coach
People today are more confused than ever, with all the choices and decisions they have to make in regard to their careers. With all your years of experience, you could advise people wisely on how to make the most out of their careers.
Whether you are dealing with high school students who are not sure what degree to study, college students who are confused about their chosen field of expertise, or working professionals who are no longer satisfied with their jobs – you could help a lot of people!
Handiwork
Being retired means one thing: you have a lot of time on your hands. If you have a penchant for arts and crafts, you could use this time to create something – it could be paintings, pottery, bags, or home decor items!
Startup Ideas for Employees
Here is a list of startup ideas for working professionals, looking to start their own small businesses!
Coding Services
Software is everywhere today. There is not a single industry that hasn’t been revolutionized by software! Because of this, the demand for software coding has been on the rise for the past decade.
If you have knowledge of coding, or if you are willing to learn, you could start a small business that provides coding services to other businesses.
You could help with WordPress Development, App Development and so much more! Businesses pay good amounts of money for these services, since software today is at the base of everything.
Ecommerce
E-commerce means a business that sells goods entirely online. You showcase your products on a website or social media account and ship the goods to your customers on purchase.
The rise of e-commerce businesses has also been supported by these social media companies that want to help small businesses. You could choose to sell anything – clothes, shoes, cosmetics, books, and even artwork!
Website Development
Website Development is quickly becoming a high-demand high-pay skill. If you are willing to learn how to code a website into existence, or already know how to do this, you should definitely consider offering your skills on the market.
Website Development does not always mean creating a website from scratch – a lot of businesses and individuals are looking for people to improve an already existing website!
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing includes content marketing, social media marketing, and so much more – if you choose to open a digital marketing firm, you will be working with businesses to help improve their online presence.
In a world where online advertising could make or break your business, opening your own digital marketing firm guarantees you good money!
Startup Ideas for Everyone
Here are a few startup ideas that work for anybody looking to start their own small business!
Podcasting
Podcasts have become all the rage recently! There are podcasts for practically every single topic under the sun: daily news, education, comedy, storytelling, true crime and so much more.
Podcasters make money mostly through ad revenue, though some podcast platforms might even pay popular podcasters for their work. Apps like Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts provide a platform for budding podcasters to share their thoughts.
A podcast business might not sound like the most typical of startups, but if you play your cards right, you might just end up making good money from your podcast business!
Content and Copy Writing
Starting a Content Writing business requires possibly the least amount of capital of all the business ideas on this list. You can start a content writing firm with just a laptop and a decent internet connection – if you don’t have these just yet, you could even write out of a cybercafe until you earn enough money to buy yourself a laptop!
Content writing is in high demand these days, especially good quality writing. Businesses are realizing the importance of having good quality content associated with their brand!
Fitness Business
People today are more health conscious than ever! Popular fitness brands like CultFit and Peloton have made a lot of money from fitness. If you love working out and exercising, consider starting your own fitness business!
You could offer yoga classes, aerobics, or even organize hikes and treks outdoors. The best part is that you can do all this online!
Startup Tips and Tricks – The 3 S’s
Starting up is not easy – it takes time and effort to get your business off the ground. But when you do it well, the success is well worth the effort. Here are four tricks to help you with your entrepreneurial dreams!
- Start Small! At the initial stages of business, your startup might not be making huge profits or serving a huge number of customers, and that’s okay! It’s important that you don’t lose hope because of your business’s humble beginnings. Remember: all big companies started small!
- (But) Scale Up! Of course, your startup shouldn’t stay small forever. You must aim at eventually scaling up your operations so you are able to reach a wider audience and truly boom your business. Scaling up brings its own set of challenges and trials, but if you’ve reached the scaling up stage, you’ll be able to overcome them all!
- Stay Consistent. Don’t let a few failures deter you from working hard! Business comes with its own ups and downs, and you must be ready for the downs just as much as you anticipate the ups.
- Secure Your Finances! This is the most important rule. Business is all about making money – make sure you’ve secured your startup’s finances right from the start by studying finance, how money works and choosing the right bank for your business.
RazorpayX is the preferred bank for 90% of India’s tech startups, and for good reason!
FAQs
Can I start my own business?
Yes! Anybody with the will and drive for business can absolutely open their own startup. There is plenty of support for enterprising entrepreneurs, from financial assistance to infrastructure.
What are the tricks to a successful startup?
Start small, but remember to stay consistent and scale up and secure your finances early!
What is the most profitable business idea?
There are a lot of startup ideas that have the potential to generate good revenue for the founders. For example: tuition center, digital marketing, home bakery... more are listed in this blog!
Can I start a startup with no money?
All businesses need capital to start, even if the capital is very, very little. Luckily, there is a lot of financial assistance available to founders who might not have financial resources at hand.
