There are so many incredible business opportunities to try in 2024. Of course, success in business always comes from laser focus. So choose one wisely. That said, there’s potential for success with every opportunity we’ve included on this list. So, let’s start brainstorming some business opportunities together to help you find the perfect fit.
Start selling online now with Shopify
Start your free trialBusiness Opportunities From Home
1. Dropshipping
One of the best business opportunities from home is dropshipping. Dropshipping has a low barrier of entry, making it a fantastic opportunity for beginners looking to start their first business. In case you don’t know, dropshipping is when a seller sells a manufacturer’s products, but it’s the manufacturer who creates, packages, and ships the products to the customer. Thus, making it a hands-off and inventory-free business. You can sell products in an endless range of niches such as fashion, beauty, pets, home, automotive, and so much more. You can even try one-product store ideas and dropship just a single item. If you’re looking to start an online business, this is one of the most popular business opportunities you can capitalize on today.
→ Click Here to Launch Your Online Business with Shopify
2. Consulting
Consulting is one of the most common business opportunities. Many specialists start consulting to help a broader range of people with a specific skill. For example, you might be a Facebook Ads expert who educates businesses on how to run effective Facebook Ads. Or you might be a beauty consultant who takes customers shopping to buy the right products for their skin tone. As an expert, you share your expertise with others to help them succeed too. So if you’re looking for some examples of business opportunities from home, think about what skills you excel in. Then, focus on finding people who need help with those.
3. Website Flipping
Have you ever visited a website and thought to yourself, “This has so much potential for growth?” Well, you might be able to buy that site, grow it, and then sell it for a profit. That’s called website flipping. You can look for underperforming websites with good potential via manual research or sign up to platforms like Exchange for the purpose. After buying the site, you can improve its earning potential via marketing, SEO, and other tactics. Once the site starts generating more revenue than what it was making when you initially purchased it, you can sell it for a profit. With sites available for as low as $100, this can be a life-changing business opportunity for people with limited capital.
4. Freelancing
Another business opportunity to consider is freelancing. Instead of consulting where you share your knowledge, in freelancing, you practice your skill for other businesses. If you’re looking for a more hands-off business, you can hire freelancers and delegate the projects to them, so your business scales better. Freelancing is an ideal business opportunity to pursue from home as it often entails remote work such as writing, graphic design, photography, and so forth. For example, a company might hire a team of freelance makeup artists and outsource work for various weddings, photoshoots, and corporate events.
5. Print on Demand
Just as dropshipping is popular, print on demand proves to be a worthwhile opportunity in itself. With print on demand, you design your products, and a manufacturer prints, packages, and ships products to customers for you on your behalf. The creative freedom and hands-off shipping make it one of the best business opportunities in the ecommerce space. The critical difference between print on demand and dropshipping is that with print on demand, you’re selling one of a kind products that nobody else is selling. The challenge is that you might not know what will sell well because you have no one to compare to. But the rewards that you’ll be the only seller make it a business opportunity to jump on.
Small Business Opportunities
6. Blogging
One of the best small business opportunities is blogging. Blogging is popular because it gives you the opportunity to create many potential sources of income. You could make money from affiliate marketing, ads, information products, physical products, influencer marketing, sponsorships, and gated premium content. It’s even possible to earn passive income by publishing articles upfront and placing ads within the content so that you earn whenever a reader clicks on an advertisement. With so many potential income sources, bloggers focus on creating and marketing their content to build their website traffic. They promote via search engine optimization (SEO) and social media to gain new website visitors.
7. Affiliate Marketing
Small business opportunities, like affiliate marketing, are pretty common. You can become an affiliate of many top brands. An affiliate marketer earns a commission on every sale he brings into a brand. Some brands like Amazon pay a small percentage of sales for every product an affiliate brings in. Other brands like Shopify pay up to $58 for every customer an affiliate brings in. You can build a blog, create posts on social media, or run ads with your affiliate link to generate sales for the brand you’re promoting.
8. App Creation
One of the most popular small business opportunities involves creating apps. You can build entertaining apps, such as addictive games or apps that are useful, such as a to-do list. You’ll need to know programming skills for either iOS or Android to become successful in this field. Of course, you can always outsource your app creation to a developer through a freelance website, but this can cost you tens of thousands of dollars upfront for a unique app. A better alternative is to take online app development courses and learn how to build a mobile app from scratch. To promote your app, you can do media outreach, blogging, and backlink mentions on popular articles.
9. Online Course Creation
Online learning is one of the most significant business opportunities for the coming years. More people are taking to the internet to learn online. The e-learning market is expected to grow to $325 billion by 2025. You can create online courses in various niches. Whether you create the online courses yourself, hire people to create the courses for you, or let course creators use your platform, you can earn money doing this. It’s a worthwhile opportunity right now because it’s already popular and expected to continue growing.
10. Customer Support
Many companies out there require help in assisting their customers. So why not create a business by opening your own customer support firm? You can offer to handle queries on behalf of a company via chat, email, and phone. Using help desk software will allow you to manage customer interactions from one central location. If a lot of companies show interest in your services, you can hire remote chat specialists to expand your resources. As your business scales, it might even be possible to set up a remote-friendly customer support business where your staff members work from their homes.
New Business Opportunities
11. Cyber Security (Ethical Hacker)
With most of the world being online, we see a rise in cybercrime. That makes cybersecurity one of the most important business opportunities to consider. The industry is growing more prominent, and it solves one of the biggest online challenges people have today. There’s also ethical hacking which is slightly different but can help prevent cyberattacks or major hacks for big brands. Those who invest in starting a cybersecurity business will likely realize it’s a prominent business opportunity.
12. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is one of the new business opportunities that still hasn’t made waves yet. Some fear that robots will take over the world. But artificial intelligence will be part of our society in some form or another. And who knows, maybe humans will become half robotic in some way. The businesses that explore artificial intelligence will be part of one of the future’s biggest industries. Some are hard at work already, but we’ve yet to see what will be made of artificial intelligence, making this an exciting business opportunity to explore.
13. Cryptocurrency Investor
While cryptocurrency has already proven to be one of the most popular business opportunities, it’s still not at its peak. We’re unsure of how cryptocurrency will continue to evolve and grow. However, cryptocurrency investors may end up winning big if more companies and banks accept cryptocurrency as payment. Of course, there are always risks involved, and you may lose more than anticipated. But all great business opportunities have risks. Just be sure to do your homework first.
14. Automation
One of the new business opportunities you can jump on is automation. We’ve seen automation-focused businesses grow substantially. Whether you’re automating retargeting ads or a repetitive task, the automation tools created can help save people time and money. And that’s why people end up becoming customers. It solves a significant problem. And those are the best business opportunities to go after.
15. 3D Printing
3D printing is another exciting technology that is generating business opportunities left and right. You can buy a few 3D printers (new or second hand, depending on your budget) and offer various services to different companies. One popular service is developing prototypes, where you print a product model so that the client can just test the waters with its features. You can attract small businesses by providing such services since they need to test product quality while keeping costs low. Contrary to popular belief, the price of 3D printers has come down considerably due to an increase in supply from Chinese manufacturers.
List of Business Opportunities
16. Real Estate Investing
Real estate can be tricky as housing prices don’t always go up. We’ve also seen a major real estate market crash happen in our lifetime. However, the money you make from owning several rental properties can be enough to help you live a comfortable life. This business opportunity is too good to pass up. As the properties get paid off by the renters, you can choose to sell the properties if the value has gone up. To save on taxes, you can also reinvest the money earned into buying a bigger property such as a duplex or condo.
17. Dog Walking Business
The pet industry is one of the biggest industries. With so many people owning dogs, we’ve seen the rise in dog walking businesses. Dog walking is a business opportunity that works well in major cities. You can choose to walk packs of five or fewer dogs of the same size. As dog owners become more informed about the separation anxiety their pets experience, they turn to dog walking services to help their dogs socialize and get some fresh air. This business opportunity has already proven to be popular, so it’s a worthwhile one to start if you’re passionate about dogs. Sites like Rover and BarklyPets are great for landing your first few clients.
18. Housekeeping Business
In major cities, people continuously search for housekeepers and cleaners to keep their home tidy while they’re at work. Housekeeping poses a potential business opportunity for a savvy marketer. If you know how to find potential customers, you can hire cleaners to clean those customers’ homes. You’ll pay the cleaners an hourly fee. However, you can earn a sizable income from the rate you charge your customers. And at scale, the dollars add up.
19. Tutoring Business
Business opportunities are common in the education space. So many people want to learn. That’s why tutoring businesses are still popular. If your goal is to create a job for yourself, you can be the tutor. However, if you’re looking to own the business, you can hire teachers to educate younger students. You’ll simply need to find customers for online teaching. The more customers you have, the bigger your business will grow. You can rent out office space for a couple of hours in the evening instead of investing in your own office space to cut costs. This can help you build a sustainable business.
20. Influencer Services
One of the most modern business opportunities involves influencer marketing. If you have a massive social media following, you can partner with other businesses to promote their products to your audience. When starting out, you might partner with affiliate programs to see how well your audience grows. And as your audience scales, more business opportunities come your way. You can focus on building various accounts. Maybe one where you build yourself or a pet as an influencer. Then perhaps another where you build fan pages for a specific topic or niche.
21. Photography Business
Do you always carry your camera with you, and enjoy taking candid pictures? Yes? Then a photography business might be a perfect option for you. To succeed in this field, make sure to focus on a niche that has good demand. Wedding photography is popular because many grooms and brides want to capture the events and moments on their big day. But even if you’re not interested in weddings, there’s no shortage of areas to specialize in. Want to gain more attention for your work? You can contribute to the Brust library, a stock image website helping entrepreneurs find images to use for their business.
Business Opportunities Near Me
22. Uber or Lyft Driver
If you’re looking for local business opportunities, you can become an Uber or Lyft driver. Keep in mind that this business opportunity is popular right now. But with the expectation that there will be self-driving cars in the future, this business opportunity may be short-lived. But if you love capitalizing on business opportunities fast, you can start a driving service using Uber or Lyft to find clients. This is particularly helpful for limo drivers who are looking to earn more income beyond what they can earn from a limousine company.
23. Food Delivery
If you’re continually Googling ‘business opportunities near me,’ you might’ve noticed that food delivery services are growing quite big. You can choose to drive, bike, or walk for your food delivery business. And you don’t necessarily be the person delivering food to capitalize on this business opportunity. You can also own the business by hiring people who’ll deliver the food to customers. If you own a convenience store or restaurant, you can sell the food, snacks, or drink people are ordering. This can be a way to expand your business’ reach.
24. Rent on Airbnb
Airbnb renting is one of the most attractive business opportunities in the local business niche. It can be challenging to find people to rent your unit or spare bedroom to. So, broadening your audience and renting to travellers is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on. You can charge a price that’s on par or close to the cost of a hotel’s day rate. Thus, if you were booked up for the whole month, you would’ve made more overall than if you were renting out to a tenant the traditional way as standards are different.
25. Open a Food Truck
Many entrepreneurs are passionate about food. That’s why so many people aspire to open up a restaurant. However, with rent fees being sky-high in popular cities and competition fierce, many restaurants end up failing in only a couple of years. Thus, opening up a food truck is an excellent business opportunity for aspiring restaurant owners. It allows you to serve your own dishes but with a much lower risk.
26. Become a Personal Shopper
If you have good knowledge of fashion or another field, you can offer to become a personal shopper for people in your locality. This is where you shop for people who are too busy or simply unable to buy products from themselves. Knowledge of what’s trendy and what’s outdated can help you stand out from other personal shoppers in your area. You can also go the extra mile by encouraging your clients to experiment with something you think would enhance their look and confidence.
Start selling online now with Shopify
Start your free trialConclusion
The most life-changing business opportunities are the ones you explore. Recognizing an opportunity is only one part of the equation. The other important part is taking that first step to start the business. Let these business opportunities serve as a guide for what has potential. And try to choose the one that is aligned with your skills and passion. Which opportunity will you jump on today? Let us know in the comments!