I have started several different businesses over the last few years, and some of them have cost me absolutely nothing to set up and have generated a nice return. In this post I’m going to show you a few examples of businesses you can start for free which you can hopefully either try yourself or get inspiration for something similar.
Yes, that’s right, you won’t need to invest a single penny at the start. However, it is likely that for some of them you are going to have to reinvest any early profits if you are to stand any chance of the business lasting more than a few months. And make no mistake, you may not be investing any money but you will certainly be investing your time if you are to make a success of any of these.
Are There Really Any Businesses You Can Start for Free?
The short answer is yes, but as I eluded to before, most, if not all, will involve costs later down the line, whether that’s through accounting costs, advertising if things are going well, opportunity costs and even hiring outside (or inside) help if the business takes off.
One thing I will mention here is setting up your own business is not necessary from the outset. None of the ideas below require you set up either a sole trader, partnership or limited company (LLC if you’re American). I’ve no clue what the rules are in America, but in the UK you can make £1,000 of profit (NB: not revenue) before having to declare it for tax purposes.
Therefore, it makes sense to try one these businesses and see if it works out before going to the trouble of registering as self-employed or setting up an official business through Companies House.
So let’s get into 5 of the best businesses you can start for free, nothing, nada, rien.
1. Become a Freelancer
This is a business I have recently set up myself and has earned myself a nice side income over the back end of 2018. I offer a blog writing service on Fiverr, which has netted me more than $1,000 in the space of 60 short days since starting (see the freelancing section of this website for more posts on my Fiverr experiences).
All you have to do is work out what you can offer other individuals or businesses at a competitive price, create a profile, include samples of your previous work, and if you really want to impress then add a short video of yourself as well so potential customers know exactly who they are working with.
You don’t have to use per Fiverr per se there are plenty of good alternatives such as Upwork and People Per Hour, however acceptance on these platforms is much harder to attain and Fiverr are usually ok with anyone who offers services that don’t break their terms of service.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Before you say it, no, you don’t need a website to do affiliate marketing. For those of you that don’t know, affiliate marketing is a very simple business model. You apply to promote a company, service, or product. Once accepted, they give you a link which you can then place wherever you want (some place strict rules on their links so read them carefully). Then if someone purchases the product or service via your link you get a percentage of that sale.
Sometimes you don’t even have to rely on someone else buying a product or service to get paid. You can just get paid for a user taking a particular action such as filling out a form, or providing their email address. This is known as CPA (Cost per Action or Cost per Acquisition).
Now, most affiliates tend to use websites or at least landing pages to place their links but there is no need for this if you don’t want to invest anything up front. All you need is to create posts on your social media profiles and insert your links there.
To give you a quick example, you could be promoting a product you already know and love. You could upload a simple video on YouTube of you unwrapping said product, setting it up and giving it a thorough review. Simply place an affiliate link in the description and you’re ready to earn money.
Now obviously, if you’ve only got a few followers on whichever platforms you have a presence on, you are going to have to invest time in growing your audience if you want to make any serious money. Once you’ve started to make some decent money, you can choose to invest in setting up a blog or website dedicated to a certain niche. But that is certainly not necessary to begin with.
There are hundreds of affiliate networks that allow promotion via social media. Just pop them into Google and have a look the networks that come up. Max Bounty, Awin, Peerfly, Rakuten Marketing, and Offer Vault are just a few to start with, but there are literally hundreds to get your teeth into.
3. YouTube Channel
Staying with social media, YouTube can be a very lucrative platform for no upfront investment. Using AdSense you can receive advertising revenues for the videos you upload, all you need is 1,000 subscribers to get started and 4,000 hours of viewed content. This sounds like a lot on the surface, but if you are putting out quality content frequently this can happen within a few short months.
Now obviously this isn’t a “quick win” but it’s something, that if you stick with it, can reap large rewards. What’s more, in those early days you can look at leveraging your channel for sponsored content and affiliate marketing, whilst you are working on building the monthly views on your channel.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Surely I need to invest in camera equipment, lighting, and video editing software”. Well yes, maybe further down the line that’s something you may want to think about. But you certainly don’t need it to start to build a following.
To illustrate my point let’s take a look at Tai Lopez, one of the most famous business YouTubers out there today.
What does he use to record the vast majority of his videos?
A mobile phone.
This man is a multi-millionaire but still uses a standard iPhone to record his videos, and you can tell there’s no editing. He films a monologue (usually walking around his house), hits the stop recording button and uploads. That’s it. And he’s manage to amass well over 1 million followers.
With an average RPM (revenue per thousand views) of $10 for the entrepreneur/business niche he probably earning an absolute minimum of $5,000 a month and the months where he’s accruing 10 million plus views he be raking in close to $100,000 a month!
Don’t forget that’s just in advertising revenue, he’s also making fortunes on affiliate marketing and selling his own courses, which a platform like YouTube allows you to do. So no, it’s not a quick earner but it has the highest potential of the businesses discussed in this post.
If you feel that this is a challenge is for you, make sure to post as high quality content as you can and post often. It has been shown that YouTube rewards contributors who post on a frequently (if not daily), even if the recording quality of the video isn’t fantastic. Also try and make your videos as long as you can, 15 minutes or longer is what you are aiming for.
4. Service-Based or Consultancy Business
Now this is similar to freelancing except this time you won’t be signing up to any of those sites mentioned above, you’ll be creating your own agency or consultancy. It’s time to think of a service that every business needs (such as bookkeeping) and pitch to them why you are a great fit for their company.
Many companies would much rather outsource some of their more mundane tasks, or tasks they don’t know how to do themselves, rather than employ someone and have to worry about things like benefit packages and pensions.
As I mentioned above, the most common businesses that operate like this are book keeping, simple accounting and data entry. You simultaneously save a businesses money and time by taking simple but time-consuming tasks off their hands and paying a flat monthly fee to you rather than employing you.
You won’t have to invest in any software as they will provide you with a log in to existing software, meaning all you have to do is log in, complete the necessary tasks and then invoice for your time.
This is a great business model to start on the side of your existing full-time employment, and once you have enough clients you can even pack the job in all together!
Even if you are doing something slightly more complex like managing a small company’s social media presence for them you can use the first monthly payment to pay for software you need. Or do everything manually on the free versions of the aforementioned software until you’ve earned enough to reinvest.
I’ve made this business model look perhaps a tad easier than it is to set up in real life.
Make no mistake, you will have to put in the hard yards initially to pick up the phone, email, set up Skype calls or even take face to face meetings to sign your first clients. Once you get the first one and prove your worth, you can use them as a reference for other clients and your client base will snowball from there.
If you are lucky enough to be an expert in a specific field, companies (and sometimes individuals) will pay you for your professional advice. This consultancy model works in exactly the same model as the service-based business except all you have to do is spend your time with a company and give your own professional opinion/coaching.
The beauty is you don’t have to be anywhere near the business in question to give such advice. There are plenty of platforms that provide a platform for consultants to charge for their time via a video call. Clarity is a good provider of this kind of service in the business industry as they can look after payments as well as the video calling, but there are many platforms that offer similar capabilities.
5. Buying and Selling (Retail Arbitrage)
Buying and selling goods is one of the quickest ways to make money on a shoestring budget.
Now, I know what your screaming at your computer, “BUT YOU SAID BUSINESSES YOU CAN START FOR FREE YOU LIAR!”.
Ok, maybe you only muttered it under your breath, but all the same, just hold on and let me explain.
Whilst yes, buying and selling would require the upfront cost of buying the products, we aren’t going to start there.
We are going to start with your belongings. Nearly all of us have items that someone else would be willing to pay for and we would be willing to part ways with. It’s time to go around your house and make an inventory of things you wouldn’t notice if they disappeared overnight.
Be really tough with yourself here. I know plenty of people that hold onto things because of their perceived sentimental value. Yet they wouldn’t even notice if I were to remove said item because they never use it, it just sits there collecting dust.
Secondly, don’t discriminate here. Whether its old clothes, DVDs, old CDs, books, old games consoles, or even shoes!
Get them listed.
Once you have a decent-sized inventory, it’s time to get them photographed and listed on whatever site best fits your items. For books, games, CDs and DVDs use a site like We Buy Books or something similar. For nearly everything else there are boot sale apps like Shpock, Vinted or websites like Gumtree to get rid of your stuff.
Once you’ve sold everything, you now have a starting point for your buying and selling business. There are many places to pick up bargains, but my personal favourite is looking at the classifieds in your local area, where people will be selling all sorts for prices much below market value.
A top tip for this method is to look papers (yes it’s old fashioned) that serve more affluent areas who want to sell items just to de-clutter. They’ll often price them well below what they’re worth because they just want them gone, and as the famous saying goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Your job is to find the trash that others will happily pay good money for.
I’ve kept an eye on a particular paper that’s local to where my parents live and there are plenty of items that I could scoop up and sell on for nearly double the price where I live. The area seems to excel in providing incredibly good value second-hand bikes and mattresses at well-below what they are worth. Of course they would be costs in collecting such items, but perhaps you can find other items that could offer the same returns without having the same bulk.
You can of course try this method on sites such as Craigslist or Gumtree but it’s rare that you find an item that is priced seriously below market value. If there is an item of this nature, it is usually stolen or has a defect that the seller hasn’t included in the photos/description.
You may have more success on auction sites like Ebay where individuals sometimes don’t put reserves on items and you can find some absolute bargains. This will involve a bit more of your time by watching the auction in its closing stages, but likewise the potential rewards are bigger.
It may make sense to carve out a niche within your buying and selling so you can spot an opportunity within seconds and snap it up before selling it on for a tasty profit. If you know ahead of time what you can sell a certain item for, then all you have to do is the find the same item at a price that allows you a nice margin, check it’s in good condition and make the purchase.
At this point you (or may not) want to graduate to retail arbitrage. This is simply the method of snapping up highly discounted items and reselling them on Amazon using their Fulfilled By Amazon platform.
There’s even a calculator which you can download onto your phone which scans the item you are interested in, tells you the current selling price on Amazon and how much you are likely to make once you take into account Amazon’s fees.
Why not download it and search the discount isles of your nearest supermarket and see if there are any products you would make a profit on?
Conclusion
Phew, that was a lot to take in and if you have somehow managed to make it this far into the post then what the hell is wrong with you?!
Just joking, well done, and hopefully you have some ideas to play with for launching a business without investing a single penny upfront.
Don’t forget, just because you don’t need to invest any money upfront don’t think they don’t all have some kind of costs. The main one being opportunity cost. Which is the cost of investing your time on these projects rather than investing your time in something that provides you will a guaranteed hourly rate (such as your job).
However, if get one of these opportunities right and put in the hours of hard work required, it won’t be long before you’re able to forget the job and focus on your own business full-time. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.