With the start of the new year, many people are looking to change their lives around and work towards a better future for themselves and their families.
One way to get a head start on this is to start up your own business. Now you may be thinking that you need lots of capital to start up your own business, but starting small can lead to bigger things which is why we have come up with a few business ideas you can start on a small budget.
–Freelancing
Whether its writing, designing or any other work, freelancing could work for you, especially if you like working to your own hours or have a difficult/erratic schedule.
For many people who are interested in the creative side of working and have worked for bigger firms in the past, they can often feel that their creativity is being stifled by rules and regulation – working freelance allows you to stick to work that suits your skills and areas of strength the best, and gives you much more freedom.
By starting your own freelance operation based of your existing career or skills, you could easily use your existing contacts to help kick-start your business and get some momentum building on your workload and client base.
You most likely already have the skills and just need to find a way that works best for you. Try making a space for your own home office; keep work and play separate. This will negate the need for renting office space, allowing to do so (if necessary) once you have regular and reliable income from clients.
Once you have properly established yourself and you have some momentum, you will start to notice enquiries coming through as people recommend you, as well as repeat work from previous clients pleased with your work.
–Printing
Printing business can cost a fortune to run depending on where you run it and the space from which you operate. If you have your own home office or workspace, you won’t have to worry about additional overhead costs until you are ready to expand and move to a bigger location – providing you have room for the equipment (a garage conversion to a home office is a great choice for plenty of space), there’s no reason why you can’t run your new venture out of your home.
Like many businesses you may have to buy the initial equipment to be able to carry out the job, and in this case it is no different – the pay-off can be worth it, as a printing/design business can prove popular for everyone from students and local community centres, to local businesses and events.
You need to firstly buy the equipment, such as your printers and design equipment, to enable you to go forth with your business. Once you have done that, the only costs you will have to pay for are your raw materials like paper, canvas, ink and toner which are marginal compared with the cost of equipment and property rental fees, and can easily be covered by the prices you charge once the initial outlay for equipment is covered.
You should ensure that you do choose quality professional-level products that will perform better for the job than standard domestic-level printers; Wide Format Solutions provides printing equipment for most of your needs. Get professional and quality equipment that will last and allow your new venture to earn itself a good name and flourish.
–Tutoring
This option has extremely low overheads and running costs – there’s no expensive equipment to buy, and it can be done from the comfort of your own home or your students’ houses for their lesson.
What level you can teach will depend on your qualifications, so tutoring with a degree or, at least an A-Level under your belt will give you a broader scope of students. Having a degree or some sort of qualification in that subject area or having experience in a certain field can help enormously, and acts as a mark of what standard you’re working at to parents of potential students.
Although no qualifications are strictly needed to become a private tutor, it is important that you have knowledge about the subject you are teaching and what is expected at each level for children of different ages.
You will need to advertise effectively in your area, targeting the right audience to minimising the chances of having to commute; advertising with local schools, community centres and libraries. These are great places to find your students.
There are many different types of small business you could start on a small budget, these are only a few ideas. It is best to take something you have a passion for and turn it into a career, you will put much more effort and time into it whilst enjoying it.
This post was written by Ekta Mair for Wide Format Solutions who specialise in first class printers designed to produce high quality images in wider formats.