Shane Haven

4 Business ideas you can start from home

4 business ideas you can start from Home.

With the invention of faster internet and continual development of the ‘cloud’ based systems starting a business from home is becoming ever more popular.

 Starting from home can negate lots of overheads and if done effectively can offer a great work life balance.

 Here are 5 business you can start form home, maybe even start after reading this…….

Virtual PA

 If you have great organising skills then being a virtual PA maybe for you!

 With high office rentals companies are often looking to our source most of the work that would not need a conventional ‘person at a desk’ scenario.

 You will probably be working for high net worth individuals or very busy managers so a professional attitude is essential. You can be doing anything from organising meetings and daily schedules to booking concert tickets and plane flights.

 Providing you have a good internet connection and a phone line then setting up as a virtual PA is very easy.

 First of all it is essential to have a good PC or laptop and a mobile phone, maybe a land line but not essential. It is advisable to use a software program to help out with your business, the industry standard for most commercial ventures is Microsoft office. It is good to have a similar system so most companies and individuals can relate it to.

 Secondly it is good to work on your telephone manner and e-mail communications, you will be dealing with people’s colleagues and clients so it is good to present in a professional manner. As e-mail will used the most it is good to have an e-mail address that is your name e.g. Janesmith@virtualpa. not janeys69@hotmail. It is worth investing a few pounds a month on a bespoke e-mail address.

 Now that you have set yourself up it is time to get some clients. Unfortunately breaking in to the corporate world is not that easy but with hard work it is do able. It is best to start local, register yourself with local chamber of commerce, speak to an account, solicitors, financial advisors, doctors, dentists or architects. They may already have a PA themselves but they will certainly have clients that will need one – offer them an new business incentive!!

 Another source is trade shows and conference’s, get your self some business cards made up and start to hand these out to people at the shows, they are often free to visit so it is a good place to market yourself.

 There is of course the traditional routes of yellow pages and local directories and your own website these are all cost effective ways of getting business.

 Virtual PA’s work on a time cost basis on for all the work they do, keep an accurate record of all tasks done for a client and include these in a itemised bill at then of the month. You should then have no problems in earning a good income for your services.

 

Ebay Reseller

Selling your bits and bobs on ebay is now massively popular and it is quite possible to make a living by selling items on ebay.

There are two ways to start a business on ebay with from home, one is to sell items on behalf of other people and take commission the other is to source items yourself and then sell these on. I will concentrate on the second option as the business for sales agents appears to be shrinking.

Opening an eBay account is free and easy and the instructions can be found at www.ebay.co.uk, there are also plenty of book around that will go through the finer details of opening an ebay account these can be purchased from most book stores in the business section.

Once your account is open you will need to decide on what to sell, your ‘stock’ can vary greatly depending on your circumstances and skills. It also depends on where you can source your products to sell.

Sourcing is the main part to being an ebay seller, basically you can sell anything you want to make a profit on ebay. You can look for things in charity shops, car boot sales, auctions, antiques fairs, garage sales, local classifieds, freegale or ebay itself!

For new products you could register with a wholesaler, look in discount shops, pound stores, TK Maxx, T G Hughes or catalogue shops. Remember lots of people who buy on ebay live in rural places and may not have access to some of the shops you may have.

Once you have your products to sell it is just the case of listing them for sale, there are lots of different tips on listing stuff for sale on ebay and i could write a whole article on it alone but i will just suggest a few.

Always have your auction finish at about 7.30pm on a Sunday night as this is when ebay is at it busiest, Always use good spelling in your advert – ebay has a spell checker use it!, put plenty of good quality photos of your item for sale and always invite any questions about your item for sale as this implies trustworthiness.

Plenty of business make good profits from ebay if you can find your stock so could you.

T Shirt Printing

If you have flair for design then a bespoke T shirt printing business could be for you

With minimal start up costs and lots of sales channels it is the perfect business to start part time whilst at work, university or college.

If you are already looking in to a T shirt business then you will already must have some design flair so i will not go in to that too much – just keep it different and unique!

The cheapest way to start off is by screen printing your T shirts, Screen printing is using a fine mesh screen that has a negative of your design blocking out the holes on the mesh. Ink is then forced thorough using a squeegie and the design will adhere to the T shirt it often dries after a few hours.

Screen printing kits can often be bought on the Internet quite cheaply or even made yourself using products from any DIY store, lots of different designs for screen printers can be found on www.instructables.com. Bulk T-shirts can be sourced from wholesalers for as little as 25p per shirt (depending on order size)  

good thing about screen printing is that once you have your ‘screen’ set up you can use it lots of different times before it needs to be replaced.

Information on which inks to use can be found on the internet with any basic google search, most inks are available from a local craft shop or hobby centre.

Once you have your wonderful T-shirts printed it is time to sell them, depending on your location there are a variety of different places to sell them

If you have local independent clothes shops in your town take a few to em and ask if they would mind putting them in their shop with a nice commission (or even wholesale to them directly). You can put them on ebay, sell at car boots, markets, flea markets or even try wholesaling to market traders.

In order for your business to grow it is a good idea to keep your ideas fresh and inspiring as fashion often changes. You may need to invest in more professional equipment once your designs start to really get noticed

So if you have flair why not make some profit from it!

 Mobile Apps business

 You do not have to be a tech genius to start your own apps business; if you have found a need and can fill it with an app then you are halfway there.

 If you have the knowledge you can develop apps yourself, for ease however I will concentrate on using a developer

 Although it is a business that can easily be ran from home, before you launch into the app world, be prepared: developing a mobile app is not cheap, whether you put the hours in yourself, or commission a pro to develop your product. Figures will vary according to the complexity of your app, but regardless, development costs can be fairly high, especially if you plan on developing quite a few.

If you wish to employ a developer to create your app for you, their charges may vary according to platform you wish to use. For a really simple app on Android, for instance, £500 is probably the minimum you will end up spending. For a simple app on iPhone, it can go from around about £800 plus. At the higher end, for a more complex app, you could be going for £4,000!!

App publishers are always looking for new content, if you have a good idea you may want to share it with them on a 50/50 profit split basis, meaning you do not need any fund up front at all, only a good idea and a good pitch!

If you can fill a need then be prepared for 1000′s of downloads a day, be it a simple game or problem solving app once development costs have been met the world is your oyster in regards to selling.

In regards to marketing word of mouth and viral campaigns are the best way to get your app noticed, there are thousands of apps out there so make yours stand out.

Once you have developed your first app and have a feel for it, the next ones will flow freely and you could see yourself making 000′s a month!!

King Kong: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack $9.02 James Newton Howard reportedly got the King Kong gig as a last-minute replacement for Howard Shore (who of course had worked on King Kong director Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series). The good news is that Howard still managed to write an honorable score; the bad news is that it’s no more than honorable. For some, the biggest disappointment may be that Howard didn’t find more inspiration in …

Adam’s Venture 2 [Download] $9.99 …

Adam’s Venture [Download] $9.99 …

Adam’s Venture 1 [Download] $9.99 …