Are you interested in starting your own business, but you have a minimal budget to start with? The idea of starting a business has long been viewed as a costly venture and is only a common practice among a small group of people. Thankfully, the technology era has leveled the playing field for starting a business.
It is now possible to get started with very little cash. And by gaining the appropriate knowledge and skills, you can own a very lucrative business. In this article, I have compiled a list of 4 profitable online business ideas that you can start, with just a laptop and internet access.
1. Become A Website Developer.
If you are uncertain of whether you can start a business, creating websites for clients, then a short, informal online course on WordPress can fill in the blanks and give you the confidence to offer your service to potential clients.
In addition to, website development, you can offer hosting services to your clients. And no, you don't have to own a server. You can get hosting services for very little money. You can then offer the service as part of your package for website development. This price is usually set a bit higher than what you pay for the hosting.
Online business ideas, like website development, don't require that you have a business space, so if you are strapped for cash and don't want to incur the monthly cost of an internet bill, then this is the kind of business .
You can take your laptop to your favorite café shop, and use their free internet service. Make sure you buy something from the shop, as this will keep you and the business owner happy.
2. Start An Online Store.
This is one of the most lucrative online business ideas I know of. You can start a business online, selling your products, or selling other people's products. The clear advantage of this business model is that you are not restricted by creativity, or location.
If you do not have a product, and don't have the slightest idea how to come up with one, then you can earn giant commissions from selling other people's product. This is one of the few online business ideas that you can start with no money.
If you don't have an online store, it would cost very little for you to set one up for yourself, or have someone set one up for you. As mentioned before, open-source platforms like WordPress and Joomla makes it possible for anyone to create a website.
WordPress has great support along with free plugins that can make it effortless for you to create an online store with a shopping cart and an automated checkout system.
However, if the monthly cost of hosting is still above your budget, then you can use free e-Commerce platforms like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon. There is no monthly fee to sell your products, and you only pay a small fee for listing your product.
3. Become a Social Media Manager.
This need for a social media presence has created a new and unique business opportunity. It is very tedious to spend time creating content to add to the social media platforms. And with so many platforms to have to keep track of, it can be a full-time job.
Many companies need a social media manager, and you can help. This is one of the online business ideas that will not become saturated. New companies are emerging every day and need to maintain a social media presence. So, you will never run short of a potential client list.
It is effortless to create content and maintain a several social media accounts. You can use platforms like Hootsuite to manage many social media accounts simultaneously.
You can schedule posts and content for many weeks in advance. Furthermore, you can then charge clients a monthly fee for managing these accounts, which will be a lot less than having to hire an employee to provide this service full-time.
4. Become a Mobile App Developer.
Creating a smart and user-friendly smartphone application calls for considerable professional expertise and complete familiarity with the latest app development platforms and frameworks. Every year, many apparently 'fool-proof' applications are launched, which do not manage to make any major headway among targeted clients. If you wish to develop a successful application, the following pointers would help you:
1. Determine the purpose of the app—To be practically useful for customers, mobile apps need to actually serve one precise purpose/solve a specific problem of end-users. The purpose can range from real-time updates on stock market data, to simple gaming for kids.
Find out what would be the exact genre of the app you are planning to create. That would keep the process focused, and help you identify your target buyers easily, too.
2. Start of with a concept—At any professional mobile application development company, experts typically get together to deliberate on alternative ideas that can be implemented, to create the app.
Once you are sure about its purpose, you have the option of choosing from alternative interesting concepts via which the application can serve the same. Make sure that the selected idea is technically viable.
3. Avoid 'me-too' apps—It's all very well to get into an intriguing process of Android or iPhone app development in India—but will your application have significant uniqueness value? That is a question you need to resolve, before proceeding to the designing stage of the app.
Find out whether there are already any similar apps in the market, along with their popularity counts. If there is already an app similar to yours doing well among users, it would be tough for your application to make a mark.
4. Decide the design type—This would probably depend on the nature of the app, along with the proficiency of the mobile app developers at your organization. If the executives are experienced enough with sophisticated smartphone app development framework and tools, you can opt for a Native design for the application. Alternatively, in case you are looking for quickly releasing a no-frills app, the Web design scheme is likely to be more suitable.
5. Decide the targeted platforms—As far as mobile apps are concerned, one size definitely does not fit all. That's precisely why professionals from any leading iPhone application development company in India would stick to creating advanced apps for iPhones only.
Of course, if you have the requisite skill-set at your disposal, you can go for designing Android and Blackberry apps as well. Remember, apps for each different mobile application platform have to be separately customized.
6. Make your app user-friendly—Smartness in the choice of app development graphics and functional features goes a long way in determining whether it would be able to survive and prosper in the fiercely competitive mobile markets.
Chalk up the app user interface (UI) and layout in a manner that, users would never have any problems in using it. Using elegant yet simple mobile application designs is particularly important when you are making apps for kids. The dashboard of smartphone apps should never give a cluttered feel.
7. Examine the prototype—With the basic functionalities and design features, create a wireframe of the application, and build a model prototype—which can be promoted to potential users. Highlight the advantages that the app is going to provide in the prototype itself.
8. Pricing—Unless you are developing a free app (which can, of course, be done to promote your business), a proper pricing and revenue plan needs to be in place. Monitor the app development cost at every stage, so that you do not need to set its final price too high, to earn decent profit margins.
You can conduct market surveys too, asking people about the maximum amount they are likely to pay for the application you are developing. Competitor analysis would also come in handy.
9. Implement an analytics tool—You need to be aware of how your app is doing in the market, and presence of an accurate and reliable analytics tool is an absolute must for that.
The tool should give you real-time figures on the number of people who are downloading and installing your app, as well as the total revenue figures it is managing to generate. Scopes for improvement (if any) can also be identified at this stage.
10. Do beta-testing before release—If your app slows down the handsets of users, or has bugs in it—not only would the final sale figures remain low, but your mobile application development company would also be viewed in an unfavorable light.
Create a core group of Blackberry or iPhone app developers, who would actually use the app on their phones for a pre-specified period of time (at least a couple of weeks). If no issues are detected, you can proceed with the full app launch.
11. Promote and distribute your app well—The mobile apps you create need to have adequate visibility on the online space, for buyers to be aware of them and actually purchase them. Start publicizing your applications on your social media pages and business website, from a few days before its release.
Distribute the app through the leading web app stores. You have to ensure that the entire purchasing process can be completed in a few clicks.
After releasing the app, constantly monitor its performance metrics, and decide upon the upgrades/improvements required accordingly. Actively seek feedback from actual users, regarding the performance and the visual features of the application. Creating a mobile app can be a lot of fun—and following these tips would ensure its success too!
It is possible for non-techs to create mobile apps for clients with no coding skills. You can use mobile content management platforms like MAPS—Mobile Apps Productions Software.
These platforms allow you to create mobile apps and publish them to the Google Play and Apple app stores. In addition to publishing the apps on the app stores, the content management platforms allow you to provide back-end access to clients so that they can manage and update their mobile apps. You can also maintain the apps on the client's behalf and charge an additional monthly fee for management and hosting of the mobile app.
More than 91% of the world's population have a cell phone or mobile device. And as consumers become more attached to their mobile devices and more demanding of what it can provide and provide quickly, the demand for mobile apps will be even greater.
More than 95% of businesses do not have a mobile app for their business. You can create a mobile app for these businesses at a price that they can afford. This is one of the online business ideas that has very little competition and huge earning potentials.
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