background: I am a 20yo male, i have a macbook, phone, and reliable transportation and about $500 to my name. I live in the PNW about 30 minutes outside a city with a metro population of +3.5Million people.
I have always been a “wantrepenure” i like to think im very passionate and business-minded. Its a notable mention that i am pretty shy so typical sales roles -probably- wont be right for me. i am not employed or in school full time either. i do have a wonderful mom whos willing to be my business partner/full time employee.
I am looking for business ideas as i dont know what “fits” me and would love some suggestions. some ideas that interest me are something like a dry cleaners. easy and fairly passive but ideally id like something i can run from my office at home. “IT” type jobs do not interest me. though i am down for gig type jobs as long as its not doordash-uber type things.
I do have a -very- rough draft of a business plan for running an Estate sale’s company (from home). minimum monthly operating costs would be about $650 for things like a phone line, LLC cost’s, Auction websites, online Advertisements, signs, things like that. additional start up costs would be about $3-5k. the reason im unsure about this is because i dont exactly know the saturation of this market in my city, it seems to be dominated by the same 3-5 companies and im unsure if i would spend all this money on opening up just to get 0 business or be railroaded out.
Another thing im passionate about is streetwear/fashion/niche T-shirts. I am working on my own clothing line (Print on demand for now, would eventually like to make enough money to get my own suppliers/stock). i have the name and the website totally designed and am just working on the actual clothing line for the first drop. i dont know yet how or where im exactly going to advertise or anything but am working out the kinks. i truly am very passionate about this but dont know if its exactly worth it to pursue as its taken months and hundreds of hours of design and time. id be lying if i said i cant help but think that everyone will dislike my designs and ngl that is daunting/holding me back mentally.
so thanks for reading this long post. any and all ideas or words of wisdom are helpful! both online businesses and in person things.
While you are absolutely encouraged to run whatever kinda business you want and makes you happy, I would recommend (from my own experience) that you start by thinking in an entrepreneurial mindset.
Start with books; can probly find me online or at the library. Biggest thing I see is to “think about a major problem people have and figure out a way to solve that problem.”
If I’m being honest, your business ideas so far sound like they came from youtube business “gurus,” and I would avoid watching videos like that; they’re gimmicky, and not really helpful for you. Instead it just helps to funnel i come to them, and often they never offer any real value.
Like POD for example. It’s incredibly oversaturated, and because of that, it will pose a huge challenge to make it a meaningful income.
Does that mean you shouldn’t try either of your ideas? No! I think you absolutely should. But my point is to make sure you’re getting meaningful information and making sure you have a solid plan to keep revenue flowing.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with different ideas either; by that I mean, when you get asked the inevitable “so, what do you do?,” you can say “I’m experimenting with ……”