Elizabeth Howard
Lizzie Howard is a Colorado native who after graduating from the University of Colorado spends her time as a freelance writer.
The worldwide business shutdowns of 2023 and the Great Resignation of 2024 caused millions of people to start working from home. The...
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The worldwide business shutdowns of 2023 and the Great Resignation of 2024 caused millions of people to start working from home. The trend continues in 2024 as people realize that working from home provides job security, eliminates job burnout, and solves many of the problems associated with holding down a conventional job. We'll examine five great ideas for small businesses to start in 2024-from-home self-employment gigs.
Many home businesses need a website, but not everyone is familiar with or comfortable with building a website. This creates a need for web developers. Web developers deal with coding, making the website user-friendly. Web designers make the website look appealing. If you can do both the coding and the designing, you would be in even greater demand, at least in affluent areas. This gig pays just under $40 per hour.
If that price is too high for the people in your area, offer to start out just creating a landing page for your prospects. After your customers' businesses make some money, those customers may need you to add more pages to their websites. Follow up with these customers, as they may not remember your name or still have your contact information. Ask your customers for referrals to help your business grow. A great portfolio of your work will also help you expand your business. You can expect your services to be in demand for a very long time.
Many people confuse copywriting with granting copyright. If you're thinking of the familiar circled C that you see on books, you're thinking of copyright, not copywriting. A copyright gives the writer of a book, piece of music, or some other created item legal ownership of his "intellectual property" for a designated time period. By contrast, copywriting is the practice of writing copy - marketing material - for clients.
There are over 75 types of copywriting that you can do. Here are just a few of them:
In addition to deciding upon a niche, you'll need to choose whether you'll write business-to-customer (B2C) copy or business-to-business (B2B) copy and then stick with your choice. You will find it easiest to get your first clients by offering to write articles or blog posts for them, especially if you have some good writing samples you could show prospective clients. Clients will pay you somewhere around $300 per article. At some point, you will likely want to invest in a course that teaches you how to write a more lucrative type of marketing copy. The American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI) is among the best copywriting schools out there.
People trained in journalism tend to enjoy writing case studies. Case studies tell how a company's product solved a customer's problem. Magazine editors would be delighted to offer you something like $750 for your first 1,500-word case study. Some copywriters specialize in writing case studies, white papers, or something else. Others keep learning how to write the various types of copy until they become a "one-stop-shop" for, say, lead generation.
To keep revenue coming in, most copywriting gigs require copywriters to spend time searching for new clients. However, retainer gigs pay copywriters upfront every month. A monthly e-newsletter, for instance, is a type of copywriting that the client needs someone to write every month. You would receive more than $1,000 every month as a retainer for each newsletter you write. With just a few newsletter clients, you could earn a lot of money every year working only a few days per month.
Selling real estate is something that people used to high-paying jobs often try when they're laid off from a job. That's because agents receive thousands of dollars whenever they sell a home, apartment complex, land, or another type of real estate. It's a respectable job that makes some people rich. You'll need to obtain training and licensure to sell real estate. You'll need to frequently stop what you're doing to show real estate to people. Another downside to selling real estate is that the housing market fluctuates, making it necessary to save or plan for the slow times.
If you want a gig that gives you passive income, consider providing coin-operated washers and dryers to the public. Everyone needs clean clothes. Providing the public with a laundry facility is a recession-proof and depression-proof business. You can place laundry equipment in a laundromat, apartment complex, multi-family housing laundry room, or hospitality organization. Your job would mainly consist of collecting the money from the machines. You or a hired person will need to dump the trash, wipe down the machines from time to time and/or mop the floor.
It's important that you purchase quality washers and dryers. SelfOp Laundry sells some of the best semi-professional commercial laundry equipment you'll find anywhere, which is the Encore brand. Encore machines deliver two or three times the value as their competitors do, easily delivering more than 15,000 cycles before they start to wear out. Encore machines have innovative technology and they're energy-efficient. The washers and dryers are front loadings. The company also carries space-saving, stackable units.
Encore washers have an extra-large load drum that handles loads weighing more than 22 pounds. The 300 G-force provides optimal spin moisture reduction, while the 8-point suspension and solid steel counterweights support this level of power. The dryers are industrial-strength commercial dryers that also handle large loads. Being energy-efficient, Encore washers and dryers are highly cost-effective. The power of these machines will let your customers get laundry is done within a short time, which lets more people use your machines. Frequent turnover earns you more revenue.
Owning and servicing vending machines is another gig that earns passive income through well-placed public machines. Vending machines can be large soda or snack machines or they can be small vending machines that dispense a handful of loose candy. Toy machines can be large ones containing stuffed animals that must be grabbed by a crane, or they can be small vending machines that dispense small toys that are encapsulated in a plastic container. There are vending machines for all sorts of items that people would part with a small change to acquire.
Naturally, you or somebody you know would need to be a good salesman to find business owners who would let you put your machines in their facility. These owners would be happy with you if your machines don't cause extra work for them or for their employees due to, say, loose candy frequently lying on the floor. You'll also need to stick to a schedule that ensures that you restock your machines before they run out of stock. The fun part will be collecting and counting the coins.
Owning a home business is giving millions of displaced people more financial security and a better work-home balance than what they had when they worked for someone else. There are many work-at-home options. The above five options are indispensable and decent-paying.
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Lizzie Howard is a Colorado native who after graduating from the University of Colorado spends her time as a freelance writer.
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Thanks for sharing this great business idea to get started.