Are you looking for business ideas for women especially?
Great!
I love ambitious women who refuse to be stopped from achieving their dreams even in the toughest times. I think that you are God’s gift to society.
Whether you are broke and looking for business ideas that cost less than $100 to startup, or want to stay home with your kids and are looking for online business ideas for women at home, or you simply want a profitable business idea with quick returns, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links from Amazon or other publishers I trust (at no extra cost to you). See disclosure for details.
In this article, you’ll find business ideas suitable for beginners, couples, dog lovers, travel lovers (yep, I love and have you in mind globetrotter!), various categories of women. And you’ll also find the information you need to get started with each one and start getting cash quick 😉
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
- Online Business Ideas for Women At Home
- Business Ideas for Beginners
- Creative Business Ideas for Women (Business ideas for creatives)
- Homemade Business Ideas for Women
- Business Ideas for Computer Science Graduates
Online Business Ideas for Women At Home
1. Blogging
Blogging is the #1 business idea every woman should consider. Many moms who stay home with their kids make between $1,000 to $50,000 monthly through blogging and that includes me.
Because you work for yourself, your schedule is completely flexible and following the right plan, you can reach full-time income within a year. And the secret is, once you reach $1,000 in blogging income, growth becomes super speedy.
You can make money through advertisements when people read your articles, affiliate marketing where you get paid a commission for every sale you refer, and products and services you sell yourself.
Guess how much it takes to start this business. Just around $50!
I made an infographic of the different ways to make money from a blog and how long each model takes to reach full-time income.
Honestly, I could go on and on. I tell everyone to become a blogger. If I had to rate it, I would rate it number 1 stay at home mom job.
So if you want to start a blog, here are all the steps you need to follow. I cover the right niche to choose so you don’t get stuck in the hobby blogging stage for years and how to start getting traffic immediately.
2. Freelance Writing
One of the other online business I do one the side is freelance writing. I write freelance for high profile B2B (Business to Business) eCommerce sites like OptinMonster and I can tell you that this is a very lucrative business.
There are many fulltime freelance writers like Holly Johnson and Elise Dopson who constantly clear multiple six figures yearly.
Basically, you write for other successful bloggers or businesses to post on their own blogs, you could also write sales pages, marketing emails… If you have a background in tech or marketing or just about any specialty, you’ll make it big in freelance writing.
But I won’t BS you, there are freelance writers scraping peanuts monthly but it’s not because they aren’t skilled, it’s because they don’t market themselves. Holly I mentioned above makes around $200,000 per year and she’s not the exception. Elise too charges around $0.75 per word, that’s about $1500 for a 2,000-word post!
The summary is, to do well in freelance writing, brush up on your skills and market the hell out of yourself and don’t sell yourself short.
3. Virtual Assistant
Chances are you’ve worked as an assistant at one time or the other. Consider starting a virtual assistance business.
As a virtual assistant, you’ll be doing the exact same things you did as an assistant; managing schedules, checking emails, messages except for this time you’ll be doing the majority of your tasks remotely.
Sometimes you’ll need to do social media, graphics, editing, researching, just about anything agreed in the scope of your contract.
Virtual assistants typically earn anywhere from $10 to $100 per hour depending on skill, the scope of duties, and the clientele. You can charge big-time celebs and executives much more money and you can easily scale into an Agency and make even more money 😉
Gina Horkey created a highly recommended course for aspiring six-figure VAs, put what you to learn from her into practice to start making fulltime income in less than a year, then when you have a solid foundation and great testimonials to boot, scale into a full-blown Agency.
4. Social Media Manager
If you love all things social and typically get hundreds of likes and comments on your social media posts, you’ve got a profitable business idea on your hands!
Did you know that you could post on behalf of small businesses and celebrities? You would maintain their social media accounts, bolster their brand image and help them win leads.
You could specialize in Pinterest Management like Kate Ahl (she owns an Agency), facebook management, twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or bundle them all! There are no rules.
These people are some of the big hitters in the online business space, especially the Agencies. Typically, you should be making anywhere from $1,000 – $10,000 on your own monthly depending on your clientele. When you are an Agency, you’d probably do 7 figures annually.
5. Proofreader
So you can’t stand grammatical or spelling errors? In fact, you’ve been spending time correcting grammar on your friends’ Facebook posts and getting backlash for it -instead of humble thanks, here’s good news.
You can be paid to be a so-called “grammar nazi”!
Bloggers, editors, writers, most people in the writing business need proofreaders to help their drafts shine so that they can look professional, in other words, there’s bucks to be made here.
You could get started on your own at first and makeup to $45 per hour depending on your speed. Of course, I advise that you begin to scale into an Agency at some point and hire hands to join your team because that’s where it moves from being just a job into a growing business. Get started using this guide.
6. Transcribe
Another great business idea to consider starting and scaling into an Agency is the transcription business. A transcriptionist takes recorded audio from meetings, interviews, or simple dictations and turns them into readable text.
This is a typing business idea so it works best if you are a fast typist or can afford to hire fast typists.
Typically, transcriptionists make around $15 – $30 per hour working for a company. To get started building your own Transcription business, check out Transcribe Anywhere.
7. Create your own “eCommerce” Store (without any products)
Did you know that you can create a successful eCommerce store without ever stocking any products? This unique business idea is called “Dropshipping”.
You list and sell third-party products at a price you set on your website, only the products are actually from a Drop Shipping Company whose prices are lower than yours. When you successfully make a sale, the order goes directly to the drop shipping company in the customer’s name, you keep your profit and the company ships to the customer on your behalf.
If you want to make more money with dropshipping, focus on two things; choosing the right fast selling profitable products and bringing in more traffic. With ads and other promotions, you could easily do $5,000+ for starters.
Business Ideas for Beginners
8. Flip Items from Flea Markets and Thrift Shops
If you’ve never done any business before then I recommend you try out flipping items online.
A business for beginners like this will help you understand the concept of buying and selling for a profit better. You’ll learn dynamics like understanding value for time and the psychology of selling.
Flea Market Flippers shop great deals at flea markets and thrift stores and then list them on online stores like eBay for a profit (huge profit most times). And you don’t need a lot of money to get started. You can start with just a few $10 items to get a hang of it then add to your budget or reinvest your profits with time.
Rob from the Flea Market Flipper made over $130,000 flipping items from Flea Markets and thrift stores PART-TIME. He created a free workshop to help you create a profitable reselling business – in as little as 14 days. Sign up for the workshop here.
9. Sell on Amazon (FBA program)
This is just like flipping items except you are selling using Amazon’s FBA Program instead of listing on other stores.
You shop great deals at yard sales, flea markets, and thrift stores and list them on your own Amazon store for a profit.
As you know, Amazon is an eCommerce giant and they have a really good search feature so you will potentially gain a lot of sales if you keyword your listings correctly so they can appear in the search and you write compelling enough product descriptions. Click here to join the Amazon FBA Program.
Business Ideas for Creatives
10. Interior Designer
Do you have a special talent for turning ugly rooms and bland walls into something unique and beautiful? Maybe you find yourself changing things up in your rooms every month because you can’t get enough of good looking rooms. Let’s put your passion to profitable use!
Start an interior design business. You could be a consultant, decorator, designer, anything you want.
Simply find your unique selling point, maybe you are great at finding something useful to do with every space, create your portfolio and start marketing your business.
11. Cooking/Restaurant
One thing I love about the restaurant business is that no matter how saturated the market is, there’s always space for creative chefs who make outstanding food.
If you have a knack for cooking, you can turn that idea into a profitable venture. Just make sure to invest well in clean looks and great customer service.
12. Cake Making Business
Just like cooking, if you are great at cake making you can make a profitable business out of it.
Not a lot of people know how to bake cakes and they are needed for so many occasions. Weddings, housewarmings, baby showers, birthdays, anniversaries, every season, every special moment.
The cake demands increase on special occasions, including Halloween, Eid, and Christmas so this is a good business idea for Christmas.
Start-up costs are low and beautiful tasty cakes literally market themselves. You can find tons of videos on youtube to get better at it.
13. Beauty
You know how we women love to look beautiful, that’s why there’s never a shortage of customers for effective beauty products and services.
There are lots of business ideas for beauty lovers. You could develop a salon-booking app like StyleSeat, Create a skincare product, sell perfumes, or start a salon. You may also consider becoming a makeup artist if you are good at it.
Homemade Business Ideas for Women
14. Jewelry Making Business
My sister in law makes beaded jewelry for a living. She creates new designs and custom orders of necklaces and earrings for customers and charges good money for them.
These days, you can learn virtually any skill on youtube so if this is something you are interested in, consider learning to do it from youtube and give out the samples you make from practice for free. Soon enough, you’ll begin to get feedback and possibly orders for your designs.
While there are many materials to make jewelry with, I advise starting with only one and expanding in the future. The main thing to remember is that this is a creative business idea. You’ll need to constantly come up with new and original designs that people love to thrive in this business. You’ll also need to come up with a unique selling point and a target audience. Is your jewelry eco-friendly? Make sure to state that loudly all the time.
15. Basket making at home
Gift baskets are needed in parties, birthdays, festivals, and other events. You could start a business making decorative baskets, boxes, and bags for those special events if it’s something you love.
I think if anyone has ever complimented your homemade gift packaging and you love to get creative on stuff like this then you should do this. It is a great business idea for ladies and even creative men.
Do you know the best part? Marketing these beautifully packaged baskets isn’t hard at all because they are so unique and people can’t resist using them to make their events even more special.
You could promote on social media, offer to work for free for a friend and get free promotion in turn or consider supplying them to local stores around you.
16. Soap making
More people are switching to organic and natural brands by the day but even then, people will more easily trust a small business with transparent processes in their neighborhood than a large company that claims to be organic. So if cosmetics is something you love then off you go to youtube to learn soap making.
You could start with soap for children with sensitive eczema-prone skin or acne clearing soap for teenagers or any other soap that solves a need and before you know it you’ll have a homemade business selling like hot cake.
17. Sell on Etsy
Etsy is an eCommerce platform for handmade products. In addition to selling your handmade baskets, crochet shoes, soap, jewelry or anything else you make at home or in local stores, consider starting an Etsy store.
It’s a way to get more eyes on your products and those eyes are specifically looking for handmade products. An Etsy store will also come in handy if you promote your products on social media. That way, you can just post a link to buy in your posts and make sales each time. And you can sell on Pinterest too! If you know Pinterest marketing well or can afford to hire a VA, you’ll find Pinterest brings you quite a number of sales to your Etsy store.
Business Ideas for Computer Science Graduates
18. Graphic Designer
This is a dream online business for most creative computer science graduates. If you have an eye for design, love playing with fonts and colors and know any design software (even Canva qualifies), you are in for a profitable surprise!
Depending on the kind of project (logo, brochure…), the clientele you choose and your experience, your hourly rate can range anywhere between $25-$150 per hour and above. Fiverr is especially popular for graphic design jobs but you can also check sites like Indeed and Flexjobs to get started.
Of course, since we are building a business and not simply working a job, you’ll need a website and probably a blog too. Use your social network to also promote your services and make cold calls/emails to companies who may need your service.
The key to winning clients is to focus on their business rather than your service. Your job is to make them realize that they need you to grow their business and it’s not because you are the best graphic designer in town. It’s because you’ve discovered a loophole that your services can fix. Go find that loophole and nail your prospects.
19. Website design & Development
More businesses are moving online and you can make a profitable business venture out of helping them do so.
These days almost everyone can start a web design business because creating websites is now so easy thanks to WordPress. But you’ll always have the advantage because you know the foundations of programming and understand how code works.
Consider local businesses in your area like eateries, clubs, bigger stores, schools, and even churches. You’ll nail a lot more customers if you can pair your web design services with SEO optimization because, in the end, the aim of building a website is to appear in searches.
20. WordPress Management And Security
There’s one industry that’s booming right now thanks to the internet and its money-making potential. It’s called WordPress management.
Many WordPress users, bloggers, small businesses, celebrities aren’t so techy and even if they are, most prefer to get the help of a professional whenever they have a problem instead of DIY.
Most WordPress quick fixes start at around $49 or so and most times people pay for monthly retainers so they can easily get to you if anything happens. So if they have just one crisis in the entire year, you keep the money for the other 11 months without even lifting a finger. Another great thing, referral pour in like crazy once you are good.
21. Hosting Business
Another business idea to consider is selling hosting space to people who want websites. You could start very small as a reseller and pair it with web development to get more customers. You could event add site management as an addon and charge considerably higher than normal hosting companies do.
The key is to find a reliable hosting company. I haven’t used Geekstorage’s reseller package but I can vouch for the quality of their hosting and it’s the best price you’ll find too, mostly because you’ll need to mostly be a “geek” to use them so less time spent handling things like installing WordPress for customers.
With time and as your brand grows, however, it’s best to consider investing in your own servers.
22. App Development
If you love programming and know frontend design or can team up with someone to create useful, beautiful, user-friendly apps then there’s a market for you in app development.
Just like companies and people need websites, many are beginning to opt for apps too to help retain customers, increase loyalty, and make more money.
You could also create apps and sell them yourself in the app stores or give them away for free and use in-app advertisements or paid upgrades to make money.
Games are especially popular and news about great games spread very quickly so you could make a lot of money with them. But you’ll need a good plot and storyline to create a great game.
So there you have it! 22 profitable business ideas for women who are go-getters.
Which business idea did you like the most?
Let me know in the comments section.