The best home-based businesses are started because you have a burning passion to do the work. Starting a business from home can mean more flexibility in your schedule. It can also create an opportunity for you to create more income for you and your family.
However, it requires a long-term commitment and an understanding of exactly what starting a business involves.
It’s important to invest time and energy at the beginning to make sure you’re starting the right business for you.
Assess Your Personality
Your personality is an important factor in whether you’re suited to be self-employed.
Business owners are generally:
- Self-reliant
- Self-motivated
- Open to new experiences
- Comfortable with risk
If you don’t have most of these traits then you may not be suited to running your own business. Something like telecommuting or freelancing may be more in-line with your personality and give you the flexibility you desire.
What Are Your Talents and Skills?
Take a look at your talents and the things you’re naturally able to do well.
Are you creative? A naturally detailed-oriented person? Are you a natural-born communicator?
These talents will help you determine what you’d be great at doing day-in and day-out.
Your skills, on the other hand, are the things you’ve learned to do throughout your life. They’re things like bookkeeping, customer service, or doing research.
Create Your Business Idea
Combine your talents and skills into a business idea that’s unique to you. Come up with a list of potential options. Be sure to keep your mind open, even if you don’t have the certifications required to do the job presently.
For example, a person who has accounting skills and is detail-oriented would be a great bookkeeper, tax preparer, or virtual assistant.
Once you brainstorm, you’ll get a good sense for which of the options excite and interest you.
Can It Be Home Based?
Once you’ve made a list be sure to examine whether each option can be done at home.
For example, if you discovered that you are detail-oriented and love working with your hands you may have “mechanic” on your list. However, running an auto-repair business from home isn’t very feasible. Instead, you might look at small appliance repair or computer repair.
Determine If It’s Profitable
So you’ve got a business idea that you can do from home. Now you need to assess whether the business idea is profitable.
There are many things which you may be great at and passionate about that will not pay the bills. For example, it would be very difficult to earn a living from singing in the shower.
So ask yourself:
- How much are people willing to pay for this?
- What’s the minimum required income I need per month?
- How many hours per week is it possible for me to work at this business?
- Is that a sufficient income to feel comfortable making the leap to self-employment?
An example might be sculpting. You might create amazing sculptures in your garage. People may be willing to pay $1000 per sculpture. But it takes you a full month to create each piece. If your expenses are $2000 per month, then this business idea is not viable.
Create a Business Plan
Business plans are a great way to go into detail about what it will take to get your business launched.
Business plans are necessary to get funding from banks. But they’re also a great way to organize yourself before you begin your business.
Now that you have an idea that you know is financially viable, create your own business plan.
There are several options.
- One-page business plan: A simplified version to help you get started.
In-depth business plan: A full version to help you get funding and lay out everything you need to know for your business.