It’s time for another poll here at Young Entrepreneur and the first of 2009!
This month our question is: What is the best business to start up in a recession?
Many people are being forced into entrepreneurship because they got laid off from their jobs and can’t find another one.
Others are choosing entrepreneurship because they are tired of someone else controlling their destiny.
If you were to start a business today given this economic climate, what would it be?
I would love to hear your thoughts so we can put together a comprehensive list of ideas and suggestions for those entrepreneurs who are starting up!
You can cast your vote by commenting below!
Here is a list of our previous poll results:
- Who Is Your Business Role Model?
- What is the best business advice you’ve ever received?
- Best Way For A Startup To Earn Revenue?
- Top Tools for Entrepreneurs
- When Is It Time to Go Full-Time?
- The 8 Best Ways To Raise Capital
- The Top 20 Startup Mistakes
- Top The 21 Celebrity Entrepreneurs
- Why Young Entrepreneur Start Businesses
Online Business for sure!
I’m actually starting a website development LLC at the end of this month / early next month.
Web development is a great business to enter if you plan to bootstrap. You can use software like Gimp for free (and later upgrade to Photoshop when money permits).
I agree with Ninh, a web startup is something I am currently working on setting up.
It doesn’t matter as long as it is something you love and are passionate about. The economy will always go up and down but you will have to stick with and push your business forward no matter what.
If you truly love what you do you will be successful in the end.
Online business.
Selling information, no physical products.
Personally I have started a coaching business on self confidence, helping people conquer their self defeating and limiting beliefs about life in general and the things around us.
I vote for biotech. See my blog on 12/30 on this subject “Biotech Startups are Hot” by linking from http://www.startupprofessionals.com. Also a see a related one “Recession Means Selected Startups Can Win Big”.
Marty Zwilling
CEO & Founder, Startup Professionals
Payroll Check Cashing Business…..more and more people lose their credit ratings in a recession. They are unable to get a bank account, those who specialize in high risk loans and credit offerings stand to gain tremendously in this sort of environment.
How do you start that buisness?
Do what I did. I started my own online travel agency. Great benefits and the cheapest flights ever. See here http://pinnacletravel.traverustravelnetwork.com
How in the hell do you think travel agency is best for a recession? Sorry but it works best in the best of times when ppl have money for travel.
Don’t knock peoples ideas, if that’s something that odemill wants to get into, then good for them.
I work in the high tech (software) industry, and i have a different opinion from most folks who think that high tech is most impacted in a recession..
My thoughts are this really depends on the type of product/service your company can provide..if you can come up with a product/service that actually helps save companies money overall(or better still make more money), they will jump on the opportunity as everyone is looking to shave off those extra dollars..On the other hand, a product/service that is more of a nice to have that sits pretty on the shelf will not sell in such a climate..selling vitamins vs selling painkillers analogy kinda works great to gauge the likely hood of what products/services will fly in such an economic climate..
My $0.02
-bizguru
http://www.launchacompany.com
In my area starting a business to take care of and maintain foreclosed properties would be good, this would be a nice on going business. You could also do a business to clean out the foreclosures.
how much would you charge per how for something like that great idea by the way
In theory this is a fantastic idea…but the banks are broke on these properties, I wonder who would pay for this type of service, perhaps realtors?
Online business and marketing is hot and it will continue in the future.
The guy who said Biotech is 100% uneducated on the subject. The funding for Biotechs is 100% dried up. There are currently 300 or so public Biotechs and over 1/2 of those have less than 1 years cash on hand. 50% of those have less than 6 months cash.
Fact is, biotechs are hurting right now and many, many will go under in the next year. A BAD time to start a Biotech firm.
I agree with Jared — as along as you are doing what you love, it doesn’t seem like work. If you can’t but happiness, you need to make it for yourself. You will put alot more energy and passion into a job you love than one you don’t, and customers/guests/consumers will see that passion and gravitate towards your company.
Yikes — sounded a little preachy, but very true!
This is solid advice.
Hi Evan – I really enjoy the content of your blog — great stuff!
However, one thing has bugged me for some time and today I just got a hair up my ass to leave a comment.
Nothing huge here, but the close proximity of the text spacing around the pictures in your posts is kind of of annoying and makes it difficult to read in my Google Reader.
I’m not sure what blogging platform you use (I use Typepad), but if you have access into the HTML code for your posts you can easily add spacing around your pictures to make for a better reader experience.
I’m no programmer, but it is quite simple. Just look for the “” just put in the following code for horizontal spacing “hspace=X” with X being the number of pixels (I usually use 5) or “vspace=X” for vertical spacing.
Sorry for the unsolicited advice, but I’ll bet there is a good chance other readers may have been distracted as well…
Keep the good stuff coming Evan!
As the economy slows to a screeching halt, people are looking for ways to save a little cash. Turning to the internet is natural for deal seekers. Look for products that people like to have but don’t want to pay big bucks for. When looking for products that fit that mold, think of things that the internet strips the expense away from. Drop-shipping comes to mind, but I haven’t met anyone that has been extremely successful with drop-shipping. That being said, eBay works well if you find your niche and sell to it.
In times like these, more and more people are getting laid off and really getting a chance to rethink their path in life. I think career counseling and guidance services are going to be in high demand. My website, http://www.upwardlifestyle.com is aimed at helping people understand the options that exist and finding the one that fits their skills and background.
Thats what I thought and you really helped me prove my point with this post. I cant wait to show my friend so he can see he was wrong. – Walter
Istarted my own online travel business. I’ve made more friends nteworking than I did working for AT&T for 30 years.I can talk to my friends as long as I want and still make money. I love being at home and working at the same time, but I am dedicated and I work really hard to make my business successful.
my website is http://www.ytbtravel.com/familytreetravel
EVERYBODY NEEDS A VACATION SOMTIME
Good information about dropshipping keep up the good work.
I would love to hear more about this topic.
If you ever want to read a reader’s feedback
, I rate this article for 4/5. Detailed info, but I just have to go to that damn yahoo to find the missed pieces. Thanks, anyway!
Im looking for a product to sell. Im a natraul selling any product/ service I want to buy in bulk and start my own business. Email me ideas lovablelearning@gmail.com
I need a product to sell in order to start a new MLM business. Any ideas?
Yea here’s an idea. Don’t do MLM
Hi Del, got an opportunity to sell a certin product, email me and il send you the details
my email address: nadia_uk00@hotmail.com
my idea towards doing a business at this time is mobile store in an busy crowded area an make lots of money through sales n servicing of mobile handsets, according to me its doing well…!
I have started an online business profile pages business. I am getting some interesting feedback.
The food business if you know what to market or cook, lol!!!
I’d have to say, while all advertising sales are down in a national recession, my business is still doing well, as businesses are shifting their limited marketing dollars to promotional advertising.
I actually started my promotional advertising business in a previous business recession – It was in 1984, when the price for crude oil dropped, and the number of working rigs drilling for oil and gas had plummeted from over 5000 to under 800. My local area was on the skids, due to the heavy influence of oil and refineries in my market.
I made it through the lean years and survived by selling to those who were still seeking to keep existing clients and expand to new customers and markets.
I’ve been self-employed, full-time since 1987, with my business income as primary or sole income for my family all those years.
It does help that I love my business and enjoy face-to-face sales, but others have done well selling 85 to 100% online.
Each person is free to choose their market area (with no restrictions other than the US borders), no limit to who or where you sell.
The businesses that will survive into the next decade and beyond, are still buying. Find a product that you can sell to them at a profit, and start your business during the current economic cycle.
If you have the capital to survive to next few months, you should be able to pick up business abandoned by those who have left the market.
But, it will require self-motivation and discipline to get your business off the ground. Just buying a business in a box won’t get you anything. It’s the effort you put forth that will win the day.
Dennis Bevers
BASSCO, Inc.
http://www.CuttingEdgeAdvertising.com
With so many people trying to start a business I think accounting is profitable. Don’t try to start a business without a good inexpensive accountant. Try to find an EA or Enrolled Agent. They charge a lot less than a CPA but can do essentially the same thing, except perform an audit. Then you can focus on your business. I’m an EA and it is awesome. You don’t even need a college degree to be an EA. Just pass the test!
Hey Lisa,
What are other requirements to become an EA? I have a BA in Accounting and have recently started a practice providing bookkeeping, payroll, income tax preparation & QuickBooks training from home. I already have a few good clients but I’m looking into offering other services such other more complicated tax returns, incorportaing, tax planning, etc
Thanks in advance
What is the best business to start with minimum capital?
Santhosh,
My business, selling custom printed promotional advertising is one of the lowest cost businesses you can imagine, provided you live in the U.S. Because I am affiliated with Kaeser & Blair, I don’t have to invest in inventory, or have capital to handle all the buying and selling. Just show catalogs and some samples and help the person order products they need to grow their business.
And because many of the customers will order again and again, I don’t have to go out and find another batch of customers to sell to every month. A couple of my clients have been buying from me for 24 years, while 100+ have been buying for more than a decade.
Since I operate from a spare bedroom in my home, my overhead is very low.
Also, no employees are required, so no payroll to meet.
Selling business-to-business certainly isn’t for everyone, but that just means there is more business for me.
Dennis
I think your idea is great! If possible, could you provide me with more particulars about how to begin a business like yours?
thank you in advance for your time
by the way i am referring to
ennis Bevers says:
June 26, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Santhosh,
Sure you have a to start up a business you love, because if yu don’t have passion on it, you’ll fail a month later.
But you can have several options.
I’m sure online business can be very profitable, but they take long time to start and require a lot of hard work, so a lot of people get disappointed fast.
A great business to do in any part of the world is to distribute food or drink, any kind.
Everybody needs foods, even when the economics are not good, we need food.
I’m in Mexico and a year ago I started to distribute imported beers, very goods business, it doesn’t stop. Later on, we out a bar, 3 weeks later the flu-thing came, and guess what? Nobody in the bar, now people don’t have too much money and we are just running-out of business with the bar, but the beer distribution is going ok.
People need food and drink, no matter of th economics.
So, Food and Drink never lets you down.
If you are going to make a website business for the hopes of making $ within the first 6 months, you are dreaming…. bigtime not based in reality dreaming.
Count on 2 + years of investment and dedication then maybe you will notice a dividend.
There are some great ideas here, I especially like the suggestions about promotional advertising items – I even sold some of these in the ’80’s!
But for anyone serious about setting up a profitable business, you must have a website. If you don’t have a website, you’re not really serious…
If you don’t have any money to spend on a website, you can still use a top-class content management system to make your own website – Joomla! Not only is it free, it’s used by large and small organizations worldwide and it is supported by a large community of developers (many writing code to enhance the functionality of Joomla – there are currently over 4,500 extensions).
You can download it from the official website http://www.joomla.org. We offer a training course using this system and the feedback we’ve had is fantastic, but you can easily learn how to use it yourself.
Hope this helps
Paula
And if someone doesn’t have regular access to the internet and email – would you exclude them from selling promotional advertising or other direct sales business. A person can sell face-to-face who for whatever reason doesn’t have internet access at home.
There are some products that people prefer to deal direct with the salesperson – so lack of a website won’t stop that person from doing business with someone without one.
Some may not have internet access due to the lack of funds. But, if they find the right business, the additional income could provide for one later.
Some may live in an area where satellite connection is the only alternative to limited dial-up access – at a speed that would slow down any business transaction.
And there may be some who feel tech challenged, who would be outside their comfort zone with computers, internet, etc.
A person with drive and self-motivation can be successful without a website – while many have found everything they tried online has been at a loss. Being online and selling online aren’t necessarily going to generate income.
Let each choose what business they want to pursue, as well at their own marketplace – online, offline, or both.
Dennis
There are close to 1 BILLION people on the internet today. That is a HUGE platform to sell stuff. Americans are broke these days so whatever business you do targeting Americans, it will not be an easy launch unless you have a very unique product, service and you know how to market yourself.
I really don’t have an idea of what to do myself yet, but I am eyeing emerging markets like China and India. China is huge, and the Chinese are enjoying a better lifestyle by the day and they will do that even more as our USD$ value tanks. So I’m thinking something that Targets the Chinese market may be a good option. If you want to know what’s on the Chinese people (or any country’s) these days go to google’s Zeitgeist:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html
Anyway good luck all.
Edgard
There are a few things that come to mind when thinking of a business to be ran when times are tough. You have to relate to what the customer NEEDS – and not what a customer simply wants.
Choosing a business that also can sell well in your area works great. That way you can show your stuff off through a marketing campaign, and maybe- just maybe go from website only to a brick and mortar storefront and offer your products through different avenues.
Whatever the business, make sure your sources are legitimate and legal. Many many countries outside of the USA offer questionable items. many businesses have lost thier shirt – money and reliability when dealing with questionable materials.
People will always have to eat, dress them selves, groom them selves, commute, travel, sleep and play.
Typically a business WILL survive and prosper if you have it as a passion as well. There is nothing like doing what you love to do, and making money at the same time.
Alot of business don’t look forward and watch trends. I visit a site named Clickz alot and read what is hot and what is not. I also try and tailor my website(s) to use those trendy words because they will aid it site popularity and help your advertising campaign and bring you a better ROI.
When choosing a business, check out unusual combinations, check how many businesses in your area serve like products and start local and grow outward.
We have a business focused on Virtual Offices. It is a great business in this time of crisis because we help businesses and individuals to reduce costs and offer them a great variety of services and benefits. To make it simple, anyone can have an office, phone number, full time live receptionist. We have clients from all over the world and many of them had large companies in the past and now are forced to cut costs; others are entrepreneurs like you guys that don’t have that much money to start a business but yet need a professional image.
In time of recession, I would say that any companies focused on cost reduction have a great chance. If a company can prove that their service/product can act as a money saver in the short-term, this will definitely draw attention and sales
I believe the best business to open in this recession has to be a bar or a microbrewery. Many people have lost there jobs and many have become depressed. Many find drinking a way of removing the depressing feeling. Like they say, breweries are ‘recession proof’. It actually is with many businesses going down under, the breweries are going up.
I don’t it is much important to specify exactly the area to start a business in but, if an entrepreuner can do what most likes and feels can bring success, that would be better for me. The main goal is related to economy. The strongest area is which one most like for what would it be useful to someone doing something annoying for him/her? Entrepreuner is someone who innovates but, innovating something boring to self wouldn’t be helpful for business success.
Sorry, my start would have been ” I don’t think”
I in order to succeed on the long term it is important to do business in a domain that you are actually passionate about, in such a way time will seem to fly by. Like a lot of people I was a kid I used to play video games, I remember being so mad about certain games that I would spend up to 15 hours a day trying to finish them. If you can find an area where you be as keen about it as I was with those games, able to work 15 hours a day without even noticing it, I believe that success will follow. Personally being absolutely mad about cars and loving selling (my job for the last 4 years) I am beginning to start a car dealing business.
Another point that I wanted to mention :
I do believe in the internet and the fact that having a website it can be an amazing tool for making money, however I also think that it is important to get your priorities right when starting a business, and not to fall into to the “magic-internet-easy-money fallacy”
I have several friends who have spent weeks building up a website in order to promote their newborn business before they have even properly sourced and organised the right things to sale !In my opinion this is an easy mistake, and I believe a lot of people use the site building as an excuse to delay the actual productive work, like cold-calling and meeting actual people in order to developed a concrete business.
We mustn’t forget that there are a lot of businesses out there that do extremely well and yet spend hardly anything on advertising and do not even have a website.
I think the idea someone noted earlier about creating a “virtual office” might work due to the fact that people want to reduce costs and if they could save money by switching online than why not? Heck, provide the client with s free counsolation in which you can discuss exactly what your client needs. Just remember, research your homework before! Also like someone else noted, people are looking for ways to save money so what I recommend is google: ways to save money for my business and put yourself in the owners shoes’ so you can have a feel as to what needs to be done.
I see many people advising to build websites but that too is a tough nut to crack. I have spent thousands of dollars developing tweenter.com, a social website for kids with COPPA safety features. I expect to launch by the beginning of October but im finding that I will have to spend thousands more on advertising to get it off the ground. The word of mouth buzz might work for some but those cases are few and far between.
I support the internet model but would caution that you have to have a soldi business plan, capital to invest, and excellent advertising. Otherwise your just another site amongst the billions!
Whatever business you start have goals, and outlines to them, financing, and exit strategy and experience. Know your product and your competition. Work hard every day and you wil not fail as long as you are flexible. My father used to say “it is the reed that weathers the storm not the mighty oak”.
When you decide on all of that make sure that you try to have as many ways to make money out of your efforts without diluting your message.
Hello people been some very intresting posts here.
Right I live in the UK, I’m 20, I have been quite good in sales, I currently running a computer repair business with around 10 customers per month, bringing in maybe £700 per month, its just a hobbie, Im in a dead end job at a Taxi Office, I am working my arse off 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, and Im also doing marketing for them improving there business, and Im getting very poor pay, I am very involved in internet, and I would like to start selling my own product and be able to support my family, yes I have a child on the way, If someone can help me think of a brilliant business Idea, I am more the happy to give it 100% and also give the chosen person a share of the profit it if succeeds, Thanks for reading, I am 100% telling the truth, my Email is, Djansell@msn.com
Best Regards
David Ansell
I started a online remote computer service!
thats what to get into, o and online backup is going to be big!
good luck work hard ,dream big and it will happen.
Can you give me guidance how to do that?
djansell@msn.com
Email me please
How about a virtual/remote staffing agency.
people need work and companies need staff (at the right price)
its online (low cost) etc.
this is my focus. any input appreciated
thanks