5 Easy Businesses That Won’t Make You Sell Your Soul (or Kidney)

Happy Friday!!

Ever felt like you need a small fortune to start a business? Or worse, sell your kidney? Well, guess what – you don't!

After writing the previous week’s newsletter about Honey, I was watching Shark Tank and saw new startups were getting deals here and there. Many of them were bootstrapped (Did not have any prior investors).
Watching that a thought struck in my mind “What are the business models that require very little money so that you don’t have to sell your kidney?” 😅 

I knew quite a few as I implemented some myself but I wanted to dive deeper to uncover the unique ones that are easy to execute.

Here is my list of 5 unique and easy business models that you can start with little to no money and can start even from tomorrow. I will also provide real-life examples and explain how you can implement it.

My Top 5 Picks

Do you remember Nokia’s tagline?

“Connecting People”

Lead generation business exactly like “Connecting People” with a slight twist. In a lead generation business, you connect customers to businesses and charge a one-time fee or commission for that lead.

Suppose a person is searching for a daycare service in Google and lands on your website. You will gather some information like the email address, location, price range, etc. As you do not operate a daycare facility you will simply search for some daycare facilities and sell them the lead you got.

The model is very profitable as there is no such huge cost on your side but you will get a good return.

Real-Life Example: HomeAdvisor connects homeowners with local home improvement professionals, like plumbers, electricians, or contractors. Service providers pay for the leads they receive from the platform.

I have done some courses on lead generation and have practical experience in Lead Generation business. Some tips for starting:

1. Open a website for a profitable niche service.

2. Do SEO to rank your website

3. Write some blogs related to the topic

4. Gather leads and send cold emails to potential buyers of those leads

5. If you have good quality leads, you can even sell your whole business for a good price.

Want to know how to start a lead-gen business in your city? Reply and I’ll guide you!

Peer-to-Peer (P2P): Middleman Magic

If you are familiar with the Peer-to-peer business model then there is no doubt the two businesses that will pop into your mind are Uber and Airbnb.

And no I am not reading your mind.

In peer-to-peer you will act as a middleman and provide services like rent, sell, and swap without touching a single product or physically providing the service.

It’s like being the cool middleman who connects friends with benefits (no, not that kind), but in this case, it's about houses, cars, and everything in between.

People always want some services that can make their life pretty easy but they are not always available or very costly.

On the other hand, some people have some excess capacity of that product or service that they are not able to utilize. The peer-to-peer business model solves that problem.

P2P Businesses You Can Start: People look for house rents a lot and it is also a headache for homeowners to find tenants very quickly. You can open a Facebook page where you will gather tenants’ and homeowners’ information. Facebook ads (Leads Ads) can help a lot in this case.

Within two or three months you will have a good database and you can match homeowners with tenants and charge a small fee from both of them for that.

Real-Life Example: Fiverr and Upwork connect people who want a specific service to those who can provide it.

Print on Demand (POD): Creativity with No Inventory

Well, I love this one as it is really easy to implement.

You create a design and then just put that on a print-on-demand site like Etsy, Printify, Printful, or any other. They will do the rest of the work like printing the design on the T-shirt, mug, or any other merchandise, and even ship it to the customer. The site will charge a fee for those but you will get the profit anyway.

You can just sit back and relax. Though some kind of ads need to be run on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or any other social media to reach the targeted customer.

It is one of the hassle-free ways to generate income and you do not need to spend a lot of time behind it.

Hot Tips: Do not go for a generic design. Choose a niche and target a specific group of customers for the best outcome. Teenagers like watching anime so if you create a design for any upcoming popular anime there is a high chance you can perform really well.

Real-Life Example: Rachel Rofe has been a well-known figure in the print-on-demand space for years. She created her own POD business using Printful, selling various products with fun and inspirational designs. She also uses Etsy to drive organic traffic to her store, leveraging the platform's built-in audience. She has a multi-six-figure print-on-demand business.

Got an idea for a cool t-shirt design? Drop me a message!

Niche Subscription: Unlock Hidden Demands

One of the business models that is growing and will grow even further is the subscription model. One of the prime reasons behind that is the growth of mobile banking or online payment systems.

In this subscription model if you can find an untapped niche then you can open a fortune for yourself.

There are already different subscription models where people pay an amount every month and get some products or services in return. You need to go one step further from that and find out the specific problem of some subscription models and build a business over that.

For example, there are different book subscription businesses but there were no fantasy novel subscriptions available previously. FairyLoot noticed that and took the opportunity to create an exclusive fantasy novel subscription service and it was a super hit.

The benefit of choosing a niche is that usually in a niche segment you can charge comparatively higher as the consumers are really in want of that product or service.

My Own Plan: I have been researching one and I think it has good growth potential. Terrace gardens or home gardens are increasing day by day and people are getting educated about greenery so there can be a niche subscription model opportunity where I can provide seeds and other necessary gardening items and tools every month.

If anyone is interested then let me know as I would love to have an enthusiast partner.

I think everyone has a vague idea about this business model. Where you create some content then monetize it in different ways.

One of the popular methods is YouTube channels but it can be quite hard to maintain as creating videos can be challenging for a beginner.

I got a solution which is of course AI. Faceless YouTube channels have been growing very well recently. You can follow these tips:

• Do not go for shorts as the rewards are not very significant, create long-form video.

• Choose a specific niche by researching and creating at least 10/20 videos beforehand before publishing.

• You need to publish 3 or 4 videos in a week.

There are also different ways of content monetization like blogging, affiliate programs, online courses, etc.

I am currently making a blog. Here is my site dailyfitnest.com in which I write about health and fitness. You can check it out if you like. My plan is to monetize it with Ads, Newsletter, and Print on demand.

I would love to hear your thought regarding that.