21 Awesome businesses in India that need little to no money

21 Awesome businesses in India that need little to no money

Want to start a business in India? Here are some businesses In India You can start WITH LITTLE TO NO MONEY!

If you are one of those people who want to start their own business in India but have very little to no money to start a business then you might like the businesses I’ve listed below.

Starting a business in India isn’t easy, there are so many obstacles and for most people money is the biggest obstacle. 

In my experience money shouldn’t be the obstacle to start a business in India because there are many sources of financing a business in India such as crowdfunding, business loans, venture capitalists and angel investors. 

It all comes down to your business idea and your entrepreneurship spirit.

Do you know the average cost of starting a business in India is $8500 that’s around 6 lakhs Indian Rupees? But some businesses don’t even require initial investments.

It’s fascinating to me that this day and age anyone can start businesses and scale it with absolutely no money!

20-25 years ago, starting a business means spending lakhs or even crores of rupees for things like land, building, rent, electricity, infrastructure, salaries, etc. Nowadays, anyone who has a computer and Internet access can start a business with basically no startup costs.

To be honest, still, there are few things you still need like an Internet connection, a computer or a laptop as well as electricity to run an Internet-based business. But I’m assuming these things are already available to you.

Before we jump into the list I want you to have few things before you start a business.

1. Financial safety net – As I said earlier starting businesses isn’t easy and starting businesses with no money is definitely not easy. You should have a financial safety net just in case things don’t work out as you want it to be. 

Don’t jeopardize your family’s financial well-being just to start a business. If you are not financially stable I’ll advise you to keep your job and start the business as a side-hustle and when you are financially comfortable you can work full time on your business.

2. Determination – Your business might face problems in the future and you’ll make mistakes and if you are not determined enough you will give up faster than you think. Determination is important because it gives us the strength to persist in the face of difficulties.

3. Willingness to sacrifice – Starting businesses with no money means you have to do all the work by yourself. In the initial few years into your business, you’ll have to sacrifice your personal life and spending time with your family and friends.

Sometimes you’ll have to miss important events and opportunities. You also have to cut down on your expenses, so you can spend money on the growth of your businesses. 

4. Decision making and problem-solving ability – When you are in charge you’ll have to make snap decisions concerning your business. These decisions will be made to attain your business objectives.

Like all businesses, your business too will face some problems while functioning, and when the time comes, your problem-solving ability will be tested. Therefore, a businessman must be a good decision maker and a problem solver.

5. Communication skill – One of the most important skills for every business owner is people skills. Leadership is nothing without communication.

When talking to your potential clients, you must be friendly and good verbal communicator. After all, the only way you can convince the people that they need your products or services is through communication.

6. Understanding of Modern technologies– that will Impact businesses in future

Future Business ideas in India with no money

1. YouTube 

YouTube is the biggest social media platform and the 2nd biggest search engine on the Internet. Almost 2 billion users log in on YouTube every month. Below stats will give an insight into the massive size of the platform. 

YouTube statistics 2020

There there are only two things required to successfully make money on YouTube

1. Unique and creative content

2. A large following 

While it’s possible to make a living from YouTube as a content creator but it’s not as easy as you might think. There’s a lot of competition, and unless you create extraordinarily unique content, you won’t be able to monetize YouTube.

How do YouTubers make money?

1. Google Adsense: To be eligible to make money from Adsense you must have a minimum of 1000 subscribers and 4000 video watch hours within the last 12 months.

2. Affiliate marketing: You can use an affiliate link in your video description to make money even when you are not eligible for Google Adsense. You can earn massive revenue through affiliate marketing if you create an in-depth tutorial video or review products on YouTube.

3. Crowdfunding: You can ask your loyal fans to crowdfund your channel to keep the videos coming. Your followers can donate some money to you through platforms like Patreon. You can offer exclusive videos for your Patreon supporters to show your appreciation.

4. Sell your products or services: Another great way to make money from YouTube is to sell your products or services to your subscribers. You can redirect them to your website and sell them courses, customized products, merchandise or some kind of services.

5. Sponsored videos: Brands pays YouTubers to talk about their product on their videos to get exposure and brand awareness.

Getting started

Building a brand and viewership on YouTube to be able to make decent money from Adsense takes time. Meanwhile, you can leverage other monetization methods to sustain.

Some tips

1. Choose a niche or micro-niche

2. Create a content calendar

3. Be consistent and post at least 2-3 times a week.

4. Create customs thumbnails.

5. Use catchy video titles.

6. Do keyword research and learn about YouTube SEO.

7. Use Google trends to know what the trending topics are in your niche.

8. Engage with your audience by replying to their comments.

9. Collaborate with creators in your niche.

2. Blogging 

For the last 10 years or so has blogging has been one of the top ways to make money online and when you consider it a business it opens up many more opportunities for you

Blogs can be categorized into niches (Food, fashion, travel, finance, technology, etc.) and bloggers are usually very passionate about their niche.

To get high traffic on the blog quality content must be posted consistently. A blogger must also learn how to write SEO friendly articles to rank on Google search engine.

How bloggers make money

1. Google Adsense

2. Affiliate marketing

What is affiliate marketing

3. Sponsored posts

4. Private ads

5. Selling services

6. Selling their products

How to start a blogging

To know how to create a blog – click here 

3. Dropshipping

One of the businesses that have made people thousands of dollars within months is dropshipping. It is one of the best online businesses if you don’t have enough or have no money to start a business in India.

If you put in the work you can find success very quickly in dropshipping. You’ll have to learn e-commerce entrepreneurship to get the desired results.

In dropshipping the customer places an order on your e-commerce website and pays you, then you/seller keep your margin and forward the order to the product supplier your work is done here.

The product supplier then processes the order and ships the order to the customer.

The drop shipper only needs to handle the marketing part and he doesn’t have any inventory or physical warehouse. Drop shipper is the link between the supplier and the customer.

How to start a dropshipping business

1. Select a niche like Fashion, technology, interior decoration, etc.

2. Perform competitor analysis and make sure the niche is not already crowded with other drop shippers

3. Find a supplier

4. Create an e-commerce website

5. Start marketing your dropshipping store

4. Drop servicing 

Drop servicing is now the most trending form of online business right now! 

You must be wondering, what is drop-servicing? Well, it’s like it’s a twin of drop shipping but here instead of selling products, you are selling services.

The services you’ll sell can be anything like – Social media marketing, content writing, graphic design, building a website, etc. 

There are thousands of services the businesses around the world need every day to go about running their business.

Let’s say you create a website for logo design and was able to generate a sale just like drop shipping.

What you need to do is next head over to freelancing platforms like Fiverr or UpWork that can create a logo for you in much less price. So, you are just a connecting link between a customer and a service provider.

Get started

1. Create a list of services you are going to sell – For example, there’s a high demand globally for graphic designers.

Businesses need graphic art for their website, brand and social media. You can provide services like logo design, brochure design, business card design, website design, social media post design, etc.

2. Find a service provider- It’s important to find a service provider you can trust and someone you who can get the work done in time.

3. Build a web presence- The best way to do this is by creating a drop servicing website. You can also leverage social media to find clients.

5. Online coaching

People on the internet are always looking for people who have hands-on experience with the things they want to learn and are willing to pay to learn those skills. 

The online coaching industry which was 1.6 million in 2006 is expected to hit 9.8 million by the year 2021.

To start an online coaching business in India neither you require much teaching experience nor capital. It’s one of those businesses that you can start in India with no money.

For starters, you can sell your courses on platforms like Udemy, Unacademy, and Skillshare. After selling a few courses you’ll have enough capital to invest on a website and creating your own online coaching platform. Later, you can use Zoom, a cloud platform for video conferencing and webinars to take live sessions.

Getting started

1. The main thing you need to decide what to teach and how to create engaging videos. Research other successful online courses to get inspiration then choose a subject you want to teach to your audience. 

Business ideas in India with no money profitable online coaching niches

2. After you’ve decided what you want to teach people, next put together a website that showcases your expertise. Add testimonials, reviews, case studies, and blogs on your website. Also, create a presence on social media and post regularly things related to your chosen niche. 

3. Then, learn to use the equipment and tools like how to use a microphone properly and record or live broadcast your video. Learn video editing and other related software required in your coaching business.

4. The final step is to market your business with the help of your website and social media.

6. Social media marketing agency

By now businesses have realized that social media is one of the most important marketing platforms.

Business owners try to implement social media strategies by themselves but usually fail to get desired results. It’s one of the great businesses if you don’t have enough or no money to start businesses in India.

Businesses that want to take advantage of an enormous market on the internet must shift from traditional to modern online marketing platforms.

To do so there is no one else to turn to but the social media marketing agency.

Social media marketing agency helps businesses market themselves on various social media platforms.

The services social media marketing agency offers to include:

1. Social media profile setup and optimization

2. Creating a Social media marketing strategy

3. Content marketing

4. Social media audit

5. Social media advertising (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube advertising)

7. Content Writing

Content writing is one of the most important skills when it comes to marketing.

Why?

Because, content helps in creating an audience for the business, build engagement and trust and ultimately in generating sales.

Businesses need content for their website, blogs, emails, social media, pamphlets, brochures, etc.

A skilled content writer can create a business in India by selling his content to these businesses. Later, he/she can create a team of content writers and work as a content marketing agency.

Content writers can get work through freelancing websites (freelancer, Upwork, constant-content, pepper content, Fiverr, etc.) as well as client referrals.

8. Podcasting 

There are over billion blogs on the internet, that’s 1 blog for every 7 people and the competition to rank number one on Google is fierce. There are only 800,000 podcasts out there (most of them are from the USA)!

Starting a podcast easier than creating a blog or YouTube channel, still, not many people have leveraged the earning potential of podcasts in India.

It can become one of your most profitable businesses in India that demand no money to get started if you do it right. 

These are so many ways to make money through podcasting such as:

1. Affiliate marketing

2. Sponsorships

3. Selling your services

4. Online courses

5. Selling books and audiobooks

6. Crowdfunding

9. Online travel agency (OTA)

If traveling is your passion then you can turn your passion into a profitable business in India. 

Indians are considered the most digitally-advanced travelers in terms of the Internet being used for planning, booking and experiencing a journey. Indian travel market size is around 50 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. 

It’s very easy to start an online travel agency but the completion is cutthroat. But, still, it’s one of those businesses that require little to no money to get started.

You need to do a few things to stand out from your competition:

 1. Determine a niche – You need specialty to stand out. Customers are more aware nowadays and they need more information and strong recommendations.

2. Create an effective business plan

3. Create a beautiful website and application and design highly customized travel packages 

4. Focus on branding 

5. Have an active presence on social media– post videos on YouTube (video marketing is a great source to reach a wider audience). Post regularly on Instagram to target young travelers.

10. Print-on-demand business

If you are artistic and creative you can start a print-on-demand business in India. It’s one of the trending businesses in India.

You can leave inventory, printing, packaging, and shipping to a third party supplier and keep designing to yourself.

People nowadays are buying customized T-shirts, hats, phone cases, hoodies, Mugs, and more from the on-demand business like bewakoof.com, redwolf, planet superhero, chumbak, etc.

You’ll have to create an e-commerce website and social media profiles on Facebook and Instagram to sell your products through the Facebook market place and shoppable tags on Instagram. 

You can use mockups templates to showcase your product to save money instead of doing a full photoshoot for every new design.

11. Cloud kitchen

A cloud kitchen is a type of restaurant that doesn’t have a dine-in facility or take-away facility. 

It’s just a kitchen that takes order through call or website and delivers the food by themselves or third party integration like – Uber eats, Zomato, Swiggy, etc.

Business ideas in India with no money - Cloud kitchen India

The great thing about cloud kitchen is you don’t require much investment and you can operate from a very little space. More than 1 restaurants kitchen can operate from one cloud kitchen

This allows a business owner to offer competitive pricing to its customers.

The cloud kitchen also lowers the overhead cost. It doesn’t require fancy infrastructure, waiters, busboys, etc. just chefs.

What do you need to start a Cloud kitchen?

1. Kitchen space and equipment

2. Cook/chef

3. License – Here’s a list of license required

4. POS system/software to collect orders

12. Wedding planning

If you have an interest in event planning, wedding planning can be a very exciting field. 

A wedding planning company helps in planning for every aspect of a wedding like booking a venue, catering, photography and Videography, decoration, etc.

To be successful as a wedding planner the knack for budget management, coordination, people skills, and creativity is necessary. 

You also need an aesthetic instinct and problem-solving skills to pull off organizational and decorative details.

How big is the wedding planning industry in India?

The market for a big fat Indian wedding is recession-proof. As per the KPMG report, it’s around $50 billion in size and continuously growing at a rate of 30-35% annually. 

The estimated cost of a luxury wedding in India could be Rs. 20-25 crores.

According to Mandeep Lamba, President – South Asia, HVS ANAROCK, The destination wedding industry is expected to reach a market size of Rs 45,000 crore in 2020

Steps to start a wedding planning business:

1. Choose a name and register a company

2. Open a business bank account 

3. Get necessary permits and licenses

4. Create a business portfolio through the website and social media and establish your web presence

5. Land your first client – Through emails, social media ads and offer a heavy discount.

13. Digital Marketing and advertising agency

As long as there are people selling products or services they will need marketing and advertising to reach more people. 

Now businesses are starting to realize the potential of digital marketing over traditional marketing.

stats about digital marketing in India

The best thing about starting a digital marketing agency is that you need no money up front to start. 

All you need is polished digital marketing skills, a laptop/computer and an internet connection to get started.

Steps to starting your own digital marketing agency:

1. Choose a name for the company and file for LLP/LLC or Pvt. LTD.

2. Apply digital marketing on yourself and your company.

3. Research the market you want to target – See what works for businesses and what could they do to get better results.

4. Create packages for different services.

5. Get started by giving away free services. Get results and create a testimonial/case study of those clients. This is a great way to create a portfolio. It’s hard to get paid clients without testimonials, references, case studies, etc.

14. Video Production Company

According to more than 54% of marketers worldwide in 2019 video marketing is considered as the type of content with the best ROI after email marketing.

Video marketing stats 2020

A 2019 report by Wyzowl estimated that 87% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool. The demand for more video-based content is continuously increasing because video engages users longer than any other medium.

Therefore, by looking at the latest trends we can say there’s never been a better time to start your own video production company.

Some essentials before starting a video production company:

1. DSLR camera

2. Lenses

3. Laptop/computer

4. Video editing software

Steps to start a video production company:

1. Choose a name for the company and file for LLP/LLC.

2. Create a website, social media accounts and a YouTube channel to showcase your portfolio.

3. Print business cards.

4. Find clients through friends, family or referrals.

15. Business consultancy

Currently, there’s a high demand for specialized services and there has never been a better time to start a business consultancy.

But, before you start the first this you need to ask yourself before starting a consultancy business is – ‘do you have sufficient skills to guide someone?’

Starting a business consultancy is not for everyone, it’s specifically for people who have prior hands-on experience running their own business or managing someone else’s business.

Business consultants are usually hired to identify and solve problems. They also help in finding ways the company can function effectively. Starting a business consultancy is one of those businesses in India that you can start with no money.

Steps to start a business consultancy in India:

1. Identify your skillset – identify skills that can bring value to the businesses

2. Choose a business niche where you want to help and only focus on that niche

3. Work out a business plan

4. Register your business as a sole proprietorship or one-person company

5. Design your elevator pitch

6. Send out client proposals

16. Insurance consultancy

The well-functioning insurance industry is a major pillar for any country’s economic development.

It provides much-needed security to families and businesses during unforeseen incidents.

The Government of India over the years has taken various initiatives to boost the insurance industry and the insurance industry is expected to reach $280 billion in India during the year 2020.

But the industry still lacks awareness, innovation and distribution channels and overall insurance penetration rate is only 3.41%. So, the market is massively underserved.

The insurance consultant is the link between the insurance company the insurer and the insuree. 

If you are good at selling, then this is one of the best businesses you can do in India with no money. To become an Insurance consultant you are required to clear a licensing exam – click here to know more

Some benefits of becoming an insurance consultant:

1. No ceiling on income

2. Flexible work timings

3. Start earning at the age of 18

4. Get various rewards

5. Get recognition

17. Real- estate brokerage

The Real-estate industry in India is one of the biggest in the world in terms of generating employment. 

According to the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) report, by 2022, the employment of real estate brokers and agents should increase by more than 10%.

But, it’s not as easy to become a real estate broker in India as it was a few years ago. 

Earlier anyone without proper qualification can become a broker, thus created a bad reputation in the mind of clients about the job.

Now you need proper training and certifications to become a real estate broker in India.

To be a successful real estate agent a person must have:

1. Knowledge about the industry

2. Network in the industry

3. Better communication skills and transparency

18. Financial consulting firm

A Financial consultant helps individual and business manage their finances and grow their wealth.

There is a huge demand in the financial sector in India. Most of the people in India do not possess the skills to manage their finances, accounting and they don’t know how to file Income tax.

One of the most common reasons why businesses fail in India is not because they don’t have capital or clients/customers but, they don’t know how to manage their finances or tax-related matters.

Steps to start a financial consulting firm

1. Get necessary licenses and certifications

2. Create a business plan

3. Name and Register the firm

4. Open a bank account

5. Create a digital portfolio – Create a website and social media profiles

6. Establish a web presence – write blogs/articles on your website and engage with people on the web

19. Meal planning 

People need to eat, and the busier the families get the less they have time to cook their meals at home and the more they go out and eat. 

But we all know eating out is not necessarily a great option when it comes to eating healthy.

When people want to cook at home they don’t know what to buy and how much ingredients to use. This is where meal planning comes in. It’s one of the businesses in India that requires no money to get started.

As a meal planner, you are required to:

  1. Create a list of ingredients
  2. Design healthy recipes and categories them
  3. Create step-by-step recipes  
  4. Specify the nutritional value of the meals

20. Event management 

To keep overhead expenses a minimum many event managers start out working from home. 

Event spends less time in their office and more time on networking, building relationships, meeting sponsors, checking venues, etc.

If you are an outdoorsy person and like meeting new people this is the best business for you. Operational and startup cost for an event planning business is very low.

Steps to set up an event management firm in India:

1. Gain relevant experience

2. Register the firm

3. Obtain the licensees

4. Create a business plan

5. Expand your network

6. Define your services and rate

21. Interior design firm

Interior designers use their creativity, aesthetic sense, and knowledge of the latest trend to design a functional space.

An Interior design firm is a booming business but high paying clients only hire experienced firms. So, to get hired a company needs to apply some great marketing tactics.

Here are some steps to get started as an interior designing firm in India:

1. Know your target clients

2. Determine what services you are going to offer

3. Create a beautiful logo

4. Set up a website and build a portfolio

5. Decide what you gonna charge for specific services

6. Network with suppliers and contractors

7. Promote your business on social media


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Divyanshuchaturvedi.com

Founder and CEO of MarkBuzz LLP, Digital Marketer, Investor, Youtuber, Podcaster and Author.