5 Low Investment smallest business Ideas to start.

Many of us do not have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on inventory, warehousing, and retail space. However, contrary to popular belief, there are many business ideas that allow you to focus on getting started rather than the logistics and upfront costs. 

So, in this article, I'll walk you through some low-cost, small-business ideas that you can start making money with this year. Let's get started.

Small business ideas to start

1. Start a charitable business.
2. Create your own online clothing store.
3. Try starting a pet business. 
4. Starting a magazine.
5. Sell your digital artwork. 

1. Start a charitable business

Now you don't have to be a nonprofit in order to make this work. You can still be a profitable company and weave in a charitable aspect into your business plan. 

So, for example, when COVID arrived in Toronto, a local designer named Rachelle LeBlanc created protective plastic shields for business owners who couldn't afford them. 

So that's just one thought that came to mind. Of course, you'll want to choose a cause that you care about because it will give your business meaning and motivate you to work harder.

Downloading the Shopify app give and grow would actually make your life a lot easier. It makes it extremely simple to collaborate with charitable organizations. 

So you can set it up to donate a specific amount or a percentage of sales, or you can even ask your customers to donate at the checkout. 

Obviously, you'll want to talk about your charitable efforts in your marketing, and I believe there's a way to do so in a professional manner.

So you can share humble blog posts, or you can get other people to talk about your humanitarian work on your behalf if you don't feel comfortable putting that out there, you can talk to publications or influencers, and they can talk about it for you. 

2. Create your own online clothing store

You don't need to buy any inventory to start a successful online fashion boutique. You simply need an eye for style and upcoming trends to curate your own shop. 

So you can get clothing from apps like Oberlo, Ali Express, and Alibaba. This will enable you to implement a drop shipping model for your company.

It's all about identifying a niche and sticking to it, only carrying inventory that appeals to a specific type of person. As an example, if you're aiming for a riot girl aesthetic, you'll want to stock punk and goth clothing, and only that kind of clothing.

3. Try starting a pet business

Is it just me, or does everyone seem to be getting a dog? I'm not sure if it's because of the pandemic or what, but the pet industry is worth nearly $100 billion. You can get a piece of that pie by providing pet services. 

If you enjoy animals, starting a pet walking or pet sitting business could be beneficial. You can sell packages to clients who are either overworked or ready to take a vacation.

So, my advice is to start by marketing your services on an app like Rover. You should begin here because there is already an established user base. Once you've established those relationships with repeat customers, you can direct them to your own Shopify website to convert them to larger packages. Set up a membership program.

Starting your own membership program is a great way to generate recurring income, especially if you already have a network, and, while everyone is probably tired of online classes right now, you can still stand out if you find a way to differentiate yourself and scratch a specific itch that people are currently experiencing.

So, just off the top of my head, I believe people are lacking in community and connection. So, for example, if you wanted to start a woman's circle where people could connect. 

That could be an interesting spin on the situation, and starting a membership-based business in Shopify is extremely simple. So, just as you would for a physical product, create a new product with a name and description that informs people about your membership services or events.

4. Starting a magazine.

Well, if you said yes to all of these things, then you might be interested in starting a magazine, and I think this is just such a fun business idea because you get to collaborate with other creatives in order to make this come to life. 

Starting a zine also creates space for breeding a new culture that you could lead and you could spearhead, and I think it's nice to bring like-minded creative people together, especially in today's climate. 

So the best way to make this all go down without having to hold any inventory at all is by using a method called print on demand. 

So what happens with print on demand is you only pay for an order once someone actually puts the order in, you only send it to print once someone has paid for an order. It goes into depth on how you can print books and magazines without holding any inventory at all.

5. Sell your digital artwork

Selling your work is ideal for artists who want to take their work more seriously if you're a creative person looking to monetize your talents. So you can either scan in your artwork or use the print on demand method we discussed earlier. 

You could also do digital drawings, as my friend ALPO does here. Or how about this method, which I only recently learned about, but creators are beginning to sell crypto art.

Crypto art is a type of art that is related to blockchain technology, and if any of you know how this works, please let me know in the comments section. 

I think this could be a really cool concept, and it might be nice to get in on this trend before it becomes too popular. I'm not sure, but I do know that there's a real chance for this to be a profitable venture.

You can either aim for volume and sell as many prints as possible, or you can use scarcity tactics to make your work feel exclusive and difficult to obtain.

So, whether you're selling pet items like Faiza or anything else, you should definitely validate first. You'll want to make certain that there is a market for it and that there is room for you. So here's how you do it. 

First, look at Google Trends. You can search by region and timeframe to see if your product is on the rise, and you can also get more specific by seeing which states have the highest demand for what you want to sell.

You'll also want to download keywords all over the place. This is a Chrome extension that will show you historical data on how many people are Googling your product. 

We can see that pet hair remover here. This was one of the items Faiza inquired about, and we can see that it has grown over time. My final tip is to use Google Keyword Planner. 

This will give you an idea of how many people are looking for it. You can also get a general idea of how difficult it may be to sell that product.

I hope this article has been helpful and has inspired you to start your own business. I'm curious, so let me know in the comments section what business you're going to start.