3 Businesses You Could Start for Extra Money

With more than 20 million people losing their jobs during the pandemic (source), there are a record number of people looking for ways to make money. If you’ve ever considered starting your own business, this could be the perfect opportunity to give it a shot.

While there are plenty of different businesses that you can start, some are more flexible than others. These three business ideas will allow you maximum flexibility to work part-time hours around your existing schedule, or to scale up and grow it into a full-time income.

All three of these options could be great for making a little extra money, or they could turn into a six-figure income.

1. Freelance Writing

There are lots of opportunities for freelance writers, especially from millions of blogs and websites that publish loads of new content every single day.

You could work as a freelance writer and write about a wide range of topics, or you could specialize in a particular topic. Specialists typically are able to make more money because they’re able to build their expertise and establish authority, and there are plenty of different topics that are big enough that you could specialize in (like business, finance, travel, marketing, family & parenting, health, wellness, fitness, fashion, beauty, and others).

Possibly the best thing about working as a freelance writer is the possibility of ongoing work. Many of your clients, especially blogs and websites, will hire you to write a certain number of articles per week or per month. If you have enough clients, you won’t need to dedicate any time to find additional work. If freelance writing is just a part-time thing for you, managing just a couple of clients may be enough.

The combination of flexibility, high-income potential, and the lack of experience needed to get started make working as a freelance writer one of the best entry-level work-from-home jobs.

2. Photography

If you have some photographic skills, why not put those skills to good use and make some money? You could take portraits of families, couples, kids, newborns, and more.

This is a service that you can start simply by checking with people in your own personal network. Lots of people are interested in getting photos taken, and many people have intentions to do it but never seem to get around to it. Talk to your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and other people that you know and mention your services.

Again, this is something that can be done part-time on the side for some extra money or scaled into a full-time business. It’s flexible since you can schedule appointments around your existing commitments. Some photographers only take clients on Saturdays and Sundays, making it one of the best weekend jobs.

Taking photos for clients isn’t the only option. You could also sell prints of nature or travel photos, sell photos at stock photo websites, start a photography blog, start a YouTube channel, write a photography ebook, or create and sell online photography courses.

3. Web Design

If you have some experience as a designer, starting a web design business is a great opportunity. There are plenty of businesses, entrepreneurs, and organizations that are looking for a web designer or developer.

This is another flexible opportunity that could be done around an existing job, or you could take it full-time. You could either work as a freelancer or scale-up, start an agency, and hire other designers and developers.

All three of these opportunities would allow you to make money from home and start building a business that could turn into something much bigger in the future.