35 Expats Business Ideas You Can Start Today [2023]

I found the freelance writing market in 2011 after signing up to sites that offered writing work. It was a fairly new and burgeoning market at the time, even if the rates offered on the platforms I started on were abysmal. Taking a ton of low-paying gigs was how I molded my first online writing skills. As I accumulated work, continually hit my deadlines, and exceeded expectations, the work brought referral work. Within three months of starting my entire freelance writing pursuit, I had more work than I could handle. So, I started a business, created it on the spot, and named it Express Writers.

We got clients on day one and continued to get them because I went and got them. I would get up at 4 a.m. and send out 100 emails a day to new leads.

We’ve never had funding. We’ve never sought it. Everything was a day-by-day, gut-instinct, move-fast process, and we have always had to pivot and learn how to reshape and reapproach when failures happened. I went with it and found joy because I was walking in my passion (writing). What I’ve learned is that this move-fast process is behind some of the most successful businesses in the world. Success loves speed. Failure attaches to slowness. Our quick responses and agile adaptations, or the “hard-knocks life” if you want to describe it more accurately, helped us maintain and grow our place in the market.

Growing up I’ve always had this unique passion for art and all things creative. I was that artsy girl in all the art classes in high school and even took a few art classes in College.

When strangers were noticing my art and asked if I had a website, business card, etc., it really pushed me to start the business.

I never thought I could actually have a “successful career” with art so I majored in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. I worked as an Assistant SLP for 2 years after graduating and worked for a pediatric home health company. I truly enjoyed working with special needs children with language disorders and thought this was my calling. However, after applying to grad school and receiving rejection letters for the grad program, I was completely devastated. I felt like a huge failure and was so discouraged. In response, I started painting again.

I was blessed to grow up in a two-parent household with a loving and caring set of parents. My father was in the military and because of that, I was born in California in ‘94. I’m a Georgia Peach all the way, but I was born in California. Unfortunately, in September of 2018, my life shifted when my father passed from cancer. It was pretty quick. In July, he was diagnosed and in September, he took his last breath. I was a Daddy’s girl to the FULLEST, so you can imagine the pain I went through - and still going through.

Do research before starting. If you want to start a business - research before you pay anything.

Fortunately, he was there to see me graduate from Valdosta State University in 2016. I majored in Mass Media with a Speech Communication Minor. Growing up, I loved to be in front of the camera (my father was a photographer) and I would record the video announcements at my church, as young as 11 years old. I also recorded the announcements in elementary school. I just knew Broadcast Journalism was something I was interested in.

One and a half years after starting my studies in business administration I came into touch with entrepreneurship and I immediately knew that I wanted to dig deeper into how to build your own business and be your own boss.

So I started reading books, especially biographies, of successful entrepreneurs.

Pretty soon I found out there’s one major component all of them have in common: They all talk about their personal growth and how they had to improve themselves so that their businesses could grow.

This immediately triggered me and I started digging deeper into the topic of personal growth.

I started FilterGrade in late 2013 after getting some encouragement from a friend and mentor of mine. I was selling digital products on a few different marketplaces and just starting to get curious about entrepreneurship and software. In the beginning, it was just a collection of Photoshop Actions I made and packaged under the FilterGrade brand. I didn’t even launch my website with a store at first, I sold through Creative Market to test the products and see if there was any traction. I wrote more about this on Medium where I detailed the experience of using marketplaces to build an MVP.

Business models that worked 2-3 years ago are not as effective anymore, so we are constantly looking at new ways to adapt and better serve people who are both buying and selling on the marketplace.

After 6 months and some reasonable traction, I decided to set up a full eCommerce website and store using WooCommerce. It started slow. I was just focused on product development, marketing, and building the brand and learning about the industry.

I originally started MaidThis as a side hustle while I was working at a private equity investment firm. Like many people working the corporate grind, I was fascinated by becoming my own boss.

With any first product or service launch, you’re almost guaranteed to get some aspect of it wrong. You might be priced too low, not be addressing the right target market, or have the package all wrong.

I finally stumbled upon The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris, which turns out is basically the Bible for the digital nomad community, and decided I wanted to experience “location freedom”.

For as long as I can remember I have always been attracted to the idea of being a business owner. I’ve tried many businesses starting with my own DJ company. I got some business cards, printed them at Staples, passed them out, and waited for the calls.

It took a bit of time, but eventually, the calls started to come in and bookings started to happen. I did that for a couple of years until one of the DJ gigs some gangsters got into it and I was almost in the middle of a gang fight. Thank GOD things calmed down, but after that, I started looking for another business!

During this same time, the whole tech bubble was growing and I wanted a part of it. I took some coding classes in college and started using HTML to code my website from scratch. I kind of borrowed a lot of ideas from Yahoo but it was going to be mainly focused on my local city. I visited some businesses and got some of them to advertise. Things seemed to be going well when the bubble burst and I was once more left to venture out and look for something else.

I started programming at age 13 on a Commodore VIC-20 personal computer. I enjoyed taking the thing apart as much as I did creating my own games. It was at that time that I decided I wanted to be a computer engineer. I spent years taking the hardest math and science classes available and eventually managed to get into a top tier engineering school. One of the greatest attributes of a career in technology is that you are always learning, and for many years, I certainly did. However, after my first decade in the business I began to realize two things:

1. There was no knowledge equity in what I was doing. Unlike medicine or law, the knowledge I accumulated over time lost value, instead of gaining value, because the technology changed so much. I would spend months becoming an expert on something only to find that knowledge obsolete in a couple of years. Even though learning was fun, I started to feel as though I was treading water and throwing my life away.

2. The business was changing drastically - for the worst. Most of the work was being outsourced overseas to lesser educated and experienced people, and companies I worked with started experiencing severe quality and performance problems. After the “.com bubble” bust in the early 2000s, wages and career opportunities stagnated. I realized that I had to make a change.

About 10 years ago, I just finished my education life and joined a private company as a fresher. At that time, I heard that we can earn money by working online. I didn't believe it at first, but I had a bit of curiosity in my mind, and since then I've been researching how to make money working online.

I discovered oDesk (present name Upwork). I had been searching for a unique idea and got it from ​​oDesk about digital marketing. Then, I have been studying digital marketing and researching this subject for about 4-5 years. In 2017 I started my new digital marketing agency called Rank Trends but it went live online in 2018 and got a very good response.

I was at a good place with my digital marketing businesses. Moreover, it permitted us to work from anyplace — one that allowed us to venture to the far corners of the planet and invest more energy with our families. Also, I wrote lots of articles about digital marketing including SEO, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, Domain Hosting, Backlinks, etc. We just try to share our knowledge with our website readers to make a bridge with them. I think this idea of digital marketing is a really helpful creation for people and me.

I went to college (The University of Florida) in 2006 - 2009 to get a Finance degree. My intention and goal were direct to learn about the stock market, day trading, investing along with options, and other liquid assets. However, I was totally let down by the lack of insight given.

Live in a way where you have the ability to stack cash, buy assets, invest in yourself, and allow your future self to be amazingly happy your present self took such actions!

I began to go down the path of self-teaching. I attended hundreds of hours, sitting in seminars, watching webinars, reading books, paying for classes, and consuming everything the internet had to offer.

Half of my life ago (23 years ago) I immigrated from Moscow, Russia to the United States with an MS in Engineering and was trying to figure out the best way to leverage the degree for my career in the US. I’ve worked in several tech jobs, mostly focusing on Software development and picked up web programming on the way.

While I enjoyed my tech jobs I felt there are more interesting ways to apply my skills. At the same time I’ve seen my father being miserable after he was laid off from his highly paid Hi-tech job, I simply felt there got to be a better way to make a living.

So a friend of mine from University and I launched our first website, initially a hobby business we named flowers2moscow.com - servicing just our home city of Moscow. The idea came from my own negative experience trying to send flowers back home to my girlfriend and to my parents. Product and service experience were far from perfect, so our first website was born.

I have a background in digital marketing and running online businesses. I’ve been buying and renovating online businesses for over 12 years, starting with a $50 website about natural toothache relief which I sold for a whopping $200! But whilst this didn’t make me rich it showed me what was possible and I went on to build a small portfolio of online businesses and buy, renovate and sell others.

Treating your existing customers as VIPs will encourage repeat business, reviews, and referrals and it's much easier than finding a new customer!

Before BreezeMobility.com.au I was looking for an opportunity where I could make a bigger impact and build a ‘real’ business I could be proud of. I’m excited about the next few years as I see where I can take the revenue, and the impact Breeze Mobility can make.

I began my business career with the family in-store sampling business, C.A. Courtesy, in the 1990s, while at the same time attending college at Johnson and Wales University, where I pursued a degree in Web Management & Internet Commerce.

I’ve always had a knack for marketing and technology, and when I left C.A. Courtesy, I was the Vice President of Marketing and Technology.

People don’t remember what you say as much as they remember how they felt when you said it.

Ten years ago, my husband and I were working in an office set-up. Due to a mix of struggles experienced, my husband and I decided to quit our job and transition into freelancing. The transition phase was difficult since we didn't have the facilities needed like a computer and internet connection. We worked in an internet cafe for the first month of our freelancing career until we bought our personal computer and had our internet connection.

We had experience downtime in our new career at first, but we grow and learn from our mistakes as we go along. Freelancing changed the quality of our lives, our family, and so with our marriage. We embrace these benefits to realize that if mothers can work at home, they can earn while taking care of their family.

Another thing is the overseas workers. They have been working far from their family to make a living. Those who are exhausted and feel unproductive because of many circumstances like long hours of commute eat a lot of their time, endangering their work-life balance. These are a few of our realizations why we come up with putting Filipino Virtual Assistance. Because we know how difficult it is to work far from our family, we want to empower Filipino families, one freelancer at a time. We want to provide our graduates an avenue to earn dollars at their homes' comfort, without the hassle of traffic, toxicity of the environment, and an excellent opportunity for those who never got the chance to go to College.

I first heard about affiliate marketing when I was working at a digital marketing agency after college. One of my co-workers showed me a blog that he had started that was bringing in a fairly significant income.

All the blog did to make money was review vacuum cleaners.

My business is currently yielding more than half a million dollars a year in profits. And it does that with very little expense.

We never had a moment like “Ah ha! Let’s start an online education company!”, it just naturally evolved and grew into what it is today.

But I can tell you exactly how we got here. Before we get into how we first discovered what entrepreneurship even is, I want to paint the picture of what life was like even before that.

Up until we were 21 years old, we were 2 guys just going through life on autopilot with no regard for the future. Worrying about what my next week would look like was hard enough. Then we basically “woke up” and found ourselves in a 1 bedroom apartment in Aarhus, Denmark, not showing up to our part-time job anymore and smoking pot every day. For the first time, we reflected on ourselves, what we were doing and we just felt embarrassed. We were wasting our precious time away doing absolutely nothing. I don’t want to get too into the emotions felt, but it was a rock bottom for us. Long story short, we have a private twin meeting and said to each other “this is f\cking sad, we have to change”. And because we had each other, we developed motivation and ambition to prove we weren’t useless, waste-of-space losers (but that’s exactly how we had acted).

Growing up, I went to private school and was very blessed that my parents cared about my education. Somewhere around 9th grade, my perspective on the education system changed. I realized through books and YouTube videos that the life trajectory of a lot of the people I looked up to, was not aligned with what I wanted in life.

I was never a fan of what was taught in schools. Instead of religiously following what was being taught in high school, I self-educated in business, personal development, and leadership. When I was fifteen, I tried out various online businesses. I failed miserably at first. At this time I was very much into Fitness and I tried to sell training and diet plans. I managed to sell a few plans to my classmates for like $50, but it never really amounted to anything and most importantly it wasn't scalable.

After that, I tried stock trading and the likes. That too didn’t really work for me. One day I stumbled across SMMA. I was so intrigued by the concept, so I went ALL IN. I didn’t care what people thought. I was going to make it big here. I needed some proof of concept, so I convinced my dad to make me run his restaurant's Facebook Ads. I watched 100’s of videos and read tons of blogs, to know how to run successful ads and we were both pretty stoked about the results.

I knew it was the right business for me, but it was not all gold and green forests. In fact, at the start of my “agency journey,” it was so hard getting my feet on the ground and getting my first few clients after my dad.

I was homeschooled, so I have a fairly non-traditional education. I feel like that really shaped the way that I approach life in general. My dad was also a clown in Barnum and Bailey circus, so we moved around a lot and I never made very many friends. This led to my parents eventually got divorced, and me becoming addicted to pornography by the time I was 12.

I really struggled to connect with people in real life, and therefore spent most of my time on video games and the internet. Amazingly, I did get married and now have 2 beautiful kids, who are my main motivation for everything I do now.

My neighbor, who is in the Hall of Fame as the winningest coach in American sports history, has been collecting sports and playing cards for over 50 years. One day, as he was coaching my son in javelin, he offered to let me see his collection. I was blown away. He had everything from Jordan rookies, to Kobes, to Babe Ruths, etc. I wasn’t an expert in collecting cards by any means, but like most kids of the ’80s, I had bought a pack or 2 of trading cards from the store. There is a lot of nostalgia there.

I didn’t have a background in the translation industry before founding Tomedes. However, I had seen a clear need when in previous roles for reliable, accessible translation services that delivered localized and globalized content.

I’ve learned a lot. I think the most important lesson has been that positive communication is critical. It’s essential to be clear and transparent at all times and in all channels.

I felt frustrated that I could see just what a difference high-quality, rapidly delivered localization solutions could make to the bottom line of the businesses I was working for.

In 2011, coming out of college, I miserably tried to start a penny auction website. I studied Political Science at University, which had absolutely no bearing on this idea. I knew I wanted to do something entrepreneurial and was consumed by this auction model. I had my own specific mechanics that I thought would make the game a lot more fair for the average consumer. But alas, 6-8 months later, after burning through thousands of dollars trying to get the technology right, I was absolutely nowhere.

I was resigned to not give up, but the mechanics of the auction are critical to the smooth operation of the website and if you can’t get it right you don’t have a business. So I decided to start taking on some freelance writing work, just to get some cash in.

One thing led to another and I started getting some bigger clients with bigger asks. Eventually, I snowballed hiring some writers and copy editors. Turning this thing into a full-time business operation.

We both had previous experience in another start-up called Soul id which was a social media platform for action sports. We ran the marketing and media at that company which was a blast. After we left that company, we split directions. Eli got involved in the eCommerce industry by starting a brand called Winterial which he grew to hundreds of SKUs. Kyle headed in the media direction and started a commercial photography company where he worked with Fortune 500 companies and small businesses.

At this time Kyle wanted to be able to get back in the start-up world, grow a large brand and a team of like-minded creatives and innovators. So like any entrepreneur, he jumped on Google and started to search for media companies that were also technology-based companies as well. That is where the inspiration of starting a digital agency that solely focused on the media portion for brands and product companies came to life.

Culture is the centerpiece of a successful company. Creating a place for employees to come to work and enjoy what they do, the environment and who they work with will pay long term dividends.

I started Live Fit because I felt I was running out of options in the industry I loved so much. Personally, I felt the misses in the personal training industry and wanted to change that. Personal Training, as well as all types of fitness, can be very intimidating to most people. And honestly, the people that are most intimidated by fitness are often the people that need it the most. I set out to create a company that provided the same types of exercises, programming, and results as generally all fitness companies, but I wanted to make it a comfortable experience from the moment a potential client stepped through our doors.

All our processes, our studio layout, our team of trainers we have hired, and our entire mission are based on making clients feel comfortable, appreciated, and valued. We do things differently and over the past 10 years, I have seen other companies in our area follow our lead. Long gone are the days of slamming weights, extremely loud music, and uncomfortable gym environments. People want to go where they feel comfortable and respected.

I have always loved sports and started at a young age, with my dad as my coach. I continued athletics through high school and went on to run college track where I based my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees entirely on building my career in the fitness industry. The last thing I was willing to do was to throw it all away based on a lack of opportunity, so I created my own with Live Fit. I believe in spirituality and the law of attraction and base my life on those principles. So in early 2011 when I couldn’t focus on my spiritual study and spiritual growth because my mind was consumed with running numbers about opening my own company, I knew that was a sign from God it was time to create something great.

Hello! My name is Nishant Tripathi, and I founded Dhobilite, a premium online dry cleaning, and laundry service. I started this company in 2011 with a vision to pioneer laundry service in India.

We started operations in the year 2011. Over the years, we experimented with and developed our business model and software. In 2015, we disrupted the laundry market and became India's first app-based, on-demand laundry service provider. We have expanded into more than 15 cities in the last two years and have around 20+ stores today. In addition, we have 30 plus franchises. We also have factories in Gurgaon, Noida, Lucknow, Hyderabad, and Faridabad.

Hi, I’m Andrei Calinescu and I am the Founder and CEO of One Life Meals.

In the late 1980s, Darrell and Geoff Manchester established Intrepid as a brand new way of exploring the world.

Intrepid Travel offers more than 1,150 trips on all seven continents that are sustainable and experience-rich.

They didn't set out to build the biggest purpose-led adventure travel brand in the world, but they have done so now, by generating $43 million in annual revenue.

They are the biggest adventure tour operator in the world, operating a network of 26 DMCs and a nonprofit foundation.

Since 2002, their nonprofit organization, The Intrepid Foundation, has raised over AUD 12 million for 135 charities worldwide.

Read the full story on forbes.com ➜

• Kat Norton (@miss.excel on Instagram and TikTok) enthusiastically imparts Microsoft Excel knowledge to people, companies, and educational institutions through her line of Excelerator Courses and specialized group training sessions.
• Kat has over 1 million TikTok followers, which she has used to launch a successful software training company in just two years. After posting her first video in June 2020, she never had to look back.
• In just 10 days, she gained 200,000 new Instagram followers and currently has 639K followers on the platform.
• She typically earns between $250,000 and $300,000 per month, and once ,she made $100,000 in just 24 hours.

Listen to the full podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜

• Benny Lewis is a famous Irish polyglot and the creator of the language learning website Fluent in 3 Months.
• He has appeared in numerous national media outlets, such as The New York Times, Business Insider, Forbes, LifeHacker, National Geographic, and the BBC.
• This language learning website receives over 2 million visits monthly.
• Benny is fluent in seven different languages. He shares the experiences of real people who struggle and succeed in learning foreign languages, including his own.

Listen to the full podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜

I am Chhavi, the founder and owner of the blog and YouTube channel Mrs Daaku Studio along with my husband Amit.

Our blog, YouTube channel, and products are designed to help you achieve what we have (...and, more).

In 2013, Krisi and her co-founder Mike established the award-winning tea company Bird & Blend Tea Co. The company has 300 blends and a £6.5 million annual revenue.

The goal behind the company was to reimagine tea with fresh and intriguing flavors to spread happiness.

After becoming friends at university and deciding Krisi and Mike wanted to start their own business rather than work for someone else. They started from small beginnings by selling blended tea from the kitchen at neighborhood markets.

They currently employ over 100 people, operate 15 retail locations, and operate a thriving global online business.

Bird & Blend raised over £1 million with more than 1,600 investors most recently after being overfunded in just 24 hours.

Watch the full video on youtube.com ➜

Hi there! My name is Sam Varnerin and I created Snuggle with Sam, my independent professional cuddling practice, while I was still working full-time as a construction engineer.

Here’s all of the contributors on the panel at CuddleXpo in Chicago presenting how we came up with the Code of Ethics for Professional Cuddling. Back left to right: Maryelen Reid, Madelon Guinazzo, Samantha Varnerin (me!), Samantha Hess, Jean Franzbleau, Fei Wyatt, Janet Trevino. Front left to right: Keely Shoup, Lisa Meece. Photo credit Rellian Chen Merrin

Hi, I’m Theresa the owner of the blog DIY Lifestyle. On my blog, I share dozens of gluten-free, vegan, paleo, raw vegan and healthy recipes, fun crafts & DIYs, helpful life hacks, and travel tips. I started my blog because I was looking for a place to write down useful information to share with people all around the world but it quickly turned into something more.