41 Creative Flea Market Business Ideas

I spent 2019 living in Bali Indonesia doing the “digital nomad” thing. I was building an Amazon FBA business but was getting super burned out. I wanted to start a creative side project that would allow me to learn graphic design and sell on a new platform.

Etsy seemed like a breath of fresh air coming from the soul-sucking Amazon Seller Central (if you know you know). Here is a pic of me “digital nomading” in Bali:

For 15 years I was a museum curator and art historian. It was a career that I loved but once I had children I surprised myself and realized that I would prefer a career that would give me the flexibility to be more actively involved in family life.

Be flexible. Don’t stress if the launch or the time frame does not go according to plan. Life gets in the way.

While I was taking some time off to figure it out, a very good friend of mine mentioned to me that her laundry room was such a mess that she had hired someone to help her organize it. I did not know this type of service existed (this was, of course, 10 years before Hoarders, Marie Kondo and The Home Edit brought the profession to the forefront of popular culture), but I had always loved to organize, and the idea of starting my own company seemed like an interesting challenge.

One day back in 2012, I happened to go to a local flea market. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and I'm not a flea market or garage sale regular.

I noticed these two old radios for $15 each. I had not been interested in old radios before, and I was not a collector or a retro guy. These particular radios were from 1950s, bright and colorful, oozing with retro pride, but in sad, neglected shape.

As far as my professional background, I have an electrical engineering degree but never worked on radios. My understanding of these things was only basic at best. I knew analog audio sounded better than digital from my guitar days.

At 10-years-old I saw a bicycle in a neighbor’s trash can and asked if I could have it. I ended up with two broken bikes and combined them to make one, which I rode and eventually sold.

In junior high school, I took woodshop and fell in love with woodworking. Evenings, my father, the school superintendent who had started out as a shop teacher, would take me to the school’s woodshop and we’d build furniture and Christmas presents and fix things.

Today, my career is based around restoring old bicycles, pedal cars, Coke machines as well as other items. I previously worked at Beech Grove schools doing education technology, but began to get burned out and wanted to do something that I really enjoyed. Around that same time a TV show called “American Restoration” was on the History Channel, and it inspired me. I thought, ‘Wow, that guy [on TV] is making a living at restorations, maybe I can do the same”. So I just kind of blindly cashed in my 401k and jumped into it not knowing what to do or how to run a business or anything like that. I started in my mom’s garage, and I put up a website right away.

I graduated with a PhD in chemistry in 2005 and after working in academia for a few years as a nanotechnology researcher, I joined a small angel venture investment firm as a technology analyst.

One option was to get a regular job, or… we could start a brewery.

I participated in the founding of a few angel-backed companies and as the venture fund dried up, I joined one of the portfolio companies as Chief Technology Officer. The company, Amicrobe, Inc. is focused on developing biomaterials to address antibiotic resistance.

Our history is a little complicated because True Leaf Market as a business is the culmination of several businesses that all came together. There are various threads that weave together. I’ll start with my thread first.

In 2000, my sister Kaitlin had graduated from High School and was preparing for college. At the time I ran a small business repairing laser printers and selling printer supplies. I had started that business in 1990 serving my local area but soon discovered the Internet as a way to reach a wider market. I listed a refurbished NeXT Laser Printer on the UseNet in 1995 and ended up selling it to someone in Portugal. In 1995, that was just completely crazy to me. I was hooked and got obsessed with marketing online and by 2000 was doing much more revenue online than I was doing with the original local business. Bottom line is, I spent years in front of a computer learning how to market online by simple trial and error.

Kaitlin approached me about helping her start an online business in order to pay her way through college. We brainstormed and decided to focus on something she was passionate about. Kaitlin is a vegan and was getting into growing and juicing wheatgrass. We decided to partner up and sell wheatgrass growing kits and juicers online. We started in my garage. She would run the business day-to-day, and I would handle the online presence and marketing. We founded Living Whole Foods, Inc., and launched our first website.

I was a teacher and would find my mind wandering to product ideas in class. I would say I was a good teacher and liked doing it, but it was clear that it wasn’t quite enough. In 2009 I had launched a headwear brand (Beardo®) and it was going quite well, but I had an urge to do something that would do good. So odd as it seems, the idea to create a company that ‘did only good’ came long before the actual product idea.

Be stubborn in your pursuits, but not so stubborn that you won’t humor the idea of changing paths if something isn’t likely to work.

I didn’t know what I was going to sell, only that the profits would go to help others. I was first inspired by a documentary I saw on TV in Australia about an eye doctor named Fred Hollows.

Courtney Joy always wanted to be a teacher as a little girl. She used to pretend to teach in her childhood home basement on Long Island, New York. Growing up in an artistic family, she became a figurative and landscape artist and eventually attended art school. After college, she decided to merge her two childhood passions together and became an art teacher.

Lindsay Ann expressed herself through art in a different way. She was in the theater and went to school for drama in New York City. While pursuing her dream of acting, she also made beaded jewelry on the side. It quickly became a passion of hers and would help lead her down a new path in life.

Within our first 3 months, we sold over 100 orders, resulting in more than $3,000 in revenue. By the end of our first year, we had sold over 2,300 orders, resulting in more than $65,000.

It’s a funny origin story, because I never set out to start an iPhone case company.

I had just graduated from college and I was working as a driver delivering construction supplies. It gave me a ton of time to listen to podcasts and I was really drawn to tech and startup focused ones. I had an idea for a while to do a wishlist website where people could create and share a list of gifts they wanted. I ended up having the site built, but I didn’t know how to get people using the website.

Don’t be afraid to start! Don’t overthink it, get a product out into the world and start your journey.

I’m Zack Johnson, and I run ggCircuit,which provides premium software, services, and support for esports arenas around the world.

UC Irvine Esports Arena - One of our first university customers in 2016

I’m Debbie, and I’m known online as TheFlooringGirl. I have a home décor blog where I blog about flooring, painting, and home décor. It has now become my full-time job.

My site has over 700,000 pageviews/month. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been the key to my success and you can find my SEO ebooks here.

• Nate Dodson, is an urban farmer and the man behind MicroGreens Farmer. His objectives are to combat Crohn's disease and exert more control over the diet.
• Since the business was founded in 2016, they have assisted individuals in starting their own microgreens-related businesses.
• He initially only intended to grow for his own consumption, but soon realized that he could produce more than he could consume. As a result, he began to sell his produce, particularly microgreens, and thus his business got started.

Read the full story on sidehustlenation.com ➜

Hello readers! I’m Crystal, the one-woman show running TCB Designs, Florida. I’m a 43-year-old mom that has been blessed to wake up every day and do what I love.

Over the years I have added smaller items that are perfect for unique gift ideas and stocking stuffers like our ceramic car coasters, personalized tape measures, and memorial ornaments. Adding these smaller items boosted sales greatly, especially around the holidays. This last Christmas season (November through December 2021) sales totaled just over $20k.

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.

I am Nabiulla. I manage RealDrop Natural Oil, along with my IT recruiting and web development company SkyllsSolutions.

Hi! We are the Simple Goodness Sisters, real-life sisters Belinda Kelly (4 years younger, the bartender) and Venise Cunningham (the older sister and the farmer.) We are a lifestyle beverage brand focused on bringing the world a Happier Hour, from garden to glass.

The first product we launched were our simple syrups. The syrups launched in three flavors in Fall 2018 (Rhubarb Vanilla Bean, Marionberry Mint, and Huckleberry Spruce Tip), followed by 3 additional flavors in Spring 2019 (Lemon Herb, Berry Sage, and Blueberry Lavender), and edible flower salts and sugars for rimming in Fall 2019. During that time we pushed our ability to grow, harvest, and package in a major way, growing at a rate of 4 times our original production, with quite a learning experience along the way. We both come from a technical background in corporate Seattle, so organic farming, food production, and entrepreneurship are all areas we’re learning by doing, and Google!

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

Hi, my name is Rafael Hernandez and I am the founder of Alfred Lane. I have a line of personal and home fragrances handcrafted in small batches out of our Miami studio. I began selling solid colognes initially as an alternative to spray colognes and released three fragrances.

The business generates $19k a month in revenue. In 2020, the company had its best year ever. I opened a production studio where we make everything and hired a studio assistant all within the last 5 months. It’s been more than 8 years since I started and the journey has been a wild one.

We started with a bad idea initially, but through a lot of trial and error, we developed the product into something successful. We went from zero sales to $18K in sales per month after the first month upon release.

Hi there. I’m Jen Hansard, the co-founder of Simple Green Smoothies where we create plant-powered recipes that gives you the energy and health to fuel your passion. It all started on Instagram in 2012, yet over the years (and with a LOT of hustle and luck) it has exploded into a brand of best-selling plant-based recipe books, live community cleanses, adventure retreats and the #1 green smoothie app in iTunes, Daily Blends. Since 2012, Simple Green Smoothies has helped over 2 million people take control of their health in a tasty and simple way.

Our programs can bring in as much as $30,000 a month in revenue, which helps me pay our staff, expenses and also allows us to help women farmers in Cambodia build mushroom farms through World Hope International. Click here to learn more.

Hey! My name is Josh, and I’m the founder of Plate Crate, a monthly box of baseball gear and greatness. (Think Barkbox for baseball). Each month our small team creates a themed box of baseball gear, training aids, accessories, snacks, and apparel to send to our baseball-obsessed subscribers.

After 6 years of working on Plate Crate, we are now doing over $300K a month in revenue. We have a big holiday season where we will do about $500-600K/month in November and December too. People love gift giving, and we are a great baseball gift. We’ve recently launched Soccer Crate as well off the thesis that over 80% of kids under 14 play multiple sports. We’ve seen our early progress in Soccer come directly from our baseball subscribers.

Hi I’m Saleh Sokhandan. I’m a designer and the founder of Salso studio.

Hello everyone! My name is Olguy Songolo. I am the co-founder and CEO of the DIFFERENCE, the very first heelless running shoe brand. Why heelless? Extensive research by the original designer, Etienne Penka, has determined that heel strikes are one of the leading causes of injury for runners, causing a host of negative health consequences in the heels, back, knees, and other impact absorption points. We discovered a simple and elegant solution: remove the heel.

As a Black-owned business, we’ve also seen a great deal of interest from the Black community. Another large segment of customers includes medical professionals such as nurses, who have found that wearing our shoes prevents the pain they are accustomed to the feeling after spending all day on their feet. Over the last two months, we’ve seen our revenue dramatically increase, grossing an average of $12,500 each month.