50 Hands On Business Ideas You Can Start Today [2023]

I studied finance in college and started covering internet stocks like Amazon on Wall Street. This really opened up the world of e-commerce to me. At the same time, my parents were running a shop that sold vacuum cleaners along with accessories but it wasn’t doing very well. I started helping them out with their business and took it online while still working crazy banker hours.

When I was let go in 2009 after the crash, I was ecstatic - this was my chance for a whole new beginning in e-commerce. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I helped expand the business, first on Volusion then selling on eBay, and then finally Amazon. Ultimately, I realized I didn’t want to be a reseller-- I wanted to have my own brand. That was the genesis of Think Crucial.

The key is to start small and stay scrappy. Don’t put the cart before the horse - source or create a product customers need, package it right, and sell it. As you grow (and only then), add more.

I had been familiar with construction since my grandfather was a general contractor and one of my business associates had a father in the industry. Then, in 2008, a couple of my friends and I got the idea of starting a new construction company. The transition seemed to be natural at the time.

When it comes to outsourcing marketing and sales efforts, make sure you know where are they spending their time and money so that you can get better leads and close more deals.

Getting custody of my daughter was the main motivator in making a big change in my life. I was a single dad with a six-year-old that needed to be provided for. It was time to make life happen. Business continued to evolve, and we moved and grew alongside the projects and opportunities that kept appearing.

Even in high school I was very interested in the idea of starting my own business and someday being my own boss. My dad was the Vice President and co-owner of a construction company while I was growing up and so having a role model like him most certainly contributed to my desire to follow in his footsteps (albeit in a different industry). My grandfather originally started a construction business back in the 1970s which is how my dad was introduced to the industry. I am the third generation of business owners in my family.

I never thought I would be working in the pool industry. In 2016, I graduated at the University of Waterloo with an Honors B.A in Recreation and Sport Business. I have always enjoyed sports, recreation, and the outdoors. My thought coming out of high school was to start an outdoor recreation/adventure sports magazine. Although that hasn’t happened, it’s interesting to think about how I am still working in Recreation and Sport. I guess you could say I’m the “behind the scenes” guy-- at Dundas Valley Pools, we make sure homeowners pools are up to speed and that families can enjoy as much leisure time in their backyard as possible with little to no hassles.

While I was in university, my desire to start my own business continued to grow. One thing I have realized now is that I was more romanticized by the idea of starting a business than I was interested in the actual act of doing so. I think this is an important point to make because it is so easy to get obsessed with an idea or aspiration more than the actual act or result. In my opinion, it is one of the worst mistakes a person can make prior to taking action. Perhaps I can speak more towards this point later on in the interview.

When I was in college, I was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities and always working. When I graduated, frankly, I became bored after work. My mom owned a housekeeping company when I was younger and I thought that would be a good idea, so I created a housekeeping company and hired her and my aunt to work it. My brother, Matt, and I would talk about creating different businesses together since he was out of the Marines and we’d go back and forth between things like home health, more housekeeping, or even a landscaping company, but we never really could agree on one.

The most important thing you can do is communicate - who does what, set due dates that you all agree on, hold each other accountable, and create consequences for failures.

During this time, Matt started working for one of our competitors in the Roanoke valley and used his GI Bill to get certified through the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA), which is the main chimney/dryer vent education association in the USA. After a while, Matt helped his friend Billy get a job at the same company. They noticed some shady practices, their paychecks bouncing, and their ideas to help grow the business were cast aside by the owner. They made it through the burn season (the busiest time in the industry) but that following summer they were let go.

I grew up immersed in nature, climbing trees soon after learning to walk. I’ve always been inspired by the power of design science and how it could transform the world. I went to MCAD, a design college in Minneapolis, beginning with furniture design. It’s likely because of this background that I approached architecture from a new angle, with the flexibility and innovation more common in furniture.

Competition has its merits, but that collaboration is so much stronger. There is almost always room for everyone to succeed.

For my senior capstone project, I built a geodesic sphere in a treetop, which I loved as an ideal because it represents doing more with less and the power of efficiency. That's what made it possible for me to build it so high in a Poplar tree it could’ve been mistaken for the moon! And that was the snowball that started O2T rolling. It garnered attention from some of the established pros in the treehouse building world, and when I went to my first World Treehouse Conference in Oregon in 2006, I realized that I really was on to something.

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.

I was always the art kid growing up, so I naturally began my post secondary education by pursuing a degree in Fine Arts. I spent my summers refinishing furniture and doing photography and that’s how I got my feet wet with business, so by my second year, I was also pursuing a minor in Commerce.

I had never really done much woodworking at all but became a lot more interested in design and home decor during those years. After finishing my third year, I was itching to do something more practical than becoming a gallery artist, so I set my sights on furniture design and enrolled in a college cabinetmaking course instead. It really wasn’t where I had ever expected to end up, but it was sort of a natural progression and I’m so glad I did it!

I started making mountain shelves in the morning before class to sell on Facebook and Kijiji. It was intended to be a fun side project but they were so popular that I started my business shortly after graduating with the mountains as my first product.

Hi! My name is Jeff and I am one of the three co-founders of Tiny Away (a Big Tiny hospitality management subsidiary, which is also co-founded by us). The Tiny Away network includes a range of comfy eco-friendly ‘tiny houses’ for travelers seeking alternative and unique accommodation experiences. Having already grown to over 75 private locations across New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia & Queensland, Tiny Away offers adventurous road-trippers and weekenders the chance to immerse themselves in Australia’s, without compromising on comfort.

On average, we are taking in about $156,000 monthly in terms of rental revenue, not including the other streams of income, as Tiny Away is a subsidiary of Big Tiny which owns the entire tiny house ecosystem from designing to manufacturing, shipping, assembly, deployment, management, and after-sales service.

My name is Johnny Van, I am the President and Owner of Finish Line Towing & Auto Repair. I have always been interested in cars, trucks, motorcycles, snowmobiles… you name it. My father was a major contributor to my love for automobiles, he started a towing company when I was a child. He always had about 2 or 3 trucks while working a full-time job also and he did this for around 25 years.

FLT does around $5,000,000 in sales a year between all our services and we are focusing on growing to other markets in Wisconsin and soon Illinois.

Taerra Chiba, the owner, and operator of The Practical Diva, is a fully certified and insured home renovation contractor in New York, NY.

She is in charge of both major and minor residential remodels. She also helps homeowners who wish to tackle the process on their own. Taerra can assist with project planning but is also ready to give advice and assistance.

Taerra is an extraordinary lyric soprano and an engaging stage performer with a lovely, agile, warm voice as an opera singer. She is a gentle and experienced instructor. She has formerly taught at the university level and has a private studio in New York City.

She is a student at Southern Virginia University and studied BA in music in 2005. She is interested in various activities, from athletics and choir to theater and Student Government.

She began freelancing as an opera singer in Soprano in 2012. She later offered individual vocal lessons to music majors and nonmajors at Southern Virginia University.

Taerra has a proven track record of growing this side business comfortably. She made roughly $14,000 in her first year, $36,000 in her second year, and is presently making about $4,000 each month.

She acquired more high-quality assignments and revenue with fewer obligations after switching to HomeAdvisor. She began with roughly ten weekly tasks and works 2-4 depending on the workload.

My name is Allen Chiang, and I founded Retro Radio Farm, where I repair and restore old radios. I offer Bluetooth MP3 upgrade if the customer wants to play digital music.

Right now, I make about $50K a year for the work I put in primarily on weekends. While it’s highly profitable, it has not yet lucrative enough yet for me to quit my day job. Although, the business has been growing 20% every year.

Hi, I’m Bill Spohn, President, CEO, and majority owner of TruTech Tools, LTD. Eric Preston is my trusted business partner. Our business continues to grow as we complement each other's personalities so well. TruTech is one of the largest online stores in the niche market of tools and test instruments for Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration (HVAC/R) Technicians. We are also the major supplier to a smaller market of technicians that do energy audits and assess building performance, including indoor air quality. We serve customers in the US and Canada.

I founded the company with Jim Bergmann, Jr, and his dad, Jim Sr. (who passed in 2016). The business was intended as a retirement “hobby” for Jim Sr. as both his son and I had full-time jobs. After I bought them out (with Eric noted above) in 2014, we have continued to have a great relationship with Jim Jr. and have continued to build each others’ businesses. The interesting thing is, I have always worked remotely (100 miles away) from the majority of the staff at the offices/warehouse.

I’m Clifton Muckenfuss, I am Co-Founder of Carolina Exteriors, a Specialty Replacement Contractor based in Apex, NC, serving the Raleigh Metro Area. Carolina Exteriors offers residential home improvement services including Roofing, Siding, Windows, Doors, and Gutters. We believe that if we “build people, we build a winning team and combined, we Build Exceptional Customer Experiences. Our dedication to our people and customers and execution on our mission has led to us receiving numerous industry awards for customer service.

We bootstrapped the business on $3,500 and now 9 years later generate $4,000,000 in revenue.

I’m Carl Benson, the founder of Suffolk Latch Company. We are an online store specialising in traditional and hand forged ironmongery.

We are on an upward growth curve and, despite a turbulent economic climate, we are experiencing 20% increase on turnover compared to last year.

Hello, my name is Brett Burdick and I am the founder (this is the first time I’ve used that term) of Brex International, LLC which is sort of the umbrella company for The Hedgehog business that I’ll be talking about here.

The other products I sell are small stacking accessories that are used to stack two featherboards on top of each other for extra stability when cutting thicker boards on a table saw or band saw. Both products are shown below.

Innovation Plumbing started as an idea in 1990, and officially in 1991 when my dad got his C 36 plumbing license for the state of California. I was two years old at the time.

Over the years Innovation Plumbing has grown and evolved into a devoted list of repeat customers who are more like family to us. Makes sense, in a family business!

• Debbie Gartner is the founder of The Flooring Girl. Since the company's founding in 2016, she has assisted clients in choosing the appropriate colors and optimizing design layouts for floors.

• Debbie is an expert in online marketing, which includes blogging and content marketing. Through her blogs, she educates customers on the ins and outs of flooring and helped them decide what was best for them.

• Other than flooring solutions, her website also offers guides and resources on care tips, home decor ideas, carpet and painting trends clean, cleaning tips, and so on.

• Debbie had won the Angie’s List Super Service Awards for 7 years in a row.

Read the full story on drewduboff.com ➜

Hello! My name is Stephan Aarstol. I'm the CEO of Tower Electric Bikes.

In October of 2019, Tower was named one of the "Top 20 Shark Tank Products of All Time" in USA Today. We've done over $36 million in sales since getting a $150,000 investment from Mark Cuban in 2012.

Our Z Counterform System for countertops and Z Poolform System for concrete pool coping are the go-to solutions for cast-in-place concrete forms. With a small but dedicated team, we grew this business from an idea to over $12M in revenue in 10 years.

I’m Dan Stewart and I’m the founder of Dundas Valley Pools. We help homeowners with swimming pools in Southern Ontario, Canada maximize the summers in their backyard. We do this by providing personalized, on-site services such as pool openings/ closings, pool maintenance, equipment installations, pool renovations, and new pool installations. Since our humble beginnings in May of 2016 we have serviced 350+ pools, opened and closed 200+ pools, and have installed tons of high-quality pool equipment, pool liners, and winter safety covers for happy customers throughout Southern Ontario.

Dundas Valley Pools has grown from a company producing very little revenue in 2016 to a company that is earning an average of $8000/ month net revenue during the on-season. This year we hope to actually double that number. This is due to our expansion into more technical services as well as taking on larger jobs-- namely, new pool installations.