57 Lazy Entrepreneur Business Ideas You Can Start Today [2023]

I come from an entrepreneurial family. My father works for himself and my maternal grandfather started a clothing factory. Working for myself has always been encouraged by my family, but before I could get started, I needed to learn a skill. At Georgetown, I study international politics and business. Most students with these backgrounds go on to work at prestigious firms like J.P. Morgan. I really didn’t know what kind of business I could start, and frankly, planned to work as a (boring) data analyst after graduation.

If you have an idea but don’t have the knowledge to execute, use that idea as motivation and go learn how to turn your vision into reality.

Tutoring first came to mind because I had spent significant time working for other tutoring companies and cutting my teeth/learning how the industry works during my teen years. I first started tutoring when I was 15. I was hired by College Experts, a local test prep center in Davie, Florida. My first student was three years older than me, and I spent our first session teaching him how to use his calculator rather than trying to explain any complicated formulas. Being a student myself, I was able to bring a student’s perspective to tutoring. I worked for College Experts until my senior year of high school when I began tutoring on my own and finding clients on Craigslist.

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.

When I purchased my first house in 2000, I had a pull-down ladder in one of the bedrooms.

When attic stairs are installed, a large hole (approximately 10 square feet) is created in your ceiling. The ceiling and insulation that were there have to be removed, leaving only a thin, unsealed, sheet of plywood.

I have a colleague who told me “Businesses do not fail, people quit.” I decided to not quit.

My cousin Sam and I had run and sold several businesses before starting Consulting Success®, working with clients like Panasonic, Dow Jones, The Financial Times, Royal Bank, and more. We were at a good place with our consulting businesses. However, we wanted to build a business that allowed us to work from anywhere — one that gave us the freedom to travel the world and spend more time with our families.

We started Consulting Success® 11 years ago without a monetization plan, simply sharing what had worked (and didn’t work) for us in our prior consulting businesses. We wrote a lot of content about consulting: how to win clients, how to price your services, how to converse with your clients, etc. Our goal was to help up and coming consultants implement the best practices that worked for us.

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.

I worked as a Microsoft software developer for about 4 years and quit in 2007 to start a company building websites for small businesses. I had a nice nest egg built up from working at Microsoft (and living frugally) and a set of good clients right away. Financially I was comfortable and enjoying the freelance lifestyle. The one problem with the freelance lifestyle is you only get paid when you’re actually working. I knew eventually I wanted a business that could pay me even if I was golfing or fishing or traveling.

Our biggest key to attracting & retaining customers is a core philosophy of hiring great people, training them well, treating them even better, and then setting them loose on customers.

Many of my customers would ask about website design, SEO, Google Adwords, and more. I decided it would be good for me to start a small e-commerce website to learn and practice some of these concepts. Not as a “real” business, per se, but so I could learn what worked and help my clients. But what business to start?

The database consulting was a natural progression from my day job. People were asking me for help on projects outside of my workday so the work fell into my lap. It was then that I realized I could turn this skill into something for real on the side.

Look at your business idea as a brick wall that needs to be built brick by brick. Don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of things that are involved in starting a business or side hustle. Instead just focus on the one brick in front of you. Go slow and steady. Be sure to add a new brick to that wall every single day.

At the time I started doing the side work I was in massive debt from school. I was already paying for my lifestyle through my regular job so I knew any income I earned on the side could go to directly paying off my student loans. It worked. I paid off my loans a few years ago and now have the flexibility to use my side income for other things.

We’ve been friends for awhile - we met right out of college in New York and stayed close even though we took fairly different professional paths.

Saara worked in the corporate world for a number of years before moving to Mexico where she launched a jewelry business aimed at rehabilitating sex trafficking survivors. Stephanie was a business consultant before going to law school and becoming a corporate lawyer; along the way, she launched an argan oil company that empowers women in Morocco.

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.

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.

Tim and I met during an online hackathon. During the hackathon participants were encouraged to meetup for real. We actually got on really well, and stayed friends and kept spitballing ideas for a startup for years.

At this time, I was a design student at Central Saint Martins and I had recently won a competition for Sony Music creating an interactive music video for the band Hurts with my friend Virgil. Then soon after graduation, I started working as a creative technologist in London for a bunch of different advertising & branding agencies and a few startups too.

This business idea was born in 2016, but the journey really began in 2014.

After working for a company for 8 years, I hadn’t really gotten far financially and felt stuck. I decided to find a job with better financial prospects and the possibility of advancement. After 6 months of searching, I was hired at a new employer and managed to double my salary in one fell swoop!

Just start! That little voice inside your head giving you doubts will always be there. Push through that voice and keep going until you reach a point where you’re lost.

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).

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.

I spent the last decade of my career as a social media manager, in the agency, in-house, and freelance settings. I really created a name for myself in my niche and people were always coming to me for social media advice. I absolutely LOVED teaching people and for a long time, wondering how I could combine my passions for teaching and social media into one career.

Fast forward to fall 2019 - I was at a crossroads. The agency I was working for was moving in a different direction and I was literally moving back home. I had a decision to make - stay at the agency under different circumstances, find a new job in my new home, or finally take the plunge and start my own business.

I chose the latter and it was the best decision I ever made! I was immediately able to gain clients using internal systems I created and literally built my own business from the ground up. In one year, I made almost $100,000 and put all my systems inside the Social Media Manager Society, so other aspiring social media managers could take everything I learned and implement it themselves!

Growing up, I’ve always been into technology. I built my first website when I was in first grade, I built my first graphing calculator app when I was in sixth grade, and I used to run the internet’s largest website dedicated to Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons.

I waited in line for the iPhone the day it launched in 2007, and I was instantly hooked. I knew I had to learn how to build software for this device. Eventually, I learned how to jailbreak my device which allowed me to run custom apps on it (this being before the launch of the App Store).

Even though I had a passion for technology, I never really wanted a career in it. My dream job was to work as a technical director for live television broadcasts, and the only class that was close to that at my school was the capstone course for the Professional Journalism program. I ended up switching my major from Computer Engineering to that and abandoned any dreams of professionally writing software.

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.

Before starting 1ON1 SEO Training, I had worked for 15 years in the SEO industry, where I successfully ran my own SEO and digital marketing agency, Design & Promote, for over 10 years. I built that business from the ground up, starting as the sole employee until it became a prominent business in the area with a full staff and multiple offices. Eventually, I got an offer I couldn’t pass up and decided to sell the business.

Sometimes people think that SEO is about broad strokes and taking general actions when in reality the situation needs to be looked at with a microscope to really pay off. Many times it is the smallest details that make the biggest difference.

With that business off my plate, it was time to take on a new project. I realized while running my agency that what I loved to do most about my job was teach others how to do SEO. In the past, I had become known for my “free services”, where I gave free consultations to clients that other companies normally charged for, and my free monthly seminars where other business people were invited to come and gain knowledge about search engine optimization. However, those moments had always been my way of giving back next to my business endeavors.

Ironically, my wife is a French teacher whose business I had helped build through years of SEO work. One day I thought about how she teaches classes from her own, and then the idea occurred to me that I could be doing the same with SEO, which has always been a passion of mine. I also figured that I could address a lot of the problems I ran into in my old business and rework them with my new one to better serve my clients - more about that later. This allowed me to offer a new and improved model for spreading the effectiveness and benefit of SEO to businesses.

Over the years I’ve built quite a bit of business knowledge (was a Director of Operations and helped build a company from 5 employees to 100 and $2.5 million to $16 million in revenue; also was a five-year member of Vistage, a business mastermind group) and wanted to leverage that.

Get started with something inexpensive that interests you. Then keep going as you try things and learn.

I started a website through an online marketing/website building course and began blogging on business and career topics. But I found monetizing that to be difficult. I wanted to do business strategy consulting and paid $1,000 for a three-month insert in a coupon mailing that did nothing and found trying to get that type of consulting off the ground part time around my day job wasn’t working.

I started the blog in 2014 while wrapping up a degree in nutrition. Instead of pursuing a postgraduate dietetic internship to become a Registered Dietitian, I started a personal training business. The blog was a side project and portfolio for freelance writing until 2017 when I decided to take the leap and work on it full time.

Perfect is the enemy of good. If I’d waited for perfection to start, I’d still be waiting.

While the blog was only making a few hundred dollars per month at that point, I’d read a ton of success stories and saw huge potential in blogging. So I quit everything else, cashed in enough savings to give myself a 6-month runway, and started publishing as much content as possible.

I’ve been in the customization industry for over 10 years. I started with screen printing first. Eventually I was hired to work for the Yankees and was taught how to embroider caps. A company reached out to me for a production embroidery job and I accepted. I was taught how to run production but was left alone a lot. I ended up teaching myself a lot of different embroidery methods, it was also the place I made my first patch. I ended up creating patches for my supporters club of the local MLS team, NYCFC, and sold them for $7 each. I stopped after a few months and didn’t think about patches for awhile.

In 2017 I was going through a huge change in my life, a previous employer in the City attempted to permanently remove me from the industry, very unsuccessfully. I’d say it’s part of the reason why I’ve been able to be as successful as I have been so far. I spent months grasping at straws to come up with a business idea that I knew could do while keeping my mind busy while I was on a rollercoaster of repercussions from that employer.

I was in the bank one day after work and was sitting down with a representative, I did that a few months prior with the same guy and we spoke a bit about my career. This time he asked me if I was able to embroider patches for his fantasy football league called “Fight Club”. It was the first time anyone had ever asked for patches, I had no idea what to charge him but I knew I could definitely do it. I said yes and charged him $6 per patch for 25 of them. He was all too excited and agreed. I had no idea if I undercharged, overcharged or was right on the money but it was too easy. I was completely hooked.

My name is Brett Owens and I am the Founder and Chief Matchmaker at Afluencer. We match Brands with the best Influencers to promote their products. And likewise, we help Influencers (from Nano to Micro to Mega), Creators, and Ambassadors find “Collabs”, which are paid gigs being offered by Brands.

Here’s an excerpt from our latest influencer newsletter where we talk about the latest pay-per-post opportunities being offered in our app:

We are Taylor Hood and Gretchen Bayless, founders of ROAMERICA. A company that specializes in adventure vehicles, including 4wd campervans.

Bonjour! My name is Anthony Rosemond. I'm a Parisian chef & founder of Pastreez, an online French bakery.

We’ve sold over 1 million macarons to this date, with only a team of two.

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

I’m Jono Santamaria, the director of Nina’s Laundrette, a laundromat located in Northcote, Australia. I purchased the coin laundry in July 2021; an older gentleman had run the laundromat then, and the shop was dated and only accepted coins.

The most significant impacts that led to this dramatic increase have been investing in our digital presence, upgrading the store’s machines, and creating a new and modern brand. We also added a commercial laundry service which brings in an additional AUD24K per year.

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.

My name is Chris Crawford and I am the founder of RinseKit. We design, manufacture, and sell the RinseKit- a portable pressurized shower that’s like having a hose to go. It doesn’t require pumping or batteries, fills from a hose spigot or sink in 30 seconds, can maintain pressure for up to a month, and is entirely portable. We started the business back about 5 years ago and have since grown to average over $1.5 M in sales each year.

While he was still a full-time student, Johnny Robinson built OrangeWindowCleaning.com into a $700k/year operation.

One day while hanging out with his friend Sergio, Johnny came up with the idea of the window cleaning business. He first approached door-to-door marketing and approached local stores to offer window cleaning services.

Later, after he discovered digital marketing and how tools and software could help him multiply his client base was when this journey started to take off for real.

His story proves that if you want to start your own business, it doesn’t necessarily take a never-before-seen business idea to have a never-before-seen impact on your life.

Listen to the full podcast on sidehustlenation.libsyn.com ➜

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.

I'm Bryan Clayton CEO of GreenPal which is best described as Uber for Lawn Care.

Good thing early investors told us no because with their capital they would have owned and controlled 30% of our business.e are self-funded and my cofounders and I own it all.

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.

Merhaba! (that’s hello in Turkish). My name is Zeynep and along with my brother Yusuf, we run Galen Leather from our workshop in Istanbul. Combining our love for stationery items and skills in leather-making, we design and handcraft our own line of handmade leather travel journals, notebook covers, personal accessories and now, so much more!

In the last year, we’ve broken sales records, experiencing a 138% increase in revenue to hit an average of around $40,000 in sales each month. Most of our products are made to order, and as a small team of four, we believe what we’ve been able to achieve so far is no small feat!

My name is Greg Shuey and I am the founder of Empyre Off-Road. Empyre Off-Road is an online e-commerce business that sells aftermarket parts for Toyota Tacoma, Tundra, and 4Runner vehicles.

Hi! My name is Dustin Maze. I am the owner of SOCO Waste, a locally owned and operated residential waste removal business based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Originally the loan provided a trailer and 5 dumpsters. We now have 51 dumpsters, two roll off dumpster delivery trucks and two residential garbage trucks. We are projecting $700-800k in sales for 2020.

• Rosanna Pansino is one of the highest-paid personalities on YouTube.
• She has 13.7 million subscribers on her YouTube channel.
• She creates cooking videos which are typically 15-20 minutes long.
• Every year, she earns over $5 million from her various entertainment endeavors.

Read the full story on forbes.com ➜

I’m Marcus, Co-Director of Bruder Watches Ltd, the youngest of three brothers from Bristol, United Kingdom. We pride ourselves on offering high-quality, timeless watches that don’t break the bank. Our company is in its infancy but we have already seen a fantastic appetite for our new range of timepieces called "Fortis". The range consists of five watch styles each designed to look great whatever the occasion. Our company was born at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, so as you can imagine, logistically, it wasn’t without its challenges getting to where we are today.

Success in 2021 for Bruder is about continuing to grow our brand and engage with our customer base. We will expect to break even around August from our initial start-up cost of around $17,000.

My name is Josh Belk and I’m the founder of Belk Mobile Detailing. Belk Mobile Detailing is a mobile automotive detailing business in Springfield, Missouri. We come directly to our customer’s homes to make their vehicles look new again. I’m currently a co-owner in the business, with the other owner being my brother Austin.

We have four main types of customers that use our services: professionals, business owners, busy moms, and people looking to sell their vehicles. Our business has been generating an average of $8,000 over the past 12 months and detailing 60-80 vehicles per month.

I'm Vaibhav Kishnani, an engineer but a passionate writer by profession. I established Content-Whale in 2017 when I was in my third year of engineering. Going by the maxim that quality writing is everything, Content-Whale caters to 42 different content types that form the backstory of every company’s digital presence and marketing efforts.

I started this content agency with a mere sum of Rs. 2,500. Today, we have drawn a revenue turnover of Rs. 4 Crores! In my opinion, it is not individual progress. Instead, a start-up is about connecting with the right individuals at the right time, who keep the show running ahead with their strife for perfection.

We started with just me as a freelance translator, and now we have 10 full-time employees and around 150 freelancers who work for my company The Happy Beavers regularly. We have specialized in larger clients who want to implement SEO investments through content creation. In these cases, we advise on the strategic planning, create the guidelines for implementation and then sometimes create hundreds of texts in a short period with which the client can be expected to rank highly. With this approach, we have already had many partners from start-ups to Silicon Valley companies, and this year we are placing particular emphasis on growth in our business.

Now we have 10 full-time employees and are actively looking for more, than 150 freelancers and professional service businesses with a lot of growth potential.

Thanks for giving me this lovely opportunity, I’m Arpit Aryan Gupta and I’m currently running a garment export unit called NG Apparels that is based in Ludhiana, catering to all clothing segments across the globe.

My father lost a lot of money in the 2008 crash in the US market which pushed us out of the market and my father had to shut down his fabric trading business but I established the garment manufacturing business back in 2012 and with God’s grace the business has grown exponentially. I have a turnover of 12cr($1,581,547) without any loan or CC limit requirements.