36 Low-Investment Business Ideas For The Christmas Holiday (2023)

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.

In true Hipcooks fashion: I’m not a culinary school graduate — I’m a hack! Here’s my story:

I’m first-generation American (Mom is from Germany and Dad from Argentina). My parents were young foreign students in the US and their friends were the other international students: I was a kid surrounded by people from different nationalities, like Spain, Russia, France, and the UK. I was a child foodie and loved to experience culture through food.

I caught the travel bug early, living in Argentina (studying economics in college), traveling through Europe, and moved to England for graduate school (I have a Master’s in Economics from LSE.) While in school, I cooked my way through a series of London restaurants in the gastro-boom of the ’90s, just for fun. My first job was on the West Coast, as an econometrician at the RAND Corporation.

Back in 2014, I had an idea to start a food truck business. The business model seemed like a winner because I could operate part-time on weekends while maintaining my corporate online marketing job during the week.

I viewed this as a low-risk business opportunity since I wouldn’t need to rely on the food truck profits to pay bills. Any income generated would be “extra money” after the expenses of running a truck. Operating at a profit didn’t seem like a difficult task to assuming I would be willing to run the business myself and selected a high-margin menu for the truck.

Starting a business is time consuming and insanely difficult even if you’re doing it full time. Take the hours you have left after work and focus them toward one thing.

My name is Adam Elliot, and I started Dick At Your Door, an e-commerce shop for people who like to gift pranks, gags, and funny novelties to their friends and family.

Yes, you read that correctly... Dick At Your Door sells chocolate penises you can send as a fun prank to friends and family.

My wife and I were wedding photographers. If you’ve been to a wedding lately, you’ve probably seen a photobooth.

The same was true 8 years ago. We saw booths everywhere, and started thinking… why not add one of those? We purchased the “old” style photobooth, the enclosed box. It became clear very quickly that at least two things could be done better. It wasn’t really portable and it didn’t take the prettiest pictures.

I contacted a few metal suppliers down here in Orange County and asked if they could put something together for me. I wanted something sleek and portable, but it also had to be able to take gorgeous pictures.

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.

My name is Brian McEuen, and I'm the founder of On Brand. We help guys shop for clothes online by curating personalized selections as if they were walking into their very own store. We're like Spotify for clothes! Another way to put it: imagine those “Top 25 T-Shirts for this Summer” lists curated just for you down to the right size, fit, style, and color!

I currently have about 75 users and an annualized revenue run rate of $1800.

I have always had a passion for animals. I was going to school full time at the University of Rhode Island as a Pre-Vet student while working full time at a local veterinary hospital AND picking up pet sitting and dog walking clients on the side.

Since my late teenage years, I have known that I wanted to work with animals. While working at the animal hospital, I saw a great need for this type of service, and soon after decided to start this business!

I would often come across clients who had not traveled in years because their pets required specialized care or medications or because they did not know who to ask or whom they could trust with their pets and their home.

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.

I am a software engineer, graduated from McMaster University then began a career in Oil & Gas, where I was fortunate enough to have been granted a leave of absence. I used this opportunity to explore the world and travel to South America, Asia, and Africa!

BagsAway was born as an answer to a recurring problem my co-founder Irina and I experienced on travels, and I observed back home when renting my place on Airbnb. We are first and foremost world enthusiasts at heart - travel is a passion and a life goal for us and luggage, of course, is an inseparable part of the travel experience.

We often found our bags to be time wasters, having to make special trips to drop off or retrieve them on arrival and departure days. Or just having to drag them along, which of course limited what we could do, and we were not the only ones. We noticed others dragging their bags on Hollywood Blvd or sitting on a beach with backpacks in Asia before boarding their boats.

Validation of our business came when my Airbnb guests were repeatedly asking for a place to leave their bags before their late afternoon checkin’ and after their checkout before their evening flights, we realized there was a bigger problem and with it an opportunity. Time is the most precious currency we have so we figured there had to be a better way, and when we couldn’t find a solution we decided to create it ourselves. We were also accepted into the DMZ (Ryerson Digital Media Zone), which is the top business incubator in Canada!

I’ve always had quite the entrepreneurial spirit, always thinking of the next best idea which is how my first business was created - a non-profit focused on helping young women, followed by an employee concierge, I started with my father Jeluxxe Lifestyle Solutions. I was always intrigued to hear about others’ journeys and how they became full-time entrepreneurs but never thought I’d get there but here I am, thanks to Balloon Haus INC. As well as, reading and learning have always been an interest of mine, which is why I was able to start this “little balloon company.”

Balloon Haus was a random idea that turned a successful business. A client from one of my other companies was looking for balloon decor and my assistant agreed to help with finding a vendor. This was much harder than we thought it would be and with no luck, we turned to youtube and figured out how to create the requested installation ourselves and the rest was history. I registered the business the same day, contacted my father and he told me, “this was the best decision you have ever made.” This was the only validation that I needed to know, this was going to be a successful business.

DO NOT TAKE ON A DIFFICULT CUSTOMER. If you notice communicating with the customer from the beginning is not easy - do not continue as you will regret it and most likely end up with an unhappy customer by the end of the transaction.

30 years ago, my mum was “Patches The Clown” catering for kids parties. Her passion for parties led her to open a small party store with my grandfather. From the age of 4, I was put to work filling small bags with sand for 5 cents each which would be used to weigh down helium balloons on tables.

We love change. Every time something changes, there is an opportunity for us to be early and capitalize while everyone else drags their feet.

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.

It’s so happened that one beautiful day, I was just hanging out with my father an evening while we were discussing our family photos. My father suddenly picked up one photo from the album and said, “This is one of the best photos of us. How amazing would it had been that we could find a way to frame our favorite photos artistically.”

I had zero experience, but I did know from my previous job in college that I was good at learning and collecting from data, setting up and building experiments over and over again, and making business decisions with the information provided to me. I believe that this is one of the most important qualities you can have to be a successful entrepreneur.

Suddenly it dawned on me that I should get the photo that my father likes so much, framed. But I checked out the market and saw that the market had split between low-cost providers that would personalize your products very cheaply (of questionable quality) and designers who would personalize your products very expensively (and still of dubious quality). And I only found an opportunity for business in personalized products that way. So I thought to focus on filling a gap which delivered more premium products but well below the designer prices.

I always loved creating with my hands and I tend to get carried away with presents and cards during the holidays. That being said, I was content that my passion for drawing and painting would be a minor supporting role while I majored in Interior Architecture and worked as an Interior Designer over the next 4 years after I graduated.

So one day when my then boss passive aggressively asked what day I would like to show up for work that week, I told her ‘how about none?’... and never looked back.

It wasn’t until 2015 where I decided to pick up modern calligraphy as a hobby. Upon admiring all the more established calligraphers’, I realize that working on bespoke custom wedding invitations would allow me to do everything I love and at the same time make a living off of it.

I can still remember my first day on the job. I had just been hired as a Chemist for a particle analysis laboratory.

The job made a lot of sense at the time. I had recently graduated college with a Biology degree, and there’s only so many careers the degree can take you. So I took the first job offer that was presented to me and proudly bragged about my $22,500 annual salary. It seemed like so much money at the time, and I just knew that I was going to climb the corporate ladder quickly.

The true secret to my success has been to simply outwork and outpassion everyone in my path, every single day for nearly twenty-five years

I’m Janeen Brown! Founder and CEO of Balloon Haus LLC. In February 2018, I started Balloon Haus - the first opulent online and in-store Balloon boutique - where lifestyle and decor enter a "luxury" level of design. Our team consists of dedicated and loyal employees in Toronto, Atlanta, Detroit and South Florida destined to create iconic balloon memories to last a lifetime.

My background is in finance. I worked in investment banking for six years in New York. I loved the job, the people, and the hours. But as a service job I wanted to be making things not just helping others make things. This desire has led me to where I am today.

My brother and I have always loved to make fun of everything. Around 2014, we visited my mom’s house and she had this musical greeting card. We thought it was annoying. We asked each other, "Who wants to listen to this!?" Then Nick asked, “What if it didn’t stop?”

That was it. Nothing more. No market research.

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.

My name is Gary Fox, and I run HostButlers, an Airbnb concierge service in Dublin, Ireland.

Since we started nearly four years ago, we have hosted over 200,000 people and have been profitable from month 5.

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

Hello, I am Akshay Patel from Albuquerque, NM the land of enchantment. I started an event rental and decor company that led me to an event venue. The View Event Center is a lavish space that is an indoor and outdoor event venue with panoramic city views. Our high-end venue with experienced staff will assist from venue decor to the smallest details entailed in making memories of a lifetime. Simply Decor, Tents, and Events ensures exclusive decor and thrives to bring your event to life through customized, elegant decor for all of their clients.

The full-service company will individually work with every client to design their event that will intrigue every eye in the room. Our company is broad that we get many different types of customers and we make many great connections with them as well. The company was making upwards of $380,000 a year.

Hello, I am Akshay Patel from Albuquerque, NM the land of enchantment. I started an event rental and decor company that led me to an event venue. The View Event Center is a lavish space that is an indoor and outdoor event venue with panoramic city views. Our high-end venue with experienced staff will assist from venue decor to the smallest details entailed in making memories of a lifetime. Simply Decor, Tents, and Events ensures exclusive decor and thrives to bring your event to life through customized, elegant decor for all of their clients.

The full-service company will individually work with every client to design their event that will intrigue every eye in the room. Our company is broad that we get many different types of customers and we make many great connections with them as well. The company was making upwards of $380,000 a year.

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.

Gopuff, a leading food & consumer goods delivery service, was started in 2013 by two Drexel University students, Yakir Gola and Rafael Ilishayev.

Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the business began as an on-demand hookah delivery business but has now grown to provide food and supplies.

This consumer products delivery business operates on an on-demand basis. The firm mostly fulfills deliveries for food, drinks, alcohol, home essentials, and other necessities you typically find in a convenience shop.

GoPuff's business model is distinct from those of other delivery firms. The firm operates its warehouses, where it stockpiles items and fills orders on demand.

Rafael, born in Russia, began his career at his father’s sandwich restaurant and afterward at a banquet hall that his father had purchased. Yakir, the son of an Israeli immigrant, used to work in his father’s cash-for-gold store.

The genesis of GoPuff began in 2011, when its creators, Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola, met in a Business 101 class at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

In less than a decade, the company has evolved into a multibillion-dollar corporation serving over 1000 locations. In 2021, GoPuff generated $1 billion in revenue, three times what it did in 2020.

GoPuff has raised $3.4 billion over nine rounds, with its latest $1 billion funding round in July 2021. The company is valued at a massive $15 billion.

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