40 Business Ideas You Can Start This Rainy Season

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.

My name is TJ. I am currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer and 50% owner. I was originally hired to help my business partner Peter wash dishes and make breakfast. Peter had been meal prepping for about 1 year before he brought me on board. When I was hired, I saw that he was a fantastic chef, handled sales, and was able to grow without efficiency.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. That one Facebook video doubled our client base overnight.

I filled in the gaps and taught him how to properly scale the company, hire more employees, and both structure and organize it into a self-sustaining business. I lacked the sales and cooking experience he had. So we were very yin and yang.

I didn’t exactly come up with the initial idea for this company because this is a franchise which means for me that I license out the name “Skinny Wimp Moving”. However, because it was the first franchise location I was able to be in a prime decision-making seat and guinea pig for all ideas enabling me to test out theories on marketing and customer service which have no become standard across the brand.

Put yourself out there and ask for their business. Sure be conscious that you may get rejected but don’t be afraid to ask more than once. It won’t work every time but it will work 100% more than not trying at all.

We realized people simply don’t want a moving company that sucks. So we asked ourselves what can we do to make the stressful experience of moving suck a little less and the answers we came up with and stuck to were very common sense:

We started the food truck business in 2012.

We kept finding it very difficult to find locations to operate. We had a booker that we used to find our locations but fell short and we let her go. I took over our booking and found that most people did not want to book just one truck, not only that they were upset that most of the time the trucks didn’t show up or were late.

We learned the real need was not only helping the trucks but providing a turnkey service for the corporations. This was a game-changer for us, we were really struggling financially.

I came to the realization that I had a problem with staying at a job for more than 6 months. I would come in to work every day, learn the job, and about 6 months later I would be sitting there bored and wondering why they didn’t do things a certain way to make the business more efficient.

I tried working everywhere from door to door sales, fast food, shipping companies and at one point I was even an O.T.R. truck driver!

Eventually, I would find another job and move on because being inefficient wasn’t me!

In the spring of 2006, my 16-year-old son Michael and I learned about “eCommerce” (called online marketing at the time) at a half-day seminar in a local hotel where they served us a free breakfast. Pretty sure Michael came for breakfast, but that seminar (and breakfast) opened our eyes to the potential of being in business for ourselves and provided a path to accomplish it.

On July 31 of that same year, JDK & Associates, LLC was formed.
“J” = Jim (me!)
“D” = Diann (my wife)
“K” = Kids (Michael, Lena, Shelly, Brandon)
“Associates” = Our partners and clients (you!!)

In 2013, Chuck realized that employers were losing time and money having employees go to a clinic to do drug testing. Nowadays, they are making $30k/month.

My name is Marike van der Velden and I am the founder and owner of the largest high-end escortservice in The Netherlands: Society Service. The service we offer is called the Girlfriend Experience, which means spending time with an escort will feel similar to spending time with a girlfriend. The experience is very intimate of nature and often includes eroticism, but this is not the main focus of the experience, merely the cherry on top. The social aspect of booking is just as important, if not more.

At any given time, there are around 55 male and female escorts working with Society Service. They cater to clients from all walks of life, from ambitious businessmen to nervous virgins and curious couples. The aim is to create a mutually enjoyable, memorable, and extraordinary experience. This experience does come with a price tag of at least $1,000 per booking, resulting in a multi-million dollar annual turnover.

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!

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.

My name is Shaerul H Joarder (Neel), Co-Founder and CEO of Parcelmagic, a delivery service company.

It is indeed a great pleasure that within just 6 months of operation, we have onboarded 100+ merchants, with the monthly transaction being 5000 dollars. Over 10000 parcels are delivered to all 64 districts in Bangladesh each month.

My name is Kevin Gillespie, and along with Garrett Le’ Tourneau, we created Wax & Wick, the 100% soy candles with wood wicks.

Some notable differentiation between Wax & Wick and traditional candles is that our branding is simple, the style of the candle will fit with any decor, and we use only 100% soy wax and Fsc-Certified wood wicks. Our impact on the environment is intentionally small.

Hey! My name is Neel Parekh and I am the Founder and CEO of MaidThis® & MaidThis® Franchise, a cleaning franchise that helps residential homeowners and short-term rental hosts (Airbnb, VRBO, etc) with their cleanings.

• We made our niche focus on cleaning Airbnbs and vacation rentals, in addition to regular home cleaning, which is a rapidly growing industry. We became the first cleaning franchise specializing in vacation rental cleaning.
  
• Local businesses are often pretty old school and typically aren’t the best with marketing, especially digital marketing. We’re bringing new-age marketing tactics to this old-school industry.
  
• Remote work: we’ve been able to stay extra nimble and lean with having a global workforce. This was initially done out of necessity so I could travel, but quickly became a huge competitive advantage. Our office team works across 8 different countries.

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

• Mort and Nachshon Fertel created Sudshare, a website that links those who don't want to do the laundry with those looking to make extra money.
• SudShare is primarily a technology company creating an Uber-like tech stack for laundry.
• This business offers on-demand laundry services in over 400 cities and is the first and only one of its kind in the country.
• SudShare is a marketplace for laundry. In total, the platform has more than 50,000 users.
• The CEO of this business began his career as a Sudster (washer).

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

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 Starter Story! My name is Joey Sanchez and I'm the founder of Wolf's Auto Detailing in Phoenix, Arizona. We are a mobile auto detailing service that focuses on quality work and convenience. We specialize in interior detailing, Paint polishing, and ceramic coating just to name a few.

While our client list consists of many different types of vehicles and personalities, they all share one thing in common: they all understand the value of quality work. We hold our standards very high and measure our success not only in dollar amounts but in the satisfaction of our clients. However, making $3K a month only working 3 days a week isn't a bad deal!

• Daniel Meyer established Shake Shack in 2004. When it started, he used to just sell hot dogs from a cart in Madison Square Park.

• Meyer has gradually transformed the hotdog cart into a kiosk-style restaurant that serves gourmet burgers, hot dogs, milkshakes, and crinkle-cut french fries.

• In less than 20 years, Shake Shack has grown from a single hot dog stand to a global fast food chain with over 270 locations.

• Shake Shack offers a lively & fun community hangout place with wide appeal thanks to its fresh, high-quality, and delicious food at an incredible price.

Read the full story on successstory.com ➜

Hello, my name is Yuki Lee. I'm the co-founder of Bagitan Packaging Company - a company that produces paper packaging products in China. Our primary products are paper bags, food packaging, foil packaging, and other disposable packaging products used in restaurants and takeout meals.

Since our inception in 2008, we have expanded into a company with annual net revenue of $200,000 and over 50 employees. It has been an incredible experience working with my partner - Frank Ouyang, he created the company Panda Paper Roll (see the story here), and we have learned many lessons along the way. I hope our experiences will be helpful to other entrepreneurs who are looking to start their own business in China.

My name is Beth Baxter and I co-founded Camper Cafe, a mobile coffee van business. The idea for our business started with my partner’s love for vintage VW campervans. He had a rusty old shell of a T25 Campervan given to him, that he wanted to convert into a trailer for his motorbikes.

Although we never really thought about this ever becoming more than just a lifestyle business, we found we were turning so much work away from that in 2019 when the company was turning over around £150k from working only 70 days of the year, we decided that I should go full-time to see the potential.