7 Roads for Housewives to get on the Entrepreneurship Expressway
Thursday June 14, 2012 , 4 min Read
1. Healthy Corporate Lunch: Given the hectic corporate lifestyle and increasing nuclear families with both spouses working, there is a growing need for ‘gharkakhana’ type lunch that can be delivered to offices. There is immense demand from professionals who are becoming health conscious and don’t want to binge on street food or fast food for all the days in the week. One needs to create a menu, arrange the kitchen to professionalize it, get the packing in place, reach out to office areas with simple fliers or through friends who are working in offices and put in place a delivery mechanism like a part-time delivery guy or a cabbie. And you are in business!
2. School Uniforms:With schools mushrooming all over the country there is a growing demand of school uniform makers. Nowadays even business schools, medical and law colleges are making it mandatory to wear uniforms. One needs to establish connections with schools or uniform manufacturing companies and provide dresses at convenient prices. The most important skill in this business is man management and getting work done through tailors or hire part time women workers and train them.
3. Home-made chocolates: Thanks to so many ‘special days’ such as Valentines’ Day, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day et al, there is a large demand for gifts to make these days special. Homemade chocolates are pretty much in demand for this. One needs to google the recipes, make chocolates that are chemically fine and also taste great. It is important to love chocolates and be creative to thrive in this business. Selling is easy - besides registering oneself in online directories like just-dial; you can also use Facebook ads to get noticed. And of course, nothing beats the word of mouth which you can create through your own circle of friends or acquaintances.
4. Gift Packing:Another good business idea is gift packing. Given the fact that in our country gifts are exchanged throughout the year, in festivals or occasions there is a need of professionals who can creatively pack gifts. Given the amount of expenditure which is incurred in average Indian weddings and the number of weddings taking place in a populated country such as ours, the market is humongous! One needs to have a flair to use various packing materials, source them and be creative.
5. E-bay business:More and more of us are buying stuff online and one way to easily make money is to join E-bay as a seller. As a housewife if you love shopping around and your taste of household stuff is appreciated by people around you, then this is all you need. One needs to look at novel and useful stuff which is generally not available everywhere and put it up on your e-shop. Contact a courier and he will deliver your stuff once you receive online orders. With e-Bay the payment is guaranteed as well!
6. Content writing: If one loves reading, working on a laptop and blogging,why not become a writer as well? One can start of as a freelance content writer, translator or a blog writer (having a blog, the money can be obtained through a variety of programs one of which is pay per click) and eventually start managing website content and copy for a host of small business enterprises. Whereas big businesses generally have a marketing team which may take care of the online content, smaller businesses, which equally realize the business opportunity internet offers, look for niche consulting firms which can help them write and create a buzz about their products and services online.
7. Business handicraft:Handicraft business can be a very interesting business. More and more businesses are looking to gift their business associates/partners with some novel artifact which will be valued longer and hence the relationship remembered. Being a housewife one can comb various markets to find product ideas and source them through local shopkeepers. One has to professionally market these by categorizing and packing them attractively.
One last word, an entrepreneur housewife is the most difficult role to play around if one has to manage the house, kids etc.
About the Author:
Murtuza Rohawala is the Founder & CEO of Edfin Consultancy (www.edfin.in) which provides strategy and financial consulting to a lot of promising businesses. He also actively mentors students from various institutes in India. Murtuza is an MBA from NarseeMonjee Institute of Management Studies.
