Eager entrepreneur? 4 simple business ideas to hit the ground running

Do social media management

If you’re great at using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites, you may want to consider selling your skills as a freelance social media manager. This business is very inexpensive to start and can pay off well if you’re good at it. Before jumping in, though, make sure you know exactly how to build, target and run ads on every platform you plan to use, as pay-per-click ads will make up a substantial amount of your business. To get your first few customers, try getting in touch with local businesses that don’t have a good social media presence and offering to promote them online.

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Become a construction contractor

Skills used in building or renovating houses can be extremely valuable. If you’ve done a fair amount of work with roofing, flooring, plumbing or even painting in your life, you may have what it takes to become a contractor. This business is more expensive to start than some since you’ll need materials, equipment, and a truck or van. The return, however, can be very high, as you can charge fairly high hourly rates on your work for such skilled labor. As you grow, you can also hire other employees and even put together extra crews so that you can take on more than one project at once.

Rent portable toilets

Events ranging from parades to football games always need plenty of portable toilets, and companies like Tom's Industrial Cleaning Service and others who rent them to venues often make considerable amounts of money. Though buying and storing a large number of portable toilets can be somewhat expensive to start out, the business doesn’t require very much capital expenditure after you have bought the initial equipment.

Best of all, with enough units, rented out at any one time, you can realize a fairly good stream of mostly passive income. The more units you own and the more of your stock you have actively rented on any one day, the more money you’ll be able to make.

Buy and sell antiques

If you want a small, fairly stress-free business and have a love of antiques and collectibles, being an antique dealer may be the perfect option for you. Though an antique business likely won’t make you a fortune, it can produce a livable income and be a great deal of fun besides. Source your inventory from the estate and garage sales, as well as large auctions, then sell it from your own shop or using online platforms like eBay. If you can find the right deals on the right items, there are often considerable margins to be made.

These are just a few well-proven business ideas that are great for beginning entrepreneurs. If one of these sounds like an opportunity that you would be good at and enjoy, consider putting together a business plan and trying to make it into a successful business of your own.