5 Low-Cost Start-Up Business Ideas

Starting A Business on A Budget

First Published: Feb 19, 2012 EntrepreneurJourney.com

Starting a new business is always a good thing. However, it may not be realistic for everyone to start a full-phase business due to lack of money and paperwork requirements. But it does not mean you need to give up. Here are 5 low-cost, no hassle business ideas that should motivate you enough to start your new venture, or to look for other similar ideas to get going with your first business.

Tutoring

Tutoring is almost free to start, and with the least possible paper work. Do not associate tutoring with only teaching kids. You can teach any skills you possess to anyone, young or old. Some possibilities include teaching English, math, physics, computers, music, and so on. If you do not possess the skill to teach something you love, you can learn it first and then start teaching that to others.

Catering

If you have a passion for food and love to cook, catering may be the answer for you. You need to have a license and there may be other requirements to operate a catering business. Please contact your city or municipal authorities to find out more. If you can provide good food at reasonable prices, your catering business can grow very fast. However, because you are dealing with food preparation, food safety rules and regulations have to be maintained at all times.

Accounting and Tax Services

If you are an accountant or tax specialist, you can start your accounting and tax services from your home office. Your target customers will be small businesses and individuals requiring tax preparation, financial planning, bookkeeping, and so on.

Child Care

This may not be for everyone, but if you love working with kids this may be for you. You may need to have a license, depending on where you live. Check with your local authorities what the requirements are before starting a child care service. Very good money can be made providing child care services. You can offer your services to cater to different types of needs such as on the weekend only, daytime hours only, or evenings only.

E-Commerce

With a very low start-up cost, e-commerce can have no boundaries in terms of what types of Internet business you can run from home. It is possible to setup an international business from home with an eBay account and a PayPal account.

What Is A Social Entrepreneur?

Social Entrepreneurship

First Published: Sep 18, 2011 EntrepreneurJourney.com

Social entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs, but they work on a larger scale. Instead of concentrating on a business or an entity, social entrepreneurs concentrate on social problems and issues and use entrepreneurial skills to solve or change social issues to make society work or societal systems to work better, efficiently, and in harmony with nature and environment.

Social entrepreneurs can work in a voluntary or not-for-profit environment, or can also work in a non-voluntary or for-profit environment, just like a regular entrepreneur. However, their major goals are to concentrate on wide-scale social problems and to offer solutions for entire societies for a better tomorrow.

Social entrepreneurs are visionaries and practical minded to see what the real issues are and how practical the implementations will be. They avoid impractical and unrealistic solutions that may falter for the society as a whole, or solutions that may not be cost-effective or realistic for the long run.

Business entrepreneurs wait to seize the opportunity to identify and come up with products or services to change the face of businesses, to create whole new industries or create brand new markets. Social entrepreneurs take a similar approach, but on a different aspect. They seize the opportunities to change society and various societal systems that bound societies together with innovative solutions and strategies on a mass level for the society and its people.

Let’s look at a few very well-known social entrepreneurs:

Muhammad Yunus - Yunus, a noble laureate, invented microcredit, a loan system that awards very small loans to the poor for starting entrepreneurship.

John Muir - An American naturalist, worked to preserve nature and wilderness. He is the one who established the national park system and also the founder of the Sierra Club.

Florence Nightingale – The founder of modern professional nursing. She also established the first school for nurses. She dedicated and sacrificed her life to improve the health and welfare of all people.

Attributes Entrepreneurs Should Have

What Are Entrepreneur Attributes?

First Published: Apr 16, 2011 EntrepreneurJourney.com

So you want to be an entrepreneur? Well, do you think you have the attributes that are needed to be an entrepreneur? Well, here are just a few of the attributes you need to make sure you are successful as an entrepreneur.

First of all, you need to be a leader. Leaders are the ones who take charge and make things happen. As a leader, you know how to get things done and that is a useful skill to have when you are an entrepreneur. You will lead your company and you will know the type of people you want around you in order to be successful. According to Robert B. Reich, leadership is the most important quality to have as an entrepreneur. As a leader, you will see opportunities around you and you will know to act upon them. You will be able to solve problems and recognize the solutions before you.

As an entrepreneur, you may be working with someone else at first in a company that you are en employee of. However, as you are a leader you will soon want to get out of that situation and away from your peers so you can stand out. This is where two more attributes come in; risk-taking and extroversion. Extroversion is very important because you need to be out-going so you can win clients and get people over to your company. However, more importantly, you need to be willing to take risks. This is because you will need to take risks to be successful. According to experts, an entrepreneur is a risk-taker because they know how to be innovative, how to increase their efficiency and productivity and how to generate new services that people may not even realize they need.

As an entrepreneur, you will see opportunities before you and you will know how to make them work to your advantage. When others are simply watching the world go by, you will be a person who stops the world so that you can achieve what you want.

There is the belief that men make better entrepreneurs than women but this is false. There have been many studies and they show that men and women both have the same type of attributes that will make them successful as an entrepreneurs. If you believe that as a woman, or as a man, you are not suited to be an entrepreneur then you need to begin to challenge yourself so that you can be a successful entrepreneur.

Of course, just because you do not have these attributes that does not mean you won’t be successful. The important thing is that you know how to challenge yourself to make things happen in your life. If you can do this, then you will be successful. If you can just get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself, you will be amazed at what you can achieve in your life. All you can do is try and see where you go with it.

Donald Trump - A True Entrepreneur

Real Estate Mogul Donald Trump

First Published: Mar 4, 2011 EntrepreneurJourney.com

Donald Trump, who has primarily been known as a real estate tycoon, has different facets to his personality. He was the host of an extremely successful TV reality show, he is the owner of the world’s most popular beauty pageant and he is also a best-selling author. Though all are different personas, each are independently strong, smart and wealthy, which is what makes Donald Trump a true chameleon in the business world.

Business for Donald Trump actually runs in his blood. Born to a real estate developer, father Fred Trump, Donald studied business in Wharton Business School and was mentored by his father for 5 years before he took the plunge to lift the real estate industry to new heights. For Donald Trump, business has always been his first love. He has never limited himself to being a specialist in one field, but expanded in any direction that his money and his ideas may take him. As the Chairman and CEO of the Trump Organization, he not only develops real estate across the globe, but also manages hotels and resorts, golf courses and many other things. As Trump Entertainment Resorts founder, he manages casinos and hotels.

Donald Trump’s popularity rose to new levels when he produced (he was the show’s executive producer) and hosted The Apprentice, a reality show on NBC. It was indeed the ultimate job interview. The show first began in January 2004 and has ten successful seasons to its credit. The show was created by Mark Burnett wherein 16 to 18 business aspirants competed with each other in elimination style contest to become The Apprentice. The show also gave rise to the popular “You’re Fired” which Trump would say to the eliminated contest at the end of the show, a catchphrase that Trump has filed application for Trademark. Initially the payment for each episode was $50,000 but the show’s success and popularity catapulted not only Trump’s TV personality image but also his payment to three millions dollars per episode which is indeed the highest ever paid to any TV personality. Apart from this, Trump’s caricature versions were seen in numerous Hollywood films including The Little Rascals, Home Alone 2, The Nanny, etc. Trump was nominated twice for an Emmy Award.

Donald Trump is the co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization along with NBC – National Broadcasting Company and under the auspices holds various beauty pageants like Miss Teen USA, Miss USA and of course Miss Universe.

Donald Trump also has equal interest in sports. He is an avid golfer and a great World Wrestling Entertainment fan. Almost all Trump properties have golf courses that are designed and built on international standards. In fact one of his golf clubs at Westchester, the Trump National Golf Club, has won the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences International Five-Star Diamond Award. Apart from breathtaking golf holes, the club has stone bridges, winding streams and even a waterfall falling from a 101-foot height. In the wrestling world, Trump has done his bit by actively participating in the numerous wrestling shows (though not as a wrestler), many of which were held in Trump Plaza. He also briefly “owned” the WWE Raw from 15th June 2009 to 22nd June 2009.

Donald Trump’s other business ventures include The Trump Network, which deals in health products and allows people to receive coaching under Trump and become

entrepreneurs. Titled as the Wealth Creation System, people can register themselves in this network and would only need simple skills like telephone etiquette and a little extra time to work on. The members would receive guidance from Donald Trump himself by way of training videos and personalized letters. The company deals in vitamin supplements and health products like PrivaTest Custom Essentials, Silhouette Solution, QuikStik, Snazzle Snaxxs and Bioce Cosmeceuticals. Claiming to be made from natural bio-nutrients, QuikStik comes in 3 blends one for each part of the day – morning, afternoon and evening. The BioCé Cosmeceuticals range of beauty products include cleanser and toner, repair serum, eye contouring cream, daily cream, skin recovery cream, microdermabrasion procedure formula, cream mask and wrinkle filler.

In the field of finance, Donald Trump investments hold a 17.2% stake in the Bermuda-based Parker Adnan Company that deals in financial services. Trump organization also deals in the Trump merchandise luxury line that deals in books, apparel, home furnishings as well as jewelry. This includes the Ivanka Trump jewelry collection, the Signature collection of men’s apparel, Trump Vodka, Trump Home for home furnishings, Trump books and publications, Trump Ice that markets natural spring water, Trump chocolate and Trump Tea. The Signature range of men’s apparel markets men’s suits, dress shirts, neckwear, cuff links and jewelry, small leather goods and eyewear. All these products are marketed through Macy’s, Trump Tower, and eyewear specialty stores. Under Trump publications, Donald Trump has authored many best sellers such as How to Get Rich, Never Give Up, Think Like a Billionaire and Think like a Champion amongst other titles.

In the field of entertainment, Trump's organization manages Manhattan’s public skating rinks at Central Park – The Wollman Rink and the Lasker Rink. Various facilities offer skating lessons, an ice hockey gaming facility, and professional instructions are provided. Another division, the Trump Productions LLC based out of Los Angeles, deals in television show production. Some of these are the very popular The Apprentice reality show (6 seasons), The Celebrity Apprentice, telecasting beauty pageants (Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA), the Pageant Place reality series on MTV, and the latest show on MTV along the lines of the UK hit show “Ladette to Lady.” Under the entertainment division also comes the Trump Model Management which helps modeling and pageant aspirants come to the fore. Many models scouted and developed through Trump model management have appeared in movies and fashion magazines like Vogue as well as gone on to be winners of the beauty pageants. The division prides itself in expressing contemporary style and exquisite beauty.

Despite so many ventures, not all of which have necessarily been a path of roses, Donald Trump does not show any signs of slowing down and in his words, “Anyone who thinks my story is anywhere near over is sadly mistaken.”

How To Choose A Business Name

Choosing A Business Name

First Published: Feb 21, 2011 EntrepreneurJourney.com

When you are starting a business, there are several things that you need to do in order to make the business successful and one of the most important is choosing the right name. As odd as it seems, choosing the wrong name can sink your business just as easily as if you screwed up a marketing campaign. The name of your business is the brand, logo and face of your business and it is the first thing people will notice about your business. So, if you are going to have a good business name, what do you need to do in order to make your business stand out?

Here are a few tips to help you out.

The first thing you need to do is to look around at businesses that are in the same market at you and see what they have in common with their names. This does not mean you need to choose something similar, but instead you are choosing something that is different but tells people what your business is. For example, if you own a coffee shop, you will probably have “coffee” “grind” or “java” in the name, as will other businesses.

The second thing you should do is make a list of about 20 names that you like and that you are considering for your business. This is important because it will allow you to research each name to see if you can use it. When you research, check to see if it is registered in your area, if anyone else is using a name similar to it and what the connotations of the name may be. For example, if you are opening a craft store, choosing the name Kristi’s Kooky Krafts may seem like a cute name until you look at the initials of your business name.

The third thing to do is to cut your list down to three main names. Those are the names you will choose from. Look at those names, are they witty? Do they stand out? Do they tell people what your business does? Are they misleading at all? Are they easy to put on a sign? How will they translate to a web address? For the last one, if you have a name that is A Dawn Coffee, then you can have a website that is adawncoffee.com. However, if your name is A Dawn Coffee Express and Homemade Grinds Shop, then adawncoffeeexpressandhomemadegrindsshop.com is a bit too long and too much for people to remember.

Once you have the name, you will need to register it. This will ensure that no one can take the name from you and you will be entitled to that name. No one can take the name and use it across the street from you, and it also helps when you are doing the business taxes for your company. So, choose wisely and your name could help your company well into the future.