Thinking of starting your own business as a work-at-home mom, but are unsure what you should do? If pet sitting, grant writing and making gift baskets doesn’t exactly float your boat, then check out these real business opportunities for Internet savvy moms in 2020.
How to Be Successful in Business as a Work-at-Home Mom
But first… a few words about this list of business ideas for moms and about what it takes to juggle a successful business with the demands of being a mother. I know there are many other articles of business ideas for “mompreneurs” out there. But this one is a bit different. All of the ideas on my list can work (I promise) and most women will be able to find something here that’s suitable for them and their circumstances. But for that success to come, some things need to be in place:
1. You need to know what your goals are. Are you looking for full time income or do you just want to earn a few bucks on the side? Do you want to make an impact with your business (for example, coaching or teaching), or are you looking for something more generic or behind the scenes (for example, data entry or web research)? It makes a big difference to when, where, and how you spend your time and effort.
2. Be real about your situation. You need to be honest with yourself when it comes to your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, your current skills, your available time, your financial needs, and any other talents and resources you may have access to. In fact, I suggest you take the time to create a personal written audit of all of these factors before you jump into any business idea.
3. You need to figure out where you can be flexible and where you can’t. Any business opportunity you pursue is going to require some degree of flexibility. Maybe you’ll have to put in extra time and money in the beginning, or perhaps you’ll have to take on some responsibilities that you may not enjoy doing. Many of the ideas in this list can be tweaked or even combined. But to do this, you need to be clear about where you have the room to give a little. So, for example, if you can only give 20 hours a week to your business endeavors, or you have limited money to invest, or you need to be earning a certain amount of income per month, then you have to plan with those limitations in mind.
4. You have to make the effort. Running any kind of business requires a certain level of commitment. Every single one of the options on this list of business ideas for work-at-home moms will come with a learning curve, and it may take time before you are earning decent money. These are not get rich quick schemes, but if you invest in them, they have the potential to be sustainable sources of income over the long term.
What are the best online business ideas for moms in 2019?
Here are my top business ideas for mothers wanting to work online from home:
Consulting/coaching. Consulting isn’t just for business suit types. It’s for anyone who has a skill or talent that people are willing to pay for. If you have professional training, a unique educational experience or knowledge, or simply a talent that could be used to help others, then starting a consulting or coaching business is one way to go.
For this type of business, you would likely need to create your own branded website and attract leads via some combination of content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and in some cases, pay per click ads. Just make sure you are focused on a very specific market niche.
Here are some popular consulting or coaching jobs that could be done online:
- Financial Adviser or Money Coach
- Life Coach
- Public Speaking Coach
- Travel Consultant
- Time Management Coach
- Career Coach- for resume writing and interview success tips
- Health Coach or Nutrition Consultant
- Marketing Consultant
Take the Freelancer route. I’m leaving this as a broad category on purpose, since there are many, many things you could do on a freelance basis online. But what is best for you really depends on your skills and personality as well as your available time. Even if there is a freelance job you’d like to try out, but you haven’t had any formal training in it, there are many online professional courses that you could take for a small free or even for free (for example, take a look at Lynda.com, Udemy, Envato as well as my list of free and low cost online business courses) that could get you the training you need.
There are two routes you could take to get your freelancing work going: 1) you could join a platform like Fiverr or Upwork; or 2) you could promote your work on your own site. Just keep in mind: sites like Fiverr will charge you a fee for every sale you make. But in exchange for this fee, you can take advantage of their established marketplace and financial payment system. When going it alone on your own site, you need to put in the work to build an audience. But, the benefit to this approach is that you can work with clients on your own terms. Many freelancers choose to do some combination of the two. I’ve used Fiverr and Upwork and also promote my freelance writing services on Growing Your Biz.
Here are the highest paid freelance jobs in 2018 plus some other popular options
- Certified Transcriptionist
- Voice Over Artist/ Announcer
- Photographer
- Virtual Assistant
- Writing/Editing
- Marketing
- Video Editing
- Web Design
- Illustrator
- Graphic Design
- Social Media Manager
- Translator
- Micro jobs on sites such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or Clickworkers
Blogging. If you are passionate about a topic, and you know that others are passionate about it too, then you could start your own blog. If you can get targeted quality traffic to your blog, then you could generate money in several ways. Here are some examples:
- Display and Link-Based Ads
- Affiliate Marketing
- Sponsored Posts and Product Reviews
- Create a Private Forum
- Offer Premium “Members Only” Content
- Sell an eBook
- Develop and Sell an App
- Create a Course or Webinar
Your blog could either be self-hosted or on a free blogging platform, such as Blogger or WordPress.org or using a self-hosted services.
Affiliate sales. One promising business idea for moms is to become an affiliate marketer for a specific line of products, a service, or even a whole platform. While many people think affiliate sales are relatively easy to get into, the truth is to make a decent amount of money, you need to spend a significant amount of time researching the products or services you want to promote as well as the target market you are trying to reach, and the best ways to reach them.
If affiliate marketing sounds like something you’d be interested in, here are some great articles on the topic to check out:
- Affiliate Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Can You Make Money from Affiliate Marketing? If so How?
- How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
Sell products that you make. If you can make something of value, then you could try to sell it online. Online sales could be for physical products, such as Jewelry or crafts, as well as digital ones, like digital photos, ebooks or apps.
There several online options when it comes to selling your products:
- A self-hosted store on your own website
- A store hosted on a third party platform like Storenvy
- Selling on social media, on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest
- Auction sites, like eBay and the growing list of alternatives
- Using affiliate networks, such as Clickbank
For more information, check out my guide on Free or Low-Cost Ecommerce Platforms for Small Businesses.
Create an online course. Selling your own online course, the last option on this list of business ideas for work-at-home moms, can be a stand alone source of income or can go hand-in-hand with any of the options mentioned above. Not so long ago, creating and selling online courses would have been unrealistic for most people due to the production costs and other technical barriers. But with the arrival of new technologies and changes to the way people learn and consume information, there has never been a better time to create your first online course. Today, virtually anyone can get a professional-looking online course up and running in just a few days or even a few hours.
If creating and selling a course sounds like something you would like do, then there are many tools and platforms out there that can help you to accomplish your goal. Some, like Udemy, are standalone course marketplaces, while others offer software that will integrate with your website.
Each option has different pros and cons. A marketplace will let you publish a course for free and thereby give you access to their audience, but they take a percentage of course sales in exchange and give you limited space for branding and customization. This may be a good option if you are just starting out and don’t have much of an online presence yet.
Course creation software, on the other hand, will give you more customization and flexibility as well as access to an assortment of marketing and promotion tools. These platforms usually charge a fixed monthly or annual fee, and a few platforms also charge a transaction fee.
Some platforms to consider include:
In short, if you are willing to put in the effort, and maybe invest a little money, there are many opportunities out there for you to build an online business from home.
But, this list of business ideas from moms is pointless if you don’t use it. Have a business idea already? Let us know in the comments below.
Nice list, Susan!
You’ve given me the push I need to get my course going. I’m going to take a look at those platforms now.
Hi Simcha,
Glad to hear my post was helpful, and good luck with your course.