If you're looking for ideas to start a business, look towards social and other trends for fresh concepts. Many trendy business concepts developed in recent years rely on economic developments, while others capitalize on technological and social changes or environmental concerns.
Trendy Business Ideas
- Green Cleaning: The demand for organic products means any company promising to use them has an upper hand in most markets. Cleaning automobiles, houses, offices and even pets with organic, biodegradable and recyclable materials is a draw to many customers.
- College Advisor: Many teachers, professional counselors and writers offer their services to overworked parents without time to help with their child's applications or who want extra help ensuring that their child has the best application possible. College advisors help write or edit essays and review applications.
- Social Media Consultant: Using social media websites is almost essential for any modern business, but establishing and maintaining a company's web presence requires effort and time. Many companies outsource their social media marketing tasks to freelance marketing professionals.
- Blogging: What started as means of expression has quickly turned into a way of earning an income. Successful bloggers often sell ad space or promote certain companies to their readers.
- Internet Publishing: Many authors now publish their works online. However, editing, uploading and marketing books require time. Authors avidly seek assistance with these tasks and are willing to pay a small percentage of any sales or a flat fee for the service.
- Farmer's Market Grocery Delivery: The organic food trend is here to stay, and many times that means families need to seek out farmer's markets for pesticide-free fruits and vegetables. Offering to select and deliver organic produce on a regular schedule is a service many healthy eaters are more than willing to pay for.
- Kids Spas: Little girls have always wanted to be just like their mommies, especially in taking trips to the spa. Kid-specific spas are popping up around the country. Small chairs, flashy polish and special juice drinks are a big hit for birthday parties or just a fun Friday afternoon with friends.
- Handmade Cards: The fact that most correspondence these days occurs electronically makes sending a handwritten note more unique. Handmade cards or stationary reflecting the writer's personality or tastes are in high demand.
- Female Handyman: Stay-at-home moms have finally become fed-up with inviting strange men into their houses to fix a problem. In response, female operated handyman companies are springing up throughout the country.
- Etsy List Agent: Although Etsy provides creative designers a way to sell their wares online, listing, pricing and packaging those products takes time away from developing new ones. List agents work for designers by photographing the item, writing a description and uploading it on the site.
- Tutoring: Teachers and experienced tutors offer their services at home for an hourly fee. This allows parents to avoid paying the large fees charged by large tutoring companies and give their children one-on-one attention.
- Empty Nester Catering: With their children gone off to college and their homes suddenly empty, many adults find themselves less interested in cooking. The result is in-home catering companies and delivery services providing healthy and tasty foods to empty nesters.
- Personal Concierge: Very few working individuals can get everything they want or need done over the weekend. A personal concierge performs those tasks that an individual can't do by themselves: dry-cleaning pickups, grocery shopping and even letting handyman into a home.
- Property Manager: Empty homes, rental properties and homes on the market need regular inspections. A property manager helps ensure plumbing and electricity are in good working order.
- Home Staging: A large portion of houses on the market are vacant. Home stagers place furniture and other items in a home to make it look inviting, thereby increasing the likelihood of it selling faster.
- Community Personal Trainers: Many individuals want a personal trainer, but can't afford one. A community personal trainer provides 5-10 neighbors with group fitness classes designed to meet everyone's goals.
- Nutrition Consultant: Being healthy requires eating healthy. Nutrition consultants now travel to a client's home to inspect exactly what they have stocked to eat and then take them on a trip to the grocery store.
- Pie Bakery: Cupcakes are swiftly moving over for slices of pie. In many metropolitan areas pie companies are selling their goods through food trucks, pulling up next to office buildings during the three o'clock snack time.
- Corporate Physical Trainer: Companies have finally realized that healthy employees reduce health insurance costs. Many now invite yoga instructors or personal trainers into their offices during lunchtime or at the end of the day to exercise with their employees.
- Image Consultant: Despite the end of the recession, many individuals still seek employment. Image consultants review a client's resume, appearance and interview skills to identify possible problems and places for improvement.
- Phone App Developer: It's not just for iPhones anymore. Cell phone application developers are on the rise. Some don't even design the app themselves, but rather just market it.
- Personalized Product Designer: Personalization on anything is big right now. Computer operated monogram machines make personalizing bags and children's clothes an easy at-home business.
- High School Tailgate Catering: Parent's love attending their children's sporting events, but may not want to eat the hotdogs offered by the snack shack. Putting together small baskets of healthy food allows families to enjoy their child or sibling's event while sharing a meal together.
Ideas into Action
Ideas need concrete action steps to move from concept to reality. Learn all you can about business plans, marketing plans, and sources of funding such as loans, angel investors and more. Be sure to do your market research into the concept in order to predict whether or not these ideas have enough of a potential market to become a viable business. With 23 trendy business ideas, there's sure to be one that appeals to you and has enough potential to become a terrific business.