Women entrepreneurship in Canada and the US is experiencing a significant improvement in recent years.
In Canada, the number of self-employed women rose to 988,400 in 2022 from 975,200 in 2021. In the US, women-owned businesses had higher earnings growth than male-owned companies in 2022.
In this article, I provide a comprehensive list of unique business ideas that women looking to become entrepreneurs can consider. Most of these business concepts are simple and have low barriers to entry.
Online Business Ideas For Women
Copywriting
Copywriting involves writing persuasive content for various projects, including the web, social media, videos, mobile and print. Create a website or online portfolio that showcases your copywriting abilities and market it on your social media networks or freelance marketplaces.
Online Tutor
This business offers tutoring services from your home, such as teaching a language or a subject one-on-one or in small groups through audio or video sessions or through email or instant messages. Start by investing in quality tutoring resources and developing your curriculum.
Video Editor
To start a video editing business, you must have the essential technical skills. These include the ability to use editing software, perform sound editing, add transitions, enhance through colour grading, and export videos in the preferred format.
Graphic Designer
Graphic design is about conveying your brand story to your customers through visuals and illustrations, from logos to newsletters, social media backgrounds and presentations. To start this business, complete a course and learn the basics, the essential tools and the requisite skills.
Translator
Are you fluent in a foreign language? The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the employment of translators is expected to grow 4% from 2022 to 2032. Earn excellent income from home doing translating services, such as being an interpreter or translator.
Web Developer
A web developer is one of the most lucrative jobs in the market, with the potential to earn over $90,000 a year if you have experience. It entails planning and developing software systems and web applications. You can do it part-time, as a freelancer or full-time.
Online Coach
An online coaching job entails remotely providing advice and teaching relevant skills to help clients improve themselves, become better in specific areas or achieve their goals. It is about personal and professional development and includes lifestyle, business coaching and mental wellness.
Create a Course
The demand for selling online courses is growing as experts forecast the global e-learning market to reach $457.8 billion by 2026. Create a course focused on self-development, learning new skills, solving problems or making money. Use a platform like Udemy or Teachable to host and run online courses.
Write an eBook
Choose a topic for your target market, conduct thorough research and provide accurate and helpful content. Use appropriate design and visuals and convert it into PDF format. Create a dedicated landing page and promote your ebook.
Start an Online Store
E-commerce is among the most popular online business ideas for women, whether it’s an online store that offers clothing, jewelry, accessories or kitchen appliances. You can set up your e-commerce store using easy-to-use platforms like Shopify or Etsy and promote it through your social media network.
Create and Sell Print-On-Demand Products
Print-on-demand is an order fulfillment process where you create designs and collaborate with a supplier to print your design on selected products. Your supplier handles everything from printing to shipping. You only pay for the products after a customer makes an order.
Start a Blog
If you enjoy writing and have useful things to share, blogging would be an ideal business. Create high-quality, regular content that readers find valuable to build a loyal following. Monetize it by offering an online course or ebook.
Social Media Manager
As a social media manager, you will represent a company or brand across all social channels. You are required to create content, interact with the public or respond to comments. Your work also includes analyzing engagement data and developing digital campaigns.
Teach English Online
Decide on a target audience and what you want to teach. Come up with a method of delivering your classes, set your hourly rate, and choose an online tutoring software. Build a website for your English teaching business and promote it.
Podcast Producer
Podcasting involves preparing and distributing audio files to subscribed users. To be successful, you must be skilled in recording, editing and distributing podcast episodes. You will manage all aspects of podcast production, from deciding on topics to performing technical and administrative tasks.
Proofreader
Proofreading entails a meticulous review of written content to ensure it is free of spelling, punctuation, typographical, formatting, syntax and grammatical errors. The business is seen to grow exponentially as the self-publishing sector is thriving, making proofreading a high-demand skill in the coming years.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an advertising scheme where you earn by promoting and selling a product or service. Choose an affiliate program, create a website or blog and promote your selected product or service. For each sale you generate, you earn a commission.
Unique Business Ideas For Ladies
Personal Chef
As a personal chef, you will prepare and serve food for a home for consumption by household members and their guests. You may also need to cater to social events, house parties, engagement parties, birthdays, weddings and receptions.
Yoga Instructor
According to a report, the global yoga market size is expected to reach over $66 billion by 2027, and the average base salary of a yoga instructor in the US is $30.46 per hour. To start this business, you must have a yoga certification. Choose between being a sole proprietor or starting a studio.
Personal Trainer
This line of business is becoming more important as more people become more conscious of living a healthier lifestyle. As a personal trainer, you will create programs for clients and work with individuals or groups of people to help them achieve their health and fitness goals.
Makeup Artist
Makeup artists are cosmetology professionals who help clients look their best for special events or glamorous occasions. Their work includes improving facial aesthetics through makeup and creating looks for their customers.
Stylist
A stylist advises clients on their personal style, including clothing and fashion. The goal is to provide professional fashion advice to clients to enhance their style, create their identity and feel confident in their look.
Photographer
A photographer captures subjects in superior-quality photographs using technical expertise, composition skills and ingenuity. If you enjoy taking pictures, photography can nurture your business skills and creativity, especially if you find a unique niche.
Event Planner
An event planner is responsible for organizing private events like weddings or corporate events like award ceremonies. The work involves meeting with clients to discuss their event needs, dealing with suppliers and vendors and managing the setup, carrying out and cleanup of events.
Pet Sitting
Pet sitting often requires you to stay at a pet owner’s home and look after their dogs, cats or other animals while the owners are away. Your duties would include feeding and watering the animals and keeping them company.
Related: Best Pet Sitting Apps
Interior Designer
An interior designer develops aesthetic and functional indoor spaces in collaboration with clients. The work requires being knowledgeable and capable of identifying the proper lighting, furniture, paint and other decorative elements to give a unique appeal to an indoor room.
Esthetician
An esthetician is a licensed skin care professional who helps clients improve the health and appearance of their skin by offering treatment and personalized recommendations. Their services include providing facials, makeup application, hair removal, waxing, and chemical peels.
PR Agency
A PR agency puts together campaigns designed to help a business reach out to its target market and grow its brand effectively. Its services include holding events and press conferences, providing press releases, coordinating with the media, implementing digital marketing and managing brand reputation.
Travel Agency
A travel agency offers services that meet the needs of travellers, including offering transportation and lodging, planning trip itineraries, making travel arrangements, offering advice on trips and destinations and providing entertainment activities to individuals and groups during their trips.
Life Coach
Life coaching is all about counselling and providing clients with insight on how to improve the quality of their lives. A life coach helps them identify what they want and how they can use their abilities to enhance their relationships or careers and to reach their ultimate goals.
Wedding Planner
A wedding planner helps couples and their families organize and manage all tasks involved in planning a successful wedding. Depending on the setup with the client, a wedding planner may be assigned all aspects of the wedding planning or only for specific details, such as hiring entertainment or providing support on the day of the event.
Daycare Centre
A daycare is a licensed or certified business offering services that aid in the formation and socialization of children aged 3 to 6 years and help prepare them for grade school. Early childhood educators provide a safe and nurturing educational environment for children while their parents are at work.
Run an Online Boutique
An online boutique is a small retail shop that usually sells high-end clothing or accessories through the Internet. It often caters to a niche market with specialized items and offers more personalized customer service. Among the most common platforms for online boutiques are Shopify and BigCommerce.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is an order fulfillment business model in which you sell products that are manufactured, warehoused and shipped by a third-party dropshipper or supplier. It does not require you to keep products in stock. When a customer makes an order, you pass it on to the supplier, who then ships the product to the customer.
Business Ideas For Women At Home
Create Jewelry
Creating jewelry and earning money from it starts with picking a niche and determining your target market. Work with a manufacturer or develop designs on your own using techniques like beading, metalwork or gemstone setting. Sell your items online through your online store at Shopify or Etsy, social media platforms or Facebook Marketplace.
Nutritionist
As a nutritionist, you will help your clients live a healthy lifestyle by assessing their dietary needs, analyzing their biology and designing diet plans. The goal is to identify the ideal food and drinks for them that can enhance their physical and mental well-being.
Influencer
Influencers use their credibility in a specific industry to reach and sway over a target audience. You need to have specialized knowledge and authority over a particular subject. You must also maintain an active online presence on various networks, such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Transcription
Transcription is a service that entails converting live or recorded speech into a written text document. Items that need to be transcribed include conference calls, meetings and seminars. Among the most in-demand transcription jobs today are medical transcriptionist, audio transcriber, transcription coordinator, and medical scribe.
Sell Baked Goods
Sell baked goods from home through an online store or marketplace. Some of the most profitable bakery items are artisan bread, croissants, cupcakes and custom cakes. To make your business unique from the competition, develop a unique concept, such as providing a specific product or flavour profile.
Make and Sell Beauty Products
Developing homemade beauty products and selling them online can be a lucrative business for women. You may want to work with a third-party supplier to handle the manufacture of your beauty items so you can focus on creating new formulas and running the business.
Consult on Your Area of Expertise
As a consultant, you will work with managers or business owners to help them improve the efficiency of their operations and grow their businesses. Use your expertise and objective eye to provide professional guidance and implement better management strategies and improved processes.
Craft Handmade Goods
Handmade goods you can produce and make money from home can be anything from jewelry, bookmarks, soaps, aromatic candles, tote bags, t-shirts, or socks. Sell the items via online platforms like Shopify, Amazon or on your social media sites. Obtain the necessary business licenses and permits before you turn your hobby into a business.
Hold Make-up Classes
If you are already selling make-up, earn more money by holding online make-up classes. It offers flexibility and lets you fit your services around your clients’ busy schedules. It also allows them to learn make-up artistry from the comfort of their home.
Start an eBay Business
Once you have decided on items to sell online, start your eBay business for increased visibility. It also provides the opportunity to increase sales through the use of advanced selling and marketing tools offered by the platform.
Provide Remote Tech Support
Offering remote tech support helps clients repair general issues over the phone or through other means of online communication. Invest in the hardware, software and services you need to run your business.
Teach Music
Teaching music online is beneficial as it is more convenient for many clients, lessens off-task behaviours and helps them stay more focused. Set up a business as an online music teacher. Choose the platform from which to teach and prepare your lectures, tutorials and materials.
Bookkeeping
Are you good with numbers? Setting up a bookkeeping business can be practical. Businesses need bookkeepers to manage their accounting tasks, from payroll calculations to checking account reconciliation and filing of taxes. Most businesses have accounting systems accessible via the internet, so this would be well-suited if you are home-based.
Direct Sales and MLM
Direct sales is a business model that focuses on product sales, while multilevel marketing (MLM) is a type of direct sales where an independent contractor sells products or services directly to consumers. Offer products from companies like Amway and Avon through your online store or social media channel.
Sewing Business
If you have professional-level sewing skills and high-quality sewing equipment, starting a sewing business may be ideal. Sewing offers numerous business ideas you can start at home, from adult or children’s clothing to alterations, customizations, pet accessories, quilting and offering sewing lessons.
Rent Out Properties
Create passive income with a side business like renting out properties. You can rent out a room, an apartment, storage, your car or an unused garage. Find apps that let you rent out properties to customers needing them.
Antiques Vintage Dealer
An antique vintage dealer usually sells vintage and collector items online, through a physical store or at antique exhibits and shows. To succeed in this business, you must have the ability to identify antiques, the era and place they came from and their potential value.
Related: Thrift Stores in Toronto
FAQs:
These include e-commerce, dropshipping, bookkeeping or accounting, copywriting and editing, affiliate marketing, freelancing, online courses, graphic design, social media consulting and affiliate marketing. These are considered most profitable due to factors like startup costs, barriers to entry, competitiveness and industry growth.
Freelancing is the easiest business to open, with many specific jobs to choose from and low barriers to entry. These include copywriting, social media marketing, and social media manager or influencer.
Choose a business that does not need upfront capital, such as blogging using a free platform like WordPress, using affiliate links or designing and selling print-on-demand merchandise. You can also do it at home, thus saving you on expenses like rent and utilities.
