The StartupNation Home-Based 100 is a list of the 100 “best” home-based business. More specifically, it’s composed of ten Top-10 lists in these categories: Best Financial Performers, Most Innovative, Highest Vote Getters, Boomers Back In Business, Greenest, Yummiest, Wackiest, Grungiest, Worldiest, and Most Slacker-Friendly.
Many of the businesses seem to be based on an practical idea extended from their existing jobs. Others are hobbies or passions that grew into a profitable venture. Here are some of that I found most interesting to me:
The Welcome Committee. This company will personally greet new homeowners, introducing them to the community and also local advertisers who sponsor them (and I guess the gift baskets).
“Newcomers spend more in the first 6 months than established residents spend in 5 years. In total, newcomers spend approximately $100 billion on move-related goods and services annually. Newcomers have no shopping loyalties in their new community and are eager to receive information for products and services they need.”
Lesson: Target a specific situation where people spend unusually large amounts of money. An existing example is weddings.
No Throw. Kids like to throw their bottles. “We have designed a velcro strap that will fit tightly around and hold onto children’s bottles and sippy cups. The NoThrow’s leash styled handle can be slipped over any seat belt that is attached your child’s car seat, stroller, bike seat, high chair, baby-backpack, you name it!.” Yes, it’s sounds so simple it’s funny. But they just got picked up by Walgreens, so they’re probably laughing all the way to the bank…
Lesson: Cute, useful things for children are a huge market. We aren’t even parents and we just bought 3 different kids toys/gifts within the last week. Baby showers, 1st birthdays, 2nd birthdays…
Whiner and Diner. These guys make raised wooden pet bowls and pet beds. “The products are hand-crafted in the U.S. from recycled wooden wine crates of prestigious European and Californian vineyards.”
Lesson: Okay, I know this may sound useless to a lot of people, even some animal lovers. I think they look very nice. (Of course, I put my dog’s bowl over a big roll of duct tape to raise it up…) But I really do think high-end pet products are a great idea for a home business. You need a unique product that can’t be mass-produced and with a large profit margin to make it worthwhile.
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The no throw product is very clever. It basically solves a problem in an efficient and inexpensive way. I personally like the idea of the welcome committee. Since I’m moving to another state next year, I would love for a service like that to get me familiar with how things work and where everything is. All of these niche products/services make for great home based businesses. I’ve been selling niche jewelry products online from home for the past couple of years, I tried to sell mainstream 14k jewelry seen in stores and failed miserably. So my advice for anyone doing online or any home based business, be VERY different. Thanks for the post Jonathan.
I justed wanted to ssay thanks for the information. Caroline
do you screen posts?
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Wow, that’s quite the list. The bowls and the “no-throw” seem to be the most innovative ideas in the batch though. I like the mobile gym idea as well. Welcome committee is cute, but kind of obvious and most of the examples have people working out of their own homes (as evidenced by the pictures). Here’s an “Organizing Wiz”, but that’s not really new or innovative, so I don’t know how it made the top 10. And some of the write-ups are pretty unclear, check out Child Shield USA, I can’t find one income stream listed in the write-up, sounds like they sell educational materials?
These people are clearly entrepeneurs, but it doesn’t look like they’re making much money. Only a few of them even list revenue / growth numbers and only a handful actually have employees. I certainly wouldn’t throw investment dollars at most of these ideas as they have nowhere to go, definitely didn’t blow me out of the water.
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