Are you looking for online business ideas for 2023 without investment?
There are a plethora of businesses you can start online and make profits. Thanks to the Internet that has given us so many opportunities.
Unlike a brick and mortar business, you don’t need a lot of investment upfront to start an online business. In fact, there are so many online business ideas that require zero investment.
So if you’re someone who is looking to start an online business with zero or less investment, this post is exclusively for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn;
- 11 of the most practical business ideas that you can implement online
- Tips and strategies to make profits from those businesses and
- Some practical examples along the way
So are you ready to find out the zero investment business ideas? Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Top 5 Online Business Ideas to Try in 2023 Without Investment
1. Start A Blog
There’s a reason why we put starting a blog #1 in the list of best online business ideas for 2023. The reason is this: it’s the BEST way to create a brand and make profits online.
Although you can start a blog for free, we don’t recommend that. If you’re starting a blog as a business, you need to invest in the essential things like;
- Domain name
- Web hosting
- Few tools such as email marketing, SEO tools etc
Let’s break down the above things so you’ll know how much investment you need to start a blog.
- Domain name (cost $10 to $15 a year)
- Web hosting (shared hosting plans usually cost you under $70 per year)
- Tools (depending on your budget, they can go from $10/mo to $100/mo or even more)
So basically, you just need around $100 a year to start a blog. It’s not a big deal if you know the true potential of blogging.
So how to start a blog that actually makes profits for you in the long run?
Here are some useful tips that helped me build a profitable blog which earns $10K+ each month.
- Pick a niche (your blogging success mostly depends on your niche so make sure to pick a niche that’s both profitable and evergreen)
- Choose your monetization strategy (find out how you’re going to make money from your blog and try to use passive income sources like selling your own products, affiliate marketing etc as they help you make money even while you sleep)
- Create great content (you can’t build a successful blog without creating great content so learn how to create great content that’s helpful for your target audience)
- Learn and implement SEO (SEO is the key to building a money-making blog so learn how to do keyword research, find better content ideas, build backlinks etc).
2. Create A YouTube Channel
Are you looking for a profitable online business idea without investment? Start a YouTube channel.
All you need is a free Gmail account to get started. There are millions of people launching new YouTube channels and killing it with their subscribers, views and profits.
Did you know that an 8 year old kid Ryan Kaji is last year’s top YouTube earner with $26 million? He’s one of the highest YouTube earners according to Forbes.
That’s a ton of money, right? Do you know what he does on YouTube to earn such an insane amount of money? He reviews toys and does experiments with them.
Sounds crazy, right?
Not just Ryan Kaji but there are so many other YouTubers who are earning huge money with YouTube. You can read our detailed post on how much top YouTubers earn to find a lot more interesting details.
The key here is to find the RIGHT monetization strategy if you want to make more profits with YouTube in 2023 and beyond.
Although there are a gazillion ways to make money from a YouTube channel but let’s discuss the most preferred ways for beginners.
AdSense: One of the widely used monetization strategies for YouTube is to use AdSense ads. But you can’t show these ads right from day one. Why? Because your YouTube channel needs at least 4000 watch hours in the last 1 year along with 1000 subscribers.
Once you hit those numbers on your channel, you can start showing AdSense ads and your earnings depends on various things such as;
- Cost per view (CPV): In this type of ads, you get paid for views and a view for an advertiser means someone watches ads for more than 30 seconds.
- Cost per click (CPC): In this type of ads, an advertiser pays you money based on the number of clicks.
- Your subscribers (including their country of watching)
- And several other things
Sell your own stuff: This is the BEST monetization strategy for YouTube. You don’t need to rely on AdSense anymore as you can sell your own products. You can sell anything that’s related to your channel including;
- eBooks
- Online courses
- Merchandise
Brand collaborations: Another popular monetization strategy used by most YouTubers is to collaborate with others including brands, people, software companies etc. A brand collaboration is a strategic partnership between a brand and you where you promote their products or services in exchange of money.
You can use influencer marketing platforms like FameBit which gives you access to over 400 active sponsorship opportunities worldwide.
3. Start Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a booming online business. If done right, it can be the most profitable online business idea that needs minimal investment upfront with high profit margins.
Dropshipping is all about selling products to your customers without actually storing the inventory of items by yourself.
That means, when a dropshipping store sells any product, it purchases the item from a 3rd party and ships the item directly to the customer.
To put it simply, dropshipping is all about “buy a product, store it, pack it and ship it”.
The good thing about dropshipping is when you find a product to buy from a third party vendor, you don’t even need to store, pack and ship it as the third party supplier does all those things.
The reason to start dropshipping as an online business is because it involves less risk as you’re not creating any product by yourself.
That way, you can not only make money selling useful products but you can also validate ideas to sell profitable items for more profits in the long run.
There are a ton of people using marketplaces like AliExpress to start dropshipping as a profitable online business.
If you’re looking to start dropshipping as a business, you should definitely check out AliExpress as it makes it easy to find products to sell on your store without having to worry about inventory or shipping.
Did you know that you can earn up to 2000% profit with AliExpress dropshipping business?
In fact, they offer an exclusive market platform called AliDropship to sell products.
Here’s how the dropshipping at AliExpress works;
- Add the products you would like to sell from AliExpress onto your store
- Set a price with markup, and whenever you receive an order, you pay for that product at wholesale cost
- Finally, AliExpress seller ships the orders directly to your customers
That being said, here are some of the practical ways to get more out of dropshipping business.
Free shipping products: No matter what platform you’re using (such as AliExpress), you should find products with free shipping. If you’re targeting an international audience, it’s the best way to make more profits. Otherwise, you’ll have to bear the shipping costs or you’ll have to increase your product prices.
Find products with more orders: If you’re just getting started with dropshipping business, it’s always a better idea to find products that are already selling like hot cakes. Try to find products with at least 500 or more orders. Also keep an eye on the average product ratings from customers so you’ll know whether they are worth selling.
Find low price and high profit products: This is the KEY to making more profits with dropshipping: always find products with high profit margins. For instance, you can find $20 worth shoes and sell them later for $50, which gives you a solid 60% profit margin before accounting for your marketing costs.
4. Sell eBooks
Did you know that we generated over 250 sales within the first 20 days after launching our first ever premium eBook?
Here’s an earning screenshot which is taken from Instamojo (payment gateway) where you can see the transactions.
If you’re looking to create a passive income source online, selling eBooks can be a great idea. Are people still paying for premium eBooks?
Of course, yes. In fact, 38% of daily sales of ebooks on Amazon go to self-published titles. People are spending millions of dollars every year on purchasing eBooks.
So yes, if you’ve some expertise in any field, you can start creating useful eBooks to sell.
Here are some useful tips for you if you want to make money online by selling eBooks.
Research your popular topics: If you want to create and sell an eBook, you should find topics that are performing well in your niche. If you already have a blog or website, go to Google Analytics to find which topics are generating you the most traffic. That way, you can easily validate eBook ideas.
Or you can also use blogging forums, Facebook groups, Twitter chats, your email lists etc to take surveys and ask others what type of premium eBooks they are looking to buy. You can also use popular platforms like Amazon Kindle, Udemy etc to skim through the popular eBooks and courses in your niche.
Write or outsource: You can either create your own eBook from scratch (it takes time but if you don’t have any budget, it’s the only thing you can do!) or you can outsource the writing part to others. Make sure to spend some money on the writing part so you get what you give!
Sell directly: Instead of selling your eBooks on other platforms such as Amazon Kindle, you should sell your eBooks directly from your website. There are a ton of platforms such as Gumroad, Shopify, WooCommerce etc that allow you to easily sell your eBooks directly from your website.
5. Create And Sell Online Courses
Did you know that Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income earned over 1 million dollars in revenue from online courses alone (in 2017)? Ever since his earnings are only growing year after year.
If you want to build an online business that grows every year, creating and selling online courses is the best thing to do.
The best part about creating online courses is that they give you an opportunity to teach what you know and make profits at the same time.
But here’s the thing: you need to make a solid investment in time and effort upfront. Your premium courses should be worth every single penny. Only then, you’ll be able to build a solid passive income stream.
So if you want to build an online business around creating online courses, here are some useful tips for you.
Sell the outcome instead of features: One of the key things to remember while creating an online course is to sell the outcome, don’t focus on the features.
For instance, Pat Flynn’s Power-Up Podcasting course teaches his audience how to launch, market and maintain a successful podcast.
So make sure to focus on what your target audiences are going to achieve once they finish your online course. That’s how you build successful online courses that actually sell.
Validate first: You must validate your idea first. Don’t waste any time creating an online course unless you have a solid email list ready to buy it.
You can use Facebook ads, take surveys or your blog posts to see what your audience actually wants. Launch your online courses when they start asking for them.
Take action, don’t wait: Most people procrastinate. They wait for the perfect time to launch their online courses. They consume a lot of information about creating and selling their online courses. Stop doing it and start taking action. Come up with an idea, test the idea, and just launch!
Final thoughts on best online business ideas without investment
From starting a blog to teaching online, there are plenty of online business ideas for 2023 that require zero or minimal investment.
You just need to find one idea and start working on it. Don’t wait for the perfect time, start today!
So what do you think about the online business models which are listed on this page? Which one are you going to pick? Share your thoughts in the comments below.