These days, stay-at-home parents can have it all: the freedom to nurture kids at home and the flexibility to build a successful business online, right from their living room.

So whatever skills, interests or passions you have, now it’s easier and quicker than ever to start an online business without spending lots of time and money getting set up.

Ready to jumpstart your inner entrepreneurs? Here are seven great ideas you can try.

1. Provide a local food delivery service

If cooking is your passion, consider making a business out of it. You could do anything from home catering to meal planning and giving cooking lessons online.

Think about it – catering can cost a fortune. So why not advertise your crowd-feeding skills as a cheaper, healthier, more personal alternative for hungry office workers, family gatherings, and small events?

To get people’s attention and increase your chances of success, you could pick a food niche that has a nice marketing “hook”. You could go for the healthy option, the gourmet option, the adventurous meals, and so on.

Here’s an example of a woman doing just that:

There are small businesses out there who even specialise in romantic dinner catering. So whichever niche you choose, make sure you advertise it to help you stand out from the crowd.

2. Sell homemade

If you love the D side of DIY, why not make your favourite items and give people the option to buy them online?

There is a growing demand for “craft” type products in almost every niche, so pick the one you’re most passionate about and start selling online. With our ecommerce website packages, you can easily create an online shop that lets you sell to anyone in your town, country or the world.

Here are some ideas of products you can make and sell online:

• Jewellery
• Candles
• Bags and purses
• Invitations and hand written letters
• Christmas ornaments
• Painted canvases
• Custom scrapbooks
• Custom wedding décor
• Furniture

For example, Laura offers handwritten calligraphy services on paper and even oyster shells:

3. Offer tailoring and alteration services

Are you handy with a needle and thread? If you’re a talented seamstress, why not create an at-home hemming and tailoring shop? Throw in online orders for custom projects as well like curtains and more.

If your talents also run to design, you can combine this with creating and selling your own fashion designs or even your fashion tips, by becoming a personal stylist.

4. Become a virtual assistant

Here’s the thing about many businesses, especially small ones: they don’t often have the budget or space to hire full-time on-site assistants. Also, with so many operating remotely these days, there’s a huge demand for virtual assistants.

So, why not reach out to businesses, local or international, and see how you could help them from home. Could you input data? Scan or organise files? Make phone calls? Research and book venues? Find out what they need and use your skillsets to fill their needs.

5. Do online or in-home tutoring

Do you have a teaching degree you’re not using? Can you play an instrument? Math and English tutors are in demand. And so are guitar and piano teachers.

So if you have the knowledge and skills, and think you could be a good teacher, don’t hesitate to turn that into a business. You could advertise locally through your personal network as well as through your own website if you wish to venture beyond the block and offer online tutoring to anyone in the world.

6. Tell bedtime stories

If whenever there’s a sleepover at your house, your children and their friends clamour for your bedtime stories – that’s a skill you can turn into a viable business.

So if you enjoy making up and telling stories, why not record them and sell them online to parents who may not always have the time, the strength or your storytelling skills? You can even turn that into an app full of your own stories that parents can use to help their little ones drift off into dreamland.

7. Become a freelancer or a consultant

Thanks to today’s wired world, there are many businesses that can be run from your home rather than your office.

So, if you’re an app developer, a web designer, a social media manager, or a writer, there are plenty of opportunities for you to work from home and earn some extra cash.

Start by offering your skills for free to your friends and family. Once you have a few samples, you can then create your website with a tool like the 123 Reg Website Builder and show off your portfolio to potential clients.

What next?

Once you’ve picked your business idea, the next important step is to search for a domain name and then create a website where people can go to find out more about what you do and how you can help.

Following are a few resources and tools you’ll find useful as you get started:

• Find out what makes a good business name, and how to turn your dream one into a website name
• Learn about the next steps to take once you have your domain name
• Take the free courses in the 123 Reg online business training. You’ll find courses on everything from how to design and build your website, how to optimise it for search engines to ensure more people find you online to how to use email marketing and social media to make more sales and get more exposure and more people to your website.

Wrapping up

These are just a few ideas that can quickly be turned into cash generating businesses. Hopefully you’ve found some inspiration to take the plunge and get your own small business up and running.

Our advice? Take a close look at your interests, hobbies and skills, and figure out how you can capitalise on those. Also, look at what you’re already doing at home, like preparing meals for your family, taking care of your kids and helping with homework, and see if you could be doing those things for other people as well.