7 Online businesses you can start from home [2022] (With Examples)

Ayush Chaturvedi

Feb 28, 2022 • 9 min read

Photo by Ryan Ancill / Unsplash

So, you're thinking about starting a business. Congratulations!

The best thing you can do for your career is to be in control of your own destiny.

But where do you start?

With so many online businesses to choose from, it can be hard to decide which one is right for you.

In this blog post, we'll list 7 online businesses you can start from home, with examples of each one.

And you can start these businesses as a solo founder, without needing a large team of developers or designers.

So whether you're looking for an online business idea or just want some inspiration, read on for great ideas that you can start today!

#1 Start a curation website

Curation websites provide information that's valuable to a particular niche audience. The internet is a noisy place, and there's great value in curation. Especially if the curation is done with taste and good UX.

Example: NomadList.com curates information for digital nomads.

Business model: One-time membership to access premium information.

Read more about the founder of NomadList Pieter Levels:

#2 Build a podcasting app

Podcasts are all the rage these days. Everyone and their granny has a podcast. It's almost like a gold rush.

And when there's a gold rush, you should sell picks and shovels.

Build an app that helps edit and produce Podcasts. Ask podcasters to use it for free, get feedback and improve the product. Get testimonials from initial users.

When it's really good, start charging a subscription fee.

Example: Riverside.FM is a podcast editing tool.

Business model: Subscription fee.

Read more about Riverside's founder Nadav Keyson:

#3 Start a No-Code community.

The No-Code movement is heating up these days, it makes sense to ride the trend and gain from it.

You can learn No-Code tools, build apps from them and start a small community around No-Code learning.

As you get better you can even sell premium content access.

Example: Makerpad.

Business Model: Paid access to content.

Read more about Makerpad's founder Ben Tossell, also how it got acquired by Zapier:

Read more about No-Code business ideas on this page:

#4 Build a SaaS app

The Creator Economy wave is rising these days, many independent creators are making a living only through their passion. You can build software services that help them run their business better.

Example: Veed.io - Video editing tool.

Business model: Monthly subscription.

#5 Build a SaaS boilerplate

There are so many people building SaaS apps, all of them need some common initial set of boilerplate code to get started with their SaaS apps.

If you're good at coding SaaS apps, you can make and sell initial setup code widgets.

Example: Gravity from Kyle Gawley.

Business Model: One-time purchase of boilerplate code.

#6 Start a Blogging Platform

Blogging is making a return these days. With people realizing the value of writing online, and the value it can bring.

Plus they want to be independent of social media platforms to guard against platform risk.

A blog is the best option for such people. And you can make good money helping them run a simple blog.

It's like their online home. If you can code a simple no-nonsense blogging platform, then you're in business.

Example: Ghost from John O'Nolan

Business Model: Monthly subscription.

You can charge more if you can help them run an email newsletter from the blog.

#7 Build a No-Code Form Builder

Digital forms are all the rage these days.

With Google forms having an ugly user experience, and Typeform raising its prices to make it unaffordable.

There is definitely a place in the market for a nice-looking form builder. If you can build a simple and better-looking version of Google forms, you can make money online through it.

Example: Tally Forms by Marie Martens.

Business Model: Freemium. Basic features are free, but you pay extra for premium features.

This is a great business model because it makes getting new users very easy. And then you get the really interested ones to pay you money.

#8 Build a course platform

Everyone has a course in them.

The online education market is growing fast in 2022. It's like a gold rush.

People are looking to monetize their expertise through selling courses, digital downloads, and paid communities.

You can sell picks and shovels in this gold rush and help people make money with their expertise.

Example: Podia by Spencer Fry.

Business Model: Monthly Subscription as a Service(SaaS)

You can let creators host their content and charge a subscription for it. Find inspiration and insights about this model by reading more about Podia's journey:

#9 Build a 1-page website builder

1-page websites are very useful these days.

They are good for people to showcase their portfolio, or to use as a landing page for their product or service.

But very few tools actually let you build such simple one-page websites. Most website builders are very complex and full of bloat.

They make the sites heavy to load and hard to build.

You can solve that problem.

Example: Carrd.

Business Model: Annual subscription that starts as low as $19 for 10 sites.

The price point makes it a no-brainer for most people.

That's why there are more than 4 million sites running on Carrd today.

Read more about the journey of Carrd's founder AJ:

Hope these ideas and their founders inspire you to start your own business. If you have any ideas that I should include in this list, feel free to reach out to me and I would be happy to add them.

Keep in touch as I write about new and interesting businesses every week. I will keep adding new ideas to this list with time.

Stay in the loop.

Thank you for reading 🙏

Cheers,

Ayush