My Top 27 Best Small Business Ideas in India

As I do research for content for this blog, I’ve come across many search queries about starting a business from home in India.

So this blog post is dedicated to all the lovely people in India who want to start a small home based business, but are short on home business ideas – and money…

Here I’m going to outline home business ideas in India which cover:

Excited? You should be…

Part Time Business Ideas in India

Because I’m specifically talking about home business ideas, you’ll be pleased to know that any home business can be worked on only part time if you so wish.

In fact, some businesses allow you to work only part time hours and still earn a full-time income.

I regard a full-time income anywhere from $1,500 a month.

Imagine only working 10-15 hours per week and making $2,000 each month – which is very doable!

Best Online Business Ideas in India

The best online business ideas are ones that will suit you personally and help you live the lifestyle that you want to lead.

That’s why its very important to choose a business idea which suits you.

It’s no good choosing a business simply because you see other people having success with it. They are not you and they are not living your life.

These business ideas in India, which I’m going to outline in a moment, are all based on online businesses which you can run from home, as long as you have Internet access.

If you don’t have Internet access, then try and find a cafe, a friend or relatives home, or somewhere where you can get access to the Internet and a computer.

Business Ideas Without Investment

And lastly, most of the business ideas in India can be started without investment, or at the very least $50-$100.

Related Reading: Home Business Ideas With Low Investment

This is because you’ll practically have no overheads, and definitely will not need massive startup capital as you would if you were setting up a brick and mortar business.

So having said all of that, let’s take a look at home business ideas in India so you can work and earn from the comfort of your own home.

1. Freelance Service Provider

I’m going to start off with being a freelance service provider.

A service provider is where you offer a service in exchange for money.

The main reason I’ve started with this business idea is that when I’ve used the freelancing service website www.fiverr.com, most of the service providers I’ve personally used were indeed from India.

And I’ve only used services such as:

There are literally dozens of services which are on offer on www.fiverr.com, and so I bet that a lot of these other services are also provided by people living in India.

Exchange Rate & Cost of Living

I think that being a service provider in India is a fantastic, and a relatively easy way to make money online.

Exchange Rate

The universal currency online is USD – I’m British and I live in the UK, so my currency is Sterling Pound, but I price all of my products in USD.

So what this means for people living in India, is that people pay the service providers in USD.

Here’s an example in your favor:

You could charge $25 for a service taking you one hour to complete, which equates to 2,042 Indian Rupees – currency conversion at the time of writing this.

In British Pounds that’s £20 (so I can relate), which is an absolutely fantastic hourly rate here in the UK alone.

Cost of Living

But it gets even better for people living in India, because the cost of living in India is substantially lower that it is in the US and UK.

Honestly, the cost of food and fuel is rising here (UK) at an astronomical pace, and it’s really taking its toll on most of the country financially.

But, £20 is still a very good hourly rate of pay for anyone here in the UK.

So here are some freelance services which are in great demand online…

Freelance Business Ideas

1. Freelance Writing
2. Graphic Design
3. Virtual Assistant
4. Social Media Manager
5. Content Writing
6. Content Editing
7. Guest Posting
8. Video Editing
9. Podcast Editing
10. Image Editing
11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
12. Translation
13. Transcription
14. Website Development
15. Website Maintenance
16. Databases
17. Accounting & Bookkeeping
18. Data Entry
19. Market Research
20. Coaching / Consulting
21. Life Coaching
22. Online Tutoring

The list could go on and on.

Take a look at freelance websites such as www.upwork.com and www.fiverr.com to see the full range of freelancing services which are being offered.

What Are Your Skills?

When you look through these freelance websites, ask yourself “What skills do I have that I could offer in exchange for money?”

Get a notebook and make a long list of all your skills, knowledge, work experience, life experiences and anything else you can think of that you could use as a service.

Write it all down, even if you think that no one would be interested in that particular service. It’s surprising at what obscure services some people will pay for.

2. Start a Blogging Business

If you don’t want to be a freelance service provider, where you only get paid in exchange for your service, then you could consider blogging.

Blogging is a fantastic online business model for a variety of reasons:

Blogging does have a steep learning curve, so make sure you take this into consideration before you start blogging for money.

For example; you’ll have to learn:

* search engine optimization

Also, blogging does take a while to get going and take off in order for you to get to the point where you start earning passive income from it. This is because you’ll be relying on the search engines to pick up your blog posts and rank them in order to get organic visitors.

Earn Money While You Sleep

But of course just like anything, the more hours you put into your blog – as in working full-time on it – it will grow much faster.

Resources To Get Your Started:

Both of the above YouTube channels have paid courses (which are quite expensive) but you don’t need to purchase those. You can learn how to blog by following various free YouTube channels and joining one or two good blogging Facebook groups.

Other Home Based Business Ideas in India

Of course, there are many other home-based small business ideas apart from freelancing and blogging.

Let’s take a look at a few more.

eCommerce Store

An ecommerce store is a shortened name for electronic commerce store.

An ecommerce store can be a part of a website or housed on a separate platform which allows businesses or individuals to sell products or services online.

You have a few options if you want to start and run an ecommerce store as they can be created using a variety of platforms and software, ranging from simple website builders to more advanced solutions that offer custom design, integrations with other systems, and marketing tools.

Ebay and Amazon are prime examples of online ecommerce stores, but let’s take a look at other options.

Etsy

Etsy is a very popular ecommerce platform which is mainly used by women.

It originally started as a platform for women to sell their handmade creations such as handmade clothes, jewelry, art and ornaments/vases.

Today, it has expanded exponentially and sellers can now sell digital products (mainly printables) from Etsy.

Etsy is basically a search engine for products. It works similar to the Amazon platform in that you list your products with keywords and the platforms’ algorithm will list your products according to your keywords.

It doesn’t cost anything to get started and you only pay fees when you list and sell a product.

Why not browse through the Etsy menu to see what type of products are selling on there, and also type product ideas into the search bar and see what comes up.

Shopify

Shopify is a stand alone ecommerce store.

What I mean by this is that it is not a ready-made search engine platform like Amazon, eBay and Etsy.

You can sell anything in your Shopify store, and you can attach it to an existing website or blog.

The downside with Shopify is that you have to drive your own traffic to your Shopify store, which can actually be extremely difficult.

I know a lot of Shopify store sellers use Facebook ads to drive traffic to their stores, but obviously you’ll have to make this type of marketing very cost effective in order for you to make a healthy profit.

Having said that, there are literally thousands upon thousands of successful Shopify sellers who are making a LOT of money with their stores and Shopify is dedicated to helping you to succeed so there is plenty of help at hand.

Baking / Food

Can you bake? Can you decorate cakes?

What type of food is popular where you live in India?

Can you make these food stuffs and sell them from home or sell them from a local market?

I don’t know what the rules are in India, but here in the UK you have to get a special licence/permit to cook and sell food from your home.

So make sure you do your research and find out if you are allowed to run a food-based business from home.

Marketing Method: Word of mouth and social media

Gardening / Landscape

Do you love to garden and/or do landscape gardening?

This is a great way to make a good income and do what you enjoy doing.

Find out what other independent gardeners are charging per hour, or per garden job, and price your gardening services accordingly.

But don’t undercut your competitors (by charging less than they do) as this is not the best business practice to adopt. In fact, by charging less will likely put people off as psychologically you are saying that you don’t do a very professional job.

So either charge the same or slightly higher prices than your competitors. You can always change you prices later and see which price point is the best.

Marketing Method: Word of mouth, social media and leaflets through people’s letter boxes.

Sewing Alterations

If you can sew and are good enough to do alterations for others, then why not make some money from your sewing skills?

You could do any (or all) of the following:

This small home-based business would also be very inexpensive to start too.

All you would need is sewing needles and different colored threads. If you can (and you haven’t already got one), you could also invest in a sewing machine.

Marketing Method: Word of mouth, social media and posters in shop windows/school notice boards etc.

Summary

As you can see, there are plenty of business ideas in India working from home.

By working from home, you need no investment (or very little) as you would do if you started any other type of business.

There are online business ideas and all business can be worked on a part-time basis. Even offline ideas such as gardening and sewing are still classed as home-based because you’ll be doing all of your admin work from home and just go out to your clients homes to carry out your service.

Here’s a quick glance at all 27 business ideas for people living in India…

27 Small Business Ideas In India

1. Freelance Writing

2. Graphic Design

3. Virtual Assistant

4. Social Media Manager

5. Content Writing

6. Content Editing

7. Guest Posting

8. Video Editing

9. Podcast Editing

10. Image Editing

11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

12. Translation

13. Transcription

14. Website Development

15. Website Maintenance

16. Databases

17. Accounting & Bookkeeping

18. Data Entry

19. Market Research

20. Coaching / Consulting

21. Life Coaching

22. Online Tutoring

23. Blogging

24. eCommerce

25. Baking/Food

26. Gardening/Landscape

27. Sewing Alternations