Service businesses are expected to post record high levels of growth in the next several years, adding 9.3 million jobs by 2024. In goods-producing industries, job growth is actually expected to decline, so the service industry is definitely the place to be. Running a service-based business has a lot of advantages, such as not needing to buy inventory, lower overhead expenses, and the ability to customize and scale services more easily. I’m Priyanka Prakash, senior staff writer at Fundora.
Today, I’ll cover seven awesome service business ideas that you can start even if you’re on a low budget or don’t have a lot of time to devote to your business idea. Service business idea number one is educational services. The education sector is growing rapidly and is expected to be worth over $2 trillion by 2026. This includes both educational services for children and adults. Educational services can mean many different things, but one big area of opportunity is different modes of learning such as virtual learning, adaptive learning, and webinars.
If you can provide a service that eliminates physical barriers to learning or that makes learning more inclusive to a wider set of students from different backgrounds and income brackets, you have a great educational service business idea on your hands. For example, take a look at udemy.com This site is a giant in the virtual learning space and offers over 100,000 online courses and has over 30 million students. Udemy offers courses on everything from software certification to marketing to music. As this example shows, the main foundation you need to provide educational services is a great website.
You can partner with experts in almost any field and provide an online platform for them to spread their knowledge. College and school consulting services are also great ways to get into the education sector on a small budget. Service business idea number two is transportation and logistics. Transportation and logistics are the backbone of the national economy. The logistics industry is currently valued at more than $1.6 trillion and makes up 8% of US GDP. Many local and state governments are also building up transportation infrastructure and integrating tech advancements into transportation. Transportation is an industry that will undergo massive changes in the next several years.
With the rise of services like Uber and Lyft, and the development of driverless cars, these changes are actually making it easier to get into the transportation sector without the costly proposition of selling or leasing actual vehicles. For example, City Mapper is an app that uses publicly available transit data to make it easier to get around cities. The app gives real-time status information for buses and trains and integrates with ride sharing services like Uber. To start a transportation service business at a low cost, build on your city or town’s existing infrastructure and simply make it easier for people to get to where they want to go. Service business idea number three is financial services. U.S. financial markets are among the largest and most liquid in the world.
Together, finance and insurance represent 7.4% of US GDP, and the finance sector is very broad, encompassing banking, lending, credit cards, investing and many other areas. Stripe is a great example of a finance-related service business idea. Originally, Stripe started as a service to help small ecommerce sellers process credit card payments.
Now, Stripe services tech giants like Expedia and Zillow by providing online payment flows, subscription billing platforms, and credit card processing services. If you’re tech savvy, you could potentially make a lot of money by building software for finance providers and big companies. Financial consulting in the areas of tax, accounting, and operations can also be very lucrative. Service business idea number four: leisure and hospitality services. Leisure and hospitality is another great service business idea for new entrepreneurs to get involved in.
Since the end of the recession in 2009, American consumers have consistently spent more money on tourism and travel, collectively spending $185 billion in 2017. Now, something like running a bed and breakfast or hotel can be very costly, but there are alternative ways to get involved in the hospitality industry without breaking the bank. As an example, consider the company Roadtrippers. This startup has raised millions of dollars in venture capital, and they focus on just one service: helping people plan a fabulous road trip. They’ll help you map your route, discover interesting stopping points off the beaten path, and provide trip guides for different parts of the world.
In order to break into this service business idea, consider how you can help customers get the most out of their upcoming trip or vacation. Service business idea number five is home health care services. By 2030, there will be over 70 million Americans over the age of 65. Not to mention, with everyone living longer now, home health care services probably won’t see a decrease in demand anytime soon. If you’re already a licensed nurse, therapist, or social worker, you can leverage your degree and background into a home health business.
However, even if you’re not licensed in those types of fields, you can still start a home health care business without a big investment of time or money. For example, the state of New York requires just 75 hours of training to become a licensed home health aide, and the New York Department of Health covers the cost of training as long as they have approved the training agency. And guess what? Home health care services also made it onto our list of the best home-based business ideas. Check out our home business ideas video for more information.
[a] Service business idea number six: personal services.
The personal services industry is a catch-all industry that includes several great service business ideas, such as pet grooming, dating services, handyman services, and event planning services. All of these services have become part of the on demand gig economy, and particularly when the economy does well, people have more disposable income to spend on miscellaneous services. The gig economy includes 60 million workers and by 2027, a majority of U.S. workers will be freelance or contract workers. The best way to make your mark in the personal services industry is to advertise your services locally.
You can also post your services and rates on local Facebook groups, neighborhood newsletters, and email lists and on websites like Upwork and Handy. Certain types of services even have niche websites. For example, Rover.
com is designed just for booking pet sitting and dog walking services in over 50 cities across the country. Most personal service businesses don’t require a large outlay of capital to be successful, but make sure you spend enough on marketing to spread awareness of your business and capitalize on good customer reviews to grow your company. Service business idea number seven: food delivery services. Restaurant delivery has grown 20% over the last five years, and online food delivery is expected to make up 40% of total restaurant sales by 2020.
You’ve probably used or at least heard of the biggest players in food delivery, such as Seamless and Grubhub, but you can make good money with a relatively small area of coverage.
For example, Jennie’s Kitchen is a New York City-based food delivery business that services Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island City. They focus on helping busy parents provide healthy family meals. They change their menus weekly, and people are willing to pay prices similar to restaurant prices for fresh organic ingredients and a rotating menu. Keep in mind that if you’re launching a food prep and delivery business, you’ll likely need to get food handling permits from your city or county.
For a quicker alternative, you can team up with local restaurants to deliver their food orders.
And those are seven service business ideas that you can start without investing too much time or money upfront. For more small business inspiration and advice, check out fundera.com/blog, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos. Thanks for watching. [a]Matt, can you add the call out for this video when you upload to YouTube?
A few months ago, I was living in a shared house in England and one evening I accidentally locked myself and my girlfriend out of a room. in the end I had to call a locksmith and I paid a hundred and forty five pounds for a 40 second job I know myself and I know that this is probably going to happen again so I bought a lock picking set containing a transparent lock and a tool kit specifically designed to practice and to understand how it works the padlock has seven pins inside the lock cylinder the block its movement and rotation each pin has two separate parts driver pins and key pins and every single one of them has a different length that’s also why a key has an irregular shape when we start the key all the driver pins are aligned on what is called the shear line this way the lock cylinder is allowed to rotate and the lock will open following the instructions included in the kit we need to insert this torque wrench tool into this empty slot and then we apply a torque force along the natural rotation direction of the lock cylinder at this point to insert the pick and we try to align the pins on the shear line.
I was getting pretty confident opening the locks so I decided to try with a real door lock once again the concept is pretty much the same we stick the tension wrench into the lock on the opposite side of the pins and then we apply a slight pressure to cause rotating tension into the lock cylinder then we stick in our pick and we keep moving it back and forth trying to line up the pins on the shear line after 25 minutes without being able to open the door I understood what I was doing wrong I was pushing the pick to the very bottom of the lock. It is not really about pushing up the pins as far as you can, but instead you need to align all the pins on the shear line so lock cylinder can rotate.
Turn off or silence any mobile devices. If you must communicate, use text messages only. If you hear the fire alarm during a lockdown, remain where you are. Unless you see visible signs of smoke and fire, then evacuate the building. Stay alert, stay quiet, and keep out of sight.