100 Best Online Business Ideas in India 2020 (without investment)

Written By Pardeep Goyal | Updated on January 1, 2020 | 183 Comments

I was afraid of sharing my ideas when I started my online business in 2015 but now I have too many ideas but too less time to implement all of them.

I am sharing all my research with you today.

I wish that some of my ideas become useful for you and you can also start a new journey of your online business with almost no investment.

What is the meaning of No Investment?

I paid very high fees for 15 years to the school so that I can become a doctor or engineer.

Then paid coaching fees to crack engineering.. and another 5,00,000 rupees to complete my computer engineering in 2006.

All that is an investment to get a job in an IT company, right?

20 years of my time investment and more than 20 Lakh money investment from dad…

… to get a job that was paying Rs. 18,000 when I started in 2006.

But I realised that IT job is frustrating & boring.

I wanted to do business… and I invested all my savings in my first startup.

Read my story what I learned after losing Rs. 15,00,000 in my first startup.

For me.. 15 Lakh was all my life’s savings. A huge investment.

And then I started my blog CashOverflow with less than Rs. 10,000 investment. All it needed a domain name, hosting and a good theme.

Max Investment to start a website or blog is

Domain Name $10
One year hosting $50
SEO optimised theme $30
A few courses to start $50

Total = $140

That’s less than what we would have paid for a 6-week coaching.. or tuition of a subject in college.

Agree or not?

That’s almost no investment in comparison to 15 Lakhs that I lost in my first startup.

You don’t have to hire a designer or programmer to have a beautiful website. Everything can be done very easily even if you don’t have any technical knowledge.

After going through all the 100 ideas..

..you can join this FREE course on starting a profitable blogging business.

How to start an online business in India

I am passionate about saving money using credit cards, travel luxury under budget and writing content. I started a personal finance blog to help people in selecting the best credit card in India and helping people starting stock trading in India. I make profits by collaborating with banks and financial companies whenever someone buys insurance, loan, credit card or any banking product from my partner banks.

The first thing is finding what you are passionate about.. and the second thing is finding a sweet spot where you can help your readers in achieving their goals.

Their goals could be living healthy, losing weight, travelling, cooking or learning music.

Google and Facebook dominate most of the traffic on the websites. You can get readers on your website or blog from Google SEO (search engine optimisation) or Social Media.

If you don’t have time to read all, click on the industry name to read specific ideas.

Industries, dominating Facebook

Industries, dominating Google

Industries, dominating Facebook & Google

You can create your own ideas by taking hints from what I share. I create better ideas when I work on my passion (finance, travel and marketing). Focusing on your interest is more important than chasing money.

Bollywood and Entertainment (Celebrities, Fun and Gossip)

If you are the guy who is known as an entertainment material in your friends’ group, then don’t waste your talent.

Get into the fun and gossip industry.

Don’t be afraid. Once you start, you will learn the next steps automatically.

Idea #1. Comedy Club

Comedy videos become viral very easily. There are a couple of standup comedians like Kapil Sharma and Amit Tandon who have become a celebrity now. The young talent is waiting for their turn. There are thousands of comedians who are looking out for a channel to show their talent. You can help them by building a comedy club online.

Idea #2. Funny Videos Library

Funny videos of kids, puppies and cats are all over the youtube and facebook. Can you make a library where people like me can pick the right video for their content marketing?

You can make money by selling the licence to startups for using the video. The person who is the creator of the original video can earn money as commission.

Idea #3. Online Dance Classes

You don’t need an innovative idea to become successful, all you need is a viable idea that can solve someone’s problem.

If you are a dancer and you have interest in teaching people online then start online dance classes. You don’t have to be an expert, just be better than your students who want to learn the basics of dance.

Can you make 9 short videos so that I can learn simple dance steps for the upcoming family function? Sometimes people don’t find the reliable sources that could provide them a systematic system for that simple thing.

Idea #4. Online Reality Show

Reality shows are damn popular on TV, then why can’t there be a reality show version online? All industries are getting democratized by internet and that means individuals and organizations are losing control over the industry. Anyone like you and me can become the owner of an online TV show and complete with the branded channels like StarTV.

Star TV and Amazon are already competing head to head for online TV viewer’s market share through their apps. There is a lot of scope if you can build an audience for reality shows online.

Idea #5. Music Lovers Group

If you don’t have capacity to make a product, at least, you can make a group of music lovers online.

Caution: Don’t try to make a generic group of music. It must be a micro niche that you are passionate about. Like a group of Honey Singh Music Lovers, or Classical Indian Music, or Kishor Kumar Lovers..

Facebook must be the first place to begin with if you are going to make an Indian audience centric business. You must also have a website + discussion forum. At a later stage, go for moving to a mobile app.

Idea #6. Music School

No brainer! If you have a passion to teach music, start an online school for music. You can start with a free youtube video channel, upload a couple of videos to help people in learning music.

I search on youtube whenever I have to learn basics of anything. And, if I like the person, I try to find his/her online presence to learn more in detail. You can make a good business out of a music school if you deliver high quality lessons to your audience.

Idea #7. Party Organizer

There are many ways to look at this idea. You may become a party organizer for parties like a kid’s birthday party (all of the parents are your audience, more than 50 crore people). Or you may become an organizer for the youth parties.

Important Note: Don’t try to become everything for everyone at the same time. Most of the people don’t get it. Any experienced entrepreneur will advise you to focus on one group in the initial days rather than building something for the whole industry.

Idea #8. Viral Video Maker at Low Cost

I would be your first customer if you can help me in creating viral videos at a low cost. You must start making videos yourself in the initial days and later on hire good video makers.

Video demand is increasing every day. All the startups will have to create a lot of videos in the next few years. Videos are the easiest way to get viral in a short span of time. Most of the people don’t have the knowledge of video making.

Can you come up with a fixed price video startup?

500 rupees for a 60 seconds video if the client gives the concept (storyboarding), images and text. You just have to execute. 2000 rupees for 60 seconds video if you do everything yourself. Deliver the video in 24 hours with the promise of 2 revisions in next 24 hours.

If you are able to execute the idea well, you can become viral with thousands of projects in your hand. Don’t compromise on the quality and keep increasing the prices. People pay higher price for the good quality work.

Lack of confidence? That’s the reason of failure for most of the people. They accept failure even before starting. Success comes to those who don’t accept failure even after the actual failure.

Do you know that we lost 15,00,000 rupees in my first startup? I decided to work even harder to get the success.

Business model

There could be many business models in the entertainment industry. Depending upon your aspirations and risk taking capacity, you can make a nice money from advertisements (pay per click and pay per view), selling services and affiliate products.

In the long run, your business model would be a partnership with big brands, celebrities, production houses and TV channels.

Money Potential

A single guy can make about 50,000 to 100,000 rupees with a dedicated effort of one year. A team of 3-4 people can make more than 500,000 rupees in less than one year if they execute the projects with perfection.

Your revenue can be multi crore per year if you become an influencer of entertainment industry (like TVF).

Cricket

I have not picked sports as the category, because Indians are not sports lovers, we are the cricket lovers. Cricket remains in the air throughout the year.

When you are starting something for a business purpose, you must start in a business where you can get customers throughout the year. I have a very limited knowledge about Cricket because I belong to that 1% of Indians who don’t watch or discuss cricket. No, I am not an anti-national ;-).

Idea #9 Fan club of a particular cricketer

Cricket works very well just like the entertainment industry. You pick your favorite player and make a fan club about him. Read the details of businesses to get more inspiration.

Idea #10 Regional Sports Club

India is a country, but we have so many cultures within this one country. I have travelled many states last month when we were on our road trip from Chandigarh to Karnataka. Each state looks like a separate country. We should rename India as “United States of Bharat”.

IPL is based on the same concept, where each region has one team. Take the idea forward, make a sports club online for your own region’s cricket. Yes, there is a business model if you can execute.

Idea #11 News and Trends

The name explains it all. Pick the latest cricket news, curate interesting facts around the news and become the next cricket news channel. You will get thousands of readers from Facebook (without spending any money on marketing).

Idea #12 Facts and Surprise

Slightly different from the ordinary news, go for some interesting facts about the players, their life and the game as well. Your content can go really viral if you will execute it well. If you are really passionate about cricket, then the ideas would come naturally to you.

Business model

The easiest way to make money is through Google Adsense and Facebook Instant Articles. In the cricket season, you could make a lot of money through the Ads.

In the long run, you can sell cricket equipment on your website. Partnerships with sports brand can make you a real businessman in the industry. All you need is a regular flow of cricket fans on your website.

Money Potential

Revenue from Ads would remain similar as in the entertainment industry. A single person can execute the whole project with a dedicated effort of one year. You can make your living comfortable by earning a handsome amount.

If you are able to turn out the business as a huge success, you can make several crores out of it per year.

Politics

Elections happen every year in some states of India. Politics domain has been always remain hot. A great opportunity if you love debating on Indian politics.

Indian audience spends a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter for political discussions. BJP and AAP supporters keep rocking the internet everyday.

How the current game is being played!

People become supporter or anti of a particular party
They start writing good things about one and bad things about the other
There is hardly any way to find the right or wrong message
The news and media become so biased
Internet is becoming a place of noise and nonsense

What you can do?

You can join the madness and create a yet another Facebook page to defame one political party and give benefit to your favorite party.

Or, you can become the legitimate source of a well-researched news and information. You can write your own opinion about the political facts. Go and read a lot of stuff about the history and political movements happened in the past.

You can win the hearts of Indian audience without being biased to any party.

Important Note: Be prepared to face the heat from political parties if you share any fake news or try to manipulate facts. Run your business with your own responsibility. I am just sharing an idea. Take your own risk while executing.

I don’t understand political domain very well, but still, I have some ideas that can be implemented to improve the political scenario in India.

Idea #13 Keeping the record of government achievements

Political parties make many promises during the elections and later no one tracks the progress. You can build a platform to influence the government to fulfil its promises. You can keep the track of promises, get latest information on the progress and keep the readers updates.

Idea #14 Curating the news

There are different types of media and everyone puts the news in a different way. You can curate the news from different channels. The reader might be happy while looking at the opinion of all the channels and political parties at a single place.

Idea #15 App (Mobile or Web) to check fake news

Too much information is available on the Internet. Fake news becomes a big problem for everyone. Can you come up with a system to validate if the news is genuine or fake?

Business model

Since the industry is highly volatile and viral, you will get a lot of traffic from social media. Invest 80% of the time in building your Facebook page if you want to get success. The easiest way would be to earn money through display Ads. At a certain point you will become an influencer and you can get partnerships with corporates and NGOs to sell the targeted products and services to your audience.

Money Potential

You can make $100 per 100,000 page views if you show Ads on your page. Even a single guy can handle such a business and make around 60,000 to 80,000 rupees within one year of dedicated effort. One million monthly traffic is not difficult. At later stage, there is no limit on how much you will earn.

There could be some more ideas to build a better environment around politics, which has been considered as dirty till date. Please share your ideas and I will include them in the list.

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Childcare and Parenting

I was reluctant to add this topic.

Unlike other topics, childcare and parenting must be handled with utmost responsibility and love. You cannot create content for the sake of getting it viral. Remember, one wrong advice can have a negative impact on the health of the mother or the baby.

If you are a parent and you wish to share your parenting advice with others, you can start something on Facebook.

Most of the mothers can find an opportunity to work on Facebook.

Last year, I had a similar discussion with my wife Neha when she was confused about her career. She had a good sense of designs (without any designer qualification). She enjoyed sharing her parenting experience with her friends.

I randomly asked her to start a website and a Facebook page in order to share whatever she learned as a mother. She started her Facebook page BeingHappyMom in July 2016 and grew to 1,00,000 likes in January 2017 without any paid marketing.

online business

Tuesday, 21 January 2020