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So, you’ve got the itch to start your own small business, but you don’t know where to start. Well, the good news is, you’ve got plenty of small business and start up opportunities open to you. Below you will find 8 ideas for small businesses that you can start right now. Sure, some of these will require more work than others and some will require more start up capital than others, but they can all make you your own boss.

1. Franchise – franchising isn’t half as hard as most people think it is. Franchise opportunities are everywhere and its a great small business idea because you don’t have to worry about starting your own product or building your own brand. You pick a company like Plato’s Closet, Pizza Hut or even Sprint and AT&T that have already established themselves in the market and you become a part of their success. You will have to do quite a bit of setup to get the business going and it does require a lot of capital to start, but the pay off could be great. If franchising interests you and you’d like to find out where to find small business franchise ideas and opportunities, you can go to Entrepreneur.com’s 2009 Franchise 500.

2. Wholesale - think of wholesale retail as franchising, without a parent company. You set up a retail location online or a physical storefront, you choose your products, buy them in bulk at reduced wholesale prices and resell them at retail price. Your business profits from what is left and you don’t have to create a product of your own. The only real drawback to wholesale is that you are responsible for dealing with the inventory, which means you need warehouse space or a fulfillment center (but more on that another time). And if your product doesn’t sell, you could be stuck with 1,000 crates of Pop-Tarts or something.

3. Dropshipping - of all the ways to retail online, dropshipping is the coolest. You don’t touch the product, you simply place the orders. You start an online store and, when someone places an order with you, you order the product from your dropshipper for a reduced price, they ship the product to the customer with your logo on it and you keep the difference. If online retail is your thing, dropshipping is definitely the way to get started. Be careful when finding dropshippers, however, there are scammers out there. If you’re interested in dropshipping or wholesale, I recommend signing up for a membership with Word Wide Brands. They have a huge database of dropshippers and wholesalers, along with tons of free ebooks and videos to help you get started. I personally use them for my online businesses and I highly recommend them.

4. Product Creation - if you’ve got a great idea for a product, you can always make something of your own. With all of the free audio and video editing software on the Internet these days it has never been easier to create your own information products to sell. The best part about information products is that they can cost next to nothing to make, which means each sale is nothing but profit. If you’d rather create a more tangible product, there are any number of companies who can help you. Just head over to ThomasNet to find a list of manufacturers for every product under the sun.

5. eBay Sales - Yeah, I know, it’s eBay. It may not be the noble profession you were thinking of, but, if you want to know a dirty little secret, this is my favorite method for getting start up capital for any small business. You can find products from World Wide Brands and sell them for a profit. Does it take some time and effort? A little. Mostly to learn what’s going to sell and what’s not. But if you’re dropshipping, you don’t even have to touch the product. List the information on eBay, order from your dropshipper and cash the check. Easy right?

6. Freelancing - if you’re one of those people with a demonstrable skill, like writing, video editing or website design, you can very easily turn that talent into your own small business and still get to work from home in your pajamas. Sign up with websites like Elance or Odesk and create a profile for yourself and your work and you can start bidding on freelance projects. If you can net some good reviews from customers and build up an impressive portfolio, you can make a great living doing what you love.

7. Affiliate Sales - of all the start up ideas this one will probably require the greatest work for the smallest gain. I include it here because there are still Internet marketers out there who swear by it. Affiliate programs, through sites like Clickbank and Commission Junction, will pay you a commission for bringing them sales. The problem with affiliate sales is that they are open to absolutely everyone. This means that when you find a product that you want to promote, there are probably another 10,000 people on the net already promoting it. The market gets saturated pretty fast, no matter what you’re promoting.

8. Licensing - ah, my father’s favorite option. If you have an idea for a product, but not the means or the desire to create and sell it yourself, you can always license it to another company and simply cash a check each month for a percentage of their sales. You may only make 5% or so of what the selling company will make but, heck, 5% for just having a good idea is a pretty good return. If you think you have what it takes, go check out Stephen Key’s website. Key is a master of licensing who knows exactly how to do it right.

So there you have it. More small business ideas than you can shake a stick at. Start up ideas for years. Check out all of the links above to get more information about each but, regardless of which one you choose, remember that none of these are get-rich-quick schemes and all will require some dedication on your part. But if you have the guts to get out of your current job and work for yourself, any of these can help you achieve your dreams.

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