Are you looking for some small business ideas that you can start with your little savings? Are you fed up with working under others and thinking of becoming your own boss? Want to work on your wish and into fields that you have been thinking about for a long time? if all the answer is YES then you have come to the right place.
Small businesses are privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorship having fewer employees and/or less revenue than regular-sized businesses or corporations. The employee size in small businesses can be different from countries to countries but a company having fewer than 15 employees can be regarded as a small business in the context of Nepal.
Starting your own business has lots of ups and downs. It can use your most precious resources, time, and energy. The reward you get from your own business is far greater than getting more money from working for others. The most important thing that you need for business is the idea. After having a good idea, plan it properly and then go into execution. The business started without proper planning can create a lot of trouble in your future and those troubles can teach you very hard lessons.
We have contacted various business ventures to get ideas in creating this awesome list. We have taken into account the things that are needed to start and operate business smoothly, challenges if there’s any. Also, we make sure to list many small business ideas as possible. Another important part is to consider the capital, our small business list has the capital requirement of under Rs. 1 lakh to 10 lakhs maximum.
Let us first start with business ideas that can be set up even from home especially if you have a good knowledge of Information Technology and you already have a laptop (or a desktop computer), good internet connection and the most important thing, the habit of research (learning, writing and improving).
A short form of ‘weblog’, Blog is a piece of writing mostly serving a particular purpose. If you have any business, you can write blogs on those that include why your products are good, its benefits, how to operate it safely, etc.
If you don’t have any business, then blogging can be your way of income. Don’t be surprised! there are lots of people who have a regular income source from blogging. If you have any knowledge of a particular subject matter, you can start your blog right away.
Your blog can earn money from affiliate marketing, local advertisement, and Google Adsense. All you have to do is to write good and engaging content regularly.
Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are the three most popular social media platforms right now. If you can create good content that gets your followers very much engaged in it then congratulations, you are a social media influencer. This is the most happening job right now and many people are becoming celebrities from the social media platform.
You can sell your products by being social media influencer (or simply put a content creator), can sell your advertisers products, get good ads revenue from Google Adsense if your content is on YouTube.
All you have to do is to know your followers’ liking, make content based on that and promote it wherever you can and see your business growing.
If your love is to write beautiful articles, blogs, stories, or even essay then content writing can be a perfect business idea for you. Content writers are in increasing demands nowadays especially when most of the businesses are moving online. Business owners need to deliver their products towards consumers and your content writing skills come handy in raising curiosity in consumers’ minds.
Write some good content on a particular field to be it on science and technology, travel, foods, or even on DIY (do it yourself). Just keep writing.
You can get paid for your work on a contract basis and there is always to start your blogging too.
Most of the business have their online presence and many are trying to get online. These business wants to get new customers from a popular social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
If you are an avid social media user and constantly updating yourself on the latest trends then you are perfectly suitable for a Digital Media Manager. You can approach clients to handle their social media accounts to enhance clients’ social media presence. Regular updates, marketing, and planning to maintain social media pages, handling clients and many more things come under the role of the digital media manager.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of enhancing the visibility of a company in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) organically. In simple terms, SEO Expert makes sure the client’s website is being shown on the first page of Search Engine Result Page (SERPs) when people search about similar topics to that of the client’s business. It can be Website, Youtube content, Apps or Blogs.
Sites like Skillshare, Coursera allows people to upload thier courses and earn a substantial amount of money. If you are good at something be it cooking, handicrafts, sports, guitar, dance , musics, programming, academic courses, economics, or even in communication. Design your courses and upload on skill sharing sites.
If you want to grow your community then social media sites like YouTube and Facebook are also good. On YouTube, there are lots and lots of tutorial courses available and there are good gaming community-related channels too.
If you know design, colors, typography and can make visually pleasing design by using softwares like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign and many similar ones then you can be freelancer graphics designer. All you have to do is get a work, make it and send your work to printing house near you. Find out good printing house and you are all set. There are lots of graphics designing work centered around the Bagbazaar area in Kathmandu.
Website design and development field is also a popular field that can be started with small investment and has a good career if you want to do it as a freelancer. You need some design ideas and programming knowledge to work as website designer and developer. There is huge demand for website business as many companies are going online to have an online presence. You will surely get some of the works. You can also apply for the work in online websites like Upwork and Freelancer.
Similar to website design and development, Application or simply app design and development is also becoming the happening industry in Nepal. Companies need apps to get more closer to their audiences and customers as apps tend to have a more personal touch than the website. You can work as a freelancing app developer, make your app and put in on the Playstore or Appstore and make money from it through advertisements or subscription fees. You can also find work on online platforms like Upwork and Freelancer.
System design and development is a branch of the IT field where people develop a system to solve a particular purpose. In the system design and development field, you should have a keen interest in finding a solution to a problem or solving a task more simple than that is being currently done. Besides problem-solving, you should have some programming skills and marketing skills too. Some systems popular in Nepal are the Attendance system, Project tracking system, Financial Technology (FinTech), etc.
The job of the video editor is very demanding and if you can give a very good output then there is a lot of money to make. With the rise of content creating a business, people are achieving celebrity-like status through YouTube and Vimeo like platform. They need one good video editor to make their content awesome. If you are very good at video editor jobs, then you can also create your channel and upload video editing tutorials, teach new techniques and collaborate with other content creators.
If you know a particular subject matter of an academic field or creative field.
There is a huge demand for tuition and coaching places in Nepal especially when the major board examinations are near. SEE (Secondary Education Examination) or formerly known as SLC ( School Leaving Certificate) is the most prestigious examination in student life. +2, bachelor and masters exam is also tough so there is a need for tuition and coaching classes all year round.
There is a huge demand for instructors in Nepal. Most parents in Nepal encourage their kids to have a hobby or be good at something besides study. Many schools and colleges have extra curriculum activities in their syllabus. The most common types are dance class, singing class, art and painting class, computer class and many more. Schools and colleges also have one sport instructor mainly martial arts like Karate, Taekwondo, and Wushu in Nepal. Many cricket and football learning centers are also available in the country.
If you know the sewing and knitting skills, you can have a tailoring or knitting business. If you don’t know the skills but you think it is a business that you want to do. Don’t worry! there are lots of sewing classes available in the country and as for knitting, you can always find someone to teach you. These two businesses can be done from home with minimal cost to start and operate.
If you are passionate about photography and take photography as a serious thing then there are a lot more things to achieve in the photography business. You can be freelancing photographer and shoot events, marriages, corporate businesses, and hotels. Apart from events, if you love traveling you can be a travel photographer or a landscape photographer or even an urban photographer. You can choose your region from countless categories available. You can sell that photography to corporate houses, newspapers, and magazines or even sell online. Shutter stock is a very popular platform to sell stock images online. Make sure to create a very good profile in the social media of your choice. However, Instagram is a highly recommended platform to showcase photography.
Nepal is a popular tourist destination. Tourism is one of the leading revenue-generating industries in Nepal. With the influx of tourists increases year after year, the demand for travel and tour guides have also gone up. You should be certified to become a travel and tour guide in Nepal. To get the upper hand in travel and tour guide work, you should have expertise in at least one language other than English. You can become a city guide, trekking guide or a travel guide.
If you think marketing your products, meeting customers, making products are not your thing then there is another option. You can become an investor. Your choice of investment can be dividend-yielding stocks, peer-to-peer lending, interests, and stock exchange (share market)
You have an operating knowledge of vehicle especially two-wheelers and possess one.
If you possess a good knowledge of Kathmandu city and you are willing to travel from one place to another then you can become a rider for the ride-sharing platforms like Tootle and Pathao. You can earn a substantial amount from helping people to commute from one place to another. Tootle and Pathao claim their riders are earning a substantial amount of money from the amount of work they get from their platforms.
Same like riders from a ride-sharing platform, you can be a part of the delivery team that delivers goods from one place to another. You will be delivering goods instead of commuters. You can be a delivery guy for online e-commerce companies like Daraz or Sastodeal, food delivery platforms like Foodmandu or Bhojdeals, or any other company selling a similar business. You have to go and talk to them and find out what their requirements and policies are.
If you don’t want your business to be confined inside the home and want to open a shop or store. Having a shop or store allows you to have a physical presence and customers tend to trust more on you and your work. If you are currently working as a freelancer or from home, opening a shop or store may be your next step in expanding your business.
The most common small business in Nepal is the grocery shop. In every corner of town or city, you will surely find a grocery shop in Nepal. A grocery shop is a shop that primarily sells food either fresh or preserved. It does not require any previous skills to open a grocery shop – all you need is good behavior towards customers. You can start small by only selling instant noodles, biscuits, cigarettes and confectionery items like sweets and chocolates. Gradually, you can add water jars, dairy, and even vegetables in your shop. You just need to find a good place and can set-up a grocery shop. Scaling is the major benefit of the Grocery business.
Momo and Chowmin are two most selling dishes in Kathmandu valley, the capital city of Nepal. Other than these two, sausages, fried potato, fried onions (Pakauda), Syabale, samosas, Puri Tarkari, Chatpatey, Paani puri, etc can be added to suit your business ventures. Food business can be started from low investment and you can gradually add spaces and items with your growing business. The main things to keep in mind are to have fresh food, a hygienic environment, and a friendly approach.
Everybody is using a mobile phone nowadays. More and more people are even switching to smartphones. You can imagine the possibility of having those phones damaging either by dropping or mishandling. Also, people love adding accessories on their smartphones and putting phone cover has become mandatory. So, if you give some time to learn a skill for phone repairing, you are becoming a technician. You can open a shop and start your business right away. Apart from phones, there is a demand for television repairing too.
If you want your freelancing IT career to a more formal one you can start an IT company. Your area of expertise can be any of the mentioned fields in this article. Your company can work on the web design and development field or app design and development field or system design and development field or combine any two or all of them. Nepal has a tremendous future in science and technology as this field is in the nascent phase and mostly focused on the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu. You can always start small with few computers and there is always a scope of scaling up as you get more work.
Most of Nepalese are Hindu and cow is their sacred animal. Nepalese are avid dairy product consumers. Most of the houses in village rare cow and buffalo for milk, butter, and ghee. The demand for milk and milk products will always be there in Nepal. With the increase in demand s for milk and other dairy products, farmers are gradually moving from traditional houses consume production to more serious business ventures of a cow farm. You can also join this community by opening a dairy shop. Start from small things like milk, paneer, ghee and ice cream. Wish you good luck!
Beauty and make-up have become a must-visit place for ladies residing in an urban area. Facilities provided by beauty parlor are facials, hair styling, make-up, threading and many more. The high-income time for these shops is in the wedding season. There is also the opportunity of doing freelancing work providing home service. There are lots of beauty and makeup training jobs available for those who want to learn the techniques.
Hair-cutting is an essential shop in any community. People want to loom neat and clean. A haircut is a sure way to have a change in their look and people have a haircut in a regular period. If you know to cut hair then you can open a haircutting salon. It takes very little capital to open a barbershop. If you think you can do this business but don’t know how to do it and looking for hair-cutting classes, there are plenty of institutes that teach the hair-cutting techniques.
If you want to take your travel and tour guide business as discussed in this article to the next level, opening a travel agency business can be your next step. Register your company and open a dedicated serving point – a travel agency.
If you are planning to open a small scale factory where there are machines and can employ a few people, then this list is perfect for you.
During religious ceremonies or daily worshipping, incense is required. Hindus and Buddhists use incense regularly. However, there is a distinction between the incense used by Hindus and Buddhists. While you start any incense production business you can start from a small investment. You can gradually start to make all versions of incense and start capturing your market.
Candles’ business was thriving up to a few years ago. Nepal was having a lot of hours load-shedding every day and it would be more in the days of winters. A city like Kathmandu was facing up to 22 hours of load-shedding per day in the month of winter. People had to buy candles to light up their room. Loadshedding has become a thing of the past now. The demand for candles has been significantly dropped so the business is nowhere near to what it used to be. But there is still some room in this business especially in the field of decorative candles for birthday like occasions. Fragrance filled candles also have market potential. Your new business can be a candle production house.
Momo and Chowmin are the two most consumed snacks of the working-class people of the city. Kathmandu alone has many momo and Chowmin serving restaurants serving more than a thousand plates of these snacks. Most of the noodles required to make Chowmin are made locally in small scale industries. If you are planning to start a small scale factory then noodles making business can be a very good start for you. All you need to do is to make a good quality product and do proper marketing.
Pickles are the spice-laden food consumed with meals. Nepalese love to eat pickles with lunch and dinner. It is consumed with snacks too. There is a huge demand for pickles made up of chilies, raw mango, cucumber, radish as well as mixed vegetables. The pickle production factory can be easily set up with a minimal cost. You should focus on pickle variety and ingredients needed to make that pickle and another focus area can be marketing. There are many pickle factories and small market share to occupy.
Apart from pickles, you can also make fruit jams and sauces. It can add variety to your products as well as increase your profit margin.
The use of plastic bags is being reduced every year. The government is applying strict rules to discourage the use of plastic bags. Plastic bags have a huge environmental impact as it takes many years to be completely decomposed. There are many alternatives to plastic bags.
Your next or new small business venture can be a business that provides a plastic bag alternative in the Nepali market. These can be a paper bag (widely used in developed countries), jute bags (for buying groceries), cotton bags, etc. Research on the subject, list out as many alternatives as you can. Sort out from your list that you think has a good market and start your business. Good luck with your business and thank you for saving the environment.
Soaps and detergents are the main products used to wash clothes. Most of these are produced locally in small scale factories. You should know the chemicals needed to make one and then you can set up your factory. Start small and gradually expand your production capacity.
You can also try on product variety like organic soap, bathing soap, cloth-washing soap, dishwashing soap, facial soap or medical soap. Similar can be the case for detergents.
