When we think of starting a business, selling an essential or everyday product always comes to mind. We only make it unique by adding twists to it, such as using copper as a face mask material, formulating smudge-proof lipsticks that survive food and drink, or experimenting with a skincare product to make it provide multiple benefits. While those are all innovative business ideas, they might be a little overused already, and people aren’t so dumbstruck by them anymore.
If you want to create a buzz, satisfy an unmet need, or change the world, your startup needs more than just an everyday product or service. You have to filter the market further until you spot a very specific niche. It may be a smaller group, but sometimes, they have the largest impact.
Without further ado, here some lesser-known yet profitable business ideas:
1. Selling Your Medical Practice
Turns out you don’t need to have a business degree to start selling something. Doctors can actually sell their medical practices and earn more than they’ll ever do if they work independently. Hospitals are the top purchasers of medical practices, but they usually pay only the fair market value of the practice’s assets, and not it’s intangible “goodwill” value.
Hence, it’s wiser to sell to venture capital or private equity groups, since they pay top dollar for leading group practices in some specialties. Audiologists, for example, may sell their audiology practice to either group to reduce competition, expand their reach, and increase their profits. Moreover, they’d be able to help more hearing-impaired patients across a particular location, effectively reducing the gap between healthcare and hearing-impaired people.
2. Head Lice Removal
Since blackhead removal videos are probably your guilty pleasure as well, who says you can’t get more real and watch people’s lice getting removed next time? In fact, professional head lice removal services already exist in Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama. There’s also a Lice Squad in Canada, so you have all the reasons to form your own Lice Squad in your area, too. After all, it only takes one kid to start a head lice outbreak.
3. Hangover Assistants
After a wild night of partying, the last thing you want to do the following morning is to function like a normal human being. Your hangover will be so intense that doing the bare minimum will feel impossible. And you’re not alone in the struggle; many people experience the same thing and wish for a person who would help them start the day productively.
That’s how you begin a hangover assistance services business. In Boulder Colorado, this actually exists, and it’s called Hangover Helpers. It’s run by a pair of College guys, who go to their clients’ houses themselves and bring them breakfast and Gatorade, and perform chores for them. It’s an ingenious idea to copy if your community badly needs a hangover assistant, too.
4. Cat Cafe
Cat cafes are already famous in Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. They’re the most relaxing and jolliest place for people who love cats, but incapable of owning one. If that’s a problem you know all too well, find out how many more people can relate with you, and use your research to determine if building a cat cafe will be a good solution. The business won’t just supply happiness to cat lovers, but will also give several strays a loving home.
5. Smashing Plates
In the Philippines and Japan, there are places where you can smash plates to release your anger and stress. Why not start the same business in your country? After all, stress and mental health issues plague many employees around the world, and sometimes, all they need is a good, intense, but harmless release. So start gathering old and discarded plates, then sell them to customers who must smash them.
6. Selling Platform for Useless Jewelry
Not all engaged couples make it to their wedding day, rendering their engagement rings completely useless. They may sell it back to the jeweler where they bought it from, but chances are they’d barely get back what they initially paid for.
To ease the frustration and heartbreak of the ones who are forced to sell the rings, get inspired by Josh Opperman, who founded “I Do, Now I Don’t.” It is a website where people can sell their engagement rings (or any other authentic jewelry) for less than going to a jeweler. It will help people earn cash quicker, which never fails to soothe a broken heart.
By breathing life to any of these unique business ideas, you’ll have the opportunity to earn higher than you expect and establish yourself as a witty professional who knows people’s less-expressed needs. The best part is, it’s incredibly easy and affordable to start these businesses, too.
