If you’re like most techies, you’ve probably given some thought to what your ideal software business might look like. You may even have a specific idea in mind. And if you’re looking for software ideas that are “insanely great”, the idea you currently have might be the one. To help out other developers and entrepreneurs who are in need of software business ideas, today I wanted to present my thoughts on a few businesses which I believe are so ridiculously simple that they will stand the test of time (pun intended).
An innovative software idea, or a software idea to make money — whatever you choose, chances are you need to find a software business opportunities so you can see it through. Software ideas are without doubt great to have and in some cases can lead to a successful business if given the right resources. But what if you don’t have enough time for developing your own software? Is there another way? Are there any software ideas 2022?
Start a newsletter publishing business ($7.98M/year)
How Much Can You Make? $665,000/month View all 1 case studies Time To Revenue 330 days
Matt Paulson from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA started MarketBeat about 11 years ago, a newsletter publishing business.
- Revenue: $665,000/ month
- Founders: 1
- Employees: 6
- Location: Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
MarketBeat is a business that has evolved and iterated upon overtime. MarketBeat’s predecessor, American Consumer News, started in my college dorm room in 2006.
There weren’t a lot of good ways for me to generate an income as a computer science student in a college town of about 7,000 people. When I was a freshman in college, I worked the cash register and the deep fryer at McDonalds. I knew I didn’t want to repeat that experience the following year. I was able to scrape together an income working a few odd jobs for the university, but what allowed me to graduate debt free was freelance writing.
Start a web development business ($744K/year)
How Much Can You Make? $11,000 — $150,000/month View all 8 case studies Time To Revenue 360 days
Ty Fujimura from New York, LA, NJ started Cantilever Web Design & Development about 10 years ago, a web development business.
- Revenue: $62,000/ month
- Founders: 1
- Employees: 6
- Location: New York, LA, NJ
I’m the son of a therapist and an artist, and both sides of that upbringing prepared me well to manage a creative business! I was always playing with code and design growing up, and was lucky enough to have my dad’s tech hand-me-downs to learn on.
I regret bootstrapping because it forced us into making decisions based on the fear of running out of money, rather than on trying to find long-term value.
I majored in Mathematics at NYU, but while in classes I started to get the itch to design again. I did some portfolio pieces in photoshop but needed a website. I taught myself the basics by spending hours in Barnes & Noble reading every web design and development book I could find (even though I couldn’t afford to take them home) and got hooked.
Start a Profitable Blog
Subscribe to my YouTube channel and watch the video below on how to start a profitable blog in the 2020s. https://4968a4ee1c4975179cb59ceea4ccd11c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
When you start a low-cost online business, you’re most likely selling one of three things:
- Your time (coaching or consulting).
- Your own products (ecommerce or SaaS).
- Someone else’s products (affiliate marketing or ads).
With a blog, you can sell all of these from one website and make the most money from any low-cost online business idea out there.
For example, when I first started my blog in 2019, I sold high-end SEO consulting services. Once I got more traffic, I added a few digital resources and sold them to my email list.
Today, I’m in over 200 affiliate programs and make over $100,000/month from this blog promoting SaaS software with a profit margin of 88%.
So how do you get started?
First, you need to reject common blogging advice and learn how to blog like a business from day one.
A lot of common advice from successful bloggers (who all started 5-10 years ago mind you) is to “write about your passions” so that you can make a decent side income within a few years.
I never liked this generic advice. I always felt that it was written to appeal to the widest possible audience and it never gave tactical step-by-step guidance on how to grow from zero.
The entire reason I started this blog in 2019 was to prove that most blogging advice is outdated and you absolutely can make life-changing money in months, not years.
You just need to scale and treat it like a business.
If you’re interested in learning how to start a blog and following the exact formula that made me a million dollars in under two years, check out my ultimate guide to learn how to start a blog.
Some of the steps I cover in my 15,000+ word blogging guide include:
- Choosing your blog’s niche based on four primary business factors, not your passions.
- How to choose your domain name and set up web hosting for as low as $2.95/month with a company like Bluehost.
- How to install a simple WordPress theme along with all of the relevant plugins bloggers need.
- Getting to know SEO tools and performing keyword research to generate traffic to your site.
- Becoming well-versed in search engine optimization (SEO) writing to help your content rank.
- Scaling your guest blogging and link building strategies to build Domain Authority.
- Monetizing your blog with the right tactics at the right stage of your blog’s growth.
If you’re ready to get started now, I recommend you sign-up with Bluehost for $2.95/month, which is 63% off their regular price.
Blogging is the ultimate low-risk, high-reward business idea, and my top pick.
With a low barrier-to-entry and high profits, it’s a great idea, even while working full-time from home.
Online Courses and Coaching
It has become easier to share your knowledge or expertise via online course platforms. If you are a subject matter expert or passionate about something, then you can convert it into a substantial income.
Small business owners can offer online coaching classes to students, build a community to help while building an online coaching business. You can set up a Facebook page or even a podcast where you can reach out to people looking for online coaching classes. All of these coaching and training-based business models can be done at a low cost and at home.
There are also several online platforms, including Thinkific and Teachable, to help you get started quickly. You can register on these platforms and start coaching right away.
You can get started today with a One-Month Free Trial of the Thinkific Pro Plan with my link below.
Start an Ecommerce Business
With COVID accelerating ecommerce by 4-6 years, retailers are moving online faster than ever before. With ecommerce, there are multiple routes you can go – Amazon FBA, dropshipping, or full-fledged manufacturing your own products and selling them on your own website.
Dropshipping is a good option for beginners since you don’t have to fulfill orders or ship them yourself or have an actual store.
Dropshipping is one of the most profitable business ideas. It is a process where online retailers post products from wholesalers, but the dropshipping suppliers manage all of the shipping. The retailer just has to generate online orders and send the shipping information to the wholesaler.
Here’s a breakdown of how dropshipping works:
For a list of business ideas in dropshipping, you first need to do some market research and identify products in high demand. You can also check top-selling products on sites like Amazon and Google Shopping to get ideas.
You can learn more about dropshipping in my ultimate guide to dropshipping.
If you want to build a website to do this, there are a few routes you can take. If you’re starting from scratch, I recommend you get started by creating a Wix website.
They are the easiest-to-use ecommerce platform and come with all the marketing tools you need.
Selling products online is a simple process:
- Choose your ecommerce platform.
- Upload or add product information to your store.
- Choose a theme and design your web pages.
- Set up settings for taxes and shipping.
- Test your shopping cart functionality and do final QA checks.
- Launch your ecommerce site.
- Start a business (It’s really that simple)
While it’s easy to launch an ecommerce site, the challenge becomes how to get website traffic.
I wrote a full guide to ecommerce marketing which includes the top eight strategies to drive traffic and sales.
Overall, you can start a Wix ecommerce site today for just $13-22/month.
ERP Software
Enterprise Resource Management is a software solution for big organizations, business enterprises, and even educational institutions that automates various manual tasks and helps monitor daily business activities under a single system. By 2024, the ERP solutions market is expected to grow up to $49.5 billion.
They can be designed with UI/UX. Commonly used programming languages are C++/C# (Windows platform), Swift/Objective-C (macOS), Angular, JS and Node.JS (web apps).
Example of ERP Software – Oracle NetSuite ERP.
CRM Software
The next software idea would be designing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. A lot of startups can, in turn, become your customer as they are in constant need of such tools.
CRM software helps institutions with work management and integrates several divisions of larger organizations such as sales, marketing, and customer support.
Example of CRM Software – Salesforce Sales Cloud.
Healthcare Software
Hospitals, clinics, nursing homes worldwide are in need of good healthcare software. The multiple categories of healthcare software include Electronic Health Record Software, Medical Diagnosis Software, Medical Database Software, E-Prescribing Software, Hospital Management Software and many more.
The global medical software market is expected to expand by 2025 and could reach an estimated value of $11 billion. A similar expansion estimation is reported for the mobile medical apps market too.
Example of Medical Database Software – Medical Database Seven.
Conclusion:
The biggest challenge most people have is understanding what the secret to generating an income really looks like and how to crack that code for themselves. The only way this challenge can be overcome (and it can be, with the right tools and mindset) is by looking at and comparing different software business ideas in order to see which on will work best for you. This resource was created to help you find and pick the software ideas with the best potential to generate profits as quickly as possible.