If you’re a full-time mom, you’d think your life has revolved around breastfeeding, changing nappies, and cleaning the house. The early days of motherhood could be daunting, but once your child gets a little bigger, you’ll have more freedom to do the things you want to do and probably enjoy a cup of hot coffee outside since you’ve been used to taking your coffee cold because of chores.
When your life gets paused by the responsibility of caring for tiny humans who depended so much on you, remember that it’s just it—a pause. You can resume and continue to do the things you love to do and even explore other things you think you might be great at.
In the United States, the 2019 statistics showed that there are 31.7 million small businesses, 49% of which are owned by women. More importantly, 1 in 3 of those businesses are owned by moms. Hey, that’s roughly five million businesses!
Managing a business could be very challenging, especially if you don’t have the basic framework and skills. But there are so many successful mompreneurs you can take inspiration from. Here are some of the best business ideas you can explore:
1. Baked Goods
If your passion is baking, it wouldn’t be too difficult to put that skill into a business idea. You’d still be at home watching over your kids while you take a few hours preparing baked goods you can sell online.
Yes, selling them doesn’t have to take you away from your home. Set up a shop online and take orders from there, bake it, and have it delivered to your customers on the same day to ensure freshness and quality.
2. Customized Embroidered Shirts
Customized embroidered t shirts are another lucrative business idea you can dive into. You don’t need to be an artist or have the massive equipment to roll the concept.
All you need is to partner with a credible organization that’ll process your orders using quality materials of exceptional craftsmanship. What’s good about this is that the world is your clientele. Established companies have global shipping. You can manage a business without worrying about inventory, personnel, and technology. You need to set up your e-commerce shop, market the product, and take orders from customers, then your business will do all the legwork.
3. Artisanal Scented Candles
Moms love anything that makes a home smell good. Scented candles are easy to learn and execute. It can be prepared at least two to three weeks in advance so the scent will be cured. Candles don’t spoil, so you don’t have to worry about stocking them. Having a variety of scents on hand will be an advantage, and packing them beautifully in sustainable elegant gift boxes would be a great selling point for candles. This can also be sold online or in weekly bazaars.
4. Essential Oils
Another thing you can do in the comfort of your home is essential oils. It’s another product moms use a lot that they could advocate for since it can do much good for the family. Moms selling products for moms is a great business idea that’ll have many patrons.
Essential oils can be placed in a roller for direct skin application, a tincture for humidifier or diffuser, and a bottle for a bath. It has many purposes and has gained popularity in recent years because of its many benefits.
5. Online Tutoring
One thing that doesn’t need much capital, space, and physical investment is tutoring online. If you finished a college degree, whatever your area of education is, you could transfer your knowledge to those that’ll benefit from it.
Or if you have another set of skills that you mastered in the past, you can also train others to become experts on that as well. Say you’re a musician; you can teach kids online how to play the guitar, piano, flute, or whatever musical instrument you’re an expert of. It’d be best to have a laptop, a stable internet connection, your musical device, and your talent—so little capital but with huge returns.
With the limitations of the pandemic, many moms opted to have their kids learn some skills online instead of in an actual school to prevent contracting the virus. And with what the current situation has proven, online learning is indeed a viable alternative and is forecasted to stay as part of a blended curriculum of many educational institutions.
6. Freelance Writing
You can make it your bread and butter if you’re savvy with words. Many creative moms write for a living. You can also do this by signing up on job platforms and freelancing sites and taking on projects from international companies that need writers for content, copy, or SEO.
Or, you could also write a book! Many moms have documented their experiences as first-time moms, and this has sold like hotcakes to other moms who wanted an honest insight into motherhood, not the unicorns and rainbows kind of storytelling.
7. Graphic Design
Maybe you’re great with design and can create posters, logos, or banners. You may offer your services to companies that seek people like you. You may create a company and offer your assistance in this area.
Having this business won’t take you away from your family. An artsy and tech-savvy mom could always make use of her skills in this area. And, like online tutoring, you don’t need a lot of capital—just a few equipment and your raw talent. You may dedicate a few hours of your time each day to go back to taking care of them.
8. Sell Plants
Another thing this pandemic has taught many is that when you’re bored due to lockdowns, you can go to your garden. So many plant aficionados were born in 2020, and mind you, they’re not just moms; people of all ages have dipped their fingers in the soil and discovered their green thumb in the process.
Now, the planet is healing because of the many plants thriving all over the world, and you can see natural color being added on lawns, backyards, and window sills because of blooming flowers and healthy foliage cultivated by many. Because of this, many moms went into selling plants and flowers they have propagated. You can see tropical plants like monstera, rubber tree, alocasia, dragon tree, and Ficus plants used as décor inside homes.
9. E-Commerce Reselling Or Drop Shipping
If you don’t have any business ideas and you’re not really great at creating products from scratch, why not sell products you believe have great potential and market them attractively? You don’t need to manufacture a specific product to sell. You can just research products that are selling exponentially and resell them for profit. It’s a viable business model where you don’t need to start from square one.
Imagine having to skip so many steps like product research and development, testing, and brand recognition. Those are the critical steps many manufacturers spend a lot of money on that take a large chunk of their time, and you’re entirely skipping that and proceeding to market the product on your platform.
Since you’re going to buy at wholesale prices, you’re getting a sizeable discount. Putting a markup on the item would depend on the value add-ins you’re including to enhance the customer experience of the product.
10. Blogging
Blogging has now evolved a lot compared to the very first one created in 1998. Today, with the monetization of blog sites, a substantial amount of money can be generated, and bloggers have made this their bread and butter by becoming platforms for companies to publish their content that’d rank high on SEO. On average, bloggers in the United States earn roughly USD$37,000 annually.
11. Vlogging
A vlog is short for a video blog wherein content is in pure video format. To start, you must ask yourself what you specialize in or your passion. Many moms vlog about cooking, baking, parenting, homeschooling, and anything that concerns motherhood.
But you don’t have to limit yourself to those as you can talk about anything that you feel people would learn a lot from like maybe taking care of your pets, cleaning hacks, crafting, or gardening.
The main platform for vloggers is YouTube. And today, they’re called content creators or Youtubers. Once you reach 1000 subscribers on the platform, you’ll be eligible for monetization. Any ads popping in the middle of your stream will earn you money. On average, a creator can earn about USD$0.18 per view. Not surprisingly, YouTube has made many millionaires all over the world.
Conclusion
Being a full-time mom is a calling that needs 100% dedication. But being a devoted mother, you shouldn’t forget that you also have a life to live. Moms who have something to get busy with are more mentally sound and balanced.
Taking care of a family can take a toll on one’s physical and mental health. A little break from all the loving chaos can be an excellent respite for full-time moms, and a business venture can be just that.
