Businesses You Can Start Tomorrow

When her husband lost his job in 2002, Christine DeLuca rented out two of the beds in their Woodstock, Vt., home. She ran the makeshift bed and breakfast (and ate into their savings) for a few years before upgrading to a larger house on a farm in nearby Quechee. Open on weekends since August, the Inn at Clearwater Pond, with four rooms and an adjoining cottage, has pulled in roughly $8,000 a month in revenue.

"I didn't know a thing about running a bed and breakfast," says DeLuca. "But [it] came very naturally to me because I love to entertain and have people in my home." DeLuca aims to triple those revenues by operating at full capacity (the Inn is at 50% now) and having guests during the week.

You don't need a fancy pedigree or specialized set of skills to launch a business. Some start-ups require more capital than others, of course, and all companies demand care and feeding. But if you can muster the courage, do a bit of research and secure a tax identification number (so Uncle Sam can take his cut), you can be your own boss.

Low-tech ventures that work best tend to target a devoted customer base and offer an easy-to-grasp product or service. Take dog walking (as in, walking dogs).

A former Unisys call center representative who went back to college in his late 30s, Kevin Meadows started walking dogs part-time while attending St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas. A friend told him about a stockbroker in San Francisco who quit his job to start a dog-walking service. Rumor had it the guy made six figures carting dogs on a flat-bed truck to a park so they could run around for a few hours a day.

Now 41, Meadows hasn't bought a flat-bed, but he's making money. Austin Dog Walkers handles 20 to 30 pooches a day; Meadows piles six in his sport utility vehicle and the rest go with two other walkers, each of whom cover a specific part of the city. Daily revenues: about $450. Out of that, Meadows pays his two contractors 80% of the revenue they generate. Gas eats up $700 to $800 a month, but advertising costs are minimal -- though Meadows did take a course in animal first aid. "Anything you can do to give people confidence that you're trustworthy is important," he says. Estimated pretax income this year: about $60,000.

Keri Cooper, a corporate-event manager in Seattle, went after another fanatical group of customers: anxious brides and grooms (and the parents who write the checks). "I was doing some soul searching, so I just started coordinating a few weddings on the side," she says.

The demand for these services is breathtaking. Wedding consultants charge $1,000 to $20,000 per event, depending on location and breadth of services. The best clear $100,000 a year.

To drum up business, Cooper mails clients a formal, mock wedding invitation when she schedules an introductory meeting. She now coordinates 20 weddings per year. "More than that and I can’t give enough time to my clients," she says. Cooper charges between $1,600 and $10,000 per event. Three-year-old company Bliss Events now nets between $40,000 and $70,000 a year.

While a business may look quick and easy to start, profits might be a long time coming. Just ask Kimberly Raymond, who decided a year ago to quit her soul-sapping sales job to start her own personal concierge service in Washington, D.C.

"I got started in a day -- I'm not kidding," she says. "I decided on a bike ride that [this] was the right idea. Instead of heading home, I turned around and went over to my friend's house. She became my first client."

To her credit, Raymond chose a growing industry. "Everybody is trying to squeeze 36 hours into a 24 hour day," says Katherine Giovanni, founder of International Concierge and Errand Association, which has 600 members in 20 countries, up from 20 members a decade ago.

But Raymond's hair-pin turn brought pain. While start-up costs were minimal -- Web site design (a few hundred bucks), accountant ($400), fliers and business cards ($200), her new business is still under water. After 13 months, Raymond's 12 clients have only yielded $25,000 in revenues -- far short of her $33,000 in living expenses. She fills the gap, in part, with $5,000 in credit card debt, now at a low 10% interest rate.

"It's been a really challenging year, financially," she says. "I'm thinking of spinning off into event management."