14 simple online business ideas that you can start today

A lot goes into building, growing, and scaling your online business, but actually getting started? It might be easier than you think.

The first step for nearly all solo businesses is creating something to sell. It doesn’t have to be complicated, and it definitely doesn’t need to be perfect. 

A simple product or offer does a lot for your new business. It gives you hands-on experience creating and launching something, helps you start building an audience, and can even bring in your first sales. 

From there, you’ll have the confidence to create more products or find new ways to sell what you already have. 

In this article, we’ll cover: 

• 14 simple online business ideas you can use right now

• Examples of how entrepreneurs are using these ideas in their online businesses

• Steps for setting up each idea in Podia

Let’s take the first step in creating an online business that you love. 

14 easy online business ideas (perfect for beginners)

As you look through each of the online business ideas below, remember that you can steal anything you like, adapt it, turn it upside down, and shape it to fit your topic and niche.

As someone who often gets ahead of myself when I’m excited about a new project, here’s a word of advice: 

Pick an idea that sounds fun to you. Don’t overthink it. You can customize your idea to fit your niche or industry, even if you’re not 100% sure what that is yet. 

Just launch the thing, see what you learn, and let that guide your next steps. You can always tweak, refine, and expand as you grow.

Try to get something up and running today to stop yourself from overthinking it – even if it’s not perfect. 

#1 Create guided journals or reflection prompts 

Guided journal prompts and reflection questions are simple to make and can still be impactful for your customers. Prompts work across most niches – you can make guided journaling questions about productivity, parenthood, fitness, wellness, entrepreneurship, personal style, and tons of other topics. 

The setup is easy too. All you need to do is write questions and thoughtful prompts to get your customers thinking, and they do the rest. You don’t need fancy tech or a ton of time to put this together, and it can be a great way to get your toes wet as an entrepreneur while also building connections with your target audience. 

For instance, Brooke and Sherry from Love Your Life sell a range of digital download journal prompts around different topics, like self-discovery, wellness, and self-care. 

This is a great fit for their business around holistic wellness, and people who sign up for them might be interested in similar products in the future.

Here’s how to sell your own guided journals or prompts in Podia: 

• Create your list of questions or prompts on your computer and save the file as a PDF – you can even use a free AI tool like ChatGPT to get a list of prompts around your topic to start from

• In the Podia “Products” tab, add a new digital download product

• Upload your file and add details like the product description and price

• Publish your product and customize your sales page with the point-and-click website builder (Podia generates a sales page for each product automatically.)

• Press publish and you’re ready to sell!

Once you’ve made your product, you can share the link to your sales page anywhere you have an audience. 

#2 Sell Canva templates

Canva templates are another digital download product that’s quick to create and enticing for your audience. We’ve seen solopreneurs like you sell social media templates, ebook templates, slide deck templates, product mockup templates, meal prep templates, to-do list templates, brand kit templates, resume templates, and pretty much anything else you can dream up.

Canva templates are a good choice if your target audience is trying to do something specific and a template can save them time. For instance, if you hope to create courses about Pinterest, a pack of beautiful Pinterest templates is a great way to attract your ideal customer. 

That’s exactly what Pinterest expert Amy LeBlanc from Levee Road Studio does. In addition to selling packs of Pinterest pin templates, she also offers Pinterest strategy guides and rank-boosting courses. 

Canva makes it simple for you to create a new design and share it as a template. Once you’ve got your template looking the way you like, click “Share” to generate a template link. 

Then you can follow these steps to sell it in Podia: 

• Create a new digital download product

• In a doc, write instructions for how to use the templates and paste the template link you generated in Canva. Save this document as a PDF.

• Upload the PDF file with the instructions and link to your Podia product

• Publish your product and customize your sales page

Now when someone makes a purchase, they’ll be able to open the PDF, read your instructions, and click the link to access them in their own Canva account. 

#3 Sell audio files (guided meditations, daily affirmations)

If writing or templates aren’t quite your style, you can also share your expertise through audio files. Making audio files is simple, just press record on your laptop and start talking – or singing, playing piano, yodeling, or whatever you’re into.

This is a great way to offer guided meditations, daily affirmations, storytelling, music, audiobooks, or mindfulness exercises. If you have a podcast, you can monetize it by selling exclusive podcast episodes as audio files. 

For instance, Mirabella D’Cunha offers gentle healing yoga audio tracks that students can purchase and work through at their own pace. This ties in perfectly with her meditation programs and in-person and online yoga classes. 

In Podia, you can sell audio files just like any other type of file. 

• Add a new product and select digital download 

• Upload your audio files – you can even use your phone’s voice memo tool to record them quickly (remember, the goal is to get something done, not to make it perfect)

• Add your product description, title, and price

• Publish your product and customize your sales page

When your customer completes checkout, they’ll see a page with all their audio files so they can listen to their heart’s content.

#4 Create a mini course 

We’re moving out of digital download land and into online courses, but before you go off and create a 45-module beast with 100 hours of video footage, how about trying a mini-course? A mini course is exactly what it sounds like – a smaller version of a regular e-learning course. 

The benefit here is that you can test your course concept before sinking a ton of time into building it… and trust me, you’ll want to do that.

(Source: I spent an entire month working around the clock on my first course, and barely made enough sales to break even.)

So for your mini-course, start with one small topic. Instead of “How to renovate your entire house”, try “How to choose a paint color for your living room.” Cap yourself at 4-5 lessons only – you want people to get in, get a win, and get out fast. 

Hand letterer Tatiana Soash, for example, uses a mini course to help customers improve their hand lettering skills in just an hour. They learn how to hone their unique style, choose the best tools, and bring their work to life all in just five quick lessons. 

Podia is the perfect tool for selling your mini-course because you can make unlimited courses of any size on all plans. Plus, you can use video, audio, images, text, file downloads, quizzes, embeds, and any other type of content you want to get your message across. 

To set yours up: 

• Add a new product and select “Course” for the product type

• In Podia, courses are organized into sections (or modules) and lessons. Add your course content into your lessons, and organize your lessons into bigger sections if needed (though you might not need to for a mini-course).

• Update your course details and pricing, then press publish. 

• As always, the last step is to update your sales page and share it with your audience. 

#5 Start a coworking group

In addition to creating products and courses, many solopreneurs monetize their audiences through communities and group experiences. A virtual coworking group is an easy experience to set up because it doesn’t require much pre-planning on your end.

Especially with so many people working from home, virtual coworking can be a fun way to meet new people and collaborate while taking care of business. I’ve attended a few sessions myself, and the structure usually looks something like this: 

• Introductions and share what you’re working on: 10 minutes

• Independent working time: 30-60 minutes

• Come back together and share what you accomplished (or ask for feedback if you have enough time): 10-20 minutes

You can be as casual or structured as you want, but it’s nice to have some plan for how the session will flow to make sure people actually get work done. 

Michelle Dale from Virtual Miss Friday offers an online coworking membership for virtual assistants. Her membership also includes professional development, networking, and other virtual events for her target audience. 

You can set up coworking as a one-off using a digital download or webinar product type, or you can offer recurring coworking sessions like Michelle with subscription payments using the community feature:

• Click the “Community” tab to set up your Podia community

• In your community settings, add a plan called “Coworking” and set your price. You can charge a monthly or annual membership rate.   

• Publish your plan and click the three dots beside it to pull up a sharable checkout link. Share this with your audience to let them sign up for ongoing sessions.

In the community area, you can add posts with the coworking call links and any other resources for the sessions, and members can add posts and leave comments to collaborate. 

#6 Run a book club with guided discussions 

If you want to bring people together over a shared love of books, you can start your own book club with discussions for your audience. Your book club can be as simple as a space to chat every month, but you may attract more interest if you have a plan for programming, like discussion prompts, reflection questions, and activities. 

This is an obvious fit if you’re in a literary or reading niche, but can work well for anyone with an audience who likes reading. I’ve seen travel bloggers do this with books set in different countries, business coaches use memoirs of famous entrepreneurs, and wellness entrepreneurs lead groups with personal development books.

Take a look at how Story Luck runs their book club on Podia. Members join the book club for a three-month cycle with three books, and membership includes live meetings on Twitch, a Discord community, book summaries, and virtual hangouts with the hosts. 

Story Luck set up their book club as a digital download product with community access. Podia has an automated Discord integration so if you use that platform you can give people access when they sign up for certain products. 

Another option is to add your book club as a digital download product and enable discussion forums within the product so your members can connect. 

Then you can share the prompts, resources, guiding questions, and any other materials for the group as files in the digital download, and drop live call links in the discussion forum when it’s time to meet.  

#7 Run a virtual workout class 

Or crafting class, or cooking workshop, or sign language seminar! Teaching a virtual class is a fun way to share what you love and connect with your audience. 

Virtual classes are great for creators who teach visual skills like crafting, sewing, cake decorating, fitness, yoga, or anything else. Classes can be live or pre-recorded so you can choose the format that suits you best.  

Meryl from Just Feel it Fitness offers 30-minute virtual workout videos as well as in-person personal training. Members can sign up for one month or three months at a time, and if they can’t make it to a live virtual session they can also access the training as a replay video. 

And Namasté & Coco Latté offers pilates and yoga classes as part of her wellness membership. People can access these classes as part of their subscription or buy them as one-off experiences. 

There are a few ways you can set this up in Podia: 

• If you want to offer a live class at a set date and time, use Podia’s webinar product type. When your live session is over, you can upload the video replay to continue selling it as an evergreen/on-demand class. 

• If you want to sell several workouts together as a package, use Podia’s course product type. Add each workout video to a lesson and organize the lessons into modules if it makes sense to do so. Now customers can buy the whole set of workouts and use them at their own pace. 

#8 Sell a done-for-you service 

With a done-for-you service, you’ll work with a customer 1:1 to create something just for them. This can be 

• setting up a website for someone

• creating and scheduling their social media

• Planning a travel itinerary for their upcoming trip 

• proofreading their manuscript 

• running their Facebook ads

Or anything else that makes sense for your target audience.

This is a good option for building close relationships with a smaller client pool and getting testimonials. It’s also good for people who like working with clients 1:1. 

In the future, you could balance your done-for-you service offers with digital products to scale your business, but when you’re first starting out, this is a great way to meet some of your biggest fans. 

For instance, Robert Williams uses his copywriting skills to help other Podia users level up their email marketing with custom email campaigns. He writes a personalized sequence for each client to help them take their prospects from lead magnet to final sale.

In Podia, the best way to set up a done-for-you service is through a coaching session. 

• Add a new product using the coaching session product type. 

• Add a link to your calendar booking tool so that your customer can schedule an onboarding call with you. During this onboarding call, you’ll discuss the details of the project and share any other info needed. 

• Set your price and product description, then press publish to make your service live. 

One thing to note with custom services: On your sales page, make sure to be very clear about what your service includes to avoid any confusion. Robert does this by outlining his 3-step process of what people can expect and including an FAQ section at the bottom of his Podia sales page.

#9 Offer 1:1 Feedback sessions 

Another way to work 1:1 with clients is through feedback sessions. This is likely going to be a one-off encounter where you give insights and feedback on one specific project or thing your customer needs help with. Give your clients a quick win, and they might be interested in your bigger products and packages in the future.

For example, if you’re building your web design business, you could offer website homepage reviews. A career coach might offer LinkedIn reviews or resume teardowns. And a social media entrepreneur could do social media bio hot seat sessions. 

DataFrenchy is a resource that helps data professionals improve their careers, and they offer two different types of resume feedback sessions: written and written + video. 

A written review comes with email feedback on your resume, and the written + video option also includes a 30-minute 1:1 coaching call to discuss the feedback. 

You can set this up in Podia using a coaching product. Share your calendar booking link and video call link, and any pre-work your customer needs to do before your session. 

#10 Offer private tutoring or test prep

You can offer tutoring if you have a skill in a subject area, language, or other field that people study or go to school for. Tutors work with clients 1:1 to help them understand material, practice language skills, and prepare for exams.

Private tutoring is a great option for educators, language instructors, and exam coaches. For instance, Dave Walker from Walker Prep provides ACT and SAT prep resources, including 1:1 sessions where students can get personalized support. 

To set up a tutoring session of your own in Podia: 

• Create a new coaching product

• Add your calendar booking link (YouCanBookMe has a free tier but we also support Calendly, Google, and SavvyCal)and video call link

• Set your pricing

• Customize your sales page

Then share that sales page anywhere your ideal students are hanging out to launch your tutoring business. 

(If you’re having trouble finding tutoring clients, try creating social media posts or YouTube videos teaching your subject area. True story, I worked with a Norwegian language tutor I found on Instagram based on her vocabulary reels.)

#11 Host a free webinar with a coaching upsell at the end

Another way to work with customers 1:1 is to offer a free webinar that ends with a promo for a paid product. Pick a bite-sized webinar topic that can give your audience members a quick win, and at the end of the session let participants know that you have other products available (like 1:1 coaching, self-paced courses, etc.) if they want to go more in-depth. 

(Pro tip: The quickest product to upsell is a coaching session since you don’t need to create any content up front.)

During the free webinar, you can show your expertise and teaching style without any pressure to buy. After, students can explore your paid materials if it’s a good fit.

For instance, Team IELTS has free live lessons every Thursday. These webinars give potential students a great taste of what their other programs have to offer. 

The best way to run this in Podia is to use a webinar product type and an automated email campaign: 

• Add a webinar product and set your webinar’s date and time

• Set the pricing to free, since the main sale will be the product at the end

• Then set up a coaching product or other paid product. This is what you’ll share with people at the end of your webinar, so make sure you’ve got it ready to go. 

• Run your webinar and focus on providing as much value as possible. 

• In the last few minutes, let your viewers know about your paid offer and share the link where they can purchase. 

• Then use Podia Email to run an automated campaign that reminds them about your paid offer a few days after the webinar. 

Pro tip: Upload a replay of your webinar after it’s finished and use it as a lead magnet.  This way new prospects can watch your webinar for free, learn about your paid upsell, and get your automated email reminders without any extra work for you.  

#12 Create an AMA webinar

With an Ask Me Anything (AMA) webinar, you let your audience ask questions about something you’re an expert in. They’re paying for direct access to your knowledge, and one way to build excitement is to let audience members request questions in advance so they have an idea of what’s to come.

An AMA session works best if you already have an audience established (for example, on Instagram or YouTube) and you need a way to monetize.

Write with Swati, for instance, sells a 1-hour webinar where she explains her story of becoming a published author. In the session, she responds to 45 viewer-submitted questions, and the replay is available for anyone to buy and watch when they want.

Paid Search Magic takes a slightly different approach to the AMA by offering private  “All-you-can-ask” sessions. In this offer, people can get their questions answered 1:1 with lots of personalized feedback.

To set up an Ask Me Anything webinar with a replay, create a new webinar product in Podia, set your day and time, and press publish. After the webinar is finished, you can upload a recording to allow people to keep purchasing it in the future. 

For a 1:1 ask me anything session, set up a coaching product type with your booking calendar so people can grab a spot. 

#13 Host a 5-day challenge

Challenges are a great way to help your audience members take actionable steps toward a goal in a short period of time. For your first one, stick to something simple like a 5-day challenge.

Some ideas you can run with: 

• A decluttering challenge where you work on a different room/area of your house each day. You provide a checklist for what they should declutter in each area.

• A stretching challenge for improving mobility where you give them a 10-minute stretching video each day focusing on different muscle groups.

• A blog post writing challenge where you provide a different prompt each day. 

Writers Nook, for example, runs a 7-day writing challenge to inspire creativity and help participants build a daily writing habit. 

To set up a challenge of your own, I recommend using a drip course where the modules are released with a one-day delay. 

To set this up in Podia:

• Create a course product. 

• Add a new section for each day of your challenge. Within that section, add the lessons for that day. This is where you’ll upload your videos, instructions, and resources for each part of the challenge

• Make the first section available immediately, and add a 1, 2, 3, or 4-day delay for the next sections. This will make them drip out over several days so your students aren’t overwhelmed with information all at once.

Read more about adding section delays to your courses in this help doc. 

#14 Start blogging to earn affiliate income

I’m saving this one for last because even though it’s quick to get started, building an affiliate blog can take time to earn reliable income. That said, blogging (and using your blog to make affiliate sales) can be a great way to express your creativity, help your target audience, and earn recurring income without even having to make your own products. 

If you have products, brands, courses, or services that you like and recommend, reach out to them to see if they have an affiliate program. 

As an affiliate, you get a custom link to their shop that you can include in your blog posts. If someone clicks that link and buys the thing you recommend, you get a commission on the sale. 

Setting up an affiliate blog is best if you enjoy writing and have strong opinions about your favorite products, services, and software. This also works well if you’re in a niche where people tend to buy things, like new parents, home DIYers, or digital entrepreneurs. 

Joseph D’Amico from FlexLessons, for example, blogs about music and music technology. He teaches classical piano online and his audience includes students learning piano and fellow piano instructors. 

On one page of his site, he recommends equipment for other online piano teachers. Many of the resources he shares are affiliate links that earn him a commission. 

To set up a blog in Podia, head to the blogging tab in your dashboard and click “new post” to add your first article. 

You can include your affiliate links within the article just like you would any link, but make sure to disclose that your article contains affiliate links at the top of the page to comply with advertising rules. 

Then, you can customize the design of your blog in the Podia website editor and press publish to make it live. 

You can add as many posts as you want and expand your business with your own products and programs in the future, all while bringing in those sweet, sweet affiliate commissions. 

The first small step to building an online business you love

Starting an online business doesn’t have to be overwhelming. The key is to take that first small step, whether it’s launching a digital product, building a mini course, offering coaching, running a webinar, or simply setting up your Podia site.

You don’t need everything figured out from day one. What matters most is getting started, learning from the process, and building momentum. 

You can build all 14 business ideas in this article using Podia, and Podia also has all the tools you need to expand your business as you grow. 

You can build digital products, set up sales pages and blog posts, run your email marketing, and keep track of your audience and sales all in one place. Plus, our friendly support team is here to help every step of the way. 

So pick an idea, make it your own, and put it out there. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see what’s possible.

Start your 30-day free trial of Podia.