HOW TO – Start a Home Business

The signs of a struggling economy are allover us. Everywhere you turn, businesses are closing and the new ones that open can hardly last six months. The spending power of Ugandans has greatly reduced thereby affecting many an entrepreneur.

When you take a walk through most of the shopping centres and office buildings in Kampala today, you’re likely to find many closed shops and business premises. The spiralling rent charges under a climate of reduced business are leading many to abandon city operations or if not business altogether.

Despite these grim signs, we Ugandans are known for our entrepreneurial spirit. We always want to have something on the side. Recently, while having lunch with a friend that had just been registered by the Architects body, the first thing he told me was, “I want to register my own Architectural firm now.”

I however want to share with you the idea of doing business from your home. This is a concept many are not aware about or feel inclined not to embrace due to various perceptions. However, if you really want to continue being an entrepreneur under these tough economic times, you need to seriously consider starting a Home Business.

As I understand it, a home business is one that you operate from the confines of your residence. It involves producing your products or offering your services from the confines of your residence only going out to either prospect for customers, deliver a service or make deliveries in the case of products. As someone that has dabbled in home business for eight years now, I can say that it’s worth the inconvenience.

Some of the benefits of a home business include;

• Lower Business Start-up costs: By operating from your residence, there are a number of shared costs that you can share with the pre-existing dispensation. Electricity, Rent, Water can all be initially utilised from the home bills.

• Ease of working: For those that are trying to earn an extra buck outside their official jobs, working from home during the evenings and weekends can help them grow their dreams in business.

• Flexibility: Home business saves you the daily routine morning and evening traffic jams that you mandatorily go through in order to head to a remote work place. This implies that you can start work at convenient times without a hussle. Working mothers would appreciate this more than the men because they usually have to divide their attention between work and the children.

• Business Validation: By operating from home and avoiding certain overheads, you are able to get time to not only understand the business better but also verify its potential for success. I covered more on this in this article.

How do you go about starting a Home Business?

Passion: First and foremost, identify where your passion lies. Due to the kind of inconvenience a home business is likely to have on your personal life and space, it had better be something you are so passionate about and do not mind doing any time of the day. Short of that, you might back off before maturity due to flimsy reasons not worth noting here.

Skills: Now that you know what you want to do, ensure that you have the requisite skills to see it through. These skills could be acquired by you or hired. I do all my home business with my family. We do not hire external labour at all. However, there might be cases where you need to hire external skills sets. Ensure that you plan well on how to embrace external people in your residence.

Minimum Viable Product/Service: Assess the opportunity you want to pursue and establish what is required at a bare minimum for you to offer a service or product on the market. Even when the product/service is not what you eventually envisage it to be, focus more on getting into the market and letting the market shape your eventual decisions on the product or service. I do package products for supply to supermarkets. Initially we started by packing only 100 gram products, however, due to customers’ demands, we now added packs of 250 and 500 grams.

Market Access: Getting to the market is another crucial consideration while working from home. You need to study your target market and establish the most convenient and cost effective modes of accessing them. Supermarkets are one good avenue for products. I also know of a young man who sells second hand clothes from home. He reaches out to most of his clients on phone and through hawking visits to recreation centres in the evening hours as well as over the weekends. This guarantees him regular sales.

Working Space: Remember you’re operating from your home. For some, you might be having an empty room somewhere that you can put to use. In other cases, this free space is not there and you just have to create the space. I begun the home business while renting a house, so, space was an issue. What I opted for was to have a portion of the sitting room turn into a production area for a limited time and upon completion, it reverted to its original setting. If you came home while we were producing our products, you would think it was a 24 hour factory.

My then 5 year old son helping with the product display at a tradeshow

Cooperation: For the married or if you’re sharing a residence, you need to win the cooperation of your family members. Do not force some of these activities upon them as they are likely to get very negative about the entire project, eventually working against you to its detriment.

Do I hear you asking, what kind of business you can do from home?

In a series of articles titled Business You can start with less than 100,000/=, I covered a number of possible business opportunities. Reading through will give you a good idea of what to try out.

However, Snacks, Mushroom growing, Decoration, Online Work like Transcription, Software Development among others are some of the easy to start home businesses.

Off you go. Get started and feel free to share your experiences.

James Wire is a Small Business and Technology Consultant based in Kampala, Uganda

Follow @wirejames on Twitter

Other Articles of Interest:

• I’ve been retired. How do I invest my money?

• Business you can start with less than UGShs 100,000/=

• Want to start a business? Just do it !!!

• How much do I need to start a business?

• Try your business idea below the radar