11 Businesses You Can Start While Wearing PJs

We’re headed into an age of convenience throughout corporate America, and that’s not entirely a bad thing. Whether or not it ends up profitable? That’s a whole nother story. Personally, I hope for some profitability in this sort of sector. Whatever makes business easier means money’s made easier. Easier money made means an easier economy on society, better bucks all around and more interestingly enough more jobs available.

If you like to hang around in the basement, TV room or man cave, consider these particular corporate outfits, starting with….

The Green Marketing Consultant

As a whole, consultancy has spread like wildfire. It’s easy to get into, simple to market, and the demand will always be astronomical. People everywhere, in multiple industries, need some help or assistance with specialized processes.

In this case, one Shel Horowitz of Green and Profitable focuses on the green industry as a marketing consultant and copywriter — straight out of her home. That’s right — she started her business back in 1981, and hasn’t stopped since complete with clients ranging all over North America, Europe, Asia and even Australia. Her reach is ridiculously amazing.

The benefit, obviously, with consulting is that you can do it for clients anywhere. It’s very much like being a psychiatrist. Your office is also your home. The same goes for a marketing consultant, except you don’t necessarily need to get an education, become certified and pass a few medical and licensing exams.

The Online Retailer

Because of the Internet, possibilities for business have reached unearthly heights. This means several things — you could potentially maintain inventories, records and just about anything else you would need, all in cyberspace. It’s true.

Inventory, though, is a bit trickier as you need to keep product and merchandise somewhere. Why not in your basement or around your home? That’s where Daniel Alarik, owner of Gruntstyle.com does it, tapping a specific niche basically no one else has touched. He operates a clothing line specifically for military types, right out of Chicago.

Originally when he was a United States Army drill sergeant in Fort Benning, Georgia, he had nine employees working for him with the distribution, customer service and accounting. Now he simply works out of his home, and operating straight off of his computer still to this day makes it easy, what with around a total of $120K in inventory.

The Hotelier or Travel Investment Publication

This could be a major reason why working overseas could benefit you. Operations are different in multiple foreign countries, but ultimately this is a situation where the right time might hit the iron hot and cause fireworks for one Matt Landau of the website Los Cuatro Tulipanes. Again, we’re going into the Internet with this, only with the travel industry, which fits the demographic tremendously. This is where you don’t necessarily have to even live in the same country to operate your business.

A Film Production Company

The bonus of this industry is that oftentimes you can operate outside of an office. In fact, most of what you do is outside of an office and on locations. This is the film industry, after all. Long Haul Films, ran by Melissa and Tom Dowler, does documentaries and bespoke films for all sorts of clients involving weddings, events and corporations.

They, however, do it at home. And they can. They don’t necessarily need an office. All they really need is the equipment, manpower and transportation to get onsite if necessary. The bonus? They’re saving countless pennies in upkeep and utilities for an additional building where standard administration usually occurs.

Digital Commerce

Again, we’re tackling cyberspace, and for good reason. This is even better, though, in that the customers — or companies, I should say — also operate online. We’re all on the same playing field here with this type of B2B industry, and it works out well in any format.

Bart Mroz and Bob Brodie began SUMO Heavy Industries in Philadelphia with one thing in mind: to become completely seamless, working from home, approaching high annual, about $500K to be exact just last year. They’re both roommates, too. Again, this is a consulting firm. Consulting works. All you’re doing is advising people on what to do in the industry you’re specialized in, and in these days, someone like a Bart or Bob can do this better than anyone right from the comfort of their own house.

A Trade Magazine

Starting a publication of some kind is actually quite easy. These days with print-on-demand, the ability to publish just about anything in bulk, just imagine the possibilities…. Edith Wagner, former social worker, juvenile officer and PR professional did just that, starting the trade publication Reunions for reunion planners.

Circulation has currently been sitting at around 15K. Right out Milwaukee, too. That means we’ve got around 15K people wanting to read this magazine. All it takes is doing the creative work, the editorial content, finding interesting articles and hiring part-time writers if necessary. It can be a complete residual moneymaker, and you don’t even need to be in an office for it.

A PR Consulting Firm

Once again, we’re hitting the consulting industry hard with this one except from a public relations demographic. Basically your job in PR would be to talk about people and distribute the content — in other words, gossip. If you know how to do that — and possibly obtain connections to distribute the journalist writing, scheduling, interviews and such — that’s an easy business to get into. You don’t even necessarily need a degree to do this.

Jodi Echakowitz certainly did with Echo Communications, and it suits her household and lifestyle. She has a son with Asperger’s Syndrome, not allowing her to be away from home too much. She operates from the house, saves a ton of overhead expenses and utilizes a convenient virtual team of public relations consultants to do the job right. Does that spell success? Yes.

The Organization Service

For once we’re stepping out of the mold and really getting creative with the kind of work we can do outside of anything cyberspace or consulting with this one. Conquer the Clutter generally operates like an in-home service where expert Maria Spetalnik out of Virginia practically goes to the customer and helps that customer with organization. How convenient!

That makes sense, and what a service to provide. When the business literally has to go to the customer’s place of business or even home, what’s the point of actually having an ‘office’ or a ‘building with an office’?

The Weeknight Meal Plan

Honestly, preparing food really isn’t any different in an office versus a home, so why not simply work at home and save all the expenses of the additional structure. Melissa Lanz in downtown Los Angeles, CA, did just that with the customizable meal plan service called The Fresh 20, a way to incorporate itineraries and materials for food right in a kitchen and sell it to customers requiring that convenience.

It’s almost like operating a restaurant without having the people come to the establishment. She obviously didn’t need any wait staff — just delivery people. That’s definitely convenience, and the miles could be written off on taxes. As it stands, the company’s reaching well over $1MM in revenue — and they’re doing it with some herbs, spices and a spatula.

The Daily Deal Site

We just had to get back with the Internet phenomenon, though, on a commerce retail deal, which is an industry that’ll never die. America’s practically built on retail from top to bottom. Why not create a business that supports that industry through eCoupons.com, founded by Matthew Cheng?

The key here is that you really don’t require customers to “see you” in any fashion. It’s all about telecommunications and online networking. After all, this is about “electronic” coupon development for the retail markets. This is all done online. Why not just do it at home? Get a good internet speed, develop a slick website, and your business is good to go.

Cheese Making (?)

What a way to end this list…. Making cheese. That’s a business? It definitely is according to Rynn and David Caputo who could’ve consulted with a good business lawyer on the concept of attending culinary school and opening up a business not in a building called a “restaurant” or other type of store, but just in their home. The business is called Caputo Brothers, and they make cheese. That’s all they do. They do it well.

It seemed to make sense that they do it from their home, operate a creamery right out of their 193-year-old stone farmhouse with that certain charm to separate them from all the rest. Think of any type of food you can make from home, and you just might have a business in your hands. As it stands, the Caputo Brothers makes up to 500 pounds of cheese weekly. Growth is astronomical.

Explore the Possibilities

Would you believe that there may be more options out there? Brainstorm about it. Take a look at your industry, your experience, your needs for the business — and see if you can simply do the job at home instead of an administrative office where you’ll just pay more money to maintain it.

I’m honestly seeing that many other industries might jump on the bandwagon with this. You never know. We might have empty business districts everywhere with people working from their homes. At the very least…. It’ll lighten up the traffic!