As a young entrepreneur in Asia, you have the advantage of the fact that Asian countries are among the fastest growing economies in the world. All major multinationals in the West, from Apple to GE, or from IBM to Microsoft, have significant business interests in Asia. However, our focus here is on small business ideas or small entrepreneurship.
How can you as a budding entrepreneur in Asia – whether in India, China, Malaysia, Thailand or Vietnam – make full use of the opportunities provided to you to start a profitable and sustaining small business in your country? Is it possible to have a small business in Asia that can be started without much capital or a large investment? Absolutely! As you read the small business ideas in our list, you’ll certainly be motivated enough to do something on your own, rather than look for employment under somebody else.
Here are our Small Business Ideas for Asian Entrepreneurs:
Health care for senior citizens
A whole generation of Asians has reached retirement age. Unlike in the past, when older people in Asia had no money, today’s elderly generation has a plenty of disposable income, and since we no longer have joint families in Asia, they need help. Can you be the one to provide help to senior citizens?
You may start a business that provides caretakers to the elderly, cooks, domestic help, gardeners, cleaners, nurses, and drivers. You can start health centers targeted at the elderly and so on. Of course, you need compassion and must genuinely care for those who are much older than you, and it shouldn’t just be about business.
Health Centers, Beauty Clinics and Spas
Asians of today have large disposable incomes and are more than willing to spend it on themselves and on their health and appearance. Obesity is also a major epidemic in Asia, which is actually one of the byproducts of rising prosperity in the continent. You can take advantage of this as a small entrepreneur by starting health centers, beauty clinics and spas in Asia. You can start fitness centers, gyms, Ayurveda or Acupuncture clinics and so on. A background in physical fitness or beauty treatment is not a must, but it would be great if you have one.
Virtual Assistance or Micro-Outsourcing
There are a lot of businesses or individuals in the West who are looking for virtual assistants in Asia and elsewhere, and other micro-outsourcing work that was once done by personal secretaries in the past – such as taking phone calls, handling emails, sending birthday wishes, remembering anniversaries, doing research and so on. This requires nothing but a laptop and a fast internet connection, but you must have an excellent grasp of English and knowledge of the internet.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
With the universal use of the internet, there is a great demand for experts in search engine optimization, as every business works hard on getting its business website on top of Google’s SERPs or search engine results pages. If you have picked up SEO skills, either by your own, or by having done a course on it, and have picked up enough experience working on SEO for actual websites, it would be a good idea to start your own SEO firm. Getting good paying work will be a problem initially, but with every positive feedback, your business will grow fast and finding new clients will become much easier.
Cloud hosting service provider
Cloud computing is one of the biggest technological developments of the last decade, as many small businesses would rather access their files, websites and applications through cloud computing service providers rather than pay for these things themselves. For a nominal rent paid to cloud computing providers for access to software applications, businesses save money by not having to buy their own software licenses or on software upgrades. For small business entrepreneurs being a cloud computing service provider is a great business idea, but requires intimate knowledge of technology, and extensive experience of working with sophisticated hardware and software.
Conclusion
This article is a part of our series on “Exploring Opportunities.” Our goal is to inform and motivate young entrepreneurs in emerging countries, and we hope this initiative helps, in its own small way. Please send us your suggestions on how we may help to serve you better. Ciao!
This article was contributed by Liverix. Liverix helps you find business partners, worldwide. So, if you’re looking for a regional, national or international business partnership, you know where to look! see more.
