Dog walking and pet sitting can be a "very lucrative" job to start from home with almost no overhead, experts say.gettyMore than 35 million Americans reported self-employment income to the IRS for 2023, up 80% over two decades. Their numbers are continuing to grow. In a survey last year, nearly two thirds of 18 to 35 year olds said they had or wanted to start a side gig or side hustle. What’s the appeal? Nearly half said they’d like to be their own boss, while others talked of pursuing a passion.The Internet and social media make starting a side business easier than ever, while conventional jobs seem to offer less security than they once did. And there are myriad creative ways to get started on your own—beyond just working as an independent contractor for a gig platform (think Uber, Lyft and Grubhub).Forbes spoke with Kathy Kristof, a longtime journalist and founder of Sidehusl.com, and Nick Loper, the host of The Side Hustle Show (a podcast) and founder of SideHustleNation.com, to glean a few options for workers who may be looking to start their own business from home with minimal startup costs. Here were some of their top suggestions. Tutor or Online TeacherOne of the simplest ways to start a new business from home, and with pretty much zero overhead, is to begin teaching others on any topic in which you have expertise. There are several websites that entrepreneurs can utilize to help get started and begin recruiting clients. Wyzant, a tutoring platform, gets roughly 6 million visitors per month, Kristof says, and there’s plenty of demand for those able to teach science and math, or helping advanced students prep for the SATs or other college-level standardized exams. Kristof says she knows of one tutor who uses Wyzant and makes $220 an hour.On Outschool, another online learning website, teachers can schedule their own classes and charge whatever they like. One such educational professional, a physics teacher, has found a niche instructing students with Legos. “Say you have 10 kids per class, you charge each kid $10 for a half an hour … ultimately you’re making $200 an hour,” Kristof says. “You can definitely make great money as a tutor.” Although there may be some fees associated with using such sites (OutSchool takes 30% of each class revenue, for instance), the startup costs are almost zero, Kristof says, and overhead is typically limited to a monthly wifi bill you’re probably paying anyway.Dog Sitter or WalkerFor dog lovers, starting a doggy day care business from home may be a lucrative option, Kristof says. The popular Rover app hooks up dog owners with independent dogsitters and walkers, is a great place to start, but Kristof advises going beyond just signing up on the app. She says some of the folks who have the most success have taken additional steps to gain their first wave of customers, perhaps by dropping off business cards at local veterinarian offices. One entrepreneur Kristof knows got started on Rover, but after building up his client base, moved off the app in order to save on the 20% fee the app takes for all jobs that it delivers to dogsitters. “Within a year he was making $50,000 to $60,000,” Kristoff recalls. “Dogsitting can be very lucrative.” Again, the startup costs are minimal - perhaps the cost of some additional dog leashes or toys - and overhead is also very low, she says. Handyman or CleanerOnline sites such as Taskrabbit and Nextdoor also can be great assets for any entrepreneur who has handyman skills and is looking for local work, says Loper. He suggested a good startup from home could be to purchase an inexpensive pressure washer and start knocking on neighbors’ doors to see who might be willing to pay for a quick rinse to their home. Such services could be paired with other offerings, like cleaning out leaf-filled gutters, washing windows, or other home cleaning jobs that owners often prefer to avoid doing themselves. “What I would do if I was starting from scratch is a simple pressure-washing business, because even a brand-new decent pressure washer costs less than $500,” Loper says. “And you can drum up customers just by knocking on doors.” Loper cautions that such work may be seasonal, depending on geography, but during the right time of year income from such gigs can easily reach several thousand dollars per month, particularly with the low overhead it requires. Another upside to anything related to a handyman-type gig job, Kristof says, is that it’s insulated from the rise of artificial intelligence, since Claude isn’t going to be pressure-washing homes anytime soon.Gear RentalKristof and Loper say there are also growing markets for rentals of all types of devices, ranging from personal automobiles to electric scooters to baby equipment such as cribs, car seats, toys and other necessities. This is an area that might cost a bit more than $500 upfront, since entrepreneurs would need to already own or lease something in good enough condition to be rented. But once that inventory is secured, the rentals typically pay off the overhead in short order, they said. Loper says a Los Angeles entrepreneur he knows purchased a handful of used electric scooters online, and began renting them for about $70 per day. One site that can be helpful to entrepreneurs in the rental field is Cloud of Goods, he says. Another is Turo, which helps entrepreneurs rent their personal cars and other vehicles to customers. A more niche rental site for entrepreneurs is Babyquip, which Kristof says helps tourists find baby gear rentals they need while traveling. (That option, of course, is really only workable in areas that get fairly heavy tourist traffic.) “I like these, buy-it-once and get paid for it over and over type businesses,” Loper says. Returned Goods HustlerAnother business easily started from home - though it likely would require you to already own a pickup truck and have some extra space for storage - is to resell oversized nearly brand-new products, such as mattresses, that customers plan to return to the original manufacturer for a refund, but which the original brand doesn’t want to pick up and resell on its own. A website that facilitates such activity is called Sharetown, Loper says, which describes itself as a “reverse logistics provider.” A small business owner would have to first pick up the item in question, make sure the goods are cleaned and in good condition, get a price from Sharetown as to how much the brand is willing to let you have the item for, and then resell it for more, pocketing the difference.“(Brands) partner with Sharetown and local reps to come pick up” whatever item is being returned, but the entrepreneur would only have to repay the discounted amount asked for by the brand. So if Sharetown communicates that a mattress that a customer is returning can be sold for $500 on, say, Facebook Marketplace, and the entrepreneur finds a buyer for $700, that’s $200 in profit, Loper says. “Very low, relatively low risk,” Loper says of such work. “We see people doing this, ‘Oh, I do five pickups a month,’ or ‘I do five pickups a day.’ It scales depending on your location and the transaction volume that’s available, and your hunger and desire to go out there and get it.” Armchair ConsultantLast but certainly not least, anyone who is an expert in any field can likely find what Kristof calls “armchair consulting gigs” online, which is another business with basically zero startup costs. “Any profession, any skill you might have, you can flip into a side hustle if you want,” Kristof says. A site that can help with that is JustAnswer, where some experts can earn hundreds of dollars an hour acting as consultants, she says. One example she cited is a longtime auto mechanic who decided he was tired of working underneath cars, and began offering advice to consumers on JustAnswer who had auto problems and were looking for advice. “He was making $120,000, $130,000 a year, answering car repair questions,” Kristof says. “JustAnswer essentially enlists freelancers with all sorts of different skills.” Want to be more successful? Subscribe to the weekly Forbes Careers newsletter to get insider tips and insights.ForbesNew Trump Tariffs Increase Uncertainty For Small BusinessesBy John SchroyerForbes10 Ways Small Businesses Can Use AI To Grow–And Even Hire More WorkersBy John SchroyerForbesMillennials Are Buying Blue Collar Small Businesses To AI-Proof Their FutureBy John Schroyer