By Munesh Jadoun April 1, 2022 In Business ideas

5 business ideas for starting an IT start-up

Have you been thinking to start your own information technology (IT) business? When I was starting out, this was the most difficult phase. I didn’t know what I should sell, what I shouldn’t, which is profitable/in trend back then? Back then there was internet boom, so many people started IT businesses many of which are now successful.  

These days, following COVID and how IT helped businesses maintain Business Continuity, a lot of people are either planning to or already have started their own business, especially in the IT field. As I mentioned before, in recent years, tech businesses have seen an incredible growth, because:

  • Since the COVID-19 outbreak, more and more companies have been depending on advanced technologies and cloud solutions to do business in remote settings.
  • Businesses need more applications, resources, and devices to stay productive in this digital age.
Source: India SaaS Report 2021

This has given rise to the demand for tech services in businesses across the world.

As a progressive leader, you need to know which tech services are projected to be the most profitable. In this article, I’ll share with you a list of the top 5 business ideas that entrepreneurs can pursue for starting their IT start-ups.

Business Ideas for IT Startups

Here are the 5 most promising business ideas that I think you should look into:

1. Sell Cyber Protection Services

In this technology-driven world, privacy is of utmost concern. Most of our information is available online, and hence, there is a concern about our data being hacked and misused by someone else. 

Everyone wants to be secure, especially in the digital world, where you have many strangers. Therefore, launching a cybersecurity startup can be a great business idea. Here’s what you need to know:

Sell leading cyber protection services under your own brand.
You can white-label cyber protection services and extend your market reach. Several cybersecurity firms can enable you to offer innovative security solutions under your brand and become a high-quality provider. For example, Acronis. It provides solutions like Acronis Cyber Protect – the only solution that natively integrates cybersecurity, data protection and management to protect endpoints, systems, and data. You can white-label these services and sell them as your own brand. Join to make a joint effort to protect against cyber-attacks.

Focus on your customers, along with the threat.
Sophisticated, modern cyberattacks are launched daily against businesses of all sizes – including SMBs. (With the average ransomware payment currently exceeding $100,000, this type of attack is just too profitable for criminals to stop committing them). In fact, cybercrime rose by 400% during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s attacks are smart and varied, and if even a single attempt is successful, it could shut doors for good.

Understand clearly what your customers are dealing with. In a cybersecurity business, you are responsible for protecting the most valuable assets of a business, such as the company’s data, their customer data, their reputation. Thus, you need to know your customer’s business processes, operations, and business routine.    

Learn how your customers can prevent themselves from becoming a victim of ransomware – download this asset.

2. Venture into Website Development

Does a good website grab your attention? If you want to start a creative business, then start up a website development business. It can be the perfect business idea for you. Here are a few tips:

Build a good website.

Your customer’s website is the online home of their business, a place where their customers will find them. You must create a beautiful website with the latest features so that it reflects your talent well. You can venture into website development with tools like WordPress or Sitejet. These tools can be used for customized website development, as they are armed with latest technologies.

WordPress is a free and open-source website platform that powers nearly 43% of all websites on the internet. It can be used to create beautiful designs with thousands pre-built styles, or customized in any way you want using WordPress’s incredibly flexible design tools!

Sitejet, by Plesk, is the professional website builder for web design agencies and freelancers. It enables your team to deliver high-quality, 100% responsive sites without breaking a sweat!

Credit: Pexels

Consider outsourcing.

If you have a small budget, you can hire a remote team for your business which comes at an affordable cost, or you can simply outsource your creative or technical tasks. This includes UI/UX services, Development services, SEO services, and content services.

3. Become a Domainer

Buying and selling domains is an exciting business idea as certain domains bring a lot of profit. There are stories about domains being purchased worth a few 4-5 dollars years ago and then being sold for millions today. For example, Business.com is one of the most expensive domain names. So, how to do that? Here are a few tips to become a domainer:

Plan first.

Plan everything – budget, niche, audience, and keywords to focus on. When buying new domains, consider a domain name that you’re familiar with. For example, if you’re into education or healthcare, then search a domain name like Education.com or Doctor.com. Make sure that the domain name is short and easy to remember. Check its availability and if available, you can buy domain names. You can keep a domain for 10 years or more and still sell it for a good price. It is a great business idea as it doesn’t require you to do much in building your portfolio.

Use sales strategies.

Buying and selling of domains will require a great deal of knowledge and practice in the beginning but once you get used to it, you will easily make money out of it regularly. The most common domain sales strategies are:

(a) Setting a particular price.
(b) Auctioning domains by selling them to the buyers with the highest bid.
(c) making an offer to make more profit.

4. Sell Productivity Solutions

Productivity-based solution selling has been successfully utilized by businesses that offer technical and highly customizable services. One easy way is to sell productivity suites like Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace. This will help you onboard customers easily and put a great impact on your business’ profit. Here are a few tips to consider:

Understand your customers’ pain points.

The most effective way to understand the pain points of your customers is to simply reach out to them and ask them. Listen first, customize and then offer a solution. This way you can customize your solution by bundling it with other products and offer them exactly the wholesome solution they need.

Credit: Pexels

Sell scenario-based solutions.

After identifying the problems of your customers, you will get how your solution will meet their requirements. Instead of providing a feature-based product, offer your customers a scenario-based solution that resolves their problems.

Sell Cloud based productivity tools like Microsoft 365

The productivity tools like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace can elevate the productivity and efficiency of your client’s business. They offer an all-in-one (productivity, communication, and security) solution that your modern customers need.

5. Sell Cloud Solutions

The world is now almost completely ‘Digital’ and companies need to have cloud solutions to run their businesses. This window of opportunity is huge in every sense. So, sell an innovative cloud solution or application to the companies and grow your business.

Choose a cloud business structure.

There are three cloud models – you can choose to sell solutions based on any of these below:

(a) IaaS: Under IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), an organization does not get individual hardware or servers. In this case, third-party stores, operates, and manages the cloud system of its customer.

(b) PaaS: PaaS stands for Platform as a Service. Here, an organization can rent virtual servers, hardware, storage, along with other services from their provider.

(c) SaaS: SaaS is the acronym for Software as a Service. Under this setting, a company can rent software, saving the overall cost of a company.

Choose the business structure you want to offer.

Buy cloud equipment.

You need to purchase various equipment, such as servers, hardware, software, and so on or you can rent them out from various service providers. You can get in touch with me for detailed guidance on the same.

Design marketing strategies.

Don’t forget to formulate a digital marketing strategy for the sales process. With it, you can expect the growth and success of your business in the shortest possible time.

Use a cloud service delivery automation platform.

Now, that your IT services selling strategy is ready, it is time to sell the cloud services. But wait! Have you thought about how you will manage the records, billing and processes? If you make them manual, then there are high chances of making errors due to the lack of a proper process in place.

If you want to make your cloud services delivery hassle-free, then you can use a cloud service delivery automation platform. For example, an automation platform like RackNap provides a single panel from where you can sell your cloud services to your customers in a much better way without depending upon multiple business management tools.  Similarly, there are other automation tools as well that you can use to save your time and stress from the risk of errors. But that will be the topic of my other blog post. 😊

Wrapping up!

There are several promising business ideas for IT startups. Follow the points mentioned above to gain knowledge about the most promising business ideas for IT startups to pursue this year.

Source: https://www.bain.com/insights/india-saas-report-2021/

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