8 best low employee business ideas
6 min read
These are there best business ideas for LOW EMPLOYEE businesses.
This is not the gig economy like a working plumber or electrician where you're swapping time for money, these are business ideas that mean we are building a commercially profitable enterprise that works without you in it.
At the moment I employ over 1200 people across many different types of businesses. One of my companies does £10,000,000 in revenue and spends £5,500,000 on labour whilst another one of my companies does £3,000,000 in revenue but only spends £200k on labour... the latter is the type of business I want to talk about today.
So what are these low employee business ideas?
1. the Rental Industry
If you’re seen my content before you know I’m a commercial landlord. When we had a unit spare I got a call from a man who had a van hire business with 40 vans. At first I was concerned about my other tenants needing the parking space…
BUT hold on sailor,
He told me that they are always out and only on site for around 20 minutes. I continued to pick his mind about this business model and it turns out to be flipping brilliant and he just wants an office for his own space.
He rents the vans for different lengths of times, sometimes up to 30 days!
Scaling this up would be easy and could be appealing to a trade buyer thats bigger who would buy and integrate the business.
The renting space for vehicles with wheels is very easy to fund once you start making profit.
For example you start with 50 vans being paid on lease finance, you go to the bank and say “look these are doing really well can I have a credit line to buy 200 more vans, I’ve proven I can afford 50” and the ball starts rolling.
If you want to work for yourself and are organised enough to get this going, everything could work like clockwork.
2. Niche e-commerce
A brilliant sector of entrepreneurship!
I know someone with a fishing business that specialises in very niche products that lots of fishing enthusiast love, but it is not big enough for Amazon or supermarkets to rain on your parade.
You want to find a niche that is big enough to create repeat custom then marketing NEEDS to be your main focus.
To make this low employee you might only have to hire a marketing assistant who can control the website traffic and build the brand.
Then you find a fulfilment warehouse so you do not need any warehouse staff. Leaving you and one other to be 100% focussed on making content and driving traffic to the website.
If you consistently drive traffic to the website for 5-10 years proving tack record, another niche tradesman could buy it from you.
In last 12 months I have bought 2 niche websites, Party Pieces and Bundles of Joy. I have bolted these businesses together into my e-com business.
The key to this working: They are niche! (I don't want to compete with Amazon or supermarkets).
I believe you can get serious amounts of turnover with maybe one other member of staff if needed in these sectors.
3. Content creation
Creating content around personal brand.
I know multiple YouTubers who are making around £150,000 per month and only have 2 employees or sometimes even just them.
BUT remember this is an investment of years and consistency into building a content machine. This is not about going viral with 10 videos this is a process of 5-10 years building a loyal audience.
Think:
I am just starting to see green shoots of huge returns from putting content out. (year 7 of making videos)
The problem: You are business and you can't sell yourself.
The benefit: This can open some seriously profitable doors of opportunities.
I know YouTubers who have built up an audience and do the usual stuff like get monetised for their views and sponsorship but someone might then say ‘hey, I will give you some of my business if you mention it.’ Ryan Reynolds has done some seriously good business deals using his personal brand.
This means they grow their wealth from being a personality.
Its lots of reps and sets but worth it if stay at the game.
4. Software as a Service (SAaS)
I’ve been looking at it for last 10 years with more and more vigor.
I used to hate idea of business owners building a SaaS unless they were engineers themselves but with AI and more and more developers learning this skillset, I think it can be smart for entrepreneurs.
You create the software and sell it internationally. (as long as there is a marketplace for it)
I am contemplating creating a tilling system for hospitality businesses and selling it out to the world.
I think I could employ a couple of people and they can build + distribute it for me.
Software as a service is becoming more commoditised and easier to build than it was 5-10 years ago which means it is lower barrier to entry, but if you can create brand, get customers and sell multiple times, this is still a great.
5. Wholesale importing
Create products in far east
Manage the stock in a warehouse local to you
Sell wholesale.
I am heavily involved in this and am predicted to do £5-6 million this financial year.
My staffing is very minimal compared to my other businesses doing similar revenues.
In my childcare business 55% of turnover on labour compared to me importing which is only 7-8% of my turnover.
As you grow your economies of scale your labour gets smaller and smaller.
This is a high barrier to entry business because you need cash up front, you need to find factories, find a product people want, find place to store it, manage stock, cash flow etc. etc.
I sometimes have £2.5 million of stock at any one time and that’s growing every single year which can be stressful, but at least I don’t have a huge payroll.
6. Self storage
This is a hugely growing business in western economy, you may have seen the rise of big yellow self storage buildings and canny entrepreneurs getting catching on.
The smart thing to do here is to own commercial property which will build your personal wealth.
When you trade out of your commercial property there’s plenty tax advantages (speak to your accountant)
This is something that has built my biggest amount of personal wealth, owning commercial property and then trading out of those in an op co, prop co situation.
They are highly yielding because you buy a big warehouse space and separate it into lots of different units.
All sorts of situations require people to need storage.
You could be turning a lot of money and it can all be key less entry and have one staff member for £3-4 million just singing contracts for new people and for fixing one time issues.
7. Self service hotels
The business model of Travelodge is having huge hotels and only one receptionist. They have got rid of those complicated restaurants, bars, spas and gyms and kept it simple stupid with just rooms.
There are hotels across the world that are using technology to check you in removing that one member of staff or even having keyless code entry.
Don't confuse this with service accommodation or airbnb, which you cannot sell at huge multiples if you want to exit.
You have to have capital to do this but this is about low employees, not low barrier to entry.
High barrier to entry is what I want you to be aiming for because that’s where all money goes when you want to exit.
It’s like owning big commercial property.
Imagine this, once you paid off the mortgage after 20 years … what an asset to own.
Talk about recurring income!
8. Car parks
You don't even get tickets in car parks any more! Removing more costs!
6 months ago I used to get a ticket, now there is just a camera on entrance and exit that manages the cars.
You might only need someone if something goes wrong with the barrier…
Car parks is an almost perfect business model.
Watch the full video in detail here:
I have a rule, which I am about to break: “never do religion or politics.”
For me to work, and for my companies to work, I need fellow entrepreneurs around to make the economy tick.
Take the energy away from an economy and it’s curtains. We become a nice place to go for a city break.
Here’s my plea ahead of Budget day…