7 Successful and Profitable Small Business Ideas

TOP 7 profitable business ideas

Business ideas that make a profit, or ideas that no one believed in? Brave Russian entrepreneurs have mastered unoccupied niches (joint purchases, ice cream parlors, quests) and did not fail!

According to the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the share of small businesses in the country's GDP by 2020 should increase to 30%. SMEs in total will account for at least half of the gross domestic product. Such forecasts are not unfounded: every year there are more and more successful business ideas for small businesses that are implemented by entrepreneurs not only in various Russian regions. The most original and profitable ideas of entrepreneurs will be discussed in this article!

Not by bread alone...

• Idea: sturgeon farm
• Entrepreneur: Victor Kozemsky
• Region: Belgorod region
• Description: in 2014, in the Gaivoronsky district of the Belgorod region, the construction of a farm for growing sturgeon fish in recirculating water supply installations (RAS) began. The enterprise was named Belosetr and, according to the creator, was designed to produce up to 0.5 tons of caviar annually, starting in 2017.

Previously, Kozemsky was engaged in fish breeding in Donetsk, after which he decided to launch a project unique for Russia - a fully automated sturgeon farm. Kozemsky and colleagues have been developing equipment for keeping and feeding sturgeons for over 10 years, using their own developments.

At the moment, the plant has more than 7 tons of stock of mother fish at its disposal. The enterprise also has a fry rearing workshop, that is, at the moment, the implementation of the second stage of a large-scale project has begun. At the end of 2015, the company implemented:

• 0.2 tons of black caviar;
• 1.5 tons of fish.

Recall that the average cost of 1 kg of black caviar in the Russian wholesale market reaches 28 - 30 thousand rubles. Now the farm plans to start producing 2 tons of sturgeon and sterlet caviar by 2018.

Interesting: According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the export of Russian black caviar tripled last year and reached 4.71 tons in the period I - III quarter of 2015. The reason for this is the active development of sturgeon production and a favorable market situation in the face of a depreciation of the ruble.

Small wholesale: earnings on savings

• Idea: online store in Cash & Carry format
• Entrepreneur: Elena Drovovozova
• Region: Moscow
• Description: In 2014, Elena Drovovozova, a former lawyer at X5 Retail Group, a multi-format trading company, founded an online cosmetics store in a format similar to Cash & Carry. The store was named BeautyDiscount.ru and offers retail and wholesale cosmetics to customers at a discounted price. The idea of ​​crowdshopping was taken as the basis for creating the store. In order to save on the purchase of goods and delivery, people unite in groups and make a joint purchase.

At this stage, the store's assortment includes more than 20,000 goods. According to Alexa Rank, the store ranks 260,378, has more than 9,000 daily views, and an average cost of just over $9,600. The success of the store is due to the growing popularity of joint purchases (they account for almost 40% of turnover). Most profitable startups are somehow connected with crowdshopping (Rentoid, Uber, etc.), but in Russia the niche is not yet occupied, and therefore everyone has a chance to succeed!

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DIY: Elementary Cooking

• Idea: food constructors
• Entrepreneur: Olga Zinovieva
• Region: Moscow and Moscow region
• Description: in 2014, a former McKinsey consultant set up a home delivery service. Its peculiarity is that the products are intended for the preparation of specific dishes: washed, peeled, cut. The sets come with colorful step-by-step recipes that allow you to prepare gourmet dishes in 5 to 30 minutes.

Grocery packages are delivered twice a week when subscribing on the site. The menu for each client is compiled individually on the basis of a preliminary survey. In just a month of work, 120 thousand residents of the capital became participants in the project, which brought the company more than 1.2 million rubles. (according to RBC).

The idea to create a food constructor came to Olga while studying at Harvard Business School. She immediately interested the head of the Boston venture fund Lawrence Lepard. The fund invested 200 thousand US dollars in the project in exchange for a 10% stake in the business.

In 2016, the Elementaree project raised over $500,000 from an unnamed international investor. The funds received will be spent on the development of the platform (automation of business processes, scaling). The creators plan to create a full-fledged alternative to offline supermarkets within 3-5 years.

How to wash money: making money on laundries

• Idea: laundromat network
• Entrepreneurs: Pavel Glushenkov, Oleg Maslennikov
• Region: Krasnodar region
• Description: In 2011, former law enforcement officer Oleg Maslennikov, inspired by self-service laundromats, popular in the United States, opened the first laundry in Krasnodar. At first, the entrepreneur encountered problems, for example, he chose the wrong equipment (washing machines with a load capacity of 6.5 kg did not meet the needs of customers). But he successfully chose a place in a new shopping center, which allowed him to save on advertising.

In 2014, having 2 laundries in Krasnodar and 1 in Omsk, the entrepreneur decided to develop the business. At this stage, he was joined by Pavel Glushenkov, who had previously developed his network of laundries, the first of which was created under a franchise. At the moment, the network has 15 points in the regions, including Moscow. 8 of them are located in the stores of the Magnit chain, popular in the Southern Federal District.

According to RBC, the maximum income from one point can reach 350 thousand rubles, and net profit (minus the cost of rent, household chemicals, taxes, utility bills) is about 120 - 150 thousand rubles. According to the entrepreneurs, it will take from 2 million rubles to open a self-service laundry, and the payback period is up to 3 years.

Games that people play: quests in reality as a source of income

• Idea: quests in reality
• Entrepreneur: Sergey Kuznetsov, Bogdan Kravtsov, Timur Kadyrov
• Regions: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod
• Description: in 2013, the first quest room appeared in Moscow - a room for passing mission games with a planned plot. Bogdan Kravtsov, who previously worked as an IT specialist at Yandex and Artemy Lebedev Studio, was inspired to create the escape room by his favorite PC game, Fight, as well as by successful examples in Europe and the West.

In partnership with friends who owned a firm for the production of board games and souvenirs, Kravtsov began developing scenarios for the first two games: "Psychiatric Hospital" and "Soviet Apartment". Entrepreneurs managed to create scenarios in just a couple of evenings, and the amount of investments for opening the first quest room, according to Forbes, amounted to 500 thousand rubles.

At this stage, each quest room of the Claustrophobia network brings about 1.1 million rubles. monthly. The first franchises were sold in 2014. Their cost was 150 thousand rubles, while the amount of royalties - from 10% for the regions to 15% in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In a difficult economic situation, profitable business ideas should be aimed at people who do not have the opportunity and means to travel abroad. After all, they will look for entertainment in their city. And in these conditions, quests are the best solution!