Business cash flow is the backbone of every business. Positive cash flow means that your operation is generating enough income to cover its expenses and potentially enough additional income to invest in growth.
If you’re looking to start a new business, consider choosing an idea that generates high cash flow. Understanding why most small businesses fail can also help you avoid common pitfalls, ensuring your business thrives financially from the start.
What is High Cash Flow?
High business cash flow means that a business has more money coming in than going out. These are businesses with positive cash flow and have enough of a cash surplus to easily invest in growth and build up cash reserves.
1. E-commerce Ventures
When it comes to high cash flow for business, it’s hard to beat an e-commerce operation. Online stores have little overhead compared to brick-and-mortar stores.
The dropshipping fulfillment model can reduce overhead even further because all of the handling and shipping are handled by a third party.
2. Real Estate Investments
Real estate investments always top the list of cash flow business ideas. The best cash flow investments generate far more income than is spent on upkeep and operation.
With real estate investments, cash flow relates to:
- Money generated by the property, such as rental income
- Money spent on maintaining and repairing the property
- Money spent on a mortgage and/or property tax
Investors should aim for a 1% cash flow to ensure their investment is a success.
3. Consulting and Coaching Services
Consulting and coaching services are rapidly growing sectors.
In 2020:
- The consulting market reached a value of $250 billion
- The coaching market reached a value of $2.84 billion
Along with the high demand for these services, these types of operations typically have high cash flow.
As a consultant or coach, you would have:
- Little overhead
- Few additional expenses
- Recurring income
In most cases, coaches and consultants are single-person operations, so there are no employee-related expenses to take on.
Examples of coaching and consulting services include:
- Marketing consultant
- Life coach
- E-commerce consulting
- HR consultant
- Executive coaching
4. Subscription-Based Businesses
Like real estate investments, subscription services are known to be high cash flow business ventures.
The biggest advantage of a subscription-based service is that you’re guaranteed income every month. Each subscriber pays a fee every month for your services, so your income stream is more reliable.
Examples of subscription-based businesses include:
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Content subscriptions
- Streaming services
- Curated subscription boxes
Along with having reliable income, some types of subscription-based businesses have very little overhead, which frees up even more cash.
5. Health and Wellness Industry
The health and wellness industry generates high small business cash flow, particularly if you’re interested in being a coach or personal trainer.
Supplements are another popular niche in the market that can generate high cash flow.
Examples of businesses in the health and wellness industry include:
- Nutrition coaching
- Fitness trainer
- Supplement company
- Personal chef
- Herbalist
- Weight loss coach
6. Digital Products and Online Courses
Some of the best businesses for high cash flow are digital products and online courses. In both cases, the biggest expense is the upfront creation of the product or online course.
Once created, you can resell the product indefinitely with few additional costs. Marketing and promotion will be the primary expenses you incur.
Unlike a physical product, you won’t incur additional production costs. You won’t incur any shipping or handling costs either. Courses are accessed via online platforms, and digital products are downloaded by customers.
Some online courses require a monthly subscription fee, which also ensures that you have guaranteed income.
Examples of digital products include:
- eBooks
- Tutorials or guides
- Printables
- Templates and calculators
- Graphics
As for courses, you can educate your audience on virtually any topic that you have extensive experience in.
7. Franchise Ownership
Franchises can be excellent cash flow businesses. Franchisees are operating businesses that already have an established:
- Brand
- Marketing strategy
- Customer base
When starting a new business, you must build everything up from scratch. Franchises are already established, so owners can spend less on marketing and promotion at the start.
Some of the most popular and successful franchises include:
- McDonald’s
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- Supercuts
- Ace Hardware
- The UPS Store
8. Mobile App Development
Another great idea for business cash flow is mobile app development. Much like digital products, most of the investment is in the creation of the app. Once created, the only additional “production” expenses will be in marketing and updating the application.
Some apps have monthly subscriptions or are paid.
Examples of mobile apps include:
- Mobile games
- E-commerce
- Social media and chat-based apps
- Business services
App development can sometimes require a large upfront investment, but recurring costs are minimal and subscriptions can guarantee cash flow.
9. Outsourcing and Remote Services
One of the best cash flow businesses is outsourcing or remote services. You can run this operation solo or start building up your team. You can help other companies by fulfilling their needs for:
- Marketing
- Web development
- Content production
- Social media
- Customer service
If you don’t want to perform the work yourself, there’s always the option to outsource everything. Essentially, you’ll be the man in the middle. Someone will hire you to provide a particular service, and you will work with a partner to complete the work.
Finding a trusted team that will provide exceptional service is the hardest part, but it’s something that a lot of people in this type of business do.
10. Niche Subscription Boxes
Subscription boxes have profit margins of 40% - 60%, but this figure will vary from niche to niche. Business owners love this type of business model because you always have a steady stream of cash coming into the business.
After all, customers are paying for your service monthly – or whatever duration you have set.
If you keep overhead low and don’t take on too many risks, you can maintain high cash flow levels and profit margins. Some of the most popular subscription boxes include:
- FabFitFun
- Armoire
- Book of the Month
- Rent the Runway
- Trade Coffee
- Thrive Box
You can niche down even further. For example, you can create a fun subscription box for freelancers that is filled with treats, coffee, planners and whatever else you like.
However, you do need to have a reliable source for the goods that you purchase.
If you underprice your subscription too much, it can lead to very low profit margins and the potential for negative cash flow.
Conclusion
If you want to operate a business with high cash flow opportunities, the above businesses are all great options. However, as your company begins to grow, you’ll want to monitor your cash flow regularly, run forecasts and create statements. Utilizing cash flow forecasting software for small businesses can help streamline this process, making it easier to predict and manage your financial health.
Maintaining high cash flow will require you to maintain a stringent budget.
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