It will be possible to open a business and run it successfully, given the situation on the market and in the world. The business environment asked company owners and executives to share current business ideas
 
The defining feature of entrepreneurs is the ability to competently assess the current situation and see opportunities. And to do this, notice trends in time. Today, the most noticeable trends are digitalization, technological development, concern for the environment, and the physical and mental health of people.
Promising business ideas in 2024
Businesses in the field of education
The second most frequently mentioned area after IT. Online education is a clear trend in recent years. It is influenced by the concept of lifelong learning, the desire of specialists to remain in demand by acquiring new skills, and the desire of people to change jobs and activities.
Among the current business ideas, entrepreneurs and managers named:
Vocational training. Already, according to statistics, more people are learning new professions remotely than are studying in colleges and technical schools. Among the most in demand are professions in the IT field.
Online courses in narrow niches.
Online schools, including for children.
If we talk about offline educational business, experts advise budding entrepreneurs to take a closer look at well-known franchises. There is a demand for training in things that allow people to relax and unwind, such as music or drawing.

Production
cosmetics;
medical components;
spare parts for cars and equipment;
equipment;
metal products;
Business owners and managers also identified the following as priorities for production:
furniture,
clothes,
cars,
household chemicals.
Trade and delivery
Experts considered the following promising ideas:
Parallel import of goods,
Resale platforms for branded items. E-commerce. The e-commerce market is growing. Marketplaces are developing not only for goods, but also for services. Selling products through large online platforms can be profitable, but under certain conditions. Some experts see risks for entrepreneurs in this direction.
Sale of household appliances and electronics.
Grocery retail.
Trade in pet products. People willingly buy food, care products, clothes, accessories and gadgets for their pets. The average bill on the pet products market is increasing year by year.
Courier delivery is the engine of modern trade.

Construction and repair
The population has a tendency to preserve what they have. People began to pay more attention to repairing things and apartments. As a result, the following business areas have become in demand:
Repair of premises.
Sale and rental of construction tools.
Construction of country houses. Thanks to remote work and study, families have the opportunity to live outside the city, if not all year round, but only for most of it. Another advantage of a dacha is affordable summer holidays.
Car repair.
Repair workshops for expensive items.
Improvement
Provided that there is interest in improvement at least at the municipal level, the following will become promising in this area:
Improvement of single-industry towns and rural settlements.
Development of transport infrastructure.
Social business.
 
When choosing a business, the first thing you need to think about is whether there will be demand for it in 10, 20 years. Will you be able to “live until retirement” with this business, having gone through all the crises? Real profit is made only on the distant horizon. See if the selected market is growing or falling. Look at how much a business depends on exchange rates and how regulated it is by law.
 
In this regard, everything related to services for the elderly is beneficial. The elderly are the only growing category of the population. This is a global trend, as strong as technology.
In the field of social entrepreneurship, business owners and managers named the following as promising:
Services for the elderly.
Projects for certain groups of the population - large and single-parent families, people with disabilities and others.
Projects to create an inclusive society, focused on the use of assistive technologies and innovative solutions.
Assistive technologies
technologies that help improve the quality of life of people with disabilities.
Leisure and tourism
Experienced entrepreneurs and company managers advise you to take a closer look at the following areas:
Selected events and programs for family recreation.
tourism, which is among the priorities for the state.
Agritourism.
Online travel, which is growing in popularity, also thanks to modern technologies.

Projects related to physical and mental health
Caring for health – physical and spiritual – has been gaining popularity among the population since the pandemic year of 2020. Thanks to the development of technology, entrepreneurs have access to a variety of areas in this area, including:
Businesses in the field of restoring health and strengthening immunity, biohacking.
Personalized medicine.
Telemedicine, including online support for older people.
Health awareness apps.

We have modern technologies.
Preventive medicine aimed at preventing diseases that impair the quality of life.
Fitness services.
Assembly of healthy lifestyle boxes with farm products and their delivery.
Consultations with nutritionists.
Psychological help. Work with high anxiety, stress and its consequences, and resource conditions is in demand.
Projects related to ecology
Environmental projects remain trendy. States are increasingly willing to invest in environmentally friendly technologies, renewable energy sources, and electric vehicles.
Experienced entrepreneurs noted the following promising ideas in the ecosphere:
Green energy and green technologies in general. Under the influence of the ESG agenda, grants and benefits will appear for companies that contribute to sustainable development.
Production of eco-packaging from pulperboard
Recycling.
Other directions
 
When choosing a business direction, I would go from the client. I would think about what this person is facing, what problems I can solve. So, a person’s income has decreased, but he still needs to wash his car. In order for the client to save money, it is necessary to open a self-service or conveyor car wash for him.
 
Business ideas not included in the categories:
Personal customer service.
Monetization of company data.
Production of commercial video content.
Cleaning.

New directions worth launching in 2024
One of the key events of 2023 is the beginning of the widespread use of neural networks. According to experts, the coming year promises an increase in digital influence on people and widespread automation. Entrepreneurs who can adapt to trends by abandoning some traditional forms of doing business will benefit.
Businesses using AI, or AI
Although the creation and application of neural networks belongs to the IT sphere, experts have identified such projects as a separate group. They advise paying attention to the following ideas related to artificial intelligence:
Sales and customer service solutions.
Creation of various types of content for business.
Development of artificial intelligence systems.
Implementation of AI in the work of social enterprises.
Prompt engineering.
Create training courses and programs with GPT support instead of people.
Simultaneous translation and voice-over services.

Business ideas related to virtual reality
Business owners and managers consider the following areas promising:
Creating metaverses for human interaction in virtual space.
Using digital stylists.
Introduction of virtual social assistants.
Development of VR applications for the treatment of phobias, sleep disorders and addictions, and management of appointments with doctors.
Environmental projects
Experts consider the following new interesting directions:
City farms within the framework of food-tech are “smart” farms for growing plants, mushrooms, berries and vegetables within the city, arranged in the form of compact vertical greenhouses based on hydroponic or aeroponic plant nutrition, which can be installed on the roofs of houses and in basements. According to forecasts, the global market for city farms will grow.

Upcycling
reuse of things and materials, which means that they will be used differently and become more valuable.
Other new business ideas
Bionic prosthetics and regeneration of tissues and organs.
Alarm bracelets with protection against attacks. “Smart” bracelets for children, teenagers and women with an alarm button and geolocation detection.
Training products in a soft niche that can give people the experience of setting up the necessary states to live, do, create.
Collaborations and partnerships for small and medium-sized businesses. Often something fundamentally new is the combination of one well-known direction with another.

Business ideas with minimal investment
Today it is possible to start a business with a relatively small investment. These areas include those that do not have production and/or commodity costs. Simply put, these are products of intellectual labor and services.
According to experienced entrepreneurs, you can open your own business with minimal costs in the following areas:
Various types of services, as well as work on microfranchises in the service sector.
Online consulting, including in the field of personal brand development.
Creating content for social networks.
Hobby monetization.
Activities in the field of education - webinars, master classes, tutoring.
Organizing online events.
Mobile shooting and editing.
Affiliate marketing is when a person promotes the products or services of a certain company to their audience.
HR agencies offering outsourced recruitment services.
Businesses with a short payback period, so that you don’t have to plan for the long term, which means taking a lot of risks.
Small production with simple technology.
Areas where minimal retrofitting of existing lines is required—for existing production facilities.

The most profitable business areas in 2024
Experts advise: to open a business that will be profitable, you need to find an idea and turn to financiers - they will evaluate the market, the potential of the entrepreneur as a player in this market, build and calculate 

financial model and answer the question about payback.
The most profitable areas were identified by company owners and managers as:
Technological innovation.
Robotics and biotechnology.
Production using domestic raw materials.
Financial services.
Investments in country real estate.
Franchise restaurants.
Dark kitchen. Instead of opening a restaurant, you can get by with a kitchen and a delivery service. The advantage of this format is that there is no need for a whole staff of waiters and bartenders, which are now difficult to find. The shortage of personnel in the catering industry reaches 30%, according to the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers.
Sale of sporting goods for people who are interested in maintaining good physical shape, but for one reason or another prefer to train at home.
Businesses in the beauty industry.
Dry cleaners.

What business do experts advise against opening in 2024?
When choosing business ideas in 2024, company owners and managers are urged to pay attention to a number of features of a particular activity, due to which it may be risky and unprofitable. Among them are the payback period, the transaction and production cycle, the currency for payments, and others.
The anti-rating of ideas for entrepreneurs included the following.
Businesses where supply exceeds demand. For example, catering establishments in certain regions.

Businesses based on non-renewable resources are becoming irrelevant under the influence of the global course towards sustainable development.
Projects with long payback, transaction and/or production cycles. Changes in market conditions are critical for them, since such projects are almost impossible to adapt quickly. In the current environment, the planning horizon has been reduced to one to three months.
Businesses where there are already market monopolists. However, some entrepreneurs see prospects even for such undertakings - if there is an innovative component. And they believe that activities can be successful thanks to smart cost reduction and automation of the best competencies.
Low-margin resale businesses, tied to speed, logistics and long processing.
Among the specific areas in which entrepreneurs should not start in 2024, experts named:
Retail stores and small online stores are being bypassed by large e-commerce players.
Business on marketplaces without your own production. Large manufacturers have entered online platforms.
Coffee business.
Cinemas and video rentals amid the growing popularity of streaming platforms.
Full-cycle advertising agencies, since it is difficult to find your client there, a payback and scalability model.
Providing services that artificial intelligence can provide.
Print advertising.
Business on cryptocurrency.
Rent of non-residential premises.
Rental and rental cars - cars have risen in price sharply, and the cost of services associated with their use has not yet been indexed.
Small repair business.
Drug development, which requires serious investment and involves a lot of restrictions.
Gene modification.
Every year there are experts who, when asked about obviously failed directions, answer that anything can be discovered and that the main thing is confidence in the idea and love for your work.