Industry Ideas for Women Who Want to Break Out on Their Own

META: We’re breaking down the opportunities available that you can take advantage of to work for yourself.

We all have those moments when you catch yourself daydreaming. Maybe you were looking longingly out of the office window, or you found yourself browsing travel websites. Maybe you’re back from working from home, only to realise how much you liked that idea.

Did you love the flexibility? The lack of micro-management? The money you saved? Imagine having all of them back, plus the chance to say you are your own boss. If all that sounds good, you might want to take a look at our guide. We’re breaking down the opportunities available that you can take advantage of to work for yourself.

Take your industry online

There is a very lucrative industry that is blooming right now, but you’ve heard of it and chances are you’ll turn your nose up at it: influencing.

Influencing comes down to posting content in order to make money, but there are loads of ways to do this, and it involves a lot more transferable skills than just looking pretty and taking a selfie. The traditional influencers, yes, market themselves as a brand, but there’s more to it than even that. They are often marketing themselves, aware that they are selling a lifestyle rather than their name or body.

So, there’s marketing skills right there. What else? The content aspect can take photography skills, editing skills, filming, design, audio editing, etc. And on the business side of things, you would have to negotiate brand deals, make partners, know the ins and outs of marketing and more. Consider this; you could learn trading, negotiating or pitching to give yourself an edge.

So, what’s the point? If you don’t want to be an influencer, why would I explain all that? Because the 21st century has social media at the centre of its marketing campaign. If you were to go for another form of startup, whether you’re aiming for clients, customers, or employees, the best way to showcase your skills is with content. It’s making all of us an influencer in some sense or another. You can start your own business and then market it entirely on social media, with the most engaged audience due to your influencer knowledge guiding you.

Another way you can take your industry online is to simply start an eCommerce company. No matter what you’re selling, you can sell it online.

Thrifting is a growing industry right now. You can head into charity shops and find a bargain, be that clothing, antiques, or furniture, take it home to clean it up a little, and add it to your online shop.

Take your industry on the road

To start with an example, the harsh reality of the lockdowns gave the hospitality industry in particular a severe knocking, enough that a lot of establishments had to adapt.

Suddenly we saw restaurants that performed entirely out of a window, turning from the high dining experience into a takeout with high dining-quality food. There was a rise in pop-up kitchens, ghost kitchens, virtual kitchens and suddenly everyone was living that van life, selling food from a truck.

And the perks are there. With both of these latter options, you can take your hospitality on the road. Head to the festivals or the parks in the summer, serving everything from pastries to cocktails, caviar to street food. There are no limits.

If you’d rather stay at home, there are a lot of businesses using a delivery method to cook out of their own kitchen and deliver food to where it’s wanted. This is particularly attractive to bakers, who might create a tray of pastries for the office on the other side of town.

Take your industry freelance

There are countless opportunities for you to go freelance. The benefit here, on top of those listed above, is that you can work as much or as little as you wish and just about every job has a freelance alternative.

If your strength is numbers and organisational skills, you can look into freelance accounting or personal assisting. You can gain multiple clients and juggle all their accounting needs or various calendars and meetings. You’d be surprised how many higher ups in industries are looking for someone solely to run their phone book.

If you are more creatively minded, there are options for every format. If you love writing, you can create copy for various publications and blogs, or maybe start your own. There are also freelance fiction writers and journalists, depending on your tastes. If you have a passion for painting or drawing, not only can you work for commissions, but you can also consider graphic design for the sake of marketing. And if you are more musically inclined, everyone needs some uncopyrighted material for everything from advertisements to TV shows to YouTube videos.

There are a lot of options in freelancing, and they all allow you to stop working when you feel like you need to stop working, allow you to work around things like children or travel, or even to live abroad while you work.