The year 2025 is filled with many expectations and uncertainty on how the economy of the nation is going to turn out to be. In 2024, there were businesses that started as a result of the inflation and others that ran out of business for the same cause.

In preparation for the business(es) you may be starting in the coming year, these plans in the later parts of this article will help you selectively choose the best fit.

The question that comes to mind of any potential businessperson is "what business can I start with the capital I have?".


The Truth about Starting a Business

In all honesty, starting a business is not as easy as it looks. Planning and putting it down into actionable goals can be easy, when it comes to the execution, it takes grit and the know-how to build a successful business especially in this present economic recession.

Business to Start

Here are some of the businesses to start in the year 2025

1. Car Hire: Hiring your car(s) out is a business that is rare but fetches you a lot of money in the short and long run. In Nigeria, people need good cars when they cannot afford one and if you are offering a good deal, you will be sure to have customers almost every day. The average cost of renting your car per day is about NGN 50,000 which can make you about NGN 1.5 million in a month.

When venturing into this business, one of the key investments you must consider asides getting a nice-looking car is the security of your car, to avoid car theft. A tracker should be installed in the car to ensure that regardless of the location it is being driven to, you can easily find it.

2. Carpooling: carpooling simply means picking people up on the road with a charge. The business of carpooling can be done by anyone, not necessarily those whose jobs are driving alone. A corporate staff too can do it. When going to work, you can stop at a bus stop or motor park and pick up customers going to the same location with you and make some money which can cover for your fuel and probably your feeding for the day. 

This helps you save your other income for other investments you have.

3. Inter State Transportation: Interstates transportation is a business that have existed for a long time but still a very profitable one if it is run properly. The more the capacity of your vehicle, the more profit you would make. This business require that the operator knows the route of travel and the formalities around it. 

An example is a trip from Lagos to Ibadan with a bus costs NGN 5,000. having a total of twenty people in the bus equates to NGN 90,000. A total of NGN 40,000 will be spent on fuelling and at the end you will be having a profit of NGN 50,000 on one trip. The interesting thing about short distance interstate transport business is that you can go multiple times in a day making extra profit. 

4. Car Sales: The business of car sales can be run in two ways, the first which involves you actually buying the cars and reselling it to the final customers which is capital intensive and may not be so effective especially if you do not have enough capital to start up the business. 

The second way is to be the middleman between the person selling the car and the final customer. That way you can make maximum profit without having to invest a penny into the business. How is the business done? You approach a car dealer, state your intentions of becoming a middleman in his business, he gives you the price of the cars, you take good photos and make great videos of the cars and find your own customers.

An example is if a car dealer tells you that a Toyota Corolla costs NGN 7 million, as a salesperson, if you are able to convince your buyer that the car is NGN 8 million, the extra NGN 1 million is yours to take and sometimes the car dealers themselves give commission when you can sell a car successfully.

5. Van Supply: This business requires you to have a van(s) which can be used for supplying goods. Organizations that deal in consumer goods usually require the services of outsourced van sometimes in takes their goods to the final consumers. If you can make a good pitch to these organizations to become their official van supply person, you are up for receiving huge sums of money in the long run.

For you to successfully pitch to an organization, there are certain requirements they would need from you; you would have to appear professional with a good pitch on why you would be the best fit for delivering their goods, you would need to have a van(s) with good working conditions, your knowledge of routes, vehicle and goods insurance, integrity which can be proven from your track records.

6. Goods Delivery (Dispatch): With the emergence on many online businesses in Nigeria, the need for bike and bicycle dispatch is on the increase. Vendors want the goods to get to the customers at the fastest time possible and customers on the other hand need their good with them in the shortest time possible, hence the need for dispatch riders.

The requirement for this business is a bike or a bicycle and a good rider. Companies such as Glovo, Chow deck, Jumia and many more are in high demand for these services and pay well for it.

7. Short let Apartments: Short let business is one that will skyrocket in the year 2025 because of the high demand for houses for events and relaxation. Groups of people, organizations, friends and individuals require short-let apartment for different purposes and are willing to pay well for those apartments.

You can either build these apartments specific for the purpose of short letting or you can use the apartments you are already living in. Why many prefer short let apartments to the regular hotels is that they have the luxury or doing activities like cooking, game areas, and access to other amenities like it is their personal homes. The minimum cost for a short-let apartment in Nigeria that is well furnished is about NGN 40,000 which can be as high as NGN 250,000 depending on the size and luxury of the apartments.

Using the NGN 40,000 per day as a benchmark, at the end of the month, you can make as much as NGN 1.2 million and NGN 14 million at the end of the year.

8. House/Property Agency: House agency is simply being the intermediary between the owner of the house and the person who is willing to rent or buy the house. This business does not require any capital to start, it just requires from you the skills of a great salesperson. Your job is to convince the potential buyer on why they need to rent or buy a property and get your commission upon successfully closing the deal. 

In the western part of Nigeria such as Lagos, the agency fee is 30% - 40% of the cost of the property, meaning that if the property is for NGN 1 million, your commission is about NGN 300,000 - NGN 400,000. 

It gets even more interesting as the potential buyer or renter needs to pay a little amount of about NGN 5,000 to show them the property whether they take it or not. Your diligence in this business will determine your turnover at the end of the month. If you have around 100 potential clients in a month, your minimum commission apart from renting commission will be NGN 500,000 and can be as high as NGN 5 million if 40% of them take the property.

9. Cleaning Business: Cleaning of houses, offices, and compounds is a lucrative business that should be explored in the year 2025. Your potential clients are corporate staffs who leaves the house early in the morning and come back home late at night. They may not have enough time to clean their environment and would need the services of cleaning, hence your business.

This business is one that comes with your ability to clean properly. Once your services are good enough for one client, they tend to refer you to a whole lot more others thereby expanding your reach and earning bigger revenue. 

The cleaning business in the long run can be expanded into a full-blown company with enough staff to outsource to organizations to do their cleanings and get paid.

10. Drop Shipping: Drop shipping business is one that involves buying goods from other countries in bulk at a cheaper rate and reselling at a slightly more expensive price after including the shipping cost and your profit to it.

When venturing into the drop shipping business, you can either use your capital to get the goods down to Nigeria to sell to your potential customers or you take the money from them based on their specific request and place the order.

Note that when doing this type of business, it is important that what you are ordering is in bulk to maximize the profit as much as possible, because when ordering a large quantity, the shipping cost is lower as it is spread across the goods than a smaller quantity.

11. Food Truck: having a truck loaded with food and mobile to different parts at different intervals in time is one of the best businesses that may thrive in the year 2025. How can you make this business work? In each territory, they know the time your food truck will be stationed and can come out and order at that particular time.

For example, people in Victoria Island, Lagos know you will be stationed there by 12 noon, Lekki by 1pm, Ikeja by 2:30pm. It creates a structure which over time you must not fail to be punctual, for your customers to get used to your food and keep ordering.

Your food being affordable and delicious are key criteria for your business to thrive and for expansion in the long run.

12. Restaurant: The great thing about having a restaurant is that people must eat and sometimes are too lazy to make their own food, hence your business. Just like the food truck, it is important that you make your food affordable and delicious. When people have confidence in your restaurant and you have built a big customer base, then you can begin to increase the prices little by little.

A case study was when 'Ade spag' came into Lagos State, and he was selling his plate of spaghetti with turkey for a sum of NGN 1,500 which he did for three months. At some point, he started getting up to 100,000 orders in a day. He started the pre-order model where he would know how many people placed the order against Thursdays by Tuesday and Wednesday. After the promo period, he took the price of spaghetti and turkey to NGN 2,500 which is still affordable, but people are already used to ordering his tasty spag every Thursday.

13. Event Planning: whether you like it or not, there is always an event happening and the need for professional event planners is on the rise. This business is highly dependent on referrals and the track records of your events planned in the past.

A scenario being, you planned an event perfectly, the attendees of the event will be interested in the event planner's details for you to also plan theirs in future. You must be well prepared and always have your card handy in case it is being requested for.

How much you charge for event depends on your negotiation skills, carriage and how exquisite you have made previous events.

14. Errand Running: This may sound menial but is one of the most lucrative businesses if done well. How it works is, you have a group of potential customers, preferably those that work from morning till night without having much time for other activities and offer to run errands for them at a cost. This must be run professionally to maintain professionalism and for a good fee.

An instance is an accountant in Lagos State who leaves his house early in the morning and comes back home late at night. You could request for the list of groceries and food stuffs they want to buy in their house and give an estimated cost plus your own cost and delivery to their houses. You can take it a step further by helping out with things such as preparing an already-made food per litres and supplying based on needs at a fee.

You can make as much as NGN 2,000 per successful delivery if executed properly. Having five of those customers per day minimum translates to NGN 10,000 per day and NGN 300,000 monthly.

15. Shoe and Bag Making: Students, professionals and literally almost everyone needs shoes and bags for their everyday duty, hence the need for someone to make it available when needed. shoe and bag are easy to make if you can learn the skills to do them.

When doing this business, branding is very important as your potential buyers want to have confidence in what they are buying, and it also helps with rebuy value and referrals as it would be easy to pinpoint the good brand they bought previously.

16. POS Business: this business is old but will still be gold in the year 2025. Due to the human's desire for ease at every opportunity possible, the business of POS continues to thrive over the years in Nigeria. The interesting thing about this business is that you do not necessarily have to start big to earn big. You can start with as low as NGN 10,000 and charge people NGN 200 for every withdrawal of NGN 5,000 they make and recycle the same money back into the business.

This business in the long run can have branches in different parts with employees that you would have enough to pay them. The more you scale the business, the more revenue you will get over time.

17. Mint Note Business: People pay a good sum at events or at the club when they can get someone who can sell mint notes to them. There are some ATMs in Nigeria that are known for their brand for dispensing mint notes. You can take advantage of that as a business to withdraw these mints in excess and go to clubs, events such as weddings, birthdays where spraying occurs to sell these mints and make a huge sum of money.

In most cases, A mint of NGN 10,000 can be sold for NGN 2,000 which implies that one can make as much as NGN 20,000 with just NGN 100,000.

18. Shawarma Business: Shawarma business makes money if done properly and situated in the less saturated shawarma places. Due to the amount of profit people see shawarma businesspeople make per day, they have made the business so rampant that it is becoming gradually saturated in Nigeria.

There are still some areas though that do not have these, hence where your business comes into play. Your job is to make very tasty shawarma for people to always patronize you each time they think of giving themselves a treat.

On a piece of shawarma, you can make as much as NGN 500 in profit. Making about 30 minimum a day gives a profit of NGN 15,000 and NGN 450,000 in a month which can be high as NGN 1 million when you begin to expand.

19. Catfish and Suya Grilling: Catfish and suya grilling business is very lucrative and overlooked, but have generated enough revenue for those that are into it. The requirement to thrive in this business is a space in a high performing bar or hotel that have a large number of customers. 

As they order for their drinks in such bars, what you sell is a complement to the drinks they are selling. That means you will always be patronized. 

In this business, you can make as high as NGN 200,000 in a day on your peak days and even more sometimes.

20. Bar Business: This business is capital intensive, but the revenue turnover is very high. 

21. Recruitment Business: In recruitment business, your job is to find talents for organizations and individuals at a cost. The more you are known for providing the best talents, the more you are depended on for that assignment and the more your fee.

When starting this business, it must be a registered business, starting from small recruitments to gain a track record, then building it into pitching in large organizations. The cost of recruiting great talents to big organizations ranges in millions.

If your services in the recruitment business also includes training of the talents after they are employed into the organization, then that is more revenue for you.

When starting this business, you register the company name to be one that easily resonates with your potential clients across different companies, if possible, rent a physical space (though may be cost intensive, but will be worth it in the end), learn how to pitch properly and if you cannot pitch, get someone that should do the pitching for you for you to win all your biddings, because as you are pitching, there are a lot more others also for the same purpose.

22. Breakfast Business: This business is one that has not been explored by so many people. The truth is that your potential customers are looking for who is bold enough to fill the gap of making sure they have their breakfast every morning. 

Businesses like Chicken Republic have started a bit of it by offering their chickwizz (bread sandwich) and coffee menu for the sum of NGN 3,200 and made only when an order is placed. A model like that can be replicated but with more options in your menu such as akara and pap, akara and bread, bread sandwich and tea and many more that you can think of that people would want.

A physical location too is needed preferably close to office areas as they are your major target market, if possible, a site or an app where they can pick their choice from the menu and get it delivered in minutes.

That way, you have given your customers, and potential customers trust in your business and creating a habit which becomes a lifestyle to always order your breakfast package in the morning.

23. Declutter: As people continue to relocate or others see the need to change/replace their items that have stayed with them for a while, this business continues to thrive. 

Declutter business is simply transacting as the intermediary between those that want to sell their items and those looking for cheaper items to buy. 

You either buy the item from those willing to sell and add it to your catalogue for our potential customers to get it from you or you simply tell your potential seller to send you a photo of the product and the price they are willing to sell, you will add your own profit to it and display it for your potential buyer to purchase.

24. Consultancy: You can be a consultant on areas you are knowledgeable about, and it could be physical or virtual. If you are good at what you do, you make good money daily.

25. Tutorials: Being a tutor is one business that can fetch you a high amount of money in the year 2025. You can have tutorials on professional courses, JAMB, WAEC, and subjects you are knowledgeable on.

The higher the number of those you would be tutoring, the more money you can make in the process. An instance is if you are taking WAEC and JAMB lessons for twenty students at a fee of NGN 30,000 monthly. At the end of the month, you would be getting about NGN 600,000.

For professional courses, the tutorial amount is way higher per student, and you will make extra bucks.

Your business plan in 2025 after going through this list must be concise enough and it is possible to run more than one business at the same time, you just need the adequate manpower and the full knowledge of the business before proceeding. Have a wonderful 2025.