How To Start a Lifestyle Business in 10 Steps (2026)

You’re not after a unicorn—you’re after freedom, aren’t you?

When asked why they started their own business, 54% of new solopreneurs said, “To be my own boss,” and 53% wanted to “work according to my own schedule”—far outpacing income as a motivator. 

That’s the core of a lifestyle business: profitable, yes, but designed to serve your life, not consume it.

In 2024 alone, entrepreneurs filed 5.2 million new business applications in the US, and early data from 2025 shows the trend is holding strong. 

This guide walks you through how to start a lifestyle business of your own—from idea to launch to running it all, so you can build a lifestyle business that funds the life you want to live.

What is a lifestyle business?

A lifestyle business is a lean, founder-led company designed to support personal freedom (financial, creative, or time-based), rather than maximize scale or investor returns. The business model is intentionally built to fit the life you want to live, often run solo or with a small team, and relies on scalable digital tools.

Most lifestyle businesses fall into one of these three categories: sell a product, sell a service, or sell what you know.

These categories are otherwise known as: 

1. Ecommerce-based. You sell physical or digital products online, often through your own virtual storefront (like a Shopify website), a marketplace (like Etsy), or social selling (like via shoppable posts on Instagram or TikTok). Many ecommerce sellers use a combination of those sales channels, depending on where their target audience is most likely to shop.
• Example: A jewelry maker builds an online business store to sell handmade pieces and uses print on demand for custom packaging.
2. Services-based. You offer your time or expertise through freelance, consulting, or client work.
• Example: A graphic designer sells branding packages and monthly retainer services, booking clients through a portfolio website and calendar tool.
3. Information-based. You sell content, knowledge, or digital products with little to no ongoing fulfillment.
• Example: A former teacher creates an online course on early childhood learning and sells downloadable worksheets via a digital storefront.

Why start a lifestyle business?

If you launch your own lifestyle business, you give yourself what most jobs—and many startups—can’t (or won’t): control over your time, energy, and priorities.

In fact, a study by Upwork found that 28% of US knowledge workers were freelancing or working independently in 2024, collectively earning around $1.5 trillion.

And the 2025 Global Digital Nomad Report found that about 22% of the US workforce (around 32.6 million Americans) were working remotely as a core enabler for the digital-nomad lifestyle.

This isn’t fringe anymore. More people are building businesses around their skills, their schedules, and their idea of “enough.”

📚Read more: 8 Lifestyle Business Ideas to Start in 2024

How to start a lifestyle business in 10 steps

1. Define your life and business goals
2. Build your budget and timeline
3. Take inventory of your skills, interests, and expertise
4. Find your lifestyle business niche
5. Validate your lifestyle business idea
6. Choose your lifestyle business tool stack
7. Market your lifestyle business
8. Add additional income streams
9. Make time for continuous learning
10. Find your entrepreneur community

1. Define your life and business goals

Before diving into potential business ideas, take time to set life goals that will guide your lifestyle business journey. If you currently work 40 to 60 hours a week, you might set a goal to work a four-day week. If bumper-to-bumper traffic commutes detract from your life, you might aim to work from home. 

While life goals will naturally differ for everyone, here are a few common ones to consider:

• Spend more time with friends and family.
• Make time for more physical activity.
• Eliminate long daily commute.
• Have a flexible schedule.
• Make more time for hobbies.
• Move to a lower cost-of-living city.
• Stop working on weekends.
• Work four days per week.
• Become a digital nomad.
• Spend more time outdoors.
• Live abroad. 

Write them down. These will become the lens through which you evaluate every business decision.

A lifestyle business can be successful, bringing in $30,000 a year or $300,000 per year—you get to determine what financial success looks like for your lifestyle business.

Craft a simple personal vision statement like:

I want to work approximately 35 hours per week, travel modestly across Europe, and spend extended periods in England visiting family. I’ll keep my full-time job until June while I test ideas and save $9,000. My goal is to earn $2,000 a month by August and $3,500 a month by year’s end.

You won’t have all the answers right away, and your goals and objectives may change over time, but having some idea of what you want to achieve and what that entails will guide you as you pursue a lifestyle business. 

Lifestyle business vs. startup: What’s the difference?

2. Build your budget and timeline

Once you know what kind of life you’re building toward, it’s time to make sure the math adds up.

A lifestyle business gives you flexibility, not immunity from cash flow stress; so a solid financial runway matters.

You’ll want to budget for both your lifestyle expenses and your business startup costs over the next six to 12 months.

Know your baseline

Start with your monthly lifestyle cost target—rent, groceries, insurance, transportation, subscriptions, etc.

Then multiply that by how many months you want to give yourself to hit your minimum income goal.

Example:

• Monthly lifestyle cost: $3,000
• Timeline to breakeven: 6 months
• Required savings: $18,000 + startup costs

Now layer in your business model type:

• A small ecommerce business may launch with $500 to $1,000, but a more fully featured setup could fall in the $12,479 to $39,800 range.
• A small consulting business startup budget is estimated at $4,730 to $18,700 in one-time costs.
• Selling information products like digital courses, templates, or memberships is one of the lowest-cost options. Many creators launch with less than $500, especially if they’re repurposing existing content or expertise.

Decide your timeline

• Are you starting part time or going all in?
• How long can your savings carry you?
• When do you need to hit your “lifestyle number”?
  

Treat this like a reverse-engineered runway. You don’t need perfect forecasts, but you do need clarity.

Set your milestones

Break the next six to 12 months into chunks. Define what success looks like each quarter. For example:

• Months 1–3: Validate offering, set up website/store, make first sale.
• Months 4–6: Reach consistent revenue, hit 50% to 75% of your lifestyle number.
• Months 7–9: Automate workflows, improve profit margin.
• Months 10–12: Meet milestone of full lifestyle income, revisit goal setting.

3. Take inventory of your skills, interests, and expertise

Whether you have your eyes set on freelancing or want to cut your teeth as an indie hacker, it’s important to start with the skills and expertise you possess. If part of your desire to start a lifestyle business is developing new skills or having different professional experiences, consider what you might have a natural aptitude for or a passion to learn about. 

Aside from considering the skills you have and want to develop, also consider what’s currently in demand. For example, Upwork’s most recent report reveals the 10 most in-demand skills and jobs in the sales and marketing category:

1. Social media marketing
2. SEO
3. Sales and business development
4. Lead generation
5. Search engine marketing
6. Telemarketing
7. Email marketing
8. Marketing automation
9. Marketing strategy
10. Campaign management

Upwork made the same list for other in-demand skills for 2025 in categories like design, technology, and accounting:

Whether you’re thinking about consulting or becoming a content creator, take inventory of your areas of expertise and your professional strengths and consider how they can help you start a lifestyle business. 

4. Find your lifestyle business niche

Once you’ve narrowed down your skills, think about zeroing in on a specific niche. For instance, while you might be a strong writer interested in freelancing, that’s a broad category that will make it difficult to sell your services to specific clients. 

While it might feel counterintuitive to narrow in on one particular customer segment, often clients and customers are looking for specialists, not generalists. 

Here are examples of specific business niches:

Once you have your niche, think about how you can apply it to your specific lifestyle business. For example, if you’re a skilled video editor with experience helping brands make video ads for social media, you could create a digital course teaching others to do the same. 

Here are some jumping-off points that validate real-life demand:

• The McKinsey Future of Wellness Trends report indicates rising segments like functional nutrition, healthy aging services, and wellness travel—each of which creates niche opportunities for lifestyle businesses in wellness, content creation, coaching, or product development.
• The digital content market is estimated at $35.22 billion in 2025 and expected to climb to $64.07 billion by 2030. If you create coursework, templates, memberships, or niche content around your expertise; this is in a growth market.
• The global software development market is expected to hit $1.04 trillion by 2030. This surge is driven by rising demand for cloud-native apps, low-/no-code platforms, generative-AI-enabled development, and smaller-team deployments that align well with small-partner lifestyle business models.

5. Validate your lifestyle business idea

Tim Ferriss, bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, learned this lesson the hard way.

Before he launched his empire, Ferriss spent thousands producing a tape series for college guidance counselors, called How I Beat the Ivy League. He printed 500 copies, but he sold only one—to his mom.

That flop taught him the golden rule of lifestyle businesses:

“Don’t ask people if they would buy. Ask them to buy.”

You want proof that someone wants what you’re offering.

If you’re offering a service … 

The easiest path to validation is outreach. Message prospective clients. Send a pitch. Offer a paid discovery session.

If you’re selling a product, digital or physical … 

Validation takes a few more steps, but it’s still lightweight if you’re smart about it.

1. Start with keyword research. Before building anything, find out what people are searching for, and how competitive it is. Use tools likeUbersuggest or Ahrefs to gauge demand. If nobody’s searching for your product category, you’ll need to work harder to educate the market.
2. Run audience surveys. If you’ve already built a small email list or social following, ask them directly:
• What’s your biggest challenge in [your niche]?
• What would you pay for a product that solves it?
• Would you rather learn via video, email, or templates?
3. Test with waitlists or pre-sales. Before building your product:
• Set up a basic landing page with a product mockup or sample module.
• Use tools like Tally, Carrd, or Shopify Forms to capture interest.
• Let people join a waitlist or pre-order at a discounted rate.
• Drive traffic with low-budget ads or community posts.
4. Try fast formats.
• Email mini-course to upsell a paid version and collect leads.
• Webinar to test interest and position you as a trusted expert.
• Crowdfunding for physical products and prototypes.

6. Choose your lifestyle business tool stack

The platforms you use will depend entirely on the kind of business you’re building, but they should all do one thing: make your life easier.

Below, we’ve grouped popular tools by use case, so you can mix and match based on your business model.

For building and hosting your product

If you’re creating digital products, courses, or memberships, these platforms help you host and sell with minimal setup:

• Online courses: Podia, Teachable, Udemy, MasterClass
• Memberships and monetization: Patreon, Mighty Networks, Cameo

For selling physical or digital goods

Use these tools to launch a store, manage inventory, and sell directly to customers:

• Ecommerce platforms:Shopify,Etsy, Pietra
• Payments and invoicing: QuickBooks, FreshBooks, Wave, Sage

For growing an audience with content

Content-led businesses (like writing, coaching, or influencing) need consistent publishing tools to build trust and attract buyers:

• Newsletters: Substack, Kit, Mailchimp
• Blog platforms: WordPress, Ghost, Medium
• Link pages: Linkture, Lnk.Bio, Beacons, Stan.me

For setting up your online home

Whether you’re launching a portfolio, product page, or personal brand site, these tools help you get online fast:

• Website builders: Squarespace, Webflow, Wix

For marketing and promotion

Once your product or service is live, you’ll need tools to promote it through ads or organic content:

• Advertising: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads
• Social media management: Buffer, Hootsuite, Loomly, Agorapulse

For creators and media-based businesses

If you’re producing video, audio, or livestream content, these tools help you create and distribute at scale:

• Audio editing: Descript, Audacity, GarageBand
• Podcasting: Anchor (now Spotify for Podcasters), Buzzsprout, Libsyn
• Video and creator platforms: YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Gaming

For freelancing and client-based businesses

If your lifestyle business is based on client services, these tools help you find work, get paid, and stay organized:

• Freelance platforms: Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, Toptal
• Project management and productivity: Notion, Google Workspace, Todoist, Dropbox, Things, Fantastical

For live experiences and events

If you’re running workshops, webinars, or digital conferences, these platforms help you go live and stay connected:

• Virtual events and webinars: Zoom, Hopin, Crowdcast, RunTheWorld, Airmeet

When to automate or outsource?

You don’t need to be a one-person show forever. In fact, one of the smartest things you can do as a lifestyle entrepreneur is buy back your time through automations or affordable, targeted outsourcing.

Automate when:

• A task happens frequently (e.g., email responses, payment reminders, welcome flows).
• You can set it up once and let it run (e.g., abandoned cart emails, course drip content).
• It’s costing you energy, not adding creative value.
  
  

Tools like Zapier, Shopify Flow, or Kit automations can help with that.

Outsource when:

• You don’t enjoy the task (e.g., bookkeeping, editing, scheduling)
• Someone else can do it faster, better, or cheaper
• It keeps you in your zone of genius

Commonly outsourced tasks in lifestyle businesses:

• Virtual assistance (inbox triage, calendar booking, admin)
• Design (brand kits, thumbnails, course slide decks)
• Video/audio editing (for podcasts, YouTube, Reels)
• Customer support (email or chat-based)
• SEO research, blog formatting, or social post scheduling
• Bookkeeping and taxes
  

💡Pro tip: Start small—hire a freelancer on Upwork, book a monthly retainer, or hand off just one task.

7. Market your lifestyle business

Marketing is how lifestyle businesses acquire customers, and what works depends on your business model.

A service-based freelancer won’t use the same strategy as someone selling an ebook or dropshipping hoodies. But the core goal is the same: 

Turn attention into action.

Let’s walk through some common customer acquisition channels and when they make sense to tap into.

Paid advertising

Best for: Digital products, ecommerce, and course launches.

Platforms: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads.

If you’ve validated your offer and have clear positioning, paid ads can speed up your reach. Set a modest daily budget (around $5 to $20) and test one channel at a time. 

Social media marketing

Best for: Creators, consultants, ecommerce, services.
Platforms: TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, YouTube Shorts.

Post content that shows your expertise, product in action, or behind-the-scenes workflow. If you’re a financial consultant, LinkedIn posts and carousels work. Selling skin care? TikTok tutorials and transformations tend to land.

Email marketing

Best for: Productized services, digital products, niche ecommerce.
Platforms: Substack, Kit, Mailchimp.

Start with a simple opt-in form (use a freebie if needed), then nurture subscribers with useful content or early offers. Weekly emails work well for writers, coaches, and course creators.

SEO and content marketing

Best for: Writers, coaches, creators, educators.

Platforms: Surfer, Storychief.

Content marketing means writing blog posts, guides, or tutorials that answer questions your audience is already searching for online. Use keyword tools to find real queries, then create content that leads back to your offer.

Influencer marketing

Best for: Physical products, courses, lifestyle brands.

Platforms: UpPromote.

Go niche. A cooking YouTuber with 10K engaged subscribers will do more for your vegan recipe ebook than a mega-influencer with a mismatched audience.

Guest appearances

Best for: Service providers, consultants, creators.

Platforms: Qwoted, Featured.

Pitch yourself as a guest on podcasts, Substack publications, or niche blogs. Tailor your pitch and link back to a waitlist, booking page, or lead magnet.

8. Add additional income streams

If much of your work comes from a single freelancing client, for example, your income could plummet to zero if they cancel your contract or go out of business. Diversifying your income allows you to avoid overreliance on one source. 

Here’s a list of ideas for adding additional income streams to your lifestyle business:

• Ask your current clients for referrals or testimonials
• Create a digital product for passive income
• Add a new payment tier to your digital app 
• Pitch a brand partnership with a company you admire
• Seek out licensing deals on your writing, photos, or music
• Add affiliate links to your blog or YouTube video descriptions
• Start a paid newsletter
• Invest your money

Be cognizant of how many hours you have in a day or week—adding additional income streams should ideally not mean jumping from 20 hours a week to 60 hours. Instead, think of passive income streams or marginal changes you can make to your lifestyle business that would make a big difference. 

9. Make time for continuous learning

Getting better at your craft and improving your business will naturally come with years of experience and practice. But you can also be intentional about personal and professional growth by making time for learning and upskilling. 

Here are a few ways to inject learning into your life and business:

• Read books. From self-development and productivity books to guides on advertising and pricing, lessons from books can help you grow as a person and as a professional. Browse through this list of the 33 best business books for entrepreneurs for inspiration on what to read. 
• Listen to podcasts. If you prefer listening over reading, podcasts can be an excellent source of information and insight. Find podcasts on growth and self-development, like The Tim Ferriss Show and Huberman Lab; shows about lifestyle entrepreneurship or lifestyle design, like Indie Hackers and About Abroad; or podcasts directly related to your area of interest on topics like writing, content creation, software development, leadership consulting, and more. 
• Follow leaders in your space. Follow the social profiles, newsletters, blogs, or podcasts of people you admire to learn how they approach their own work and business. 
• Take a course. A well-designed course taught by a reputable instructor can answer questions you didn’t know you had and unlock opportunities you didn’t think were possible. Research courses in your field and ask questions before signing up. 
• Expand your services. Often, the best way to learn is by doing. Offer clients and customers new services at a lower cost as you learn the ropes of a new skill and put your knowledge into action. 

10. Find your entrepreneur community

Working for yourself as a solopreneur comes with freedom, but can also come with loneliness. Without the camaraderie of colleagues, it’s easy for the feeling of isolation to grow. Additionally, the benefit of working with large groups is having a collective to learn from. Approaching business alone can make it more challenging to grow in your craft—whether you’re a YouTuber or a freelance software engineer. 

Be intentional about cultivating a community of like-minded professionals who can relate to your experiences as a lifestyle entrepreneur and lend advice and a listening ear when you need it. 

Here are a few ways to find a professional community as a lifestyle entrepreneur:

• Attend industry conferences. Conferences and events related to your field are a good opportunity to learn about the latest trends in your industry while also meeting new people in your field. 
• Join online communities. Use Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn to seek out communities related to your work where you can connect with peers and share resources and learnings. If you’re an indie hacker, join Indie Hackers. If you’re a freelance writer in the media, join Study Hall. 
• Reach out individually. Be bold and make the first move—reach out to potential peers or mentors you want to connect with and learn from. Send a thoughtful note and ask for a virtual coffee meeting. Be specific with your request rather than broad, and be respectful of their time, asking for 30 minutes instead of an hour. The worst they can say is no.
• Join a co-working space. Even if you want to work primarily from home, occasionally visiting a co-working space is a good opportunity to get out of the house and meet other people who are pioneering their own income path. If you’re early in your lifestyle business journey, going to a coworking space also exposes you to more ideas as you get to know people and ask what they do.
• Take a cohort-based course. Brush up on your skills and acquire new ones while meeting like-minded people. Cohort-based courses have the advantage of everyone moving through the course at the same time. Often, cohort-based courses have a live video component, which means you can actually connect to people one-on-one versus doing a self-paced course on your own.