The Best Business Ideas In Singapore For 2023

Business ideas in Singapore

Starting a business isn't easy. If you want to succeed you will have to make some sacrifices and that is something not many people are willing to do. A new venture will require your time and your money. Instead of spending the weekends shopping or out with friends, you will have to get some work done. Instead of buying the latest iPhone and shoes, you will have to use that money to build out a business.

An Entrepreneur knows that today there is $5 000 in their account. If they buy some nice things they will be happy but back in the same place they were before and will need to work hard to save up another $5000. So instead of buying those things today, they will see how they can turn that $5 000 into $10 000 and then into $100 000 and only once they reach that stage, will they reward themselves with some nice things.

As we transition into 2022, the business environment has changed a lot over the past 2 years. The world was hard hit by the covid-19 pandemic and with lockdowns and travel restrictions, millions of small business was forced into closure. With no travel, hotels and airlines had no customers, with dining restrictions, malls, restaurants, and bars have been struggling to survive and with that all the businesses that are reliant on them also suffered.

With the current ongoing situation, many people might feel that the risk to start a business is just too high. It looked as if the pandemic was coming to an end and that the world be be reopening by January 2022, then Omicron hit and countries reimposed restrictions and travel bans. Singapore had finally started to open up by launching VTL's with many countries, including it's close neighbor, Malaysia. Omicron resulted in these being paused until the situation is reevaluated.

But the world will eventually reopen, and these businesses will bounce back if they are resilient enough. It will take a while before things go 100% back to as they were. Infant, many things will never go back to the way they were. The pandemic help many people realize that work could be done remotely and many things could be done digitally over a phone or computer. Not only could it be done, but it could be done a lot quicker and easier than before!

Businesses and entrepreneurs in Singapore are working with software developers to move more of the economy digital. With more and more industries pivoting their businesses to digital or hybrid (physical plus digital) there has never been a better time try out a business idea of your own. New businesses are often created out of new trends, situations or innovations. So whether you want to build a business that helps Singaporeans better navigate a pandemic such as Covid-19, follow a new cultural trend, or take advantage of a new trends such as 5G, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, here are just a few interesting ideas you could try out:

1. Health App

If there is anything we have learnt from the past 2 years of lockdowns and hospitals filling up their capacities, is the important of health, both physical and mental. Perhaps if the overall health of Singaporeans had been a lot better, Covid-19 would have had less of an impact on the community.

An idea could be to develop an app that educates people about nutrition and exercise. The app could include guided videos, tracking and even a social or community aspect. The app could make use of machine learning and AI to learn about their routines and personalize guidelines just for them. Data could be gathered from mobile phones, wearables such as smart watches and other connected devices.

You could also build a metaverse experience where people and exercise in their homes, but interact with people online as if they were doing the activity together. They could compete, motivate each other and just have a lot of fun together.

2. Long-stay Hotels

The industry worst hit was definitely the travel industry with many hotels closing their doors as international travelers stay home due to travel restrictions. If it wasn't for staycations and domestic travel many of these hotels would have been no more! Many experts say that travel as we know it is over, but the truth is, travel will be back. It might take a while but it is 100% coming back.

One trend that has seen a tremendous amount of growth these past years is remote work. Now many people are able to do their work from anywhere there is an internet connection. So there is a big opportunity in creating a space for them to call hom for month or two. A hotel with long term facilities such as a kitchen, gym, co-working space and meeting rooms, would be a great idea. Right now there are vary few of these hotels in Singapore and people are using Airbnb for long term bookings instead.

3. Online Course or Bootcamp

Another trend that is picking up steam is skill based hiring. University is fantastic, but the courses simply don't prepare students for the workplace. The courses give students a broad understanding of the field they are in, but don't teach them the exact skills and tools they need to use in a work environment. The Singapore government recently partnered with Linkedin to launch a program, called Skills Path, which aims to change the way people are hired by focusing on skills instead of education and connections.

In order to take full advantage of this system people will need to sign up to courses that teaches them the skills they need to get a job, so that opens up an opportunity for experts to create courses that focus on teaching people specific skills for the modern work environment.

4. Service Business

As it continues to become easier to start a business more and more people are going to be looking to outsource certain tasks instead of hiring an in-house person in order to stay lean and flexible. It might be that they don't have the stability to pull in someone on a full time contract, they want to keep their internal management lean or just want to hire experts. If you have skill in anything from design, development to marketing their will always be place for you to offer your services as a freelancer or by starting your own company.

5. Build An Audience

If you've been living on planet Earth, you must have at least heard about Instagram, Youtube, Twitter and Tiktok. You've also visited a website called Google and after a few searches, you've read a few blog posts or news articles. Each of these platforms allows people to create content in different formats and share with people. You can share fun or educational things about your life, hobbies or talents and build up a following. That can then open you up to all sorts of opportunities to turn it into a business just like these Singaporeans. Whether you are funny or know about about health, fitness, beauty or food, now is a perfect chance for you to share what you know.

6. Chatbot

Another business idea is to create a chatbot. Chatbots can be used by local businesses in Singapore for things such as customer service. These bots use natural language processing and predefined commands to answer questions accurately. Singapore airlines has their own Kris Bot that does just that! Another example is Agoda. They use a chatbot to provide users with details such as booking information, hotel policies and options to manage their bookings. By doing this they end up saving a lot of customer support hours and and then cut down on the amount of people they need to hire in call centers. A good business idea would be to develop these Chatbots for local businesses in Singapore or even develop one of your own that many people can use.

7. AR/VR App for Real Estate or Tavel

With the growth of augmented reality and virtual comes the opportunity to build a business by taking advantage of the new technology to create new kinds of experiences. During the pandemic it wasn't so easy to take a look at places to buy or rent so people were heavily reliant on pictures and videos from online platforms such as 99.co, but how about taking it a step further. You could create a business that lists condos, HBD flats and homes on an AR/VR application that allows people to put on the glasses and do a virtual walk through's as if they were actually there. That way they could see all the specific details of the place and get a good idea of the actual size as well as any additional facilities. Since travel has been limited there has been a lot of popularity in virtual walk through videos on Youtube where people walk through their cities and show what it is like. An AR/VR app where people could explore places from their own homes would be an interesting idea to experiment with in 2022!