Success at being your own boss comes down to one thing, preparation. You need to understand all of the ins and outs of the business you choose to run from home before you open the doors. If this is something that you have been investigating, you will want to read on to discover what it takes to run a few different businesses from your home. The following are ten good paying jobs that can get you started on work from home opportunities. Take a look at them and then start doing your homework to learn all you can about them, before you jump in feet first.

The buying and selling of antiques can be a lucrative business that could carry you well into the future. If you have the space to store your finds and hold sales, the only other thing you will need is a home office to keep track of everything. Start your research into this field by picking up either Priceless Guide to the Antique Business by Patrick Campbell or How to Make Money in the Antiques-and-Collectibles Business by Elyse Sommer

Have you won prizes for your cakes or other baked goods? You might want to consider taking this a step further and start selling your concoctions. You would need to check with your local business association or license department to see what guidelines they require of a home business such as this and then do some research on what to charge. One of the best ways to do this is to check other home bakers in the area and local bakeries to see what they are charging for similar products. You also need to know how much you can accomplish in your own kitchen and where you might find a larger kitchen if you had a huge order to fulfill. Check out local churches to see if they would rent you their kitchen for a nominal fee or donation to the church.

Are you an empty nester who lives in an area where you could open your home on the weekends to travelers? You need to be in an area of interest for this one to work. Check out the historical society in your area and see what would attract potential travelers for a weekend getaway to your town. You only need to spruce up one room in your home for this to bring in a tidy sum over a long weekend. Can you take one of the smaller rooms in your home and make the master bedroom a suite for weary weekend travelers? Think outside the box by offering tickets to a local performance at the high school or if you have a center of performing arts that uses local talent. Serve breakfast, but guide them to hidden restaurant treasures in your town for dinner.

You will need to find out what the state regulations are and how to meet them. In many states, you can have up to a certain number of children before the state will want to know what you are doing. Can you provide meals, educational games and toys, and do you have room to equip a play area outside for the little ones? You also need to be aware of safety issues with cribs, car seats, high chairs, etc to effectively run your own in home daycare.

If you have any kind of background in this area, you may want to think about the differing avenues you can take with this one. You can do repairs, offer technical advice, or possibly run a service out of your home for outsourcing data entry. Desktop publishing is another option here. This one will be around for a while so will offer endless possibilities for the home worker.

Do you have a large area you could turn into a specialty garden? Could you start your own organic herb farm? Growing plants for a profit not only helps your pocket but the environment as well.

Their are any number of imports that can be bought and shipped to the US for sale at little cost to you. Check into this, but remember you will need a place to store your inventory and take stock of it on a regular basis. Keeping track of all the inventory and shipments would require a home office and really good organizational skills.

If you have a flair for design, check out what it would take to get started in this business buy reading up on it on-line. The hours are flexible and you don't have to keep to much inventory at your home office.

The field of photography is a wide open slot. Digital photographs can be sold to various different mediums online as well as to magazines. If you have any talent at writing, try selling the picture along with a story about it.

This by far is the hardest one to accomplish. You really need to do your homework in this area. Does what you make fill a need that people will buy? How will you promote the business and will you have to travel to local craft fairs? It is a challenge, but one worth undertaking if you have a good product.

Hopefully, you have found an idea or two to spark your desire to get started working from home and learning about the many opportunities out there available to you. Above all, whatever you choose, enjoy your new found work from home opportunity and don't let it become a stressor in your life.

This article copyright to lynnechandler at HubPages 2009 with all rights reserved.