Starting your own business has never been easier, and there are so many options and possibilities to find a path that matches up with your personal skills and preferences.
This is an important point for anybody with ADHD. What makes life difficult in some situations can be an advantage in others.
You don’t have a lot of choices when it comes to traditional jobs. They can be rigid and inflexible, problematic for anyone who struggles with inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.
But when you run your own business you are, by definition, your own boss. You work when, how, where, and on what you want. You can take risks and follow your curiosity when it strikes.
It is little wonder then why people with ADHD are 60% – 80% more likely to have entrepreneurial intentions, and 500% more likely as likely to engage in entrepreneurship and self-employment than people without ADHD.
Business moguls like Virgin’s Richard Branson and IKEA’s Ingvar Kamprad have made the point that success is often achieved not in spite of ADHD, but in many ways because of it.
To help inspire your entrepreneurial spirit with some practical application, here are some ADHD business ideas, opportunities that should work particularly well given the unique mind you’re equipped with.
1. Consulting Service
If you have specific expertise in a field that could help other businesses, organisations, or other individuals, you could run your own consulting service to provide practical and tailored advice.
The most common fields would be marketing, business strategy, human resources, or technology, though many niches exist. There are also many opportunities to build and develop the required knowledge.
The role itself involves getting into the specific details and problems of each client. You’ll need to truly understand their goals and processes so that you can provide the most value.
You’ll also need to be adaptable and good at problem-solving, as you are unlikely to encounter the same problem twice and can have very diverse clients.
These are features that likely align with ADHD—you need to generate ideas quickly, and you have a stimulating variety of projects to put your mind towards, making you less likely to get bored and more likely to experience hyperfocus.
2. Coaching and Mentoring
In a coaching or mentoring position, you’re trying to help people reach their personal or professional goals. It’s different from consulting as the focus is more on personal development.
You generally run one-on-one sessions during which you help clients set goals, develop skills, solve problems and overcome hurdles.
You’ll need to have good interpersonal skills, to be good at listening and empathising with others. Some understanding of the psychology and research in the personal development space will also help.
Having managed ADHD symptoms is valuable as you’ll have firsthand experience in dealing with certain challenges, and the tools and lessons you’ve adopted can be passed on.
3. Hosting Mastermind Groups
A mastermind group is a group of people gathered together to help and support each other. It’s similar to a group coaching session where everyone helps everyone else.
The individuals usually share an interest—for example, they are all entrepreneurs—so that they have knowledge and experience to draw on that can be tailored and specific to the problems others are facing.
In a mastermind group, you would be the facilitator, meaning it’s up to you to organise the meetings, guide the discussions appropriately, and help foster effective collaboration.
This means you’ll need good leadership skills, you can’t be afraid of interrupting when the conversation goes off track, and you’ll need a knack for encouraging participation from more reserved participants.
You’ll be rewarded with diverse and stimulating discussions, and you’re likely to discover ideas that you can apply in your own life. Mastermind groups have taken off recently, this is an ADHD business idea with a lot of value.
4. Community Leadership
Community leadership is similar to running Mastermind groups, in that you help organise and manage a group of people around a shared interest.
Rather than the online meetings, this community can take part online or in person, over forums and social media groups, or at events and local clubs.
It’s also not necessarily about solving problems, it could be built around playing sports, making art, adventure travel, mediation, or any general shared interest.
Again, you’ll want good leadership, communication, and organisational skills to excel in this role, to keep the group active and to provide the value that incentivizes people to pay for a membership.
This can be a highly rewarding activity—when you get a good group together it fosters an inspiring environment, and you can form deep connections with people while engaging in fun activities.
5. Developing Online Courses
Unlike the first few ADHD business ideas, this one requires less social interaction. Rather, you turn your expertise and knowledge in a certain domain into an educational course that people can take online.
You have complete freedom over how you structure the course, how long it is and what subjects you cover, whether you sit in front of the camera or use other visuals, and how much you charge for it.
There are also a number of platforms that support the creation and hosting of courses, and plugins that give you the chance to host it on your own website.
This is a great passive income opportunity—once created, you make money every time someone signs up. There is still some maintenance, marketing, and interaction with messages and questions, but the hard work is done in creating it.
This is a perfect spot for those who prefer less social interaction. There is still plenty of scope for deep focus on interesting topics, and the flexibility and creative freedom in how the course is developed.
6. Content Creation
Where course creation requires a hefty investment of time and effort followed by relatively less, a content creator is engaged in a more constant flow of creation and publication.
Content creators can produce a range of media, including videos, podcasts, books, articles, and social media posts. The content should be based around a brand and act to build a community of fans and supporters.
Your business might be generating content for other businesses, or you might have your own products that the content is supporting (such as a course).
Like the course creation, this ADHD business idea thrives on the creative freedom you have. You can set your own schedule, focus on the topics that most interest you, and produce the types of media that you’re good at.
7. App and Software Development
Everybody has a smartphone these days, and each one is full of apps. Apps for entertainment, communication, problem-solving, education, navigation, and all sorts of other functions.
But there are always new opportunities to produce apps that do what others don’t, or that do the same things even better. Just think of what apps you’ve used that have frustrated you or simply left you thinking there must be a better way.
Developing apps and software is well known as a trigger to flow and hyperfocus, but traditionally it requires a high level of expertise in coding languages. These days this is less the case.
There are no-code platforms and AI applications that can streamline much of the technical stuff, leaving you tackle the higher-level design. This is great for someone with good critical thinking skills and attention to detail.
There’s endless flexibility, creative freedom, challenging learning opportunities, and of course income potential in developing these digital tools.
8. Graphic Design and Illustration
There’s been a lot of talk and concern about the impact of AI on digital artists and illustrators, the visuals these models are producing today are stunning and in many cases indistinguishable from reality.
But this has not made illustrators and designers redundant. AI is a new tool that designers can use to produce better designs in less time.
It also lowers the barrier to entry in this field. You don’t need to master every Photoshop feature, what you need are top-quality creative visions and the ability to realise them, with AI or not.
Designing is another activity that tends to produce flow states, it’s easy to get into a deep focus and overcome challenges intuitively when you have enough experience—which you can get with practice and/or online courses.
9. Ecommerce Entrepreneurship
When you want to design and sell your own products online, you’re engaging in e-commerce entrepreneurship. There’s a limitless space for creativity in what you make and how you sell it.
It might be physical products you make yourself, digital creations, items that others have made, or it could be services. You might sell it on your own site, or on a platform like Amazon or Etsy.
You’ll need to build a recognisable brand, be an effective marketer to get the word out, encourage feedback, and handle customer service.
This option will require time and effort, you aren’t likely to see results right away, but you do get flexibility and autonomy, and a variety of challenges, responsibilities, and projects as you run every aspect of your business.
10. Digital Marketing Services
If you prefer to focus your energies on the marketing side of e-commerce without the other activities like product creation, you can offer digital marketing services to other creators and businesses.
You’ll need to know how to promote products and target audiences using different marketing strategies, produce a variety of content, understand SEO and advertising options, and engage with people across social media channels.
There’s plenty of scope for creativity to shine here, and it’ll likely appeal to people who enjoy thinking analytically, working with metrics, and staying up to date with developments and trends.
Online marketing is a fast-paced and ever-changing environment, but one that offers a lot of learning opportunities and a variety of challenges that will keep your mind active and engaged.
Launch Your Own ADHD Friendly Business
All of these ADHD business ideas are delightfully unspecific—any one that you choose contains enough freedom that you can do it in your own unique way, to pick a path that aligns with your skills and interests.
What’s more, you don’t need to invest too heavily in time or money to get started—any skills you need can be learned online.
This makes experimentation possible, you can engage in trial and error to separate what works from what doesn’t, from where you thrive to what you prefer to avoid.
You can always change the path you’re on, and this is often the entrepreneurial way. Find and develop your strengths, and find the best way to put them to work, success will follow.
