Even large, successful conglomerates started out small, and many started at home in someone’s garage. You may not have visions of this type of grandeur, but either way – chances are you’ll need to start small. Here are some great business ideas to start at home, and if you need to expand into real office space, wonderful!There’s a big difference between providing a service, and selling product. Many at home businesses provide a service because there is no need to find space for product inventory. Providing a service also reduces any start up costs because you don’t need to buy ingredients or products or parts in order to manufacture your product.Providing a service also eliminates the need to worry about merchandise you can’t sell. For instance, selling cookies might be a natural talent, but what happens if you have a few dozen left over that you can’t sell? Sure, it happens to everyone, but if it happens too often it can eat up your profits.The fee for a service also can be negotiated. Even though time is money, and knowledge is gold, it’s all negotiable. With a product, you have an absolute break even point where that product must be sold before you start to lose money. You have a lot of leeway in pricing your service without running into problems.Even though some states force companies to add sales tax to services rendered, an informal (unregistered) company probably won’t get to the point that it starts charging taxes and paying sales taxes. On the other hand, if you are selling any type of product, almost all states charge a state sales tax. If your state finds out you are selling products without charging tax, states aren’t normally too forgiving; you could be hit with some serious penalties. (Internet based companies are different; check with a tax attorney before getting too involved with your new venture.)If you do decide to go ahead and provide a service because it’s so much easier, here are some simple services you can offer that are in demand and can easily make you enough to at least pay your bills – to begin with!Try doing some office administration work; sewing; tailoring; babysitting; pet sitting; house organization, personal shopping or even driving elderly patients to doctor appointments. Can you cook? Bake? Even selling your famous butterscotch brownies to local coffee shops can earn some impressive returns.