How about order taking. $5000 would be a great amount to start advertising. You place adds in newspapers and take phone orders from home at your kithen table or home office. It would be like a answering service but you make a commission for every order you get or appointment you set. A good example would be taking calls for a roofing company. You place the add, take the call and set appointments with a pre arranged contractor and get a percentage if the roofer gets the job. Most roofs take one or two days so you would not have to wait that long to get your commission. Some alarm companies also pay you to get them customers. You may only get a few calls a week so find five companies or more and place lots of adds in newspapers and maybe hand out fliers. Some newspaper adds are cheap and if your afraid of losing your $5000, start out small with a few hundred dollars untill your confident that you will get your money back and still make a profit. A lot of people start businesses that they know absolutly nothing about but the idea is if you dont know anything about the business hire someone that can fill in your weak spots. Good Luck Brian Miner http://businessbooksinc.com