Ask Lemmy

It’s not always about experience. Yes, experience helps, but it will only take you but so far. Focus on your confidence and ability to talk to people. If you’re quick to learn, and can ask smart questions, that’ll take you farther than you realize. You own your own business. That takes a great deal of skill:

1. Time management
2. Self Discipline
3. Customer relations
4. Dedication

I’m sure if you put your mind to it, you can think of a few more skills to add to that list.

Whatever you decide to do, you’ll probably get paid less to do it. Do not go so low that you hurt yourself financially. Balance low pay with other benefits (work/life balance, PTO, health insurance, etc). If they offer you one week vacation, ask for two. Hell, go for three. It is a two-way street after all. Ask them about professional development opportunities; no better way to build that experience than doing it on company time.

Good Luck OP!

Bookkeeping is easy to do from home, and since you've had some experience running a business you'll have a leg up. If you ever wanted to get an accounting degree (which is also possible with reputable fully online schools) you can easily get to $100k (US) in just a few years.

Customer service is probably the easiest entry level remote job to get, but quite soul sucking—especially if they make you use a script. One suggestion I can offer is grant writing if you’re okay at crafting an argument. You can find small local orgs who will let you help write to get some experience then apply for jobs that pay decently.

Learn how to crochet/sew/knit, get some hemp fabric/yarn, and start making some basic hemp things like granny squares and magic circles (advertised as hand towls and body/face scrubbers). Open a shop on etsy and start selling. Hemp stuff is making a huge comeback at least here in the US due to the 2018 farm bill legalizing it and it being an excellent fabric material with many boons such as superior strength (8x that of coton) thermal regulation for bed sheets, requiring half the water to produce more yield compared to cotton, being the most co2 absorbant crop on the planet, and replenishing the soil instead of draining it. People who care about the environment (and pot smokers) really love hemp and will pay good $ for quality products. Once you get some skill learn how to tailor/make clothes and you will be in a great place. Get a friend or family member to open a stand at a local farmers market a day or two a week, and if you are really successful get your own llc made and get tax writeoffs for all the yarn and fabric as business expenses.

Over here the government gives exemption from RTO to people in your situation, might be a possibility.

Remote IT help desk, either internal for a company, or for a managed services provider. Doesn't pay great (~50k) but you can do it without a college degree, expensive equipment, or really any certification. Honestly, you may even start with dispatching tickets, and then shift over into the support side as you learn the lingo, common problems, and common solutions.

I'd suggest at least taking a basic course on general computer troubleshooting, like Comp TIA A+, and one on networking like Comp TIA Net+. Having the certs would be great, but knowing the material and being able to demonstrate that in an interview is what employers really look for.

Call center or customer service, both of those at my company are fully remote so we can higher cheaper people and they hire basically anyone that breathes

You might consider a vlog documenting your efforts. It's a fairly saturated market, but if you can put out content regularly and tell a good story about what you are doing with an interesting style you can turn a marginal business into money-maker with the additional income from viewers who are interested in watching your story.

It's not easy, and it takes a variety of (learnable) skills and some time to get going, but you can work on your own schedule from your house and potentially take advantage of your collection of random skills.

Data management, freelance journalism, GIS jobs. Many different organizations have positions that can be done remotely. Just looking at usajobs.gov search key word 'remote", 1400 jobs are currently open. If you don't have enough experience, there are also online universities and free courses you can take to get that experience. Good luck.

Solo Web dev is very competitive. It’ll take a while before you are able to get paying clients, especially if you’ve not got a portfolio already. Be prepared to do a fair bit of free work first.