The tough economic times may be dealing hard blows on big business, but they are giving an auspicious start to many home-based businesses in the country.

The reasons are obvious. Doing business while staying at home requires much smaller startup costs; you don’t have to pay a small fortune for a fancy office and the staffing and utilities to maintain it. And, of course, family members and others living in the household can be expected to help or pitch in for you anytime and on short notice—often without need to pay them hefty overtime or holiday compensation.

Even more gratifying, a great many home-based businesses become the seed bed or takeoff point for bigger, more ambitious mainstream businesses, some of which blossom into multimillion-peso ventures even if they continue to be run at home.

The following are examples of businesses that were started from the comfort of home, and the brains behind each idea. Read on, and maybe you too can be inspired to put your brewing idea into action.

Punchdrunk Panda: A stylish bag for laptops

Bosom buddies Jennifer Horn and Nathania Gail Go have known each other since grade school. After their graduation from college in May 2006, they decided to pursue a sideline business together. Go says they did this so that as partners, they could mutually judge each other’s work and improve on each other’s ideas.

They initially wanted to put up a T-shirt business, but opted to go into the bag business instead, availing of the services of a friend who could produce the bags for them.

The duo saw a business opportunity in specializing in laptop sleeves. They felt that by designing funky patterns for their sleeves, they could dramatically improve the bland designs of laptop bags.

They then invested P100,000 to produce laptop bags in 14 different designs and launched their business online in the Multiply social networking site in July 2007. Horn and Go named their company Punchdrunk Panda, a quirky title that fit the nature of their business. It’s been doing brisk business ever since.

Horn says they chose Multiply because they saw its potential based on the presence of local online stores in the website. Through a feedback mechanism, they were able to iron out kinks in their product. Now, the duo plan to make Punchdrunk Panda the local equivalent of the popular Hello Kitty brand by coming up with personalized design options.

Indigo Baby: Customized baby and maternity products

Business partners Monica Eleazar and Denise Gonzales conceived their business in 2007 when each was heavy with her first child. Having left their corporate jobs to become full time moms, they came up with an idea to make customized accessories for babies and their mothers.

“We talked and realized that we didn’t want to work for somebody else forever,” Eleazar recalls. “We didn’t like the idea of having only two months of maternity leave and of leaving our babies with complete strangers. So we figured that we should start doing something that we love to do. We decided to start a small business with a few products.”

Pooling P100,000 each in initial capital, the two best friends put up Indigo Baby in October of 2007 with an initial product line of 300 pieces of nappy clutch, 100 pieces of reversible nursing bib, and 400 pieces of all-natural bed-and-bath products. They posted their products on their Multiply.com accounts, and watched as the orders poured in.

The bulk of their sales were to come from online transactionsand they were able to recoup their investment in a year.

“On a good day, we would make P5,000 to P8,000,” Gonzales says. “The lowest we have gotten so far is about P1,000. And there’s still a lot of potential because we haven’t really done PR yet; it’s been all through word of mouth.”

Although they have kept Indigo Baby home-based, Eleazar and Gonzales have since taken their online business to a higher level. Officially pursuing Indigo Baby as a dotcom business, they launched an international website for it last year, Indigobabyshop.com. Indigobabyshop.com now has wholesale buyers in Singapore and Malaysia, so the partners recently put up P250,000 in additional capital to meet the growing demand.

Want to start your own home based business? Read the April edition of Entrepreneur Magazine, available in all Mini-Stop outlets and bookstores nationwide. Learn how the featured entrepreneurs turned their home into a money making venue and see how you too can make it big.

Tags: home based business indigo baby punchdrunk panda features must read

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