I Challenge You
I challenge you.  Here is a simple web business with less-than-$20.00 start-up costs that you can start today.  I challenge you.  This business model allows you to create a product that you can sell a thousand times without additional work.  The $20 is the cost to host a website.  Use Hostgator. 

DVDs, CDs, Books and eBooks, digital file downloads (songs, templates, clip-art), etc. allows you to create a product that you can sell thousands of.  But to sell these, you either need to create them yourself, or license resell rights from others.

Sell Time By The Project
A standard business model is to sell your services by the project, like a house-painter or auto-mechanic or other skilled laborer.  "Sell time by the project" business model means that you only get paid once for each job you take on.  With this business model there is no real way to leverage your efforts or your time.  Understandably, in a slow economy you can't always be picky about how you earn money, so sometimes you may need to sell your skills by the project.  Consider a business that allows you to get paid beyond the project itself.  Here's an example of such a business.

DemoGirls
The two sisters behind 'Demo Girls' created a web business where they offer to create a two-minute screen cast about any product or website for just $99.

Customers can go to the DemoGirl website, view a short video, and then click the $99 special link to order a custom made screen cast about their product.  The 2-minute video on their front page explains what they do.  As you can see, it is a pretty simple business model.

Here is how it works:
The client provides a little information about the product, sends photos, and pays $99 and the Demo Girls create a screen cast for the client.

While you probably won't get rich selling screen casts for $99, doing just a few per week can add up.

Here's my challenge to you: Create your own 'Demo Girl' kind of business.

Creating your own business like this is extremely simple.  All you really need is a six page web site, an order form, and a web form to accept payment, like PayPal.

Once you have the web site set up, you can start promoting your video creation services to potential clients.

Production and Marketing
If I were going to create something along the lines of a Demo Girl business, I'd want to target local businesses in my area, and create videos using Animoto or Muvee Reveal.

With Animoto you can quickly create professional looking videos in minutes.

Using tools like Muvee Reveal and Animoto allows you to quickly turn out quality short video productions, ideal for YouTube and the web.  When you are charging just $99 per video, being able to turn these out quickly is important.  Of course, if the client just wants a screencast of a web site or software product, the tool of choice would be Camtasia.

How Do I Find Clients Who Want Videos for Their Business?
To find clients, start with the local Yellow Pages.  Next, purchase postcard mailers.  Copy the addresses for each of those businesses onto a postcard mailers.  Once you've created a list of clients with addresses and phone numbers who could use your services, write up a short but convincing advertisement using this format: 1) Get the reader's attention; 2) Show the benefits of your product or service; 3) Prove that benefit; 4) Convince your audience of the advantage; 5) and Ask for action.  Send postcards to local businesses, offering to create a 1 minute YouTube video for their business for just $99.

Most small and medium-sized businesses would love to have a video they could refer customers to on YouTube and/or their own web site.  Once you started doing work for these businesses, chances are they might contract with you for more videos, or for longer videos--all of which would increase the income these projects would create.

As your business expands, consider hiring local talent to create the videos for you--high-schoolers with digital cameras and computers can do the work, and often will be happy for the job experience.  This could be built up into a nice income stream, without requiring much of an investment in time or equipment.