Ready made businesses or business opportunitties fit the bill here. Do a search in the Business Resources Directory opportunities. Here are two very good sites that list telecommuting positions.
Affiliate programs are a good in between solution.
You are still self-employed, but you don't have to incur the costs and time of developing a product and starting up a business. You don't need to handle payments or order fullfillment. Someone else does this for you. Your job is to promote the product. Many programs will show you how to do just that.