Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2015, when IKEA did not offer an assembly service, as the article says; IKEA has offered assembly through TaskRabbit since acquiring it in 2017. Remote-control programming is also a 2012-era idea.
Today Mark Cuban is a well-known billionaire, but before that he was what you might call a hustler, with all kinds of ideas for making money from the most unusual and, at the same time, simplest things.
Perhaps that knack for making money at any moment is what later led him to become the billionaire he is today. One of Cuban’s premises is that solving big money problems sometimes just takes solving very simple ones.
From making good money selling stamps at 16 to giving music lessons for $25 an hour at a sorority while he was at Indiana University, Cuban has never lost that ability and skill for making money.
See also: Mark Cuban: 6 things that make you great in business
On his personal blog, Blog Maverick, Cuban shared two somewhat unusual ways of making money that he used himself as a student, and so he recommends them to students and, of course, to people who are out of work. Even to people who have a job and want to earn some extra money.
They worked for Cuban, and he says he made more than the minimum wage, so chances are someone else can find a way to make them work too.
Hard work and customer service are all you need to make extra money, according to Cuban.
Selling shoelaces
Cuban suggests going to the entrance of any sporting event, whether it’s a big football or basketball game or any local event. Take a large supply of shoelaces in your team’s colours with you. Put up a sign and two chairs near the spot with the most foot traffic, and get ready to make money.
It may sound like a slightly absurd idea, but it worked for Cuban.
Programming all-in-one remote controls
This takes more effort and skill, but according to Cuban there’s good money in it, because it solves a basic problem many people face. People are buying a single remote to replace all their remote controls, and many of them have neither the know-how nor the desire to learn all its functions.
As soon as you become an expert at this, Cuban advises heading to electronics stores and offering to help the store’s customers solve the problem. The store will probably be interested in your service (if they don’t offer it themselves) because it would help them sell more “gadgets”. And if the price is affordable, there are clearly plenty of people who would rather pay for things that aren’t hard for someone who understands them but are an ordeal for someone who doesn’t.
Cuban says this business idea earned him quite a lot of money. You can always adapt it to your own market, of course, and perhaps not just with remote controls but with other devices too.
You don’t have to discover a cure for cancer to make money, so you can always expand on these ideas and fit them to other simple needs people may have.
Some people have made money assembling IKEA furniture, since the company didn’t offer that service, while others have earned money helping a family set up a computer and explaining the basics to them.
Others have offered their services selling homemade desserts to restaurants at weekends, baking the desserts and cakes in their own homes.
Remember that looking for ways to make money is a profession in itself, one where you are always learning and each way of making money leads you to the next.
These days there are many ways to make money online and, of course, endless possibilities for earning money from home.
See also: 29 ideas for making money from home
Featured image: Keith Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
