Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2013, during Spain’s economic crisis. It presents Google Hangouts on Google’s new social network (Google+) alongside Messenger and Skype, all since discontinued, and the 420 euro family assistance payment reflects Spain in 2013.
Many people ask me for micro-business ideas, believing that a micro-venture can be started with little investment and run part time. Ideal for young entrepreneurs, the unemployed and students. Personally, I don’t buy that concept, because a business is a business, and running a little kiosk selling sunflower seeds takes even more work than running a company the size of Apple.
So let’s call the ideas below ways to earn extra money that, over time, could become very profitable businesses. They belong to people I know who turned to them when the crisis hit, and so far they’re doing well. It’s a matter of making the most of what you’re good at.
10 micro-business ideas for young entrepreneurs
1. Handmade woolen goods
Perhaps this is a good business idea for homemakers. Sandrine Pourraz spent the whole winter selling wool scarves and hats she made herself. She started by selling them to her neighbors and friends, then through Facebook, and she’s even had orders from outside Spain. She’s not about to compete with Inditex (the owner of Zara), but she’s found a handmade way to make money, helped, of course, by the internet for her sales.
2. Ideas using Google Hangouts or Skype
Although there’s Messenger and Skype, Google’s new social network gives us Hangouts, free video calls in which a group of people can be connected at the same time. You can use this, as Sandrine (from the previous idea) also does, to give language lessons, or, like many other people, to give private online lessons in any subject (math, language and so on). You can teach a group for €5 a head, which is a very profitable way to make the most of the time you put into the class, or you can offer something more personalized. You set the price.
3. Customized sneakers and clothing
If you’re good at art or drawing, you can customize sneakers or clothing. On The Little Summer we can see sneakers decorated with all sorts of drawings. They’re hand-painted (though I imagine stencils are involved). As in the previous cases, this entrepreneur started by making customized sneakers for friends and family. Then he made the leap to Facebook and set up his own page. He must be doing well, because I found out about him when I saw a friend wearing a pair he’d made. I’m told he often gets orders from mothers who want their children’s sneakers to feature their favorite artist, comic or character.
4. Selling on eBay… but how
I ran into a guy I hadn’t seen for a while and asked him: “How’s it going? What are you doing these days?” He told me he was selling on eBay and doing pretty well. Since he used to repair computers, he started taking parts from old computers (batteries, keyboards, memory cards…) and putting them up for sale on eBay. They sold, so today his storage room is full of things people ask him to sell for them. He’s also buying other items for cash and then listing them on eBay at a higher price. These days, he says his new life is going «full steam ahead».
5. Writing online
The internet has websites about everything (mechanics, cooking, economics, motivation, entrepreneurship…), and you can probably write about one of these subjects, so it’s a matter of finding a website on a specific topic and offering to contribute. There are already sites specializing in «freelance work» where a company or individual can ask for a translation, have some texts typed up, get a tax return done, and so on. Writing online isn’t exactly lucrative, but several writers who contribute to moderately visible websites tell me you can earn more than the €420 «ayuda familiar» (a Spanish unemployment assistance payment).
6. For law graduates
It’s not a good time for law graduates, but quite a few are already using new technology to make money from their training. A while ago we talked about business ideas for lawyers (read that article to find out how you can earn money as a virtual lawyer). I’m hearing about unemployed lawyers who advise people on their legal concerns for a token fee per consultation. Sometimes they’ll advise you for €5 or €10, and if the case is more serious and needs in-person assistance, you can hire them for that too, if the distance allows. Basically, we’re talking about the virtual lawyer.
7. A helpline
After I wrote about the fortune-telling business, several people asked me about it. Starting from the premise that, to me (and I hope nobody takes offense), psychics are a complete fraud, a woman wrote to ask whether a helpline for people going through hard times would be a good idea. She had lived a lot, and intensely, going through all kinds of hardship without ever losing hope, so she wouldn’t be deceiving anyone: she wasn’t going to predict the future, just give people advice based on her own experience. Two months ago she wrote to me again to say the idea was proving very successful because it stood out from the rest, and that she felt proud of all the people she’d been able to help. Today you can apply this idea to many subjects. There are even stock market psychics you can call to tell you which shares will go up and which will go down.
8. Photography
If your passion is photography, there’s a business in that too. The crisis hits everyone, including the sex workers who advertise on contact pages. Many want their own «online portfolio» and would like it to be affordable and good quality. If photography is your thing and you’re good at Photoshop, there’s a potential clientele. You can also take photos for companies and individuals, or shoot wedding videos, of course.
9. Ideas for university students
University students are the ones who ask me most about micro-businesses, when really they should find it easiest. To start with, they can apply what they’re learning in their degree to earn extra money with any of the ideas in this article (except knitting), above all private lessons, online or in person. Of course, some students want to start a real venture. In that case, I know 5 university students in Granada who opened a café-pub in the city. Some have classes in the afternoon and others in the morning, so they take turns. They have a ready-made clientele of university students, so the marketing strategy is simple. They say that so far it’s a profitable business that’s paying for their studies. They’re even thinking of keeping it going once they finish their degrees.
10. Distributing advertising
This type of business requires no investment and is very profitable. In fact, it’s a shame that small and medium-sized businesses don’t use mailbox leafleting as often as they used to, because it’s still one of the most direct forms of advertising. This kind of business can be micro or it can be huge. It all depends on the approach you take.
11. More micro-business ideas
In previous posts we talked about 10 businesses with no investment.
We also gave 9 ideas for making money from home (let’s call them micro-businesses).
Other people look for all kinds of original products and bring them back to their own country. Thanks to the internet, the possibilities for doing business are endless. And clearly, if you have advanced technical skills, that’s where, right now, entrepreneurs are becoming millionaires in a short time.
Featured image: Bernard Spragg. NZ, CC0 1.0, via Flickr.
