Most anything that humans need or want can be turned into a microbusiness. Set it up to do it in a small space and with small inventory and a family member to operate it. Most things can also become a medium sized or large business too. It just takes more space, more inventory and more capital investment. When there is greater potential for loss one needs a more thorough market analysis, sales projections, and etc. But when it is a microbusiness, just try it and see how well it works. If you can attract enough paying customers you have a winner! If not, try something else.
NOTE: Money has to be made at two points:
First Point: The entrepreneurs who become agents for Recipe For Hope will start new businesses to create employment for local residents. Recipe For Hope agents need for those businesses to be profitable because the profits will earn them a bigger commission from Recipe For Hope.
Second Point: The residents of the area need to earn money by being hired to work in the new businesses. They improve their lives by working jobs and also by growing much of their own food and raising small livestock.
The list below is in no particular order. A creative thinker will add many more ideas to this list.
- Water, for drinking and cooking
- Used tires shipped in via container and resold
- Used clothing
- Mini pharmacies
- Beauty supply and cosmetics
- Simple auto parts—belts, brake fluid, spark plugs
- Mini store to sell rice, batteries, shoe strings, thread, cooking oil, batteries, etc.
- Cell phone recharging
- Computer & copy service and more
- Well “drilling” by hand, various methods, simple to mid-complexity
- Condensation water collection system
- Fish farming
- Fuel for cooking, as alternative to charcoal
- Construction of simple buildings
Most of these can be either stationery or mobile with various locations served on scheduled days or routes. The stationery ones will likely be in one room of someone’s house, or part of the room, or even a closet in the room or outside under a simple shed roof attached to the house.
- Block and brick making
- Street vendors selling sandwiches
- Repair shoes
- Repair and sell used items—all types of things
- Solar
- Mini Store for daily Essentials
- Mini Store for beauty products
- Medical supplies
- Selling automotive supplies (brake fluid, motor oil)
- Pharmacies
- Elder care
- Water and wells
- Tires
- Light mechanics
- Motor cycle repair
- Earthbag technology housing
- Pumps
- Toilets
- Land reclamation
- Growing food
- Livestock (goats, rabbits, pigs)
Aquaculture (the growing of fish and vegetable plants together. Garden vegetables are fertilized in water by the waste of fish and the water in turn is purified by the plants and recycled back as fresh water for the fish once again. Very little water needed and not extra fertilizer needed for the vegetables, One harvests vegetables and fish for meat.
- Automobile battery rejuvenation
- Chickens and eggs
- Oil Seed Press, produce cooking oil
- Barrel oven for baking bread and other items—heats up fast
- Teach English
- Sell produce
- Motorcycle repair
- Selling simple hand farm implements
Solar related: solar cooking, lighting, power for machines and tools, solar hot water —adobe solar barrel bakery.
- Solar panels, making them
- Anaerobic toilets
- Re-stores (building supplies & other)
- Bamboo building materials store
- CEB making business
- Brick, geopolymer, room temp dried, construction quality
- Cement making, geopolymer or Portland
- Ferro cement forms
- Lightweight insulated concrete panels
- Cabinets/counter, tops
- Bee keeping
- Candle making
- Clothes making
- Raising animals for milk production
- Ceramics
- Tire recapping (broken into several steps to provide more hire jobs)
- Toilet systems manufacturing and installation
Motorcycle/side car, “food truck” is another microbusiness idea that would apply to Haiti, etc. A local guy sells grilled corn on the cob and sweet potatoes on a motorcycle sidecar. The grill is part of the rig. A canopy keeps off the sun and rain. The best part is he can easily move around to where customers are. He parks outside office buildings, on busy streets and often right across from the largest supermarket.
The food is outstanding. The corn husk is charred, but the corn inside is cooked to perfection. People are often lined up and he’s making sales as fast as his hands can move. I’ve read on a Thai website that street vendors like this in busy areas make more money than teachers and ordinary office workers.
Oh... businesses like this operate tax free and don’t require any license here.
