Some Background

I tend to work in the field of "All things technical." The upside is that when I work on a project, its fruits are immediately visible to the entire world. This also has a great deal of downsides.

• Once an idea comes to fruition in the form of a website or app, the whole world has access to deconstruct it.
• After my group has done the work of creating the customer experience, it is out in the open for the entire world to improve on and compete against.
• Since my group paid for the initial development, any other startup has access to that process for little (or no) investment.
• Improving on an idea or customer experience is orders of magnitudes cheaper than developing a new idea.

While I am comfortable with the above risks, I am finding that this model does not fit well with a great deal of potential entrepreneurs' comfort levels and technical skills sets. This got me thinking about opportunities that might exist for people outside my technical world.

Business Ideas that are Less Technology Reliant

One of the biggest questions I get is, "How do I start a small business without having to learn the internet?" At first, this question boggled my mind. Initially, I thought that I was being asked how to start a business without having to learn something new. This is NOT what I was being asked. On further inspection, I found that they were really asking me: How do I start a small business while fully utilizing the skills I already have. My new understanding of what they were asking me made all the difference.

After thinking about this at depth, I realized that there are several businesses that could be completely self sustaining with minimal financial outlay and minimal technical expertise required.The could be:

• Locally run: They would not require the entrepreneur to compete on a global scale.
• Service based: They would allow the businessperson to provide services that a customer wants on a local scale.
• Minimally reliant on bricks and mortar: While the economy has taken a dive, landlords have not gotten the message. They are perfectly content with leaving their properties vacant until the economy can fuel their requirements for rent dollars.
• Outsource Proof: There are still businesses out there that cannot be shipped to China. Really, there are.

So Where are these Big Ideas?

Okay, okay. In the next few days, I will outline a few of these businesses that could be started in just a few days with minimal expense. I would love to hear more ideas from the readers, and most of all, I would love to hear your success stories with using these ideas or variants of such.

Addendum

As I complete the articles, I will list them here, so you can follow along with the home game.

• Idea 1 - Salon Deliveries. Deliver supplies from brick and mortar shops to brick and mortar salons to save stylists time and money.
• idea 2 - Diaper Service. Gather soiled cloth diapers from new mommies, and provide new, clean diapers.