Over the last few years I did paper start ups twice in the Philippines, with one of these progressing within my family (wife's family), the other being gifted to the local Barangay Captain- Village Chief. The former is a concept I came up with to sell ladies fashion & lollies in the same store- lollies & lingerie, for the mums & kids- it has worked for 3 years now, cost me about $2000 all up to start, decorate, stock etc. The latter was a photographic T shirt printing shop. I negotiated 2 years free rent on the closest surf beach to Manila for 1000 T shirts every 4 years when Barangay elections are held- so the cheif could put his ugly mug on half the town's bellies.In the end wife's health issues took over & I gave him the info I was using for the business plan & he ran with it. I made no money but made a powerful friend in a beautiful place & from memory the business registration was a total of $35.00 US.
In Australia, business start up costs are prohibitive, the general rule of thumb is even for the smallest business, a start up $50k & another $50k line of credit is bare bones minimum. Ie- about 25 times the cost of setting up a similar business in a developing country. I am working on a new project in Australia around solar electric picnic boats. If you look around these are the only growing boat market under the mega yacht class. With input prices dropping, a product seen as very 21'st century cool, suiting the suburban elite, I can build something in my back yard with tools I already own, which should more than pay for it's build cost. I can see similar rigs I guess at $10k builds excluding labour going for $30-$50k.
Some evocative images:
I'm doing a bit of woodcarving for craft markets, very early days & I'd way rather mess about with boats.
In previous efforts in micro business- venetian glass, mobile studio/ organic herb & veg farming/ garden maintenance/ boat maintenance & repair/ harvest contracting/ transport contracting/ recyclables collection & trade (current),
What kinds of micro business have posters here been into or might go into in the future?
What themes will nuance micro & small business opportunity over the coming decade or so?
I am currently depending on people needing to eat fresh fruit & vegetables, JIT contracting, & return trips with recycling paper as a side business. I could keep this job until TEOTWAWKI, but I'm not built like that. It all happens early morning so have a lot of spare daylight hours now I just finished a course at university (phew).
