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This video is not about the next Unicorn startup, $1B business idea. If I had that, I wouldn't
be here, probably.
This video is about our new world reality, a reality in which 26MM people have lost their
jobs (just in the US) and industries have been brought to a halt, and will take months or years to recover.
So, this video has business ideas for everyone. They might not become unicorns, but can certainly
provide a job, a lifestyle, and the potential to grow if you are good at it.
To me, being an entrepreneur was a choice. I went the corporate route and then decided
to quit my job to start my own business. Not anymore. The next wave of entrepreneurs, the
world will see, were likely employed up to March 2020, and their new businesses might
come from necessity.
The thought exercise for this video was, what if I had lost my job, what would I do?
So here are some business ideas for a world in lockdown.
So billion-dollar business ideas don't come under pressure. They happen rarely, and they
take months and years to test and develop. You might not have months or years.
So if I didn't have a job, and couldn't find one, the first thing I'd do would be generating
some income for stability, which would allow me to think straight and use my spare time
to nurture that other idea.
Finding a job is easier than starting a business- and if I were to find a job in today’s environment,
I’d start by navigating my network, people I know, instead of applying to openings where
I don’t have any relevant advantages.
But that’s not what this video is about.
Your focus should revolve around your skills and your experience. I, designer-tech-geek,
am not going anywhere by starting a food truck.
The same rules for unicorn startups apply here: the first team needs to be able to generate
$10,000 without having to hire anyone else. If you are missing a specific skill to get
there, then that person should be a co-founder, not an employee.
But now that we mentioned food, here's the first idea: start a home kitchen. This seems
to be a new up and coming trend, which was officially legalized in California with the
Cottage Food Law and the Microenterprise Kitchen Operation.
I think there's an opportunity here. People are working from home, might not have time
to cook, and want to avoid junk food while spending less. There's a growing market that
will not stop when the world reopens.
I expect similar legislation will be available in other states and other countries soon.
Maybe it already is.
Platforms like UberEats have allowed plenty of tiny kitchen operations to spring around
the world, small enterprises that probably couldn't afford to maintain a full-fledged
restaurant in a location with foot traffic, but are now exposed to a whole new audience.
Another idea, websites.
While starting a blog is an option, it's going to be REALLY tough to compete, and it'll take
months to generate any meaningful income if you are relying on ads.
But, there's an opportunity on retail; which has been forcefully digitalized, and many
stores were not prepared to be completely online.
While you might think Amazon rules the world of online shopping, and they do, there are
still billions of dollars of retail transactions occurring from small stores; many operated
via Shopify.
Not a commercial for Shopify, but there are over 500,000 stores in the platform, not to
mention Squarespace and Webflow.
So,
a) Build a store of your own; it's super easy.
At least the store part. I don't know anything about handling the store.
b) Help other people with their stores.
All these platforms have been created so that small entrepreneurs can build and host their
stores, and they are all pretty easy to use. Still, not everyone is tech-savvy.
There's an industry for people who are experts in these platforms to offer help to the business
owners, either configuring the stores from scratch or making adjustments and changes.
I know the CEO of AskLorem which connects those two. Check it out.
Going beyond websites, you can look at platforms like 99Designs, Upwork, and Fiverr.
While 99Designs is design-focused, Upwork connects people with skills ranging from writing,
administrative support, customer service, marketing, accounting- with potential clients.
We are looking for people who can help us subtitle these videos to multiple languages,
and started our search in Fiverr.
The first money I ever made as a designer came from Upwork, $99 for a Flash animation.
Ancient history.
These might sound like just freelance work, but entire companies have been built around
successful Upwork or freelancer.com profiles. You just need to be good at what you do and
work hard to stand out.
Another growing industry is virtual assistants. We've hired a few at different stages in the
company to lend an extra pair of hands-on tasks that can't be fully automated by our
bots.
We have also spent a fair amount of money on platforms like UserTesting and UsabilityHub.
When we have a new interface or design that we want to test, we put it there and survey
users on what their thoughts are, and whether or not they found it intuitive.
You can join as a tester and make money for each review that you make. You might not be
making a living from it, but it's income while you sit at home, which is what we are doing
anyway.
Getting off your computer, look at something like TaskRabbit- which lets you offer your
services for anything from grocery deliveries to moving boxes or mounting a TV. TaskRabbit
connects you to clients.
I think the need for TaskRabbit-like platforms exists around the world, but as far as I know,
they don't have a strong presence outside the US.
And there aren't any established competitors.
Now content creation is another opportunity. Hey, look at us!
While it’s not easy to stand out in today’s competitive content and content marketing
world, I believe two key variables our content has are genuine stories and excellent production
value.
Now, we get tons of questions around the tools we use to make these videos.All the background
animation is done in Adobe After Effects. I found a great course by Jake Bartlett
that goes over all the details on Skillshare, that I am happy to recommend.
Skillshare agreed to give us 1,000 codes to get 2 free months on the platform, which you
can access from the link in the description. Another course I can recommend is Caleb Babcock’s
iPhone Filmmaking. It’s a quick 30 minute class on Skillshare, on creating Cinematic
Video With Your Phone.
We publish 2 weekly videos on startup advice and company success and failure stories, a
series we call Company Forensics. If you haven’t already, hit that subscribe
button. See you next week!