There is nothing new under the sun! Here is a list of 100 business ideas you can start right away. Just pick one and try it for at least one month and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work pick another one and try it for one month. At the end of the year you will have tried 12 different business ideas. If none of them works at least now you will know 12 ways not to make money. Become like a scientist trying to figure out what works in the market place. A scientist is not scared if he proves his hypothesis to be wrong. He simply comes up with another theory. He then begins to design experiments to test that theory again.
Within 10 years you will have tried 120 business ideas. What you will learn is far more valuable than a Masters degree. The odds are at least one of these ideas will stick and you will end up making a lot of money. It is basic probability and statistics. If you ask 100 girls out, one of them is likely to say yes. You just have to overcome the initial fear of failure and rejection!
Here is the list of the first 30 business ideas!
1. Boda Boda. Buy a boda boda and lease it to someone to ride. Earn income weekly for a year or two and let the rider own it thereafter. Partner with Safe Boda and monitor the trips.
2. Uber driver. Turn your car into an Uber after work and on weekends. This is the trend in Kenya and South Africa for middle class working people. Better still hire your unemployed brother to drive the car while you are in office.
3. Money Lending. Take a salary loan or advance from work and lend to your friends at high interest rates! This may backfire on you if your friends don’t pay!
4. Blogger. Write and publish things you love doing. Develop a following and then sell stuff to your followers for a profit. Run adverts on your blog.
5. Real estate broker. Look out for deals e.g. foreclosures, in the newspapers and online and connect buyers with sellers. Earn a commission for each transaction.
6. Olx Merchant. Sell old stuff on Olx or Jumia. I recently sold some old mattresses for 100k!
7. Open a small shop. Small shops are everywhere. Open one as well with good customer service and a wide variety of cheap items.
8. Rear chicken. Buy a few local chicken and start rearing. Soon or later they will reproduce and you can sell them as well as the eggs.
9. Rear goats. Buy 2 goats (I male + 1 female) and look after them. Sooner or later the goats will multiply. Sell the meat and milk. I know someone with goats in the backyard who makes goat milk yogurt.
10. Start a restaurant. People have at least 3 meals everyday. Make sure you have a good location, good chef, good customer service, and affordable food. You will die of money.
11. Set up a chicken hatchery. Buy/Build an old hatchery and hatch eggs for poultry farmers.
12. Bee keeping. Start an apiary and sell the honey. Brand it as organic. Mobilize the community and partner with an international NGO to market the honey.
13. Piggery. Start a piggery and sell the pork to the various pork joints around town.
14. Make and sell animal feeds. Partner with a Vet and animal nutritionist and create good quality feeds. You will beat the competition which doesn’t apply any science in their production process.
15. Make fruit juice. Make it fresh and cold. Partner with someone who grows passion. Brand it as organic. Have clean sales people to distribute to people in traffic (after getting permission from KCCA).
16. Make snacks for breakfast. I always struggle to find decent cheap breakfast around Kampala in the morning. Someone needs to reinvent how breakfast is made and delivered to all these people driving to work every morning.
17. Make and deliver fruit salad. I know colleagues who spend 10k daily buying fruit salad from someone who delivers.
18. Arts and crafts. We have many tourists coming to Uganda. Buy/make crafts and sell them online.
19. Grow crops. All sorts of crops are viable. You can grow food crops and cash crops. Manage key risks through irrigation, crop management and protection, market development, and breed selection.
20. Rear fish. I am rearing about 500 fish in my small backyard so can you.
21. Build cheap rental units. Build cheap rental units near town and earn rental income on a monthly basis.
22. Make tomato sauce. Make and sell tomato sauce and chilli sauce. We have too many tomatoes.
23. Rear cattle. Sell the milk and meat. There is someone who used to deliver fresh beef on Saturday mornings around town.
24. Sell flowers. Deliver flowers for your friends girlfriend’s, wives, and mistresses. Be discreet and your friends will trust you with more errands.
25. Mobile food stand. Simply reinvent the rolex stand like the Musana cart. There is some guy who sells rolex with minced meat in Ntinda!
26. Make chalk. The black board has not yet been reinvented in Uganda. With the growing population in UPE schools chalk will stay in demand for sometime to come.
27. Set up a beauty salon. People always want to look good. For example AFROS and Mo has grown into a household name.
28. Open a hardware shop. Their is a housing boom and people are building like crazy. Just make sure you open the store near the construction sites in satellite towns like Gayaza, Nansana, Seeta, Namugongo, etc.
29. Sell sand. Sand is a key ingredient in construction work.
30. Become a mobile money and bank agent. BOU approved the agency model and all banks are rolling out agents. Simply apply to become an agent for several banks.
Unlock your true potential 