Micro-Businesses?

I have a mute, misanthrope friend who lives in a town of about 1400. She has a small PC repair business that gives her enough money to buy new games as they come out and save up spare money for future needs, but not enough to move out of her parents house and get an apartment.

Seeing as she is a self-starter – having her own business, filing tax forms, setting up deals with vendors, etc. – it seems like she should be able to start one or two other small businesses that she could run in parallel. I’ve suggested setting up a DVD vending machine and starting a taxi service – neither of which appealed to her – but it seems like there’s probably several other dozen micro-businesses that could be done by a single person, part-time.

I don’t know that she would actually be interested in expanding out into other ventures, but I’d be interested myself just to see what all there is in the world.

After fixing the window screens on my house this weekend, I considered doing that as a very small business. It takes almost no time, no skill, and yet many people won’t do it. Neighbor had somebody do hers at $17 a window, The material cost per screen was under $5, and you could easily turn out at least 4 to 5 an hour.