September 08, 2010, 10:41 AM — You're out of work. The job listings are thin. You have no money to start your own business. Maybe you don't even have a computer to assist in conducting a proper job search.
Rest easy, we're here to help. We've scoured the earth for ten solid business ideas--endeavors that you can mostly start up with little more than a smartphone and a Gmail address, and that you could get under way tomorrow if you absolutely had to.
Sure, a computer--or at least a netbook--would help with just about any of these suggestions, but for most of your day-to-day activities in these ten enterprises, you won't need anything more than your phone and a big dose of old-fashioned gumption. Now get out there--the economy is waiting!
1. Car Service
Provided you have a car with a spacious back seat--and you're good at keeping it clean and tidy--you can start a car service without much effort, particularly if you live in a smaller town without major taxi regulations. The biggest hurdle is getting the appropriate driver's license for your state and/or city (check with your state's DMV for details). Once that's out of the way, you can put up a simple Website and offer a phone number for customers to schedule pickups. Your phone can double as a calendar and address book to keep track of appointments, and it can work as a GPS device to ensure you're going the right way. Check out UberCab, which lets passengers book travel on private cars directly from their iPhone.
2. Travel/Tour Guide
What better way to turn a lifetime of living in the same town into pocket money than to become a tour guide around said town? Get the word out by building a Website and offering commentary on Yelp to promote yourself as a local expert. Services such as Genbook can help you manage appointments and scheduling, and any Android phone can download a multi-waypoint map from Google Maps to help you plan your tour route. During your downtime, write a tour guidebook and sell it as a print-on-demand book as well as an e-book and smartphone app.
3. Writer
It may be foolhardy to attempt to start a career as a writer without a computer--and we don't exactly advise it--but it has been done before. Blogging is a good place to start: A variety of iPhone apps exist for the major blog platforms (including WordPress and Tumblr) to expedite mobile posts, and many other platforms (such as TypePad) have mobile services built right in. But there's no need to stop at blogging. In Japan it's becoming popular to write and distribute entire novels via cell phone, specifically text message--in 2007, five of the top ten bestselling novels in Japan were "cellphone novels" written specifically for the medium. Are we ready for such a thing on our shores? Only one way to find out.
4. Videographer
In the old days, a documentarian, filmmaker, or other video-production professional used to have to fill a van with equipment and haul it from location to location--along with a sizable crew--in order to get a day's worth of shots. Now that pocket video cameras have reached HD quality, it's possible to forgo all of that. If you're brave, you can even shoot with a high-end cell phone, and handsets such as the iPhone 4 and the Samsung Instinct line include basic video-editing features right in the phone. If you're shooting custom video for clients, you can distribute footage directly to them while you're still on location, or upload it to YouTube with little more than a click and a swipe.
5. Mystery Shopper
