A Little Bit of Advice Please?

[TheTimeisNow]

Hi there I'm pretty much new here, but I was wondering if I could get a few hints or helpful advice. I would like to start a small business, get myself out of the rat race, etc., etc., etc.

I was wondering if anyone could give me a few ideas that I could start based on my skills below and could start for about $250. I just need a fresh perspective.

MBA in Public Administration
BA in History
Certified in coaching (i.e. life coaching)
embroidery, almost any type of crafts
excellent organizational skills

Interests are many: history, volunteering, project management, nature, photography, crafts, music (European metal), alternative medicine, Chinese medicine, raw veganism

I have thought of becoming a certified raw vegan chef and possibly starting my own line of chocolates or candies.

I'm sure there are tons of little things, but can't think of them all right now.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[iDreamCatcher]

Follow your passion. Here's what I noticed:

Originally Posted by TheTimeisNow

... certified raw vegan chef and possibly starting my own line of chocolates or candies...

Go for it!
You'll have very little competition and high demand.

Gleb

[luckyJTF7s]

1. re: history - in my city, the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) has lots of free "tours" for people. eg. a ghost thing/ haunted houses, a walk up Church St. where all our earliest (one 1700s) churches are, inside/outside tour, lots of patter, about 90 mins long. so if it were me, I'd find one of these institutions that puts on historical walks or talks, and volunteer.

1a. go pro. there are several people in Toronto who do tours for lotta money. busfuls of Japanese tourists, give a talk to your group, conducting a tour of blah this saturday, sign up on my website $5 a person, etc. they have all the weird tidbits, the 2000 mass burial skeletons from the cholera epidemic are here and Andy Warhol celebrated his 40th birthday here for this occasion and there are 3 soup can silkscreens somewhere in TO so if u see one at a garage sale and I'm probably making this sound boring but wow these dudes are not. I think you'd love it. one guy, Bruce, is so good at these he has started organizing trips down to NYC and he does it in NYC too, and makes a margin on the transport down/the whole travel package also. He has also written a book or two compiled from all his historian stuff. The key to this part time job is PASSION. you have to love ferretting out this kind of material, and love telling people about it!

2. handicrafts - etsy. it is an online marketplace for handicrafts. you can set up an etsy store there and retail your stuff over the Net! they have a guide that tells u how and a forum and getting up and going is very easy. there is a small fee for listing your things (photos, description) but it is v minimal vs eBay. not an auction place - your things stay up indefinitely (till they sell or u take them down). etsy is a very big deal and growing like crazy and many people there with cool products make 6 figures with alot of that Christmas rush orders. it is easy to browse, buy from, and take a good look around to check out.

3. MBA, or MPA?? u wrote MBA so... - if u have a reasonably current GMAT score, AND IT WAS SUPER SOLID (I can't remember but top 5%? top1%), you can teach GMAT classes for the GMAT peeps (Kaplan, I think? Princeton Review is another... there are others... ) and that pays very well, around $100/hr. If you have previous tutoring experiences or any sort of teaching experience (ESL, or your coaching wd qualify), some of those outfits hire you out to 1-on-1 that stuff with rich kids as GMAT tutors etc. and then it's $200/hr and up. Their very top dogs get flown out to like Paris and the UAE and stuff but hey, start at bottom and work up to the freebie Paris trips at $300/hr LOL

4. life coaching but you knew that. not my area of expertise.

5. again the ROM - runs classes thru the museum. Ours has Ikebana - flower arranging. I bet an embroidery course with a history tie-in - tours of tapestries collection and a bit of patter on (what's that dude's name? UK, arts + crafts, turn of century) or Kaffe Fasset or whatever and some beginner instruction and making a wee christmas ornament or something and a reading list and reccos on where to buy supplies and etc.... and someone - museum, Learning Annex, Community Centre thru the municipality, will be happy to host your class I bet. the ROM charged $90 per person for 10 hours of classes, 2.5 x 4 weekends, capped at 20 people per class. That is $1800 per session or $180/hr, not sure how it gets split venue vs. instructor, but nice money dat

[TheTimeisNow]

Thank you all so much for the wonderful ideas. After additional thought, I would like to pursue the raw vegan options as well as the life coaching angle. Perhaps I could add some sort of history/food tour to these for raw vegans/vegans/vegetarians. Unfortunately, I don't have an GMAT scores or anything similar, because I never took those tests.

[TheTimeisNow]

Also, the idea of a history/embroidery class sounds very appealing. I would not have thought of that! That is excellent!

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by TheTimeisNow

I have thought of becoming a certified raw vegan chef and possibly starting my own line of chocolates or candies.

Thanks for making me hungry

[TheTimeisNow]

No problem! You can be my first customer (hahaha).

[ar81]

No matter how much administration you know, market will always present you some unknowns. I advise you to start your business in your spare time. This gives you a chance for testing, making mistakes, without real impact on your finances. Think of it as a test to familiarize with your target market.