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Small Town Business Ideas
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Very Small Towns

Ever try to identify small town business ideas when your town only has 4,356 inhabitants? I was surprised to find some great business ideas for small towns.

I lived in just such a town. Two friends and I decided we wanted to start a new venture. But, we had no clue what to start.

So, we did the following.

• Conducted people-on-the-street- interviews

• We visited the County Extension Office, the County Development Office and the Regional Chamber of Commerce and asked for advice

• We visited the 4 churches in town and spoke before their members

• We searched on the Internet for small town business ideas

• We visited 8 other small towns to see if they had a business that our town didn’t

Our Small Town Business Ideas Conclusion

1. Start a Mobile Parts Selling Business

We determined there was a need to start a route with a large van visiting our small town area (and other small towns). We would carry popular car and farm implement parts visiting repair garages and sell those parts directly to them.

We also would take special orders for parts. Our hope was to set up a system where parts could be expressed shipped right to the repair garage or individual needing the parts. Faster delivery of needed parts would give us a competitive edge.

We interested another entrepreneur two towns over to implement this small town business idea. She is still operating her firm and doing fine.

2. Start a Bakery Café

There was an existing bakery in town but people complained about it. It seemed the product was not always fresh and the store left an unclean impression (paint would have done wonders plus keeping the windows clean).

Although the three of us did not know how to bake, my friend’s wife did. We spent $4,826 to lease a larger spot down the street, buy the minimally needed used equipment, fixed the place up very nicely and opened a bakery combined with a café. Our hours were 6 AM to 3 PM. We later stayed open until 5:30 PM. (The other bakery is long gone.)

3. A Steam Vapor Cleaning Business

One of the small town needs that we discovered was a vapor steam cleaning company.

4. Start an Internet Business

Anyone, anywhere who knows how to send an email or type a Word document can create a business website. Really, no website building knowledge is needed.

This was exactly my skill level when I wanted to have an Internet based company.

In exploring this online opportunity, I discovered three facts.

1. There are so many how-to-build-a-website marketers on the Internet that I wondered who I could believe. The deciding factor for me was, “what company could show me proof that their system would absolutely get results and that I could contact users of their system prior to my purchasing it so I could interview them. Only one company that I could fine did this.
2. Any build you own website system had to be so simple that even I could do it. I didn’t want to learn html, CSS or any other language. I wanted simple. I didn’t want to learn all the technical SEO stuff. I wanted this company to do this all for me.
3. Lastly, any “how-to-build-a-website” company must have all the website building tools in one place, at one price, with no nickel and dime extra charges. I wanted to pay one low price that included everything.

After searching for about 5 weeks, I came across a firm called Solo Build It (SBI). They did all of the above and more. In fact, they guided me on how to select the most profitable niche to match my passion.

Here is how to build a website yourself or have one built for you...one that works!

My life was changed forever!

Thank you for visiting Small Town Business Ideas.

Helpful Professional Resources

Small Town Economic Development

National Association of Towns and Townships

Additional Small Business Ideas