- Become a consultant. What do you know that can solve people’s problems? Set up social media presence and invite your friends to invite their friends to your channel.
Produce some content with your phone that shows you as a knowledgeable character. Have a well taken photo on your status. Set your price and show what the client is missing if their don’t hire you.
2. Become a professional Baby Sitter or Home Keeper. This country is in a middle of home helper crisis. It is not unusual for a family to go through 7 maids in a year. Print A4 posters and pin them at places that attract the middle class like supermarkets.
But remember to charge per day. If demands is solid hire others to work like you and become a boss. If the home is far from where you live request a transport refund.
3. Become Omutembeyi (Hawker).
Pick products of your interest, buy samples worth Ugx 80,000 and beginning seeling door to door, person to person. Remember every rejection is closer to the next sale. Keep going.
4. Uganda is famous for Rolex. A good Rolex stand can compete with a boda boda in earnings. Invest in a frying pan, a sigiri, umbrella and your first packet of flour and ingredients. The advantage is that you are unlikely to go to bed hungry.
5. Printing Agent. Few people on Nasser Road own any form of equipment. Just print your business cards and fliers and you off to go. But you must be prepared for the stiff competition in this industry is unrelenting and everyone seems to have a relative in printing industry.
6. Can you teach a subject? Sale yourself as a home teacher or substitute teacher in an institution. Remember we want to charge per day or per hour. Do not tie yourself down to one customer otherwise you become an ordinary teacher.
7. Molokoni Cooker. Now this is for the very bold one. Go to meat packers buy cow hooves, prepare them nicely and locate your self in the evening near a drinking joint. You will be surprised on the returns.
8. Do you make people laugh easily? You can sell yourself as a serious comedian. Create a signature attire and of course a couple of good online fliers. You off to a funny start but keep your eyes on the money.
9. Compound Maintenance. This is one of the most profitable. Find compounds and garden that need maintenance, hire the machine and slash the compound yourself. Machines for hire are available in Katwe.
10. Sale Niggina shoes in the slums and where low income earners live. You are likely to do better if you hawk them. Target to sale 10-20 pairs per day.
Other businesses that fit the above criteria include, vending fruits on a hired Kigali (Ugx 2,000 per day), Fried Groundnuts, Selling sugar canes, dealing in used bras, Becoming a cobbler, real estate agent and Wholesale merchandise agent (kayungirizi/okuyiliba).
In the end you are likely to remain unemployed if you are choosy about what you can do and not do. I remember being taught that “a beggar has no choice”. Now I hope I have inspired you into action. Be blessed.
Livingstone Mukasa (writer) is the CEO, Four One Financial Services & Living Business Education. Author of The Great Financial Rebuild & Investing for the Future.
