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- May 1, 2011
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As I travel, I see so many business opportunities in various places. It's super easy to see what's missing and what's working well in other places and would work well locally as well.
I'm curious if anyone knows of any person doing this kind of "adventure" entrepreneurship, meaning traveling to different places (usually less developed or just off the beaten path), identifying opportunities there, and dominating the local market with their outsider experience and higher than local standards.
I imagine it could be hard to scale as each place comes with unique challenges. There can be many obstacles like bureaucracy, difficulty hiring the right staff, local culture and language, etc. but I still feel like in some places an outsider can EASILY make a killing super fast.
Here are just three recent examples:
Dominating Boat Rental Services in a Local Area by Bringing Better Standards
I'm now on Bonaire, a small island in the Dutch Caribbean. I noticed that there used to be one main business renting boats to tourists. The guy was getting average reviews because he wasn't always on time, the boats were breaking down, and his maintenance and safety practices were poor.
Then a couple from the Netherlands moved here in 2020, invested in new shiny boats, implemented high service standards and now they seem to be dominating the market.
They could probably expand to neighboring Curacao and Aruba OR expand to renting other stuff (cars, bicycles) and make this a seven figure business considering all the tourists coming to the area each year.
Taking Ideas From One Place to Another: Offering Better Smoothies
Another example of something that doesn't exist in Bonaire: there are a few places that sell smoothies. But they all sell fruit-based smoothies only. In Australia, there are tons of places making some of the best smoothies in the world with rich ingredients. Not just fruits but vegetables, seeds, nuts, superfoods, protein powder, etc. These places are usually full of customers who want something healthy and something that will cool them down as they tend to be super cold.
I feel like making such smoothies here would completely obliterate the local competition. 100% fruit-based smoothies aren't particularly healthy and aren't really unique (just blend some frozen fruits). I used to go to a similar but poorer "Australian-style" smoothie bar in Barbados (so kind of similar to Bonaire in some aspects) and they were getting lots of regular customers every day.
Granted, this island would be too small to turn this into a large business (you could expand to neighboring islands, though) but it could probably be a nice lifestyle business for the right person.
Starting Something That's Obviously Missing Yet Has an Existing Market
In Kalamata in Greece there's a vegan store which is also a wholesaler of vegan products for the entire country.
It's the ONLY vegan store in the entire country (I spoke with the owners) and the third one I've seen anywhere in the world (I visited one in Malaga in Spain and one in Warsaw, Poland). Yet, there's not even a single fully vegan restaurant in the city. The closest is almost three hours away in Athens and the ones in Athens seem to be doing incredibly well. Some local restaurants in Kalamata have vegan options but they all have poor reviews and few vegans want to dine in a restaurant that serves mostly meat and fish.
I feel like it could work very well considering the vegan store is based there (out of all the places in Greece) and gets regular customers, plus many tourists in the season. This, plus Kalamata is a world-class destination for freedivers, out of whom many are plant-based and usually spend there at least several weeks training each year. There are also yearly competitions there, bringing even more potential customers.
I've seen dozens of such ideas around the world. Just to give a few more quick examples:
I'm curious if anyone knows of any person doing this kind of "adventure" entrepreneurship, meaning traveling to different places (usually less developed or just off the beaten path), identifying opportunities there, and dominating the local market with their outsider experience and higher than local standards.
I imagine it could be hard to scale as each place comes with unique challenges. There can be many obstacles like bureaucracy, difficulty hiring the right staff, local culture and language, etc. but I still feel like in some places an outsider can EASILY make a killing super fast.
Here are just three recent examples:
Dominating Boat Rental Services in a Local Area by Bringing Better Standards
I'm now on Bonaire, a small island in the Dutch Caribbean. I noticed that there used to be one main business renting boats to tourists. The guy was getting average reviews because he wasn't always on time, the boats were breaking down, and his maintenance and safety practices were poor.
Then a couple from the Netherlands moved here in 2020, invested in new shiny boats, implemented high service standards and now they seem to be dominating the market.
They could probably expand to neighboring Curacao and Aruba OR expand to renting other stuff (cars, bicycles) and make this a seven figure business considering all the tourists coming to the area each year.
Taking Ideas From One Place to Another: Offering Better Smoothies
Another example of something that doesn't exist in Bonaire: there are a few places that sell smoothies. But they all sell fruit-based smoothies only. In Australia, there are tons of places making some of the best smoothies in the world with rich ingredients. Not just fruits but vegetables, seeds, nuts, superfoods, protein powder, etc. These places are usually full of customers who want something healthy and something that will cool them down as they tend to be super cold.
I feel like making such smoothies here would completely obliterate the local competition. 100% fruit-based smoothies aren't particularly healthy and aren't really unique (just blend some frozen fruits). I used to go to a similar but poorer "Australian-style" smoothie bar in Barbados (so kind of similar to Bonaire in some aspects) and they were getting lots of regular customers every day.
Granted, this island would be too small to turn this into a large business (you could expand to neighboring islands, though) but it could probably be a nice lifestyle business for the right person.
Starting Something That's Obviously Missing Yet Has an Existing Market
In Kalamata in Greece there's a vegan store which is also a wholesaler of vegan products for the entire country.
It's the ONLY vegan store in the entire country (I spoke with the owners) and the third one I've seen anywhere in the world (I visited one in Malaga in Spain and one in Warsaw, Poland). Yet, there's not even a single fully vegan restaurant in the city. The closest is almost three hours away in Athens and the ones in Athens seem to be doing incredibly well. Some local restaurants in Kalamata have vegan options but they all have poor reviews and few vegans want to dine in a restaurant that serves mostly meat and fish.
I feel like it could work very well considering the vegan store is based there (out of all the places in Greece) and gets regular customers, plus many tourists in the season. This, plus Kalamata is a world-class destination for freedivers, out of whom many are plant-based and usually spend there at least several weeks training each year. There are also yearly competitions there, bringing even more potential customers.
I've seen dozens of such ideas around the world. Just to give a few more quick examples:
- Madeira lacked a proper smoothie bar and vegan restaurant. Yet, it's a leading ecotourism destination in Europe for people into hiking, sports, nature, etc. Seems like a complete no-brainer it would work well to offer something like that to locals, expats, and tourists. Turns out there's now a single vegan restaurant and it seems to be super popular.
- In Nelson in New Zealand there are many companies offering kayak rentals, tours, and similar stuff for the nearby Abel Tasman National Park. Yet, they all open at 9 am and close at 5 pm. This is doubly ridiculous. First, in the summer you have sunrise at around 7-8 am and sunset at 8-9 pm. So you could go in the late afternoon but they don't let you because the last rental is at 2 pm so they can close at 5 pm. Secondly, sun is extremely strong in New Zealand in the summer so you're almost guaranteed you'll burn yourself during the middle of the day unless you're extremely diligent with sunscreen and/or cover yourself completely. Maybe I'm completely off but I imagine that if you were the only company open between 7 am and 9 pm you'd make a killing in the high season.
- In various places around the world I noticed that simple falafel restaurants were doing super, super well. The investment is small but the traffic was always huge, regardless if it was Australia, New Zealand, or Poland. So I believe this could be transplanted to many more places, ideally those where there are few options for vegans.
- In Kyrgyzstan I rented an offroad 4x4 car from a car rental company specializing in tough cars for exploring the country. Setting up such a car rental agency in a place where there's lots of offroad driving (or bad roads) could help you win over international airport-based car companies that don't allow offroad driving even if they rent such cars.
- Any place near a safe body of water seems to be doing well with SUP and kayak rentals. Depending on the length of the season, it feels like an easy lucrative business. For expansion, it could later turn into a local shop that sells or fixes SUPs or kayaks or that offers custom tours for groups (including company retreats).
- E-bike rentals for tourists seem to be doing very well in tourist-friendly places where are there few cars or it's easy to move around without one (usually small islands). Same goes for golf carts, assuming it's street legal to drive one there (it is in Bonaire and there are companies renting them to tourists, mostly from cruise ships).
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