How to make money when you’re a teenager stuck in the middle of nowhere

When you live in the middle of nowhere, you have to think a bit more creatively. Photo by Cameron McPhee on Unsplash

I get it. I really do. I grew up surrounded by farms in the middle of nowhere, New Zealand. Before the internet! Phone lines so old that it was a shared ‘party’ line, where anyone else within a 7km radius could pick up their phone and listen to our conversation too. The first in our area to get TV3, i.e. the third public TV channel. Where Dad once borrowed a ‘cell phone’ off a friend, and it was a large box with a handset and a shoulder strap to carry it.

And we had no money. Naturally, I was desperate to get some. Because I knew that money was the only real way that I could eventually leave.

Thing is, the opportunities for you (and everyone else) are different now. We have the internet. It’s been a complete game-changer. But the basic way ‘business’ works is still the same: find someone who wants what you can share, and will pay for it. That’s it. That’s what business is in its simplest form.

You’re here because you want to know how to make money despite being stuck in the ‘middle of nowhere’. Whether that’s a remote rural community several hours boat or plane from the nearest large town, or a small village, the principles are the same. A lot of entrepreneur advice assumes you live in a city. I don’t. A lot of entrepreneur advice also assumes you have some money to start. I don’t. If you’ve got absolutely no money at all, this article is for you too.

I’m going to teach you the thought processes I used as a child and younger teenager, the same ones that actually underpin some of the business idea generator in Launchpanion (my company that helps people start a business from scratch). Because these still work now. I can’t give you specific advice on your situation. But I can teach you how to think about it in ways that will help you solve your own challenges.

First, look around your local community. Who has money?

Identifying who in your community actually might have some money to pay you is the first step. In rural New Zealand, it’s farming families or other local business owners. (Especially if they’ve having a good year.) If there is a group of people in your community with money, focus on this group of people who can afford to pay. (Research shows that keeping money within a community, called “community wealth building”, has economic benefits to the whole community.) What do they need help with?

Second, look outside your local community. Who both has money, and wants something you have?

If you can’t find someone within your community to pay you, then look outside your community. This is where the internet comes in! You need to find someone who wants something that you have access to (legally!), and will pay you for it. The legal part is very important, so that you don’t screw future-you over later.

We know from research that one of the fastest ways to grow a community out of poverty is by bringing in money from outside. It can happen fairly quickly too, in only a few years. As long as the money gets circulated within the community, it’ll grow. I’ve seen this effect personally in a small village I used to live in. When the local road systems changed, more people started stopping from ‘out of town’ on their way through. The village centre grew from a few small shops, two cafes and a small supermarket (and a whole row of empty shops) to now being able to support more cafes and shops and create new jobs for young people locally. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle: people stop for a cuppa or to look in the shops, and stay to look in the shops or have a cuppa. More money in.

Third, flex your ‘opportunity muscles’. Find problems you can solve.

You might’ve already identified at least one opportunity. Great! Now keep looking for more. If you want to geek out on a great way to spot future opportunities, look at your local council’s regional or long term plans and where they have identified areas of growth. Bonus points if you review national or state government plans too.

Think about what might affect your local community in the future. For example, right now in 2026 we’re at the start of what may well be a long, protracted fuel crisis. This isn’t just going to affect fuel, but also make it harder to grow food in many countries which rely on fertiliser to run big farms and fuel to run the tractors and harvesters.

I’ve already thought about what the potential impacts are and how there are potential opportunities coming from it. For example, there will be more opportunity for local growers and local deliveries that don’t use oil-based fuel (e.g. by bicycle). We’ll likely need to change how we farm and/or garden as things change. As climate change gets worse, there will be more interest in locally grown plants and seedlings which are adapted to each climate. Local councils are already focussing on planting trees and shrubs that are indigenous to an area, and they need someone to supply those sustainably. AI is already affecting jobs, but it can’t (yet) fix your plumbing. We’re going to have to be resourceful.

Your ideas don’t have to be big, ambitious ones either. Let go of the idea of “scale” and what you see in social media. (You’re seeing the success stories only.) A hobby business is still a business. An after-school hustle is still a business. Working for someone else, i.e. a job, still counts. Because the goal is to make money and get useful skills in the process. Lots of people have small businesses that make enough to live on, especially in the countryside where costs are often much cheaper. If you get paid for it, it’s a business. (And over a certain level of income, you’ll probably have to pay tax. Check the rules in your country.) If you can get a part-time job, think of it as your own business too. You are exchanging your help, for money.

Fourth, eliminate the ideas that don’t work. Or at least, park them in a notebook somewhere.

It’s pretty normal (apparently) to have multiple businesses fail before you find one that works. So if you’re starting this while younger, great! You’ve got so much time to experiment and try things out. For reference, I’m on my fourth business now in just over a decade. But I’ve been thinking about ‘side hustles’ since I was 10. (Remember, I told you I was desperate to leave!) That desperation was great fuel towards later success.

So, review all the ideas you’ve gathered so far. Park anything that immediately doesn’t work. Group together the ones that could work, if you had something extra. Next to them, write what would make it possible and assess if that could happen. How would you solve this challenge? For example, if you can drive and have access to a car, that’s going to make a huge difference to potentially getting a part-time job or being able to run a small side business. If you don’t have a car and no feasible way of getting one (e.g. too remote, unsupportive family members etc.) then park all those ideas and focus on the rest.

Again, it doesn’t have to be fancy. It just needs to make you money legally and solve a problem for someone else who can afford to pay for it.

Finally, test the ideas you’re left with. This is called ‘market validation’.

A lot of people don’t do this. But you need to make sure that you’ve matched what you’re offering with what people will buy. Launchpanion has a couple of tools to help you with the financial viability calculations here, because most of the ones I’ve ever seen on the internet are very confusing spreadsheets so I made something simpler.

A really easy hack to this is to look for other people doing similar stuff to you (a.k.a. ‘competeitor analysis’). What do they charge for the same thing or similar? You don’t need a new idea, you just need one that works. And a reason for people to choose you instead.

Good luck! Let me know in the comments which of the five steps was most useful.