How I built a locksmith business in 3 hours without knowing how to pick a lock.

I did something crazy.

Yesterday I saw a tweet about locksmiths charging a good fee for a few minutes of work. Not bad.

So, on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to follow Naval's advice: "Inspiration is perishable - act on it immediately."

Market Research

I went to Google Trends keyword signals and asked Claude to do some deeper research to get a sense on how a business like this could work in Spain.

Local landscape:

• People search for 24/7, urgent locksmiths near their location — and demand has been growing.
• The local industry is fragmented and most websites look outdated.
• Prices start from €90 for the most basic service and go up to several hundred euros for urgent work and complex locks.
• There's a lack of websites for English speakers around Málaga, a place where a lot of expats live.
• Google banned locksmith ads in Spain because of the volume of fake listings. So promotion happens mainly through directories, local group posts, and SEO.

US landscape:

• The US has a more mature market. Useful for seeing what works and what to avoid.
• There are distinct specialized niches with different processes and business models: residential, commercial, automotive, and smart locks.
• Most new businesses fail due to poor visibility, vague pricing, and slow response times.
• Also a lot of scammy businesses, but it looks like there aren't as many as in Spain.

Setting Up The Website

After getting a clear picture of the market, I went looking for available domains. I found a good one for $1: cajero247.es

The next step was asking Claude to build a website. I've built 3 websites recently, so I used what I learned to put this one together. It was ready in 15 minutes.

The total time to set everything up was around 3 hours. This includes the market research and configuring everything needed to start collecting data and validate the idea (web analytics, a form, an eSIM, etc.)

The Business Model (or how the heck will I make money)

If you're wondering what the heck I'll do given I have zero locksmith experience, there are a few ways to approach this:

1. Get a locksmith certificate, work as an apprentice, eventually start my own business. Too much work just to test if this is viable.
2. Set up the business and hire people to fulfill services. High risk given my lack of experience. But could be really fun.
3. Build a marketplace where you can find locksmiths and see their ratings. High effort, and I'm not sure many locksmiths would sign up given how many scams the market analysis flagged.
4. Find an established locksmith and rent or sell them the domain. Not very profitable.
5. Partner with trustworthy locksmiths and charge a referral fee for each lead. This is the one that makes the most sense to me, with decent upside and low risk.

Next steps and final thoughts

I'm planning to wait a few weeks to see if I get any organic traffic. If not, I'll start adding city pages, listing in directories, posting in local groups, and doing some SEO/AEO.

The great thing about AI is that you can go from idea to MVP in almost no time. That makes testing business ideas a no-brainer. I also believe in acting when inspiration hits.

I've got a bunch of .com domains for potential businesses I want to test with a simple website. When the inspiration strikes, I might try my luck with those.

I might even try something fun like starting 12 businesses in 12 months. Who knows?