Hi Priscilla!
Those are some good and challenging questions! Because of the structure of general life and the necessity of the very expensive Work Card Contracts (Carteira do Trabalho), coupled with the devaluation of practical skills (painting, plumbing, moving, cooking, etc.) there is a LOT that can be done here!
I have found that the people with the upper-class people often have very few practical life skills, so things that many foreigners are accustomed to doing themselves, they can get paid for here. This would include things like:
Childminding
Dog walking
House keeping
Cooking
Painting
Moving
General House Repairs
Basic - Advanced Plumbing
Being a sitter / care taker for older people
Being a sitter at hospitals (it is required that people in hospitals here have a person
take care of them while they are there! Still not quite sure what the nurses do...)
Being a sitter for someone at home
A business minded person could easily make a decent living being a daily housekeeper for
multiple houses (diarista), or being any of the types of sitter that I have mentioned.
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The challenge for foreigners would have to do with their ignorance about Brazilian culture (outside
of Rio and Sao Paulo), and how Brazilians think about work. They are extremely oriented towards
vacation time and long lunch breaks, and they often regard employees either as an enemy, or
a surrogate parent. As well, heirarchies are much stronger here than in other places, and
micromanagement is a necessity here.
Brazil needs just about everything one can think of! success or failure would really depend on
the quantity and quality of a person´s social network and personal contacts. Because people
here can so often be disrespectful or underhanded in business, if you can develop a good
reputation and hold on to your company for at least a year, the local population will do most
of the client acquisition work for you.
Also, here, one must also become a bit more classist (in my opinion) than they may be comfortable
with, due to the extreme class differences here. One must spend much more time working on
relationships and friendships than simply being "good" at something. It is much more important here
for people to like you as a person than in many other places!
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Lanugage companies are a good thing for foreigners - particularly if he/she is a native English, Spanish,French, or German speaker. Having a personalized service, rather than a brick and mortar
school reaps many more rewards with much less hassle!
Restaurants (large and small) that cater to the upperclass, and serve American food reallyseem to do well here in the Northeast.
Consulting in various areas is also becoming a thing here.
If you are proficient in Portuguese and English, there is TONS of work translating things here as well (but this relies heavily on personal recommendations). Translating and Proofreading scholarly works a nice niche here because there are so few native English speakers who a proficient in both languages WHILE most of the universities are trying to increase the number of works they publish in international journals!
Pousadas/Bed and Breakfasts near hotels, with English speaking staff that cater to foreigners and Brazilians who dont want spend an arm and a leg on a hotel also seem to do well here in the Northeast.
Also, the further one lives from Rio or Sao Paulo, the greater his/her chances at success, as competion with other foreigners in the same area decreases exponentially!
People who participate in the selling of Black Market Electronics also seem to do very well here (:-) )
The most important thing here is to invest a lot of time going out and meeting other business people here so that you can learn about the opportunities available.
