No one knows that better than Adam Mitchell, a former director of a business networking organization in the Roanoke area. Mitchell came up with the lowest of low-tech business ideas and quit his job to start his own one-man company, On Site Lube.

As its name indicates, On Site Lube brings the lube job or oil change right to the customer. If someone doesn’t want to waste his lunch break or weekend family time getting an oil change every 3,000 miles, Mitchell will come to that person’s home or office and change the oil right in the parking lot. "It just kind of hit me going down the road one day that it was something I could do and something people needed," he says. Mitchell saves the used oil from each car until he has enough for a recycler to come pick up.

Mitchell says he’s gotten a lot of response in the Roanoke area from both men and women who like the idea of having their oil changed, fluids filled and tires checked, without having to wait around or drive somewhere to have the job done. Since starting in September, Mitchell hasn’t advertised except by word-of-mouth (a technique he’s perfected since he taught other entrepreneurs word-of-mouth networking while he was director of the business networking group).

At $28.95 per vehicle, Mitchell’s rates are roughly 50 percent more than that of the average mechanic, but he offers a group discount of $25.95 per car if there are four or more cars at the same location. "I prefer to go to their [office] because there’s potentially more work," Mitchell says.

Mitchell says he hasn’t started making any real money yet, but he has a solid base of about 100 cars, some of which he’s already worked on three or four times for repeat customers. But Mitchell doesn’t plan on just working on individuals’ cars. He has his eye on expanding to on-site maintenance for businesses such as contractors that have entire fleets of vehicles. He’s not revealing details, but he says he’s already in talks with one area contractor who’s open to the idea, Mitchell says: "He was telling me that I would save them $55 per vehicle."