Looking for good ideas for potential side business ideas.
Thanks

It ain't glamorous but there is a lot of money to be made in cutting grass. Around here people charge $40 a yard and one guy can probably do ten a day. If you already have the equipment probably wouldn't spend more than $50 a day in gas so a net of $350 a day. Do that just on weekends and you could put an extra $2800 a month in your pocket.

I just helped my brother set up a side window washing business and it has been going great. The key was to buy quality equipment (IE, belt with "holster" for the squeegee. We are working on setting up an affiliate/referral  system with other guys that do lawns, blinds, etc. in the area.

One of my college buddies runs a successful mobile auto detailing business. He started out on the side and when he started making 3 times what he did during his 9-5 he scaled up.

Yeah this was one of the first things I thought of. However, in my AO I think the market is saturated for this unfortunately.

Interesting ideas. Are these house windows, or car windows? Just a squeegee or pressure washer setup?

Interesting ideas on the mobile auto detailing business. I could see how this may be a good idea in my AO. Lots of people want it done, but can't or don't want to make it to the on site services for this. I assume services include wash, wax, vaccumn, interior detail etc? For this a van would be needed I am sure huh?

Starting to look into mobile pressure washing and wet abrasive blasting businesses, in addition to the above.

Anyone have any experience with either?

May I suggest mobile auto detailing.  I know single man operations grossing $180K+ a year ( these are their sole careers/businesses) netting around $135K-$140K.

I don't see why, after time, you couldn't do at least $1800/mo ( depends on many factors of course, but based on what I've read in surveys).

I saw that come up earlier. I am liking this idea fairly well. Do most people who do that, run a full service truck with pump/water tank, and carpet machine or do they not fool with that?

My Dad started this as a side business and eventually quit his job and has done it full time for many years. It's a good way to make extra money. What he told me was to stick with small yards and do a better job than the average lawn service. Also don't go overboard on equipment. When I used to work for him, he'd point out the guys with a new 45k truck, huge trailer and multiple zero turns and say they won't be in business next year. Usually they weren't.



 

I know a guy who started a side business changing oil at the customer's house. He had a van with a 55 gal drum for the waste oil. I don't know exactly how much he made but he said it was very profitable.

I know of a guy that does the same with tires. He has an enclosed trailer with the tire mounting tools, compressor, balancer, etc. He drives to people's houses or businesses and put their tires on. Really convenient for the customer and he has very little overhead because of no storefront or inventory. People call or order on his website, he goes to the distribution center and picks up the tires and goes and puts them on. It involves a fair amount of manual labor but seems profitable for him.

I've seen guys do both things:  Use water at car owners' sites ( Work, home, etc) as well as carry water.  Carpet machine is usually either an extractor, steamer, or a good shop vac as a bare minimum.

I've been toying with the idea of a snow removal side business. I notice/hear people that "have a guy" with a plow on their truck and whenever snow falls, their driveways are not taken care of. Or their guy comes at random times instead of important times like when the customer is leaving for work or coming home from work. I know of people that have had their lawns ripped up by careless plow operators.

My equipment would be simple. I would use a snow blower and shovel. Throw salt down by hand.

I would differentiate myself by providing exceptional service. For example, if they leave for work at 7 AM and want their driveway cleared by 7 AM...it will be done. If they come home at 5:30 PM and want to not worry about a snow covered driveway...it will be done.

Charge on a per visit basis instead of a up front seasonal fee.

I will probably test the idea out before investing any money into equipment by marketing to homes in a 15 minute drive radius from my home.

I had a large landscaping company and we pushed snow in the winter.

One thing to remember about the plow guy "not coming at important times" is that in order to make money  you need enough customers that you can get them all done in around 8ish hours, 6 at minimum.

If the snow stops at 6am, how are you going to get 16 residential accounts done before 7? What we always did is the trucks left when the snow started and we just kept up as best we could. We did better than most. In a bigger snow storm you might have to plow for 50 or 60 hours before you got done. Normal snow it'd take about 8 to 12 hours. The ones you did first might have to be hit a second time.

How would you solve the problem being a one man show? Would you suggest not given the customer a specific time when it will be done? Just focus on getting it done, period?

Just depends on your area, need to find out how others do it. We charged by the visit in Utah.

In Utah I would say something "We start when the snow flies and try to keep up as good as we can. If you have a specific time preference let us know and we'll do what we can depending on when it snows. If it snows early and stops then we will have it cleared before you go to work."

We struggled up there because the towns are all on the side of a mountain so you might get 2 inches of wet snow/rain in the valley that melts off, drive 1/2 a mile to the "benches" where the nice homes were on the mountain and there is 14 inches of snow.

Being a 1 man show is always a problem. I gave up and went to work at a good paying job if you want to know the truth. Lawncare and snow removal will always have you just working for a wage unless you hire employees but that opens up a whole can of worms. I had 12 guys and made a profit every year I was open. My profit didn't service the bank debt and I went under.

Now I like to do things are don't require my time as much. I work in a low level management position during the day, run cattle and rentals in my spare time. I enjoy the cattle and am slowly transitioning all of the rentals to being managed by a property management company (I swore for years I wouldn't use one but my time is limited and so far it works). Cattle and rentals make money 24 hours a day, not just hours that I'm physically present.  

I'm still ahead of the game but if I knew then, what I know now, I'd retire at age 30 or sooner rather than working like slave in the sun for years.

I'm 25 and work in the accounting industry. I'm at a desk from 8AM - 5PM. The thought of being outside sounds great more often than not...

Is it truly back breaking work and feeling like you are slaving away?

Could you expand on "but if I knew then, what I know now"? What would you do if you could go back to age 25? Do you mind sharing your wisdom?

Thank you

I'm young still, 27 now, almost 28. I did landscaping and lawn care growing up as well as raising cattle. I had 90 lawns and 60 cow/calf pairs when i left highschool and took a job for a year on a traveling construction crew. I quit to buy a company that had 450 lawns plus sprinkler and landscape customers when I was 20ish. I went from having almost 100 grand in cash at 19 to insolvent at 23ish. I couldn't even afford to buy lunchmeat to eat. I wasn't as sharp as I thought I was. I just did a flat out poor job of managing the money. We always made a profit but cashflow was terrible and not enough to service the debt. I kept expanding while being cash flow negative. I was cash flow negative for something like 36 months until i ran out of money and the bank pulled the plug. The company grossed 700k a year in sales when i bought it and almost 2.5 million when i closed down.

If I had to do it all over again I'd work a nice paying job and invest on the side. When I lost everything with my first business, it dawned on me that the most successful, least stressed out people I knew used that formula. I had 1 customer in particular that was 45ish, had been a firefighter since age 20 and had 80 rental units spread across 6 properties that were paid for. He lived in a 750k house (not very lavish considering his net worth but still nice).

I was lucky to get back on with the company that i did construction for when they had a location manager position open up. I bought some land to run cattle on and some farmground that my grandma had to sell when she got sick. I bought some rentals as well. I'm buried in debt but on track to retire in 12 years.

A good example is on a rental I bought 18 months ago. 14 units for retired people, paid 410k for it, usually profit about 1-2k a month after mortgage taxes, etc. I have very little equity in my land but quite a bit of equity in that rental unit. Once I pay off that 14 unit property, i'll have a monthly profit of about 5k due to not having a mortgage anymore. All it takes is 5 or 8 of those and you're walking in tall cotton.

Retiring isn't about net worth, it's not about cash in the bank. It's about residual income. I'm not the guy that is good enough to walk away with 20 million and never be heard from again. I'll be the guy that works 10 or 15 hours a week the rest of his life and enjoys his hobbies the rest of the time.

Life is a race to beat inflation and keep enough cashflow to stay alive. Turning a profit is simple, being cash flow positive and maintaining liquidity is tough. That seperates losers like me a few years ago and guys that win.

About lawns, imagine having 450 bitty old ladies that you have to work for. Constant bitching and complaining about petty bullshit that doesn't matter while you're working in 105 degree heat.

If you're a numbers guy then put that ability to use.

For you guys running cattle; what's the business model and strategy?  Get some cows, a bull and spit out babies?  how many head is needed to eek out a profit?

Depends completely on your area and overhead. I used to run cows but we get a bad blizzard every 4 to 7 years so i just buy 400ish pound calves in the spring and either sell them in the fall or take them to a feedlot until they are ready for slaughter. Theres a lot of money to be made with cows right now though. One of our local feedlots is actually converted over to a cow calf operation so there must be money there. They tore out all the pen dividers so they have like 20 large pens rather than a ton of small pens.

For me i run around 100 to 150 head. On a mediocre year i can count on making 150 per head. More than that can be made in a perfect storm.

We are very dry here so to run that many i have 500 acres of land.

What about pressure washing or tile/carpet cleaning businesses?

It is virtually impossible as a one man show to give someone a set time, other than whatever client is going to be your first account to do.  The first client, you can say "I will be there XX hours/minutes after agreed upon snow depth".  From there, it is a wildcard based on how much snow/what type of snow you get.
I have cleared properties that take 45 minutes if it is 2" or less of light, fluffy snow.  That same property turns into 3 hours if it is a thick, wet deep snow.
At one point we ran six trucks, so there were six clients that could be guaranteed to be first in line.  Those clients also paid a premium to be number one.  In fact, being completely clear before employees arrived was so important to one client, they paid us a high enough rate that I could park a truck on site at the first sign of snow and just have him sit there until there was enough snow to be cleared.

The "Guy with a plow truck" wasn't getting the residences done when they wanted because he probably had contractual/higher dollar commitments to get his commercial work done as soon as possible once a storm hit.  A lot of us in the snow removal game only do residential drive ways as filler work.  I tell residential clients that they will get done within 24 hours of a storm.  If that doesn't work for them(and I fully understand if it doesn't), they need to find someone else.

Also having an 8-5 real job is going to hamper your ability to service your clients on some type of timeline.
If the storm stops early enough that you can get your clients cleared before work, awesome!
But what happens if it starts snowing late, and you are stuck at work, but people are expecting their driveway to be cleared by the time they come home?

MiniZ speaks the truth. My family also did commercial/residential snow removal for a number of years. They worked independent but were "backup" for a large landscaping company for a number of those years. When they finished with all of their customers they would help the company finish up with the rest of their lots.

Residential driveways are a filler; to be a "premium" residential customer won't come cheap. Why?

It's nearly impossible to effectively plow a parking lot when it's full of cars and it adds a significant amount of time to the snow removal. Hence parking lots ALWAYS get priority for getting cleared before the business opens. At a bare minimum the goal is to get the spaces that are more frequently used clear and come back to the rest later. Heavy snow more often than not, happened overnight in our area and sometimes would be done before businesses open and sometimes not. Either way you slice the pie the large lots got priority though because residential customers weren't very appreciative if you showed up at 2 am and made a bunch of racket outside. So that leave a very small window of opportunity to get their drive cleared after they wake up but before they leave for work; that's not happening for more than a couple customers...

Equipment in my dad's arsenal:
3 snow-plow trucks
1 back-hoe
1 6 foot tall, 9 foot wide snow-blower for when things got deep enough the trucks couldn't get it

Any knowledge of pressure washing/carpet and tile cleaning businesses?

Pest control.

We can't find people to actually show up. I'm a restaurant so a monthly customer at least. I handle my own control now. I just buy spray and traps and bait stations on Amazon. If it says use 4 in the 250 sq ft then I use 8. Overkill. I save 20 a month and do a better job than they did.

I would go with selling online.  You can either do arbitrage which is where you go to retail stores and buy clearance items and then resell them or you could do private labeling and create your own brand.

I started doing this about a year and a half ago, first the former and then with the profits from that the latter. Just transitioned about 3 months ago to doing this full time.

I work on the existing products about 1 hour a day and spend about 4-5 searching for new ones.  I keep running out of money to buy new inventory with.

Note: You can do this with eBay, Amazon, and a few others.  I only do Amazon as they have the FBA program.  I don't want to be at home to have to ship products everyday.

Edit: Pick a business that you can separate your time from the money earned.  My business works 24/7/365 for me.  Real Estate also does this as well as some other options.

Just throwing it out there, but what about appliance repair?

These new appliances are made like total garbage these days, and I've been able to diagnose and fix mine via Google, Forums and YouTube many times.  

Go to customer, assess the machines, return to service truck/van and get on the web and find the problem, get needed parts and repair?

For project work, an online network like helpir (www.helpir.com) would help you find local clients.  
Commerce Hub also has fulfillment services like FBA.  

I do a little carpet cleaning.

Not hard to learn. About $800 to get going with some ok equipment (Not Rug Doctor fucking junk!)

Once you try it out a few times at home in different rooms, take it to the streets. I charge a flat rate of .28 a square foot.

I also do spots for free. Doesn't matter. People like the no bullshit approach. I can easily make $60 an hour.


I'm sure everyone here will have ideas that can make a lot more per hour, but with the carpet thing, customers see the result and are instantly happy. You know right away you are going to get paid. i often get a 10-20 dollar tip too.

In for info.



I have been wanting to get into real estate/rentals for several years now. I bought a townhouse that I plan on renting out eventually. I want to get into multifamily complexes.

I had a ACD (Animal Damage Control)/Nuisance Wildlife Removal business for a couple years as a side gig. You can make money if you don't mind crawling under houses, into attics, etc. trapping and removing raccoons, opossums, skunks, snakes, etc. Most states require a license from the state wildlife agency and there is some early capital cost to purchase traps or various sizes, catch poles, and other supplies. I set my fee structure as a set cost for the first visit ($120) then a per animal removed fee (varied by species). If you are fairly handy or have construction experience then the exclusion work is a nice bonus. It usually involved replacing/painting a couple boards, installing hardware cloth, or metal flashing.  I closed up because my regular job required travel and you have to check traps daily.


I'm currently looking for something that will provide passive income, most likely rental property.

Cleaning gutters is another thing that some people are to lazy to do. Trimming shrubs and removing leaves. A lot of people hate  cleaning up leaves  so they will pay good money to have it done.  

Save the shit out of every nickle i had.. and put it in an index fund.... You don't "need" 60% of what you think you do. By the time you hit 40 you will be sitting pretty, and will understand more about life which then would allow you to use some capital to get the fuck out of corporate America..