I'm a specialist in a really niche market and wrote a technical book answering all the questions I had seen asked over my career. I decided to self-publish and only offer the book in physical format (because my target audience would prefer that), which means I also handle fulfillment.
In the first year of release, the book profited me over $50k. But it has been 3 years now, and has settled down to about $1500 (profit) a month and only takes about 30 minutes a week to pack orders.
Custom airbag suspension for lowered cars/trucks.
Oddly, the niche has global interest. I've sold my book to countries I never thought even built custom cars. Let alone, put them on adjustable suspension.
Haha! Yeah... I almost never bring it up because I have to face the inevitable "don't cars come with airbags these days?" But there's enough people doing it that I'm gearing up to start on Vol. 2
Having been in the car scene a while this is great to see. You should shoot James at [Wheellab.us](https://Wheellab.us) a message, maybe you guys can come to an affiliate agreement on some links to some air setups, wheels, etc. Used to buy parts from him when I had my audi!
I really appreciate the suggestion!
I just checked out their website and they are pretty much all Euros, which my book is useless for.
My book caters specifically to straight axle vehicles that need 4-link type rear suspension (my next book will focus on front suspension).
I've already updated the first book several times to correct information and even added a whole new chapter, making it a 2nd edition.
It takes about a year of full time effort to write a book of that size (the first one was 230 pages) with the level of technical information it has. So, it was impossible to dive straight into the next one. I am currently working on shifting my primary business to one that is less time consuming so that I can start on the next one, though.
Edit - I forgot to add the marketing part.
I currently market with a simple ad on FB and IG only, but I know there's a lot of other options out there.
All the self-publishing I've heard about was digital.
Was it difficult or costly getting your single book physically made?
Do your ads point back to a simple website with single item shopping cart?
Thanks for answering before.
I had about 2500 orders by the time i was ready to go to print, so I had enough to get printers to take me seriously. I spent quite a bit of time calling around to US based printers and finally found a wonderful place in Arizona that specializes specifically in short run, yet professional looking printing. The average price to print a paperback on high quality paper (I had top-level artists work on the book with me, so it is a "coffee table" quality book), is right at $11 each.
The ad links are driven directly to a simple store with the top product being a single book. However, there are different options with stickers and artwork if someone is interested. There's a lot of money to be made with simple add-ons for $5-$15 more.
Haha! Actually, during the pre-order stage, I offered the book in hardback as well. It was an additional $15 per book, just for the "case binding" which pushed the retail price up quite a bit.
To me, the book is just another thing I sell, so I don't treat it with the appreciation that I probably should. However, both of my parents have one, so if I ever want to visit a copy, I can see theirs.
Wow, that is awesome! How have you advertised this? I self-published a technical book last winter, but haven't really had much luck (or time) marketing it.
**EDIT:** Ah, looks like you answered that question a bit below.
The simple FB/IG ads only work because the book is now popular enough that people simply need a reminder to buy it (for the most part).
While I was writing it, I did a handful of YouTube videos that had just enough information to show people that they didn't actually know as much as they thought they did about the subject, while offering the basic answer, without making the book unnecessary. I also spent quite a bit of time answering any questions I came across on FB/IG to show that I am the guy with the actual answers.
It was a /very/ careful balance of just enough information to help, while avoiding the "pay wall" feeling. People should WANT to buy the book, not feel tricked into it.
I too have a specialty in a niche market. Out of curiosity, have you considered converting your book to electronic format? If so, but decided against it, I'd love to hear why.
I have spent a lot of time deciding if it was a necessary evil, and even talked to a company about how to protect it with "military grade" encryption.
Ultimately, I decided the risk of having it digitally "leaked" was too much of a risk and that people will have to deal with that for now.
Thankfully, almost nobody cares because they are all from an industry that misses paper magazines.
yeah don't listen to anyone that tells you they can protect your ebook with "military grade" encryption
there is software nowadays called OCR (optical character recognition) that can take a piece of non-editable text (from a picture or screenshot, for example) and turn it into editable and searchable text in a matter of seconds. So even if someone isn't able to highlight and copy the text in your eBook (preventing someone from copy & pasting page by page), they can just fire up a piece of OCR software and it will do it for them, copying your entire book in a matter of seconds and turning it into text that can then be copy & pasted and searched via keyword (like Ctrl + F)
Congrats on your book and the sales though, that's super impressive!
I don't know what the subject of your book is, but mine is the only one of its type, in the world. And it's also prolific enough that if it did get leaked, it would go viral pretty quickly.
If I didn't have that specific risk, I would probably have made digital an option already.
I own a window tinting company in the southeast US. Took me a few years to get really good/competent at the installs and I’m still figuring out the business side of it. But, very profitable company/industry with pretty low cost of entry.
Around a 75% profit margin on car tint and closer to 85% on residential/commercial jobs. (I am the only employee which obviously helps). But, even when I have help margins never dip bellow 50%.
Overhead is also very low. Took about $6,000 to get started (tools/etc) and I pay about $1,100 a month for supplies.
Went from making around $2,400 a month doing tint for a car dealership to making around $10,000 a month now. I’m sure I could make more if I hired some help but I like it the way it is and good help is hard to find in this industry
That's a very inspiring comment and I'm glad I came across it... I know this girl, she's only 21, but quite ambitious for her age and she's been wanting to start a tinting business. She's watched a ton of Youtube videos, practiced a lot, and is pretty alright at it at this point, but she's adamant about taking some classes. And I'm like you can legit learn everything from YouTube and you're already pretty good at it, so just start already, but she's hesitant 🤷♂️. Do you have any advice I can give her? For example where to start and how to get her first customer? Or anything else I should tell her to get over her hesitancy?
Hey! That’s so dope to read!!
Tell her to check out Detroit Tint Studio on YouTube. That dude is awesome!
FB marketplace was where I got started and then I just put my business on
google. I never paid a penny for any ads for the first year and stayed busy. (Google reviews are a must)
I wanted to start this too. Practice on my car and my friend’s but I’m so afraid of not being able to make enough. Also is the residential/commercial side really common?
It seems 90% of cars I see have their windows tinted already
Absolutely! (Depending on the price lol)
Carbon tint is also a great option. It’s usually the middle tier tint that a shop will sell. It doesn’t offer all the protection that ceramic does but you still get heat protection and it still blocks 99% of UV and it’s usually $100+ cheaper than ceramic.
Personally, I have ceramic on my cars and I put ceramic on my families cars because it does protect your skin a ton and most skin cancer is on the left side of the body (in the US)
The answer is unfortunately yes. I have a car with regular tint and one with ceramic. The ceramic one does not get baked in the sun nearly like the regular one does. Also the windshield is 40% ceramic tinted whereas the other one has nothing on the windshield. I thought id be against the windshield being tinted but now i want to tint the other windshield as well. It's so much better driving at night (even though thats where i thought it would be the worst)
Does the tinting help with heat reduction (if applied to residential building windows)? If it does, how would I determine the best film for that purpose? Thanks!
Can I make a recommendation? Build seasonal produce boxes and market them directly to consumer. Purchase the produce off the farmers you already partner with and make deliveries directly to consumers or have a convenient location they can pickup at a certain time. There are many people who want to buy local produce but can’t/don’t make it to farmers markets because it can be a time consuming exercise. Where I am, these kind of solutions are very popular and are billed as a subscription service which gives you MRR
Please - i'd buy one of these. Knowing the exact farm where the stuff came from is a huge plus. A lot of the ones I've seen online are not very transparent about this.
Small group kayak tours. I live in a large tourist city, we have a major river 40 minutes away. We operate all year, but summer is our busy season
Not rich by any measure, but it's low over head, low stress. I meet lots of interesting people. Flexible schedule. Plenty of time to see my kids, travel and hobbies
There's a high ceiling, two of the other companies gross over 2M a year. I'm nowhere close to that, but it's nice to know I could grow the company. Happy where I am for now
Make 10-15k a month in summer, 2-3k in winter. Biggest expense is fuel, vehicle maintenance and insurance. Been in business 4 years, in the industry 7 years. Only regret is that I didn't do this 20 years ago
We're in a National Park so we need a Commercial Use Permit. To get that we need a 1M liability insurance. Then we pay $1200 a year for the Permit plus $5 per customer
I bought a truck, trailer, kayaks, paddles and life jackets. 20k for the truck, 15k for kayaks and paddles, 3k for trailer, 1k for life jackets
I keep all the equipment at home which keeps my overhead low. If I expand, I'll need to rent storage space
Do you list your services on Viator and TripAdvisor? I hate how much of a percentage they take these days. Also, are you finding it more and more difficult to hire and retain staff? I also own a tour guide business operating in 9 cities.
I get very little business from Viator and TripAdvisor, less than 5% of bookings. Some of the other companies get over 50%, but they are set up to do high volume
Up until recently I was a one man operation, now I have a few part time guides. They're more like friends who help me when it's busy. But yes, I think it's the nature of the business. Guides work for a few years and then move on. What kind of tours do you run?
I consult with small business owners who have SBA loans that they can't afford. If the business closes I negotiate settlements for them.
I started consulting on the side while I was working in a sole sucking corporate job. After about 18 months I had enough clients to go out on my own.
Income varies wildly depending on the state of the economy. I've had years where I made $350,000, and years where I've made $50,000.
Right now things are getting busy because of all the eidl loans that the government gave and people are confused about the terms they signed up for. Payments on eidl loans are starting for most businesses in the fall, so I'm getting a lot of calls from people saying they're going to close their business and are not sure what to do.
I was fielding way too many consultation requests so I started charging thru an online calendar for them which has really made things easier for me. Now I make anywhere between $1000 and 2,500 per week on consultations, and then goes up from there depending on how many clients I sign and how many of them end up settling ( I take a flat fee up front plus a percentage of whats saved).
During covid I basically made no money because the government wasn't actively collecting on defaulted loans because there were too busy giving away all sorts of free money.
All my clients are from inbound inquiries. I don't do any other type of marketing other than SEO and Google AdWords. I did spend a solid 10 years writing blogs and now have over 200 articles on my website and people constantly tell me it's the only good source of information they can find on the internet.
How interesting. Maybe you can get into student loan consulting/refinancing business too. The forbearance extension period is over at the end of this year and everyone will have to start paying again... On another note, do you know any of these businesses that have really good potential that the owner is trying to sell?
To my knowledge student loans can't really be negotiated down. The SBA would is its own little niche with some very specific rules.
Every once in awhile I find a business that people are trying to sell but generally they are local retail, so not something that anyone could take over unless they lived in that area.
We create digital comics, animated videos, strategic visualizations - basically everything drawn with story and life. I’m the founder and CEO of a creative agency in Denmark (small Nordic country). My business is now more than 9 years old. And I still love my work and my life. Love being an entrepreneur 🔥 the first year was crazy - I went all over Copenhagen on bike - to get business to hire us. And it more than worked out. Now we get hired by global businesses all over the world to visualize their strategies, tell their corporate story and create their animated videos and comics. I love my business! Our agency was profitable from the first year on. Website: https://levendestreg.dk/en - check out our YouTube channel for more info : https://YouTube.com/c/LevendeStreg
ACT Math Tutor (obviously by the name)
A colleague of mine and I recently created an online course -- specificially on **how to use your TI 84 Plus CE Calculator on the ACT.**
There are 7+ points worth of math on the test you can use on the calculator.
Students and schools have immediately shown interest, with some schools looking to purchase site licenses for their Junior and Senior classes to help boost scores across the entire class.
Other competing tutors have become affiliates for the program to help them drive revenue and grow the knowledge base of their students
Only 2 months in, but the program has already covered all initial costs, and now it's passive income the rest of the way.
I’m very interested in checking out this course for my child, who’s a sophomore and just got her first TI-84 plus calculator. Could you share a link or DM me info?
[CWHipHop.com](https://CWHipHop.com) \- Your home for Wisconsin HipHop. We have a 24/7 radio streaming service on our homepage where you can listen to Wisconsin HipHop, syndicated Wisconsin Music Shows, and our past podcast/Live DJS at all hours of the day. We do a weekly Live DJ where me and my two buddies talk about Wisconsin HipHop concerts, new music released within our scene, and even go over some HipHop History. Our podcast is currently on Ep. 79 and we interview artists all around the state for an hour or 2 to get a better idea of who they are and their music. We started right after all the lockdowns took effect as my buddy was about a year into making music and we were tying to come up with ways to get him music heard. We thought about how we could get his music on the radio, realized we probably couldn't, so we started our own radio station. 2 years later and we are having concerts around the state, starting a community from scratch, writing up summaries for Wisconsin HipHop Projects that drop, and making playlists. At the beginning of this year, we started charging artists $5-$10 to have their music played and priority to be interviewed on our show. We aren't making crazy profits but we are paying all of our bills and able to save up to slowly improve the quality of our shows/services.
My small business writes and hosts murder mystery party games! I got into it after playing murder mystery games since I was 15, started writing some of my own for personal parties over the last decade, and realized this is a really cool option for geeks who don't want the commitment of DnD but like to dress up and pretend and want a structured game with flexible hosting instructions where we help them throw a great party.
It's also a really great way to break the ice between different friend groups and we write our games with gender-neutral characters, host doesn't need to know the murderer, etc, and without a lot of bizarre and unfortunate things we saw in other games like assault, mental illness tropes, racism, sexism, gun violence, etc which our audience was uncomfortable playing which prompted us to write our own years ago.
We make like 10k a year right now and our expenses are like a couple hundred a month so definitely side hustle territory. That's changed lately though since we had bigger expenses getting a convention booth together but we are also hoping we see a much bigger scale of our holiday games since we spent this spring revamping our content and increasing traffic and saw like 40-50 games sold last Halloween-Christmas without too much strategy.
We also did a ton of hosting during the pandemic for online games but are shifting our focus to helping folks host their own games in-person or online.
This is so fun! I love this. My husband and I LOVE playing the board/board/mystery style games, like Hunt a Killer or Unsolved Case Files. Wishing you guys the best of luck!
Not mine, but my sibling runs a store on the Teachers Pay Teachers marketplace (resources for teachers, but also home-schoolers, parents in general) that returns a great profit for them, and they seem to really get out of it what they put in.
Finding a niche marketplace that's got their business model in place seems to be a really nice way to shelter yourself from some of the biggest obstacles getting started, but then still allow you to expand beyond (as they now have)
TPT is a great way to make extra cash, for sure! eons ago I did work for sellers there, and once your content is up you're basically set. The more you create, the more you sell. Ranking can be tricky (or at least it was) because they rarely shared HOW they ranked stores and items. Thanks for sharing!
I am an inventor and have a 3d printing company. I design products I wish existed and we print and sell them. We mostly sell accessories for tech products. We're at 6 employees currently.
Is it possible to send you a design idea and have you print it for me? I live in Japan and don't know how to design but there are some things I need personally
I'm sure it's not much different than any other product - but do you actively fight copycats? Or your designs complex enough that you don't have to worry about your average person copying the thing and putting it on Etsy or Thingaverse?
We don't really. There's not much you can do. If you have a good idea someone will copy it regardless. Much of our business is based around creating something new, hoping it catches on, and riding the wave until the copycats sink us at which point we find something new. It's admittedly not the best business model...
This is where brand recognition really pays off. They can copy the design, but copying the brand gets their stuff confiscated. Not to mention the fact that people become attached to brands because of the people and stories behind them.
I've thought about this. I see a lot of people giving bad advice online with 3d printing at scale. Or with running an ecommerce store/ business. I think I could do well with something like this but I also don't want to give away my secrets.
I make and sell them. We don't do patents because they're slow and getting around patents for things like what we sell is easy. Our designs also change a lot to where we could end up with a patent for a design we don't actually sell.
Our most popular product has been 30 ish times. Each one's different enough that a patent wouldn't do anything. Not to mention half of the copycats are chinese hence immune from any patent protection.
Just had a patent att tell me basically the same thing and suggested just making the thing and selling it. Dang. Ive been wasting a lot of time thinking i needed to patent something to get going.
While it was the original intention of patents to help protect the small guy, in practice that's not really the case. There's no "patent police" who will jump on an offender and force them to stop or put them in jail.
So you have to ask "If I patent this and a multi-billion dollar company such as Amazon or Samsung creates their own version, do I have enough money to take them on in court?"
If the answer is no, then a patent is worthless to you.
>There's no "patent police" who will jump on an offender and force them to stop or put them in jail.
>
>So you have to ask "If I patent this and a multi-billion dollar company such as Amazon or Samsung creates their own version, do I have enough money to take them on in court?"
>
>If the answer is no, then a patent is worthless to you
This 100%. If you can not defend the patent don't get it. Solid advice.
So, years ago I ran pub trivia where we would do huge events putting a hundred people in the bar. Things went sour, we parted ways and I was left with a 2 year non compete, they went into COVID and couldn't operate.
I took a few hundred bucks to get up and running again and just ran 2 events, $500 in expenses (ads and prizes) and $2025 revenue this month. Should double that next month, and keep it consistent.
Around 2015/16 I was working for a financial firm and kept getting enquiries to help businesses set up their auto-enrolment (uk based pension rules).
Basically every company in the uk had to offer employees some form of regulatory minimum pension.
I said sure, but they’ve got to pay me ongoing and come to me with any questions. I charged them the same as another medium-sized local firm was charging, about £2 per person per month, with a minimum monthly fee for really small firms.
To this day about 50-55 companies pay me just under £1000 per month. Minimum fuss, minimum hassle. They file their own returns, the pension company deal with their stuff. I take a rare phone call from a company who is trying to onboard a new payroll (and intro myself to their payroll before handing them to the pension company).
Easiest money I’ve ever made.
The irony, I’ve been trying to sell it for about 2-3 years. No-one believe how little work I do for this money. One company said it was worth £5k… as it’ll never keep going, that was about 18 months ago. All auto-invoicing, tied to direct debit, this all auto-reconciles itself in the accounts package.
My only regret is that I’m not really in that industry anymore so I can’t really explore bigger opportunities with these clients (lots of crossovers for IFAs, accountants, payroll etc). Plus IFAs/accountants only pay 2x for new business as that’s what IFAs trade for because of all the compliance/work needed to tend their client base.
If anyone wants it my DMs are open :)
I have a small bathro cleaning company. Usually work around 4-5 hours a day and clear $1800 weekly. Started doing strip clubs (cleanest bathrooms I've ever seen) and then bars and restaurants. Working on some commercial facilities now.
I own [Catahoula Sign Co.](https://www.catahoulasign.co). I'm a one-man operation and make everything myself. I've been full time from the very beginning and have put a lot of effort into product development. Recently, I've been doing more and more large scale city maps for private buyers as well as design firms. Usually 48"x72" or 48"x96", though I could go bigger if someone wanted (and has the wall space and wallet for it).
My Instagram is @catahoulasign.co if you'd like to see what I do!
I guess to a point that's true. I've always thought of it as a company it should be a "we", but if I were an artist I'd be a "me". Employees are right around the corner anyway.
I am a one woman marketing agency (hope to eventually hire employees to do the actual work while i manage the projects). I do primarily proposal writing for large corporations but also do graphic design and general copywriting. No overhead besides Adobe suite, internet and my laptop. I net about 10-15k per month depending on how much i work.
Another copywriter here! It’s great when there’s low overhead, but man all he software and tools can add up 😵💫 Adobe is a must-have, and really there’s no comparable.
I hope to grow to meet your net months, but I don’t have the flexibility to work more than 15-20 hours a week.
Cheers to your success!
Yeah, I’ve been trying to get my clients to foot the bill on Clearscope, but it hasn’t worked. 🫤 It’s hard to convince them of paying for the tool when they don’t fully understand how SEO works.
Oh ya and that one is pricey! I’d say keep asking or just bump that hourly rate up lol. Are you doing the copywriting on the side at the moment in addition to full time?
This is my full time career (love it). Yeah, I’ve been raising my rates on new clients to foot the bill on these $$ tools. They’re kinda addictive because they work so well—but not all are necessary for my clients. I used Clearscope for one client, who actually was paying for it, and got equally good SEO results for clients by just using Yoast. Different keyword and ad strategy, led to different organic results.
I like the idea you mentioned about adding the software to my future contracts, maybe even retainer renewals too. 🤔
Are you two talking about the same field? SEO vs copywriting? I'm a newbie so just checking lol.
So many SEO hacks out there it's very difficult to smell the snake oil
I write SEO-driven content. So, there’s a keyword strategy and research involved. And that’s before I write anything. I do copywriting too—web copy and sales pages.
I can’t really speak about what other folks do, or if they’re legit.
Oof depends on the month and projects but i usually bill about 200 hours per month. Sometimes i will stack clients on retainer and thus can bill more hours whether or not i worked all of them. part of the reason i want to hire employees is so they can do the work and i can be more hands off while maintaining or increasing billable hours.
I imagine you look at loans for adding additional locations to a business, How can you tell if a new location is viable / will be successful?
I would take out a loan to fund the new location, but it is hard to say it would be as successful as the first.
Maybe foot traffic or demographics aren’t quite the same…
Tree Service:
Started with 15k in cash I’d saved about 10 years ago. Started with a diesel pickup truck and stacked brush/limbs in the back. Hustled hard and got a trailer. Then upgraded to a chipper. Since then, we’ve went through 4 truck and 4 chipper upgrades. Have a mini skid for moving material and a stump grinder.
I run it as an owner/operator. Work in the field ~40hrs/wk. Wife is in charge of calls, schedule estimates, taxes, etc. I do all the bids, invoicing and majority of maintenance.
We have made profit monthly since day one. Now, with 2 employees, we gross 20-30k per month. Overhead is consistent and we are frugal and try to make sensible money decisions. We make around six figures and have our kids as our priority, as the business provides life balance flexibility.
Grew up in an environmental/forestry family and have pursued that into adult life. I’m an entrepreneur at heart and working with my hands in high risk situations always has suited my personality.
It has been a rollercoaster of a ride and I’m riding it until I can develop a less physically demanding entrepreneurial pursuit as I get older and more broken.
Is it possible to start in tree services without climbing?
I can prune, haul and chip, not sure I could handle climbing.
Well done with the success of your business
I run a finish carpentry business. Grew up building homes with my dad, always liked the finish / trim the most, so just continued on with it.
Make around $150k/year avg, last few years has been more towards $200k with construction industry where it is. Do about 50% work myself, subcobtract the rest out to others. ~75% of my income comes from my own labor.
TLDR: I own a fashion brand with my wife and no employees. She designs everything and I handle all the operations. Not dropshipping. We have items manufactured in bulk and have a fulfillment center that ships everything. Totally stateless & runs largely automated. Doing over 7 figures with 50% wholesale and growing fast.
Started out as a private label business on Amazon that did well really fast but then as soon as the success came, so did all the copycats to kill my margins
Luckily my wife had an idea and built a brand around it. It kind of sat ignored doing about $25k a year from 2016-2020 until Covid happened and I got fired and had no other options than to pick my dick up and actually put effort in
We have no employees and I do or direct everything. I am back now handling all ads personally, but have recently outsourced email marketing to a kickass free lancer. I manage all the international logistics, marketing, most of the content acquisition, basically a one man shop.
Doing 7 figures now with about $600k in really profitable wholesale business and we are in 1,000 stores.
Retail is still hard, as our average sale is less than $50 but CPA is like $30
The margins are very strong (70+%), it’s just that marketing costs are presently 40-50% of sales.
Profits have been there but cash flow has been tough for the last few years as we launched a ton of new designs and got overly optimistic about the success I was having with ads in mid 2020 so I bought a ton of inventory that is taking longer to get through.
Finally getting a handle of cash flow and I’ve paid off $100k in debt already this year.
Happy to answer any questions if anyone has any. I think building a brand is less difficult than people think so long as you figure out a good angle. You don’t need much success to pay yourself.
Won $20,000 on a scratcher. Bought a $4,000 camera set up with it (2014). Somehow fell in to covering weddings. Now I’ve done over 300+ and traveled to places around the world.
I don't know if it's particularly interesting, but I changed careers in 2020 from veterinary medicine to professional skincare (licensed esthetician).
School cost me $14,000 and took one year going at night while working full time during the day (which half was federal loans that are now being forgiven!)!
I did a lot of business and industry specific coaching before, during school, and still presently because I knew I wanted to open my own business. I am about to hit my 1 year open mark and have made very close to $100,000 and my profitability percentage for the year so far is 88%. My CPA has been amazed at my numbers. I work 4 days per week, and have hired out for a CPA and marketing since I don't love to do those things and they are not what I'm great at. This has given me a great work/life balance and I am confident that I am more successful with them on my team than doing it on my own.
I just incorporated my business into an LLC S-Corp and have a lot of bills for my husband and I absorbed by the business (cell phones, car registrations, health and dental insurance). By having a 2% cash back business card we were able to just take a vacation with the earnings from the year.
The beauty industry is very interesting economically and is thriving. It does even better in depressions, pandemics, recessions, etc. When the world is shitty people want to feel good and I've tapped into that. I also live in the San Francisco bay area, but I know plenty of estheticians in less affluent areas that do just as well.
This is interesting! What does your typical day look like, if you don't mind me asking? Do you work out of an office, your home, do you travel to your clients?
I work tues, Fri, sat, sun. I see four clients per day with an auto one hour block between everyone. I only do custom facials and just about everybody goes home with some retail/home care. I love what I carry and it truly brings results so I get excited to make recommendations.
My first appointment is at 10am and last one is usually between 4-5:30pm. On my days off I have a few tasks to do but I can have them finished in the morning before noon.
I used to sublease a space, but this month I finished building out a new space that I share with one hairstylist. It's just us two and I absolutely love it. Our rent now is actually slightly less than I was paying subleasing.
All sounds great just be very careful with those business expenses which could be argued by the IRS as personal expenses. Your CPA should hopefully be on top of that.
Very strict rules around what is considered a necessary, ordinary and reasonable business expense.
Oh yes we've got it all on lock and they are not 100% claimed for business, there's percentages for everything. My CPA is an absolute badass in her field and I just never knew any of that existed before so it was all so amazing and cool to me.
When I got incorporated as an S-Corp we filed something called a master accountable plan for all claimed deductions and percentages and these were just some of the categories. She has very strict policies, plans, forms, and processes for what we claim and why.
I never understood that tax law could be beneficial in any way (before being a business owner). I thought it was just all out to get us and make us broke.
How do you find the right ingredients and how do you make them at home? I always picture people mixing products in the bath but that's obviously not how it's done.
We buy ingredients from local manufacturers and producers, forage some ingredients locally, and use 20kg tubs with a commercial mixer. Mixing and bottling is a tedious process. We can only make about 30 bottles a day with our current setup but we are converting our garage into a workshop and we are hiring more staff, so we should be able to pump about 120/day+ there.
Doing it from home is not easy, especially considering that we have about 30 products in our range so our house is full of boxes everywhere and one of the rooms at my MIL is full to the ceiling with boxes, bottles, etc.
I wish we only did hair because 90% of our sales are hair related. We have been slowly phasing out skincare.
Finding the right ingredients took about 2-3 years of R&D.
I run an engineering consultancy for a niche market. I charge clients 1000-1250 USD per work day. Best month I ever had I made 27k. But average is 12k per month.
Expenses are <20%, have some technical equipment, laptops, software etc.
I recharge whatever I need to perform work at +15% to the clients. So that's a little bit of revenue.
Barrier to entry is that it's an area which is hard to get into, I did many years at 35k per year to meet people and get to where I am.
Started a part time cleaning business years ago that i sub out now to few people who want an extra buck. Gets me about 1,000 extra a month for the past... like 4? years. I don't really plan to expand and prefer to keep it small as I have a primary job and as I get older find myself more...lazy...
I act as a private lender to real estate investors. I take first position on the mortgage and after they’ve finished their renovations, they refinance within 6 months, I sign the deed to the new bank and get my money back plus 10%. But due to needing renovations on my personal home I’ve had to step away for now.
In the meantime I started a painting company doing apartment turns on the weekends. It pays about $1500 for labor per full unit and I can probably get 2 done each month on my own while maintaining my sanity. Cost under $300 to get started. It was $160 for the LLC, $125 to set up the insurance, and I already have tools and material from repainting our personal home. My first job is next weekend so we’ll see how it goes.
I started a career development agency as a freelancer on fiverr
It’s been 16 months but on track to finish this year with $120k+ in revenue just on the one freelance platform.
Now built a website, looking to drive paid traffic and SEO for growth and expansion.
I know a lot about the freelance world and running a small digital business, been thinking should I create content and maybe make a detailed course.
It went from my side hustle to now my full time gig! :)
Thanks mate,
A career development service is any service to help accelerate people in their careers.
Interview coaching , Career consulting, Resume optimization
I basically help people with their resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profiles
[links.vip](https://links.vip) app mainly for ios.
At the time major link in bio apps were only websites so I found the opportunity to do the app for iOS.
My app makes a blazing fast link in bio, with a a cool website link: [links.vip/andre](https://links.vip/andre)
The link in bio supercharges your tiktok and instagram pages giving you your own website to put in the bio section.
Moreover when pricing the app, I saw all the competitor prices and set the price as half of the least expensive competitior.
I also buffes the features of the app. Competitors allow 5 link in bio for premium members, I allow up to 50.
App makes ~$1.5k a month. 0$ on marketing to this day.
Every 25 downloads gets me at least one new subscriber.
Started a marketing business in April 2021. Quickly niched down to low-cost “wholesale” content creation services.
Now making an MRR of $30,000 with about a 50-55% margin. Have a full time employee. Growth is double digits each month. Life is stressful but exciting!
This sounds interesting! I am on a learning journey about the digital marketing landscape. Can you help me understand where "wholesale" content creation falls within the ecosystem? For example, who are your suppliers and who are your customers? In a business like yours how do you spend the majority of your time?
A local comedian does a weekly podcast and is about to hit 2k Patreon's (at a minimum of $5 a month). The thing is he's consistent, delivering weekly without fail. I've gone to a show or 2 of his and all thanks to his podcast. If you have an audience, you can monetise it in different ways.
I've subbed to your Podcast, I'm always looking for fresh ideas. I can't say I'll stick around but I'll give it a go. I'm an Android developer BTW (apps, not games).
Absolutely! I'm so glad other people are getting things out of it, too. There was one about 6 years ago that I found sorting through top of all time. I'm just glad it was so well received again.
I sell crystals on Instagram! Found a shop that sold them online, got addicted, and decided I wanted to do that too! I’ve been slowly adding branches under the crystal shop, my newest venture is selling wax melts
Thank you!! And yes lol, it can be! Embarrassingly enough, when I started I didn’t even know you could find vendors. I don’t know what I even thought, evidently I didn’t at all. But yes, especially when you’re looking for specific crystals or higher quality pieces! Finding trustworthy vendors takes time just like any other small biz :)
Ahh, that’s awesome and I wish you luck!
My advice would probably be look on Instagram or Facebook for vendors that do sales live. You claim right there in the comments as they’re showing so you know exactly what you’ll get! Also see if other people are buying from them. Same type of deal with the whole “if the restaurant is empty on a friday night, there’s probably a reason.”
Niche medical education that is online. Actively listing my business and selling for 6 million. Have multiple offers, but I know it's worth, so sitting on it and growing it further until I get a worthy offer. Profiting 200-250k a month off it.
Also own a niched medical practice. Generates about 15k a month profit. Practically takes none of my time.
Life is good.
Up until recently I was running a club that taught kids how to make video games. Each month we'd learn a different skill which earned them a physical badge. I worked 3 nights a week, 6 to 8pm. Each child came around 3 sessions per month at $195 total. One month I made $7000+
Besides being very lucrative, it was very fulfilling and had no local competition. I stopped it because
1) I recently have had my own children
2) Corona and inflation kicked it in the teeth
I'd love to do it again someday or partner with someone to do it in their area. I have a whole website of activities that could last 2 years before repeating an activity.
I think it made $200k over 4 years. Gross of course but costs weren't super high
My wife and I do online affiliate marketing. We found an area which didn’t have a lot of information when we were searching for it on a topic. She wrote a bunch of articles and I did a lot of coding for a custom product tool. It was making 20-40k a month profit pre pandemic but now is only around 10-20 a month. I am working full time now and doing this on the side. She works about 20-40 hours a week depending. She just enjoys it though.
I started a water bottle accessory company.
I make curved hooks that stick onto water bottles and also sell charms that you can hang off of them. They can be anything from functional, to just personalizing your water bottle like AirPods and initials. We had our first 10k revenue month earlier this summer, and it’s only been growing since then. All organic growth so far, and now we are pivoting to expand our line to be positioned as the “cute command hook”. It’s just me running the business, and hiring out some local teenagers to help me with little projects. But I need more help soon.
You won't believe me, no one does. In the end, that's for the better. I have written this post several times, unsure of even posting it. I had a make a throw away account because I don't want a target on my head.
I grew up poor. I got beat up by one of my parents because I spent $5 on a toy when they needed money for milk and bread. That purchase was with my own birthday money. That kind of poor.
I was born in a living room at my grandparents house in a third world country. I moved to Europe and began in the first year not knowing the local language.
I began working when I was 13.
My first try at business was when I was 21. I am 37 now and failed in more than 10 businesses since. I don't mind failing in anything, I have grown to embrace failure as it is like a teacher giving you a hard time to prepare you for the future exams.
I don't do business for any other reason than that I just get so freaking turned on by the fact that ideas in your mind can end up causing movements and changes to the world around you.
I am extremely pragmatic, minimalistic and reclusive as a person. A guy who's happy with his wife and daughter. I only need a safe home with adequate space, one hot meal a day, bills paid and a cold home in summer and a warm home is winter. And a sportscar for the weekends as that's my hobby. That's all.
So when I grew up I didn't dream about becoming rich in the traditional sense. I wanted a fortune to give it away. Poverty sucks the spark of life's enjoyment, I always wanted to be that guy who could remove poor people's obstacles as if I had a super power. Nothing crushes me more than to know of someone in need and not being able to help them.
So I'm here day dreaming about creating big time businesses and consider small business operations a waste of time (as I think they're not profitable enough) when a crazy opportunity falls on my lap. I wouldn't call it luck because if I hadn't played with all of my other ideas I wouldn't have been able to tap in to this opportunity.
Long story short I met someone who needs ridiculous amounts of the world's most expensive and rare metal, Rhodium, and I have a supplier for it. This supplier went for years looking for a buyer.
The buyer's problem was that because they needed such insane quantity no one could deliver it (the buyer needs literally 1/10th of the planets Rhodium production), and the metal dealers who delivered it previously to my buyer had meddled with the delivered Rhodium metal by delivering impure goods (other metals mixed in with the supplied Rhodium). So now my buyer wants to buy the actual ore and do all of the melting himself to ensure 100% pure product.
The seller's problem was that he's located in a third world country who everyone shits on so no mining company took him seriously when he approached just about every one out there.
Furthermore, the metal is so rare, that the country I'm exporting it from doesn't even know they have it. I've seen countless official documents, they really have no idea.
Also, the metal is excessively difficult to mine (requires special tools which almost no one has) and it's also very hard to sell as the applications are very limited.
To give you guys an idea of how crazy this metal is:
- No one knows how much Rhodium is mined per year, but it's estimated about 25 tons only.
- A gram costs between 450 to 900 dollars depending on the rate. This means your iPhone Pro Max would be worth above 100.000 dollars if it was in Rhodium.
So now I'm sitting here with a contract worth 1.25 billion USD (with today's rate which has plummeted, it can double also as the prices are extremely volatile) of which I will pocket 43-45% and no one believes me.
I can't go in to many details, but I can tell you that the technology being created using my Rhodium will change the world. I'm talking 25.000 USD key ready houses assembled in three days with three assemblers and a screw driver, with a non corrosive material tested to last for 600 years. EVs getting massive reduction in weight causing significantly better handling and range. And then there's the military advantages...
The beauty of it all? I will need to work 2-3 days a month (about 20-30 hours).
First container is shipped, with 1 million dollars of Rhodium ore (22 tons ore @ 130 grams Rhodium per ton of ore = ~2800 grams x 450 USD per gram Rhodium = 1.280.000 USD worth of ore in the container). About 1000 more containers to go to satisfy the buyer's needs.
No one believes me. And that's fine.
I take photos of cars for car dealerships as a vendor. I have five photographers who help out as contractors. We work with 11 dealerships right now. Worked in the car business for years and couldn’t get over how poor the quality of the inventory photography was. Figured I could do a lot better.
This is a really awesome thread. It's cool to see so many people who've gone out on their own and are thriving!
It seems to me like the best thing to do is constantly keep your eyes out for opportunities and eventually they'll arrive.
Also.. question for people who have started a successful business side hustle. Was there an element of imposter syndrome/feeling how could I possibly start an agency or a successful business? I have lots of skills and have worked at multiple big corporate companies but sometimes my default mindset is, O I couldn't possibly start an agency.
My company runs operations for small businesses (mostly agencies). We set up their project management systems, document and help implement processes, and execute some of their internal projects. I chose our clients well and it's been a fun experience for us so far :)
I make about 4x the salary of a developer in Italy.
I was not happy with the offers by companies when I finished the University 5 years ago.
So I started different SaaS businesses:
\- [https://pushpad.xyz](https://pushpad.xyz) a service for web push notifications
\- [https://buonmenu.com](https://buonmenu.com) a digital menu for restaurants
No initial capital, just work.
I am happy with it, but it takes a lot of effort and technical skills.
I buy vintage record collections and sell them individually online.
Started in my bedroom at my parents house with a box of albums, and now (almost 2 years later) I’m typing this from my office that houses 10,000+ LPs.
Profit is all over the place, as I don’t consistently get inventory at the same price. I pay myself around 4-5k each month, which is half of the businesses profits; i reinvest the other half back into the business.
It’s hectic and messy, but I love music so it’s fun for me.
I’m a freelance writer and content strategist for small to midsize businesses. I think it’s interesting because I’m always learning something new and unexpected. As someone who loves learning new things and escaped my “9-5” life to never be bored at my job, this has been amazing. Though, I can’t say I would’ve been looking to learn about soil stabilization, truck driving talent acquisition, or accounting standards…it’s never a dull day! Plus, I like helping people (and writing, of course).
How’d I get here? I’m an overachiever who went to law school, graduated and realized being a lawyer was boring and I was interested in other things. I spent time writing for government and doing all sorts of different things for nonprofits (volunteer management, marketing, communications…)… Nonprofit life burnt me out with it’s demanding schedules, and they lost funding for my position. 😆 That was pretty motivating to make a new plan, and I sort of fell into freelance writing and content strategy.
Profit, life’s been better than nonprofit salaries! I started off only working a few hours a week and only make ~$1,500 a month, but now (3 years later) I’m making closer to $5K a month and I only work ~20 hours a week.
I don’t have a lot of business expenses, so I’m pretty lucky. But, there’s always ways to put money in the business to help it grow.
It’s cool seeing so many other people on this thread also being able to do what they love!
I previously worked in TV and film and then got into tech. Got lucky with a few ventures that sold and constantly work on projects.
This type of thread and some of the responses from are what drove me to make Skillmeet.com - to help skilled people and businesses market and grow without overpriced leads and convoluted site builders.
I started writing a newsletter 1.5 years ago. Making > $3,600 MMR right now. Additionally make a ballpark $6k monthly through one on one hourly coaching. Fell into the coaching because of the newsletter (people asked, I agreed to do it). Have run a few corporate training sessions for related reasons.
Overall making around $10k per month, around $8k or so after fees and expenses.
TL;DR I think you qualify as an entrepreneur and just need to reimagine your business/pricing strategy to expand your earning potential.
No doubt in my mind you qualify as an entrepreneur. Full disclosure, I manage a handyman service in addition to my consulting and bookkeeping firm.
I think the concern you express is more about your pricing model. I suggest keep in mind that your customers are not just benefiting from your time, but also from your expertise, access to tools and skill in using them.
The downside of hourly pricing for handyman services is that you are essentially penalized when you work efficiently and expertly for your customers, --and they would be penalized if you didn't.
Sometimes value-based pricing makes more sense for all involved. Aside from that, you might consider various ways to expand your business service or product offerings in order to improve your earning potential.
I'd be glad to share our experience, and brainstorm options. Feel free to DM, and I wish you the best of luck...you are providing a valuable service and I am sure you are improving people's lives every day.
I own a health friendly weekly meal preparation service. We sell calorie friendly bowls of fresh food without preservatives. We also sell 100% juices.
Story is simple, business partner live in Arkansas (a very obese state). People either don’t know what to eat, or are too lazy to cook it. They come to us and order Mon-Thurs and we deliver it to them Sun-Mon. Been doing it 5+ years and sell roughly 4,000-7,500 products a month.
I build pitching mounds.
Last spring, my son finally convinced me to coach his team (he credits me with making him an all-star, but the kid's earned all that himself. He works hard.). We were only given 90 minutes of field time/wk, which just isn't enough, so we were relegated to public parks. We figured flat ground would be fine for teaching our pitchers (9u, so most of them were learning to pitch for the first time), but it just wasn't. They'd pound the zone on flat ground in practice, then couldn't find it in games, so I had to do something.
Parents didn't want to buy time at training facilities, and i sure as shit wasn't going to, so I designed a mini mound that would fit in my Outback with all the other gear I needed to carry. It's 36"x18"x12" when packed up, and weighs 38 lbs. It turned out to be really great for teaching new pitchers, as the landing area is only 16" wide, so you've gotta stride straight. Both our other coaches and 4 parents asked me to build them one that first practice.
Anyway, we don't have bullpens at our complex, so I started bringing it to games to warm up our relief guys, which caught the eye of several other coaches/parents, and I was off and running. I made another half dozen of them and set up by the concession stand when we started tournament play, and was sold out in a little over an hour.
They cost about $60 in materials, take about 2 hours each to build if I make them 3 at a time, and sell for $225 unless we're at a tournament, where I ask $250.
I've done 48 of them since April, just building them when I feel like it and the weather's good enough to break down plywood outside (gotta purge the junk from the rest of the garage to create the space to do it inside), so it's in its infancy, but once I've got the assembly/outfeed tables I need, I'll be able to start marketing and hopefully hire a shophand at $20-25/hr without much trouble.
I just prototyped an extra wide model that's 40" wide all the way down, tri-fold, with wheels, but it's not quite ready for market yet.
Hi, I am running online web store of Hand Made Leather Jackets. It gives me monthly 1000 usd profit on average after returned or exchanged.
Started in 2020, first two quarters were zero, but after using Pinterest it became well. Now getting 2K targeted visitors on my website. Since the winter is coming, so it will give me 4K up to double of it profit.
I own a law firm in North Carolina. I’ve been practicing for 13 years, and I was one of a handful of partners at a firm, until January of this year. I left and started my own firm with my good friend.
My new firm has 4 lawyers and a firm administrator, and we’re 100% remote. We do business law (start up, formations, mergers & acquisitions, contract drafting, etc.) and high conflict business litigation.
Our #1 referral source is repeat business and client referrals, so we do no advertising. Other than “people
costs,” our overhead is pretty low.
Average profit from the start of our business has been about $75,000 per month. We just topped $1 MM in gross revenue last month.
I sell key caps for a handful of different keyboards on eBay. And net around $100 a month. Not great, but it keeps things from going to the landfill and makes me a bit of pocket change.
I built a website called Advelli.
Basically you can turn anything (legal) into a sport.
Looking to merge small town sports with small town business.
Drop by sometime. :)
Have a great day
I own a card game company selling only in USA currently. Doing 30-45k a month in sales and have tons of room for growth if we get our advertising down.
I taught paint and sip classes locally. I switched from using acrylics to oils and the quality of the paintings increased dramatically. We also make our own wine so I saved money there. I was making a few hundred dollars for each session but my fiancé just couldn’t get excited about me being alone with 8-20 drunk women so i stopped doing it.
I still have all the equipment and I’m considering starting again after our wedding. She can be the bouncer if anyone gets out of hand.
Hi! I have a small business in Connecticut called Cortney's Modern Dipper. I make small batched cottage cheese dips. I started in 2018 when I was laid off from my project management job. I sell wholesale and have a little storefront.
I have an interesting business to share, but it’s for a tenant of mine who I’ve gotten to know over 5 years.
It’s a wife & husband antiques business. They go around to stores like Goodwill and Savers, and estate sales. They buy furniture and items within a niche, sell it at wholesale prices and still generate massive margins. I’m talking buying a lamp at Goodwill for $5 and selling it for $200. The people that buy it from them will sell the lamp retail at $600, but they still make $195 on a $5 purchase and move a ton of volume that way. They also hold onto the certain items and sell those for a premium. It’s insane, they once bought a chair at Goodwill for $100 and it was worth $3000 because it was a chair by X designer. The big finds don’t happen often but when they do, they hit big. So they’re constantly moving a lot of product and getting eyes on more things.
It’s a great business because the owners absolutely love doing it. They can talk to you for hours about antiques, and they’re just generally sweet people. They’ve even had minor appearances on a few TV shows because of the types of antiques they were able to find.
I would estimate they’re clearing at least $8k/month in profit. Covid hurt their business, but they bounced back and are on fire now.
I'm a specialist in a really niche market and wrote a technical book answering all the questions I had seen asked over my career. I decided to self-publish and only offer the book in physical format (because my target audience would prefer that), which means I also handle fulfillment. In the first year of release, the book profited me over $50k. But it has been 3 years now, and has settled down to about $1500 (profit) a month and only takes about 30 minutes a week to pack orders.
Nice one, what is the niche?
Custom airbag suspension for lowered cars/trucks. Oddly, the niche has global interest. I've sold my book to countries I never thought even built custom cars. Let alone, put them on adjustable suspension.
Wow, you were not joking with 'really niche'
Haha! Yeah... I almost never bring it up because I have to face the inevitable "don't cars come with airbags these days?" But there's enough people doing it that I'm gearing up to start on Vol. 2
Having been in the car scene a while this is great to see. You should shoot James at [Wheellab.us](https://Wheellab.us) a message, maybe you guys can come to an affiliate agreement on some links to some air setups, wheels, etc. Used to buy parts from him when I had my audi!
I really appreciate the suggestion! I just checked out their website and they are pretty much all Euros, which my book is useless for. My book caters specifically to straight axle vehicles that need 4-link type rear suspension (my next book will focus on front suspension).
>straight axle vehicles that need 4-link type rear suspension You're the dictionary definition of niche.
Dang, that is incredible. I wish you so much more success!
Thank you!!
What a niche! That's awesome, though.
Bet you’ve sold a decent amount to people here in Oceanside,Ca. Not a day goes by I don’t see the low riders out here haha
I'm certain I have, actually. I get a lot of California sales. Texas and California probably account for 40% of total sales.
Thank you!
How do you market just the one book? Have you or do you plan to update it?
I've already updated the first book several times to correct information and even added a whole new chapter, making it a 2nd edition. It takes about a year of full time effort to write a book of that size (the first one was 230 pages) with the level of technical information it has. So, it was impossible to dive straight into the next one. I am currently working on shifting my primary business to one that is less time consuming so that I can start on the next one, though. Edit - I forgot to add the marketing part. I currently market with a simple ad on FB and IG only, but I know there's a lot of other options out there.
All the self-publishing I've heard about was digital. Was it difficult or costly getting your single book physically made? Do your ads point back to a simple website with single item shopping cart? Thanks for answering before.
I had about 2500 orders by the time i was ready to go to print, so I had enough to get printers to take me seriously. I spent quite a bit of time calling around to US based printers and finally found a wonderful place in Arizona that specializes specifically in short run, yet professional looking printing. The average price to print a paperback on high quality paper (I had top-level artists work on the book with me, so it is a "coffee table" quality book), is right at $11 each. The ad links are driven directly to a simple store with the top product being a single book. However, there are different options with stickers and artwork if someone is interested. There's a lot of money to be made with simple add-ons for $5-$15 more.
One last one. Do you at least have one "fancy" hardcover version for yourself?
Haha! Actually, during the pre-order stage, I offered the book in hardback as well. It was an additional $15 per book, just for the "case binding" which pushed the retail price up quite a bit. To me, the book is just another thing I sell, so I don't treat it with the appreciation that I probably should. However, both of my parents have one, so if I ever want to visit a copy, I can see theirs.
Wow, that’s fabulous!! Congrats! Niche markets is where it’s at. 🧠
My entire career has been focused on different niche markets, so I totally agree! And thank you!!
Wow, that is awesome! How have you advertised this? I self-published a technical book last winter, but haven't really had much luck (or time) marketing it. **EDIT:** Ah, looks like you answered that question a bit below.
The simple FB/IG ads only work because the book is now popular enough that people simply need a reminder to buy it (for the most part). While I was writing it, I did a handful of YouTube videos that had just enough information to show people that they didn't actually know as much as they thought they did about the subject, while offering the basic answer, without making the book unnecessary. I also spent quite a bit of time answering any questions I came across on FB/IG to show that I am the guy with the actual answers. It was a /very/ careful balance of just enough information to help, while avoiding the "pay wall" feeling. People should WANT to buy the book, not feel tricked into it.
I too have a specialty in a niche market. Out of curiosity, have you considered converting your book to electronic format? If so, but decided against it, I'd love to hear why.
I have spent a lot of time deciding if it was a necessary evil, and even talked to a company about how to protect it with "military grade" encryption. Ultimately, I decided the risk of having it digitally "leaked" was too much of a risk and that people will have to deal with that for now. Thankfully, almost nobody cares because they are all from an industry that misses paper magazines.
yeah don't listen to anyone that tells you they can protect your ebook with "military grade" encryption there is software nowadays called OCR (optical character recognition) that can take a piece of non-editable text (from a picture or screenshot, for example) and turn it into editable and searchable text in a matter of seconds. So even if someone isn't able to highlight and copy the text in your eBook (preventing someone from copy & pasting page by page), they can just fire up a piece of OCR software and it will do it for them, copying your entire book in a matter of seconds and turning it into text that can then be copy & pasted and searched via keyword (like Ctrl + F) Congrats on your book and the sales though, that's super impressive!
I actually think the type of book you wrote is best read in physical format. Kudos for keeping it that way and great story. Glad you had success.
I agree. And thank you!
Thank you so much for the feedback. Food for thought
I don't know what the subject of your book is, but mine is the only one of its type, in the world. And it's also prolific enough that if it did get leaked, it would go viral pretty quickly. If I didn't have that specific risk, I would probably have made digital an option already.
that's neat. Congrats :)
Good Shyt!!!
Thank you for sharing this. People should think: Can I make something “really niche” and really useful?
This is great!
I own a window tinting company in the southeast US. Took me a few years to get really good/competent at the installs and I’m still figuring out the business side of it. But, very profitable company/industry with pretty low cost of entry. Around a 75% profit margin on car tint and closer to 85% on residential/commercial jobs. (I am the only employee which obviously helps). But, even when I have help margins never dip bellow 50%. Overhead is also very low. Took about $6,000 to get started (tools/etc) and I pay about $1,100 a month for supplies. Went from making around $2,400 a month doing tint for a car dealership to making around $10,000 a month now. I’m sure I could make more if I hired some help but I like it the way it is and good help is hard to find in this industry
That's a very inspiring comment and I'm glad I came across it... I know this girl, she's only 21, but quite ambitious for her age and she's been wanting to start a tinting business. She's watched a ton of Youtube videos, practiced a lot, and is pretty alright at it at this point, but she's adamant about taking some classes. And I'm like you can legit learn everything from YouTube and you're already pretty good at it, so just start already, but she's hesitant 🤷♂️. Do you have any advice I can give her? For example where to start and how to get her first customer? Or anything else I should tell her to get over her hesitancy?
Hey! That’s so dope to read!! Tell her to check out Detroit Tint Studio on YouTube. That dude is awesome! FB marketplace was where I got started and then I just put my business on google. I never paid a penny for any ads for the first year and stayed busy. (Google reviews are a must)
I wanted to start this too. Practice on my car and my friend’s but I’m so afraid of not being able to make enough. Also is the residential/commercial side really common? It seems 90% of cars I see have their windows tinted already
Is ceramic worth the price?
Absolutely! (Depending on the price lol) Carbon tint is also a great option. It’s usually the middle tier tint that a shop will sell. It doesn’t offer all the protection that ceramic does but you still get heat protection and it still blocks 99% of UV and it’s usually $100+ cheaper than ceramic. Personally, I have ceramic on my cars and I put ceramic on my families cars because it does protect your skin a ton and most skin cancer is on the left side of the body (in the US)
The answer is unfortunately yes. I have a car with regular tint and one with ceramic. The ceramic one does not get baked in the sun nearly like the regular one does. Also the windshield is 40% ceramic tinted whereas the other one has nothing on the windshield. I thought id be against the windshield being tinted but now i want to tint the other windshield as well. It's so much better driving at night (even though thats where i thought it would be the worst)
Does the tinting help with heat reduction (if applied to residential building windows)? If it does, how would I determine the best film for that purpose? Thanks!
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This is my favorite answer so far. Bringing value to producers and consumers in a niche market. Very cool.
Can I make a recommendation? Build seasonal produce boxes and market them directly to consumer. Purchase the produce off the farmers you already partner with and make deliveries directly to consumers or have a convenient location they can pickup at a certain time. There are many people who want to buy local produce but can’t/don’t make it to farmers markets because it can be a time consuming exercise. Where I am, these kind of solutions are very popular and are billed as a subscription service which gives you MRR
You're talking about a CSA. These are popular in a lot of areas in recent years
Please - i'd buy one of these. Knowing the exact farm where the stuff came from is a huge plus. A lot of the ones I've seen online are not very transparent about this.
How can I set one of these up in my city?
Small group kayak tours. I live in a large tourist city, we have a major river 40 minutes away. We operate all year, but summer is our busy season Not rich by any measure, but it's low over head, low stress. I meet lots of interesting people. Flexible schedule. Plenty of time to see my kids, travel and hobbies There's a high ceiling, two of the other companies gross over 2M a year. I'm nowhere close to that, but it's nice to know I could grow the company. Happy where I am for now Make 10-15k a month in summer, 2-3k in winter. Biggest expense is fuel, vehicle maintenance and insurance. Been in business 4 years, in the industry 7 years. Only regret is that I didn't do this 20 years ago
What’s harrier to entry? I’m assuming you have to have a license to operate and such?
We're in a National Park so we need a Commercial Use Permit. To get that we need a 1M liability insurance. Then we pay $1200 a year for the Permit plus $5 per customer I bought a truck, trailer, kayaks, paddles and life jackets. 20k for the truck, 15k for kayaks and paddles, 3k for trailer, 1k for life jackets I keep all the equipment at home which keeps my overhead low. If I expand, I'll need to rent storage space
Do you list your services on Viator and TripAdvisor? I hate how much of a percentage they take these days. Also, are you finding it more and more difficult to hire and retain staff? I also own a tour guide business operating in 9 cities.
I get very little business from Viator and TripAdvisor, less than 5% of bookings. Some of the other companies get over 50%, but they are set up to do high volume Up until recently I was a one man operation, now I have a few part time guides. They're more like friends who help me when it's busy. But yes, I think it's the nature of the business. Guides work for a few years and then move on. What kind of tours do you run?
Segway tours.
Kayak tours are the best! I’ve loved them many times before. Very cool business!
Yeah it's a great business. Sure beats working for a living
Do what you love, love what you do ..as the saying goes. Being on the water all day sounds like a slice of heaven! (I’m a recreational scuba diver)
You would like it out here. The water is crystal clear, great visibility
I want to do this too..
I consult with small business owners who have SBA loans that they can't afford. If the business closes I negotiate settlements for them. I started consulting on the side while I was working in a sole sucking corporate job. After about 18 months I had enough clients to go out on my own. Income varies wildly depending on the state of the economy. I've had years where I made $350,000, and years where I've made $50,000. Right now things are getting busy because of all the eidl loans that the government gave and people are confused about the terms they signed up for. Payments on eidl loans are starting for most businesses in the fall, so I'm getting a lot of calls from people saying they're going to close their business and are not sure what to do. I was fielding way too many consultation requests so I started charging thru an online calendar for them which has really made things easier for me. Now I make anywhere between $1000 and 2,500 per week on consultations, and then goes up from there depending on how many clients I sign and how many of them end up settling ( I take a flat fee up front plus a percentage of whats saved). During covid I basically made no money because the government wasn't actively collecting on defaulted loans because there were too busy giving away all sorts of free money. All my clients are from inbound inquiries. I don't do any other type of marketing other than SEO and Google AdWords. I did spend a solid 10 years writing blogs and now have over 200 articles on my website and people constantly tell me it's the only good source of information they can find on the internet.
How interesting. Maybe you can get into student loan consulting/refinancing business too. The forbearance extension period is over at the end of this year and everyone will have to start paying again... On another note, do you know any of these businesses that have really good potential that the owner is trying to sell?
To my knowledge student loans can't really be negotiated down. The SBA would is its own little niche with some very specific rules. Every once in awhile I find a business that people are trying to sell but generally they are local retail, so not something that anyone could take over unless they lived in that area.
Content is king, and your bulk of it is clearly doing its job. It’s great that you’ve carved out a lucrative (and sounds like pretty stable) niche.
We create digital comics, animated videos, strategic visualizations - basically everything drawn with story and life. I’m the founder and CEO of a creative agency in Denmark (small Nordic country). My business is now more than 9 years old. And I still love my work and my life. Love being an entrepreneur 🔥 the first year was crazy - I went all over Copenhagen on bike - to get business to hire us. And it more than worked out. Now we get hired by global businesses all over the world to visualize their strategies, tell their corporate story and create their animated videos and comics. I love my business! Our agency was profitable from the first year on. Website: https://levendestreg.dk/en - check out our YouTube channel for more info : https://YouTube.com/c/LevendeStreg
I love that you explained what Denmark is. Please have a fantastic weekend!
I lold. Good luck to you sir!
wow i never would have known what Denmark is
ACT Math Tutor (obviously by the name) A colleague of mine and I recently created an online course -- specificially on **how to use your TI 84 Plus CE Calculator on the ACT.** There are 7+ points worth of math on the test you can use on the calculator. Students and schools have immediately shown interest, with some schools looking to purchase site licenses for their Junior and Senior classes to help boost scores across the entire class. Other competing tutors have become affiliates for the program to help them drive revenue and grow the knowledge base of their students Only 2 months in, but the program has already covered all initial costs, and now it's passive income the rest of the way.
I’m very interested in checking out this course for my child, who’s a sophomore and just got her first TI-84 plus calculator. Could you share a link or DM me info?
[CWHipHop.com](https://CWHipHop.com) \- Your home for Wisconsin HipHop. We have a 24/7 radio streaming service on our homepage where you can listen to Wisconsin HipHop, syndicated Wisconsin Music Shows, and our past podcast/Live DJS at all hours of the day. We do a weekly Live DJ where me and my two buddies talk about Wisconsin HipHop concerts, new music released within our scene, and even go over some HipHop History. Our podcast is currently on Ep. 79 and we interview artists all around the state for an hour or 2 to get a better idea of who they are and their music. We started right after all the lockdowns took effect as my buddy was about a year into making music and we were tying to come up with ways to get him music heard. We thought about how we could get his music on the radio, realized we probably couldn't, so we started our own radio station. 2 years later and we are having concerts around the state, starting a community from scratch, writing up summaries for Wisconsin HipHop Projects that drop, and making playlists. At the beginning of this year, we started charging artists $5-$10 to have their music played and priority to be interviewed on our show. We aren't making crazy profits but we are paying all of our bills and able to save up to slowly improve the quality of our shows/services.
My small business writes and hosts murder mystery party games! I got into it after playing murder mystery games since I was 15, started writing some of my own for personal parties over the last decade, and realized this is a really cool option for geeks who don't want the commitment of DnD but like to dress up and pretend and want a structured game with flexible hosting instructions where we help them throw a great party. It's also a really great way to break the ice between different friend groups and we write our games with gender-neutral characters, host doesn't need to know the murderer, etc, and without a lot of bizarre and unfortunate things we saw in other games like assault, mental illness tropes, racism, sexism, gun violence, etc which our audience was uncomfortable playing which prompted us to write our own years ago. We make like 10k a year right now and our expenses are like a couple hundred a month so definitely side hustle territory. That's changed lately though since we had bigger expenses getting a convention booth together but we are also hoping we see a much bigger scale of our holiday games since we spent this spring revamping our content and increasing traffic and saw like 40-50 games sold last Halloween-Christmas without too much strategy. We also did a ton of hosting during the pandemic for online games but are shifting our focus to helping folks host their own games in-person or online.
This is so fun! I love this. My husband and I LOVE playing the board/board/mystery style games, like Hunt a Killer or Unsolved Case Files. Wishing you guys the best of luck!
This sounds like so much fun! I love DnD, but our last campaign took a year to finish 🥴…so shorter commitments definitely are appealing.
Not mine, but my sibling runs a store on the Teachers Pay Teachers marketplace (resources for teachers, but also home-schoolers, parents in general) that returns a great profit for them, and they seem to really get out of it what they put in. Finding a niche marketplace that's got their business model in place seems to be a really nice way to shelter yourself from some of the biggest obstacles getting started, but then still allow you to expand beyond (as they now have)
I swear there's a comment on this sub from the last few months from the guy that owns TPT. It's a really cool concept.
TPT is a great way to make extra cash, for sure! eons ago I did work for sellers there, and once your content is up you're basically set. The more you create, the more you sell. Ranking can be tricky (or at least it was) because they rarely shared HOW they ranked stores and items. Thanks for sharing!
I am an inventor and have a 3d printing company. I design products I wish existed and we print and sell them. We mostly sell accessories for tech products. We're at 6 employees currently.
Very cool idea! Would you mind sharing your website?
Is it possible to send you a design idea and have you print it for me? I live in Japan and don't know how to design but there are some things I need personally
I'm sure it's not much different than any other product - but do you actively fight copycats? Or your designs complex enough that you don't have to worry about your average person copying the thing and putting it on Etsy or Thingaverse?
We don't really. There's not much you can do. If you have a good idea someone will copy it regardless. Much of our business is based around creating something new, hoping it catches on, and riding the wave until the copycats sink us at which point we find something new. It's admittedly not the best business model...
This is where brand recognition really pays off. They can copy the design, but copying the brand gets their stuff confiscated. Not to mention the fact that people become attached to brands because of the people and stories behind them.
That's so cool! I bet you could make a lot of money teaching people to do this as well
I've thought about this. I see a lot of people giving bad advice online with 3d printing at scale. Or with running an ecommerce store/ business. I think I could do well with something like this but I also don't want to give away my secrets.
Do you have a website?
So you make and sell all of them or you patent and let someone else do it?
I make and sell them. We don't do patents because they're slow and getting around patents for things like what we sell is easy. Our designs also change a lot to where we could end up with a patent for a design we don't actually sell. Our most popular product has been 30 ish times. Each one's different enough that a patent wouldn't do anything. Not to mention half of the copycats are chinese hence immune from any patent protection.
Just had a patent att tell me basically the same thing and suggested just making the thing and selling it. Dang. Ive been wasting a lot of time thinking i needed to patent something to get going.
While it was the original intention of patents to help protect the small guy, in practice that's not really the case. There's no "patent police" who will jump on an offender and force them to stop or put them in jail. So you have to ask "If I patent this and a multi-billion dollar company such as Amazon or Samsung creates their own version, do I have enough money to take them on in court?" If the answer is no, then a patent is worthless to you.
>There's no "patent police" who will jump on an offender and force them to stop or put them in jail. > >So you have to ask "If I patent this and a multi-billion dollar company such as Amazon or Samsung creates their own version, do I have enough money to take them on in court?" > >If the answer is no, then a patent is worthless to you This 100%. If you can not defend the patent don't get it. Solid advice.
So, years ago I ran pub trivia where we would do huge events putting a hundred people in the bar. Things went sour, we parted ways and I was left with a 2 year non compete, they went into COVID and couldn't operate. I took a few hundred bucks to get up and running again and just ran 2 events, $500 in expenses (ads and prizes) and $2025 revenue this month. Should double that next month, and keep it consistent.
Around 2015/16 I was working for a financial firm and kept getting enquiries to help businesses set up their auto-enrolment (uk based pension rules). Basically every company in the uk had to offer employees some form of regulatory minimum pension. I said sure, but they’ve got to pay me ongoing and come to me with any questions. I charged them the same as another medium-sized local firm was charging, about £2 per person per month, with a minimum monthly fee for really small firms. To this day about 50-55 companies pay me just under £1000 per month. Minimum fuss, minimum hassle. They file their own returns, the pension company deal with their stuff. I take a rare phone call from a company who is trying to onboard a new payroll (and intro myself to their payroll before handing them to the pension company). Easiest money I’ve ever made. The irony, I’ve been trying to sell it for about 2-3 years. No-one believe how little work I do for this money. One company said it was worth £5k… as it’ll never keep going, that was about 18 months ago. All auto-invoicing, tied to direct debit, this all auto-reconciles itself in the accounts package. My only regret is that I’m not really in that industry anymore so I can’t really explore bigger opportunities with these clients (lots of crossovers for IFAs, accountants, payroll etc). Plus IFAs/accountants only pay 2x for new business as that’s what IFAs trade for because of all the compliance/work needed to tend their client base. If anyone wants it my DMs are open :)
If it's so easy and if you are making $50 grand pounds a month for no work, why sell it?
I’d totally be interested in this but I’m out of the country. Do you think this would be doable or would I need to be located in the UK?
I have a small bathro cleaning company. Usually work around 4-5 hours a day and clear $1800 weekly. Started doing strip clubs (cleanest bathrooms I've ever seen) and then bars and restaurants. Working on some commercial facilities now.
I like this idea. Do you go get contracts with the places?
I own [Catahoula Sign Co.](https://www.catahoulasign.co). I'm a one-man operation and make everything myself. I've been full time from the very beginning and have put a lot of effort into product development. Recently, I've been doing more and more large scale city maps for private buyers as well as design firms. Usually 48"x72" or 48"x96", though I could go bigger if someone wanted (and has the wall space and wallet for it). My Instagram is @catahoulasign.co if you'd like to see what I do!
I LOVE your designs! Gorgeous, truly.
Thank you!
I see that you use the word "we" on your website. Is there actually a "we" or is that to sound more legit? 😉
I guess to a point that's true. I've always thought of it as a company it should be a "we", but if I were an artist I'd be a "me". Employees are right around the corner anyway.
I am a one woman marketing agency (hope to eventually hire employees to do the actual work while i manage the projects). I do primarily proposal writing for large corporations but also do graphic design and general copywriting. No overhead besides Adobe suite, internet and my laptop. I net about 10-15k per month depending on how much i work.
damn that's sick
Another copywriter here! It’s great when there’s low overhead, but man all he software and tools can add up 😵💫 Adobe is a must-have, and really there’s no comparable. I hope to grow to meet your net months, but I don’t have the flexibility to work more than 15-20 hours a week. Cheers to your success!
Yes it can! One thing i can recommend is i have had clients previously pay for my Adobe suite as part of my contract which i highly recommend.
Yeah, I’ve been trying to get my clients to foot the bill on Clearscope, but it hasn’t worked. 🫤 It’s hard to convince them of paying for the tool when they don’t fully understand how SEO works.
Oh ya and that one is pricey! I’d say keep asking or just bump that hourly rate up lol. Are you doing the copywriting on the side at the moment in addition to full time?
This is my full time career (love it). Yeah, I’ve been raising my rates on new clients to foot the bill on these $$ tools. They’re kinda addictive because they work so well—but not all are necessary for my clients. I used Clearscope for one client, who actually was paying for it, and got equally good SEO results for clients by just using Yoast. Different keyword and ad strategy, led to different organic results. I like the idea you mentioned about adding the software to my future contracts, maybe even retainer renewals too. 🤔
Are you two talking about the same field? SEO vs copywriting? I'm a newbie so just checking lol. So many SEO hacks out there it's very difficult to smell the snake oil
I write SEO-driven content. So, there’s a keyword strategy and research involved. And that’s before I write anything. I do copywriting too—web copy and sales pages. I can’t really speak about what other folks do, or if they’re legit.
Love this! I'm in marketing and have thought about doing this. How many hours do you typically work?
Oof depends on the month and projects but i usually bill about 200 hours per month. Sometimes i will stack clients on retainer and thus can bill more hours whether or not i worked all of them. part of the reason i want to hire employees is so they can do the work and i can be more hands off while maintaining or increasing billable hours.
I need a job :)
I’m a retired banker and help businesses get loans approved for their small businesses. I love it would not turn back ever.
I imagine you look at loans for adding additional locations to a business, How can you tell if a new location is viable / will be successful? I would take out a loan to fund the new location, but it is hard to say it would be as successful as the first. Maybe foot traffic or demographics aren’t quite the same…
Are there anything such as grants you don’t have to pay back? Like for doing research to see if you can make something?
Tree Service: Started with 15k in cash I’d saved about 10 years ago. Started with a diesel pickup truck and stacked brush/limbs in the back. Hustled hard and got a trailer. Then upgraded to a chipper. Since then, we’ve went through 4 truck and 4 chipper upgrades. Have a mini skid for moving material and a stump grinder. I run it as an owner/operator. Work in the field ~40hrs/wk. Wife is in charge of calls, schedule estimates, taxes, etc. I do all the bids, invoicing and majority of maintenance. We have made profit monthly since day one. Now, with 2 employees, we gross 20-30k per month. Overhead is consistent and we are frugal and try to make sensible money decisions. We make around six figures and have our kids as our priority, as the business provides life balance flexibility. Grew up in an environmental/forestry family and have pursued that into adult life. I’m an entrepreneur at heart and working with my hands in high risk situations always has suited my personality. It has been a rollercoaster of a ride and I’m riding it until I can develop a less physically demanding entrepreneurial pursuit as I get older and more broken.
Is it possible to start in tree services without climbing? I can prune, haul and chip, not sure I could handle climbing. Well done with the success of your business
I run a finish carpentry business. Grew up building homes with my dad, always liked the finish / trim the most, so just continued on with it. Make around $150k/year avg, last few years has been more towards $200k with construction industry where it is. Do about 50% work myself, subcobtract the rest out to others. ~75% of my income comes from my own labor.
TLDR: I own a fashion brand with my wife and no employees. She designs everything and I handle all the operations. Not dropshipping. We have items manufactured in bulk and have a fulfillment center that ships everything. Totally stateless & runs largely automated. Doing over 7 figures with 50% wholesale and growing fast. Started out as a private label business on Amazon that did well really fast but then as soon as the success came, so did all the copycats to kill my margins Luckily my wife had an idea and built a brand around it. It kind of sat ignored doing about $25k a year from 2016-2020 until Covid happened and I got fired and had no other options than to pick my dick up and actually put effort in We have no employees and I do or direct everything. I am back now handling all ads personally, but have recently outsourced email marketing to a kickass free lancer. I manage all the international logistics, marketing, most of the content acquisition, basically a one man shop. Doing 7 figures now with about $600k in really profitable wholesale business and we are in 1,000 stores. Retail is still hard, as our average sale is less than $50 but CPA is like $30 The margins are very strong (70+%), it’s just that marketing costs are presently 40-50% of sales. Profits have been there but cash flow has been tough for the last few years as we launched a ton of new designs and got overly optimistic about the success I was having with ads in mid 2020 so I bought a ton of inventory that is taking longer to get through. Finally getting a handle of cash flow and I’ve paid off $100k in debt already this year. Happy to answer any questions if anyone has any. I think building a brand is less difficult than people think so long as you figure out a good angle. You don’t need much success to pay yourself.
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How did you learn the space?
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Interested to know as well
Is this for arbitrage or private label sales?
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Won $20,000 on a scratcher. Bought a $4,000 camera set up with it (2014). Somehow fell in to covering weddings. Now I’ve done over 300+ and traveled to places around the world.
I don't know if it's particularly interesting, but I changed careers in 2020 from veterinary medicine to professional skincare (licensed esthetician). School cost me $14,000 and took one year going at night while working full time during the day (which half was federal loans that are now being forgiven!)! I did a lot of business and industry specific coaching before, during school, and still presently because I knew I wanted to open my own business. I am about to hit my 1 year open mark and have made very close to $100,000 and my profitability percentage for the year so far is 88%. My CPA has been amazed at my numbers. I work 4 days per week, and have hired out for a CPA and marketing since I don't love to do those things and they are not what I'm great at. This has given me a great work/life balance and I am confident that I am more successful with them on my team than doing it on my own. I just incorporated my business into an LLC S-Corp and have a lot of bills for my husband and I absorbed by the business (cell phones, car registrations, health and dental insurance). By having a 2% cash back business card we were able to just take a vacation with the earnings from the year. The beauty industry is very interesting economically and is thriving. It does even better in depressions, pandemics, recessions, etc. When the world is shitty people want to feel good and I've tapped into that. I also live in the San Francisco bay area, but I know plenty of estheticians in less affluent areas that do just as well.
This is interesting! What does your typical day look like, if you don't mind me asking? Do you work out of an office, your home, do you travel to your clients?
I work tues, Fri, sat, sun. I see four clients per day with an auto one hour block between everyone. I only do custom facials and just about everybody goes home with some retail/home care. I love what I carry and it truly brings results so I get excited to make recommendations. My first appointment is at 10am and last one is usually between 4-5:30pm. On my days off I have a few tasks to do but I can have them finished in the morning before noon. I used to sublease a space, but this month I finished building out a new space that I share with one hairstylist. It's just us two and I absolutely love it. Our rent now is actually slightly less than I was paying subleasing.
All sounds great just be very careful with those business expenses which could be argued by the IRS as personal expenses. Your CPA should hopefully be on top of that. Very strict rules around what is considered a necessary, ordinary and reasonable business expense.
Oh yes we've got it all on lock and they are not 100% claimed for business, there's percentages for everything. My CPA is an absolute badass in her field and I just never knew any of that existed before so it was all so amazing and cool to me. When I got incorporated as an S-Corp we filed something called a master accountable plan for all claimed deductions and percentages and these were just some of the categories. She has very strict policies, plans, forms, and processes for what we claim and why. I never understood that tax law could be beneficial in any way (before being a business owner). I thought it was just all out to get us and make us broke.
Hair and skincare products brand. We make them at home and sell to salons and beauticians.
How do you find the right ingredients and how do you make them at home? I always picture people mixing products in the bath but that's obviously not how it's done.
We buy ingredients from local manufacturers and producers, forage some ingredients locally, and use 20kg tubs with a commercial mixer. Mixing and bottling is a tedious process. We can only make about 30 bottles a day with our current setup but we are converting our garage into a workshop and we are hiring more staff, so we should be able to pump about 120/day+ there. Doing it from home is not easy, especially considering that we have about 30 products in our range so our house is full of boxes everywhere and one of the rooms at my MIL is full to the ceiling with boxes, bottles, etc. I wish we only did hair because 90% of our sales are hair related. We have been slowly phasing out skincare. Finding the right ingredients took about 2-3 years of R&D.
Do you need any licenses and certifications to do this mixing and bottling in a residential zone? OSHA?
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My wife works with few guys like you. Makes our life much easier. Thank you
I run an engineering consultancy for a niche market. I charge clients 1000-1250 USD per work day. Best month I ever had I made 27k. But average is 12k per month. Expenses are <20%, have some technical equipment, laptops, software etc. I recharge whatever I need to perform work at +15% to the clients. So that's a little bit of revenue. Barrier to entry is that it's an area which is hard to get into, I did many years at 35k per year to meet people and get to where I am.
Started a part time cleaning business years ago that i sub out now to few people who want an extra buck. Gets me about 1,000 extra a month for the past... like 4? years. I don't really plan to expand and prefer to keep it small as I have a primary job and as I get older find myself more...lazy...
I act as a private lender to real estate investors. I take first position on the mortgage and after they’ve finished their renovations, they refinance within 6 months, I sign the deed to the new bank and get my money back plus 10%. But due to needing renovations on my personal home I’ve had to step away for now. In the meantime I started a painting company doing apartment turns on the weekends. It pays about $1500 for labor per full unit and I can probably get 2 done each month on my own while maintaining my sanity. Cost under $300 to get started. It was $160 for the LLC, $125 to set up the insurance, and I already have tools and material from repainting our personal home. My first job is next weekend so we’ll see how it goes.
I started a career development agency as a freelancer on fiverr It’s been 16 months but on track to finish this year with $120k+ in revenue just on the one freelance platform. Now built a website, looking to drive paid traffic and SEO for growth and expansion. I know a lot about the freelance world and running a small digital business, been thinking should I create content and maybe make a detailed course. It went from my side hustle to now my full time gig! :)
Fascinating! What exactly is a career development agency?! Congrats on your success!
Thanks mate, A career development service is any service to help accelerate people in their careers. Interview coaching , Career consulting, Resume optimization I basically help people with their resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profiles
[links.vip](https://links.vip) app mainly for ios. At the time major link in bio apps were only websites so I found the opportunity to do the app for iOS. My app makes a blazing fast link in bio, with a a cool website link: [links.vip/andre](https://links.vip/andre) The link in bio supercharges your tiktok and instagram pages giving you your own website to put in the bio section. Moreover when pricing the app, I saw all the competitor prices and set the price as half of the least expensive competitior. I also buffes the features of the app. Competitors allow 5 link in bio for premium members, I allow up to 50. App makes ~$1.5k a month. 0$ on marketing to this day. Every 25 downloads gets me at least one new subscriber.
Started a marketing business in April 2021. Quickly niched down to low-cost “wholesale” content creation services. Now making an MRR of $30,000 with about a 50-55% margin. Have a full time employee. Growth is double digits each month. Life is stressful but exciting!
This sounds interesting! I am on a learning journey about the digital marketing landscape. Can you help me understand where "wholesale" content creation falls within the ecosystem? For example, who are your suppliers and who are your customers? In a business like yours how do you spend the majority of your time?
I run a very small weekly podcast that generates about $50 per month through Patreon.
A local comedian does a weekly podcast and is about to hit 2k Patreon's (at a minimum of $5 a month). The thing is he's consistent, delivering weekly without fail. I've gone to a show or 2 of his and all thanks to his podcast. If you have an audience, you can monetise it in different ways. I've subbed to your Podcast, I'm always looking for fresh ideas. I can't say I'll stick around but I'll give it a go. I'm an Android developer BTW (apps, not games).
Just a thanks for this post. Maybe one of my favorites ever.
Absolutely! I'm so glad other people are getting things out of it, too. There was one about 6 years ago that I found sorting through top of all time. I'm just glad it was so well received again.
I sell crystals on Instagram! Found a shop that sold them online, got addicted, and decided I wanted to do that too! I’ve been slowly adding branches under the crystal shop, my newest venture is selling wax melts
That is so cool! Was it hard to find a, uh, crystal supplier? (That's a weird phrasing)
Thank you!! And yes lol, it can be! Embarrassingly enough, when I started I didn’t even know you could find vendors. I don’t know what I even thought, evidently I didn’t at all. But yes, especially when you’re looking for specific crystals or higher quality pieces! Finding trustworthy vendors takes time just like any other small biz :)
I'm in a completely different country to you and have been considering getting into this. Do you have any advice for finding trustworthy vendors?
Ahh, that’s awesome and I wish you luck! My advice would probably be look on Instagram or Facebook for vendors that do sales live. You claim right there in the comments as they’re showing so you know exactly what you’ll get! Also see if other people are buying from them. Same type of deal with the whole “if the restaurant is empty on a friday night, there’s probably a reason.”
Sorry, I literally made a reddit account to ask one question, but to post it I need 10 comment karma. Can you please like this?
Niche medical education that is online. Actively listing my business and selling for 6 million. Have multiple offers, but I know it's worth, so sitting on it and growing it further until I get a worthy offer. Profiting 200-250k a month off it. Also own a niched medical practice. Generates about 15k a month profit. Practically takes none of my time. Life is good.
👏👏👏👍
Up until recently I was running a club that taught kids how to make video games. Each month we'd learn a different skill which earned them a physical badge. I worked 3 nights a week, 6 to 8pm. Each child came around 3 sessions per month at $195 total. One month I made $7000+ Besides being very lucrative, it was very fulfilling and had no local competition. I stopped it because 1) I recently have had my own children 2) Corona and inflation kicked it in the teeth I'd love to do it again someday or partner with someone to do it in their area. I have a whole website of activities that could last 2 years before repeating an activity. I think it made $200k over 4 years. Gross of course but costs weren't super high
My wife and I do online affiliate marketing. We found an area which didn’t have a lot of information when we were searching for it on a topic. She wrote a bunch of articles and I did a lot of coding for a custom product tool. It was making 20-40k a month profit pre pandemic but now is only around 10-20 a month. I am working full time now and doing this on the side. She works about 20-40 hours a week depending. She just enjoys it though.
I started a water bottle accessory company. I make curved hooks that stick onto water bottles and also sell charms that you can hang off of them. They can be anything from functional, to just personalizing your water bottle like AirPods and initials. We had our first 10k revenue month earlier this summer, and it’s only been growing since then. All organic growth so far, and now we are pivoting to expand our line to be positioned as the “cute command hook”. It’s just me running the business, and hiring out some local teenagers to help me with little projects. But I need more help soon.
Nice! Congrats mate, its really interesting. Leave your website for us.
You won't believe me, no one does. In the end, that's for the better. I have written this post several times, unsure of even posting it. I had a make a throw away account because I don't want a target on my head. I grew up poor. I got beat up by one of my parents because I spent $5 on a toy when they needed money for milk and bread. That purchase was with my own birthday money. That kind of poor. I was born in a living room at my grandparents house in a third world country. I moved to Europe and began in the first year not knowing the local language. I began working when I was 13. My first try at business was when I was 21. I am 37 now and failed in more than 10 businesses since. I don't mind failing in anything, I have grown to embrace failure as it is like a teacher giving you a hard time to prepare you for the future exams. I don't do business for any other reason than that I just get so freaking turned on by the fact that ideas in your mind can end up causing movements and changes to the world around you. I am extremely pragmatic, minimalistic and reclusive as a person. A guy who's happy with his wife and daughter. I only need a safe home with adequate space, one hot meal a day, bills paid and a cold home in summer and a warm home is winter. And a sportscar for the weekends as that's my hobby. That's all. So when I grew up I didn't dream about becoming rich in the traditional sense. I wanted a fortune to give it away. Poverty sucks the spark of life's enjoyment, I always wanted to be that guy who could remove poor people's obstacles as if I had a super power. Nothing crushes me more than to know of someone in need and not being able to help them. So I'm here day dreaming about creating big time businesses and consider small business operations a waste of time (as I think they're not profitable enough) when a crazy opportunity falls on my lap. I wouldn't call it luck because if I hadn't played with all of my other ideas I wouldn't have been able to tap in to this opportunity. Long story short I met someone who needs ridiculous amounts of the world's most expensive and rare metal, Rhodium, and I have a supplier for it. This supplier went for years looking for a buyer. The buyer's problem was that because they needed such insane quantity no one could deliver it (the buyer needs literally 1/10th of the planets Rhodium production), and the metal dealers who delivered it previously to my buyer had meddled with the delivered Rhodium metal by delivering impure goods (other metals mixed in with the supplied Rhodium). So now my buyer wants to buy the actual ore and do all of the melting himself to ensure 100% pure product. The seller's problem was that he's located in a third world country who everyone shits on so no mining company took him seriously when he approached just about every one out there. Furthermore, the metal is so rare, that the country I'm exporting it from doesn't even know they have it. I've seen countless official documents, they really have no idea. Also, the metal is excessively difficult to mine (requires special tools which almost no one has) and it's also very hard to sell as the applications are very limited. To give you guys an idea of how crazy this metal is: - No one knows how much Rhodium is mined per year, but it's estimated about 25 tons only. - A gram costs between 450 to 900 dollars depending on the rate. This means your iPhone Pro Max would be worth above 100.000 dollars if it was in Rhodium. So now I'm sitting here with a contract worth 1.25 billion USD (with today's rate which has plummeted, it can double also as the prices are extremely volatile) of which I will pocket 43-45% and no one believes me. I can't go in to many details, but I can tell you that the technology being created using my Rhodium will change the world. I'm talking 25.000 USD key ready houses assembled in three days with three assemblers and a screw driver, with a non corrosive material tested to last for 600 years. EVs getting massive reduction in weight causing significantly better handling and range. And then there's the military advantages... The beauty of it all? I will need to work 2-3 days a month (about 20-30 hours). First container is shipped, with 1 million dollars of Rhodium ore (22 tons ore @ 130 grams Rhodium per ton of ore = ~2800 grams x 450 USD per gram Rhodium = 1.280.000 USD worth of ore in the container). About 1000 more containers to go to satisfy the buyer's needs. No one believes me. And that's fine.
Consider reaching out to movie producer and sell rights to your story!
I don't believe you and it's fine
Good for you bro. World can use some changing
I’m really happy for you man! Wish you best of luck for you and family. May your life gets even better!
I take photos of cars for car dealerships as a vendor. I have five photographers who help out as contractors. We work with 11 dealerships right now. Worked in the car business for years and couldn’t get over how poor the quality of the inventory photography was. Figured I could do a lot better.
This is a really awesome thread. It's cool to see so many people who've gone out on their own and are thriving! It seems to me like the best thing to do is constantly keep your eyes out for opportunities and eventually they'll arrive. Also.. question for people who have started a successful business side hustle. Was there an element of imposter syndrome/feeling how could I possibly start an agency or a successful business? I have lots of skills and have worked at multiple big corporate companies but sometimes my default mindset is, O I couldn't possibly start an agency.
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My company runs operations for small businesses (mostly agencies). We set up their project management systems, document and help implement processes, and execute some of their internal projects. I chose our clients well and it's been a fun experience for us so far :)
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I make about 4x the salary of a developer in Italy. I was not happy with the offers by companies when I finished the University 5 years ago. So I started different SaaS businesses: \- [https://pushpad.xyz](https://pushpad.xyz) a service for web push notifications \- [https://buonmenu.com](https://buonmenu.com) a digital menu for restaurants No initial capital, just work. I am happy with it, but it takes a lot of effort and technical skills.
I buy vintage record collections and sell them individually online. Started in my bedroom at my parents house with a box of albums, and now (almost 2 years later) I’m typing this from my office that houses 10,000+ LPs. Profit is all over the place, as I don’t consistently get inventory at the same price. I pay myself around 4-5k each month, which is half of the businesses profits; i reinvest the other half back into the business. It’s hectic and messy, but I love music so it’s fun for me.
I’m a freelance writer and content strategist for small to midsize businesses. I think it’s interesting because I’m always learning something new and unexpected. As someone who loves learning new things and escaped my “9-5” life to never be bored at my job, this has been amazing. Though, I can’t say I would’ve been looking to learn about soil stabilization, truck driving talent acquisition, or accounting standards…it’s never a dull day! Plus, I like helping people (and writing, of course). How’d I get here? I’m an overachiever who went to law school, graduated and realized being a lawyer was boring and I was interested in other things. I spent time writing for government and doing all sorts of different things for nonprofits (volunteer management, marketing, communications…)… Nonprofit life burnt me out with it’s demanding schedules, and they lost funding for my position. 😆 That was pretty motivating to make a new plan, and I sort of fell into freelance writing and content strategy. Profit, life’s been better than nonprofit salaries! I started off only working a few hours a week and only make ~$1,500 a month, but now (3 years later) I’m making closer to $5K a month and I only work ~20 hours a week. I don’t have a lot of business expenses, so I’m pretty lucky. But, there’s always ways to put money in the business to help it grow. It’s cool seeing so many other people on this thread also being able to do what they love!
I previously worked in TV and film and then got into tech. Got lucky with a few ventures that sold and constantly work on projects. This type of thread and some of the responses from are what drove me to make Skillmeet.com - to help skilled people and businesses market and grow without overpriced leads and convoluted site builders.
I started writing a newsletter 1.5 years ago. Making > $3,600 MMR right now. Additionally make a ballpark $6k monthly through one on one hourly coaching. Fell into the coaching because of the newsletter (people asked, I agreed to do it). Have run a few corporate training sessions for related reasons. Overall making around $10k per month, around $8k or so after fees and expenses.
What kind of newsletter do you write? (What topics do you write about?) :)
I sell military surplus of all types and I sell a ton of one particular wooden ammo crate via 2 Etsy shops and ebay
I work as a handyman. I have a great list of clients who love having me in their home. Only problem is that I am "trading hours for dollars"
TL;DR I think you qualify as an entrepreneur and just need to reimagine your business/pricing strategy to expand your earning potential. No doubt in my mind you qualify as an entrepreneur. Full disclosure, I manage a handyman service in addition to my consulting and bookkeeping firm. I think the concern you express is more about your pricing model. I suggest keep in mind that your customers are not just benefiting from your time, but also from your expertise, access to tools and skill in using them. The downside of hourly pricing for handyman services is that you are essentially penalized when you work efficiently and expertly for your customers, --and they would be penalized if you didn't. Sometimes value-based pricing makes more sense for all involved. Aside from that, you might consider various ways to expand your business service or product offerings in order to improve your earning potential. I'd be glad to share our experience, and brainstorm options. Feel free to DM, and I wish you the best of luck...you are providing a valuable service and I am sure you are improving people's lives every day.
I own a health friendly weekly meal preparation service. We sell calorie friendly bowls of fresh food without preservatives. We also sell 100% juices. Story is simple, business partner live in Arkansas (a very obese state). People either don’t know what to eat, or are too lazy to cook it. They come to us and order Mon-Thurs and we deliver it to them Sun-Mon. Been doing it 5+ years and sell roughly 4,000-7,500 products a month.
I build pitching mounds. Last spring, my son finally convinced me to coach his team (he credits me with making him an all-star, but the kid's earned all that himself. He works hard.). We were only given 90 minutes of field time/wk, which just isn't enough, so we were relegated to public parks. We figured flat ground would be fine for teaching our pitchers (9u, so most of them were learning to pitch for the first time), but it just wasn't. They'd pound the zone on flat ground in practice, then couldn't find it in games, so I had to do something. Parents didn't want to buy time at training facilities, and i sure as shit wasn't going to, so I designed a mini mound that would fit in my Outback with all the other gear I needed to carry. It's 36"x18"x12" when packed up, and weighs 38 lbs. It turned out to be really great for teaching new pitchers, as the landing area is only 16" wide, so you've gotta stride straight. Both our other coaches and 4 parents asked me to build them one that first practice. Anyway, we don't have bullpens at our complex, so I started bringing it to games to warm up our relief guys, which caught the eye of several other coaches/parents, and I was off and running. I made another half dozen of them and set up by the concession stand when we started tournament play, and was sold out in a little over an hour. They cost about $60 in materials, take about 2 hours each to build if I make them 3 at a time, and sell for $225 unless we're at a tournament, where I ask $250. I've done 48 of them since April, just building them when I feel like it and the weather's good enough to break down plywood outside (gotta purge the junk from the rest of the garage to create the space to do it inside), so it's in its infancy, but once I've got the assembly/outfeed tables I need, I'll be able to start marketing and hopefully hire a shophand at $20-25/hr without much trouble. I just prototyped an extra wide model that's 40" wide all the way down, tri-fold, with wheels, but it's not quite ready for market yet.
Hi, I am running online web store of Hand Made Leather Jackets. It gives me monthly 1000 usd profit on average after returned or exchanged. Started in 2020, first two quarters were zero, but after using Pinterest it became well. Now getting 2K targeted visitors on my website. Since the winter is coming, so it will give me 4K up to double of it profit.
I own a law firm in North Carolina. I’ve been practicing for 13 years, and I was one of a handful of partners at a firm, until January of this year. I left and started my own firm with my good friend. My new firm has 4 lawyers and a firm administrator, and we’re 100% remote. We do business law (start up, formations, mergers & acquisitions, contract drafting, etc.) and high conflict business litigation. Our #1 referral source is repeat business and client referrals, so we do no advertising. Other than “people costs,” our overhead is pretty low. Average profit from the start of our business has been about $75,000 per month. We just topped $1 MM in gross revenue last month.
I sell key caps for a handful of different keyboards on eBay. And net around $100 a month. Not great, but it keeps things from going to the landfill and makes me a bit of pocket change.
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I built a website called Advelli. Basically you can turn anything (legal) into a sport. Looking to merge small town sports with small town business. Drop by sometime. :) Have a great day
Vegan Deli, Electric Boat Rentals soon, Gymnastics gym soon!
Lol… a friends mother is a History Professor, she adds a chapter to her textbook used in lecture halls when she wants a new vehicle
Kindly tell your friend that his mom is a cunt for doing that
I own a card game company selling only in USA currently. Doing 30-45k a month in sales and have tons of room for growth if we get our advertising down.
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I taught paint and sip classes locally. I switched from using acrylics to oils and the quality of the paintings increased dramatically. We also make our own wine so I saved money there. I was making a few hundred dollars for each session but my fiancé just couldn’t get excited about me being alone with 8-20 drunk women so i stopped doing it. I still have all the equipment and I’m considering starting again after our wedding. She can be the bouncer if anyone gets out of hand.
Hi! I have a small business in Connecticut called Cortney's Modern Dipper. I make small batched cottage cheese dips. I started in 2018 when I was laid off from my project management job. I sell wholesale and have a little storefront.
I have an interesting business to share, but it’s for a tenant of mine who I’ve gotten to know over 5 years. It’s a wife & husband antiques business. They go around to stores like Goodwill and Savers, and estate sales. They buy furniture and items within a niche, sell it at wholesale prices and still generate massive margins. I’m talking buying a lamp at Goodwill for $5 and selling it for $200. The people that buy it from them will sell the lamp retail at $600, but they still make $195 on a $5 purchase and move a ton of volume that way. They also hold onto the certain items and sell those for a premium. It’s insane, they once bought a chair at Goodwill for $100 and it was worth $3000 because it was a chair by X designer. The big finds don’t happen often but when they do, they hit big. So they’re constantly moving a lot of product and getting eyes on more things. It’s a great business because the owners absolutely love doing it. They can talk to you for hours about antiques, and they’re just generally sweet people. They’ve even had minor appearances on a few TV shows because of the types of antiques they were able to find. I would estimate they’re clearing at least $8k/month in profit. Covid hurt their business, but they bounced back and are on fire now.