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I had a warehouse with walk in freezer to store them and we did the deliveries to the customers with refrigerated trucks. The hardest part of It all was the back breaking work of bagging them.
Construction companies pay $2.50per 10lb bag. My buddy would provide a freezer for them on site and fill em up with bags once a week. Built a route of a few dozen customers. Reinvested in equipment and scaled up from there.
He now covers half of our state with his boxes.
Started at a new company in Florida and asked a guy why they needed two massive chest freezers full of ice. "To survive" was all he said. Service and install techs would load their coolers with ice everyday so they had cold water to drink. Sometimes they'd have to work in attics, in July, in Florida...they had special frozen ice vests for that.
I wonder what inspections would be necessary to do something like this. Obviously the health department but I’m not sure if there would be anything else that you would need to have preapproved.
It's literally water that's frozen. No expiration date, ran through 3 filters, no inspections needed. The water used is just municipal water that's already regulated..
I knew a guy who started a tower maintenance company and when I first met, drove an old Oldsmobile tornado… and he had a bucket of tools
Within a decade, he had 80 employees and was making close to $2 million a year profit
Within another decade, he was basically broke because of failed marriages and a drinking problem
He made a ton of money working with cell phone carriers, but every radio station and TV station… not to mention a lot of radio communication networks… a lot of utilities have microwave links
Every tower that’s over 200 feet on the top and somebody’s gotta change those lightbulbs
But he did make a lot of his money as cell phone companies started adding towers… which got him more into construction
I think he had four concrete crews just to do the tower construction
It’s kind of sad. Time with the guy and he was always easy to get along with, but I guess he can be kind of mean when he drinks… him and his wife got divorced I was married times in 5 years and every one ended badly
I don’t know all the details, but I also know he had a guy die on the job that company was not found or anything, but it just seemed like everything crumbled at once
Believe it or not a lot of these towers have basically an elevator that helps you get to the top without actually having to climb(not an actual elevator, but I think you understand what I’m saying)
But as a guy who’s afraid of heights, I know that it wouldn’t be a job for me and I’ve been told by people that they’ll just be one time someone goes up and all the sudden they realize they can’t ever do it again
And the Workmen’s Comp. rates are ridiculously high
Yeah, when I installed satellite dishes we had to be able to climb a 30ft extension ladder and mount a dish to the wall and do all the work on it. In training, one of the last things we would do was ladder training. They'd walk the whole class outside, and make us all one at a time take the ladder off the van, stand it at full extension against the training center, and climb to the top wearing a full tool belt and carrying a fully assembled dish and mounting bracket. More than one person would get halfway up, start shaking, and not be able to do it. You got 3 tries and then you flunked out and had to find a new job.
Buddy who falls ass backwards into money called me once to invest 50k in one of his hairbrained ideas. I passed.
He spent a few hundred grand on plain old brand new Ford trucks and hired yahoos for like $250 a day each to fill the beds with all the waste (destroyed houses, furniture, etc.) from Hurricane Katrina. FEMA was paying $2,500 a DAY per crew. He had three guys per truck and was grossing like $1,750 a day per crew. After gas and shit he cleared 1500 per truck per day.
He got up to 30 effing crews, making 45 grand a day, and the work lasted almost three months.
That dude absolutely raked, and never did a lick of work.
Afterwards, FEMA was selling hundreds of mobile homes (they planned them as evacuee shelters but never used them) at pennies on the dollar. Literally $50k trailers for $2,500 cash. This motherfucker bought 50 of them, dropped some of the cash he'd made on land, water lines, electric, and sewer connections, and now owns two chock full and completely paid for mobile home parks with 25 units each, for which he rents at a grand a month each. Tenants pay the utilities.
He has a giant pile of money in the bank from the Katrina work, sold all the effing trucks and stashed that money, and lives quite comfortably on the interest and the 50k a month he makes off the trailer parks.
Guy barely got out of high school, but that motherfucker can find money in a rock.
"and never did a lick of work."
The guy was hiring and managing 30 - 60 labourers, I can tell you for sure there was lots of work involved. He may not have been driving a truck, or loading/unloading garbage but I can assure you he was working his ass off.
It sounds like he finds good deals, goes all in and takes a lot of risk, and is able to execute on the plan to maximize profits on the opportunity. Those are a bunch of rare qualities to find in one person, not to mention some of it is probably luck.
I did the same thing during Katrina. I had a panel van, and took some buddies with a box truck over and cleaned up the whole place. Made a killing. Did the same thing during Sandy. Plus you get to double dip and sell some of that junk to the scrapers.
During emergencies like that, you'd be surprised what ppl will pay to have you clean their stuff up.
This kind of things happen a lot more in US. In my country, we never hear or see this kind of story.
Middle class to rich is non-existent. In US, it is everywhere.
It is *very* easy to start a small business in the US.
A very basic, one-person business can be started simply by agreeing to do X for $Y money with someone. You want to buy some equipment but think that the delivery charge is too high? I have a minivan and a trailer and I'll deliver it to you for $Y. Make the check out to "NoBulletsLeft Trucking" and in most states, I'm now a legitimate business.
Technically you need the bank account you cash that check to to say No bullets left Trucking, but that's a matter of a DBA.
I agree, it's the professionalization and scaling that's the tough part of building a business.
Nope. He owned a used car lot that took advantage of poor people with awful credit. 🤣🤦🏻♂️
He tried to talk three or four of us into the deal and only one guy bought into two crews. He put in 25 and got back something in excess of 350. Dad and I still commiserate about it to this day.
Cool. So he was used to pulling the trigger, taking some risk/debt and making it happen with a little to lose (go bankrupt) lots to gain moment. Has this experience helped him in ventures since Katrina?
He hasn't really done much since. He ran a business where he bought giant machinery, like earth movers that are two stories tall, and leased them out to companies, and he made a killing doing that, but it was a logistical pain in the ass so he sold it.
He built some RV/boat storage units that are full and I presume do okay, but he just kinda dicks around at the club playing a little golf and he travels and pretends to work on his mostly self-sufficient businesses.
Lol, 'pretending to work' in a case like this is basically having an ear to the ground for opportunities and trends to keep an eye on. It also doesn't look like I work, but somehow opportunity keeps finding me.
I don't know how to explain what I do, except that I'm interested in everything
I also know of someone who had a used car lot right next to a military base and took advantage of soldiers wanting to purchase fancy vehicles at very high interest rates. Scummy, imho.
Edited: milk bass - military base
Remind me of someone my dad bought an newly build house from. This guy couldn't drive and couldn't even read in his native language (never graduated past 8th grade), much less understand English. But he's a mid size developer in nyc.
Ahh the FEMA Katrina cancer trailers. My dad wanted to buy one, I talked him out of it. Definitely money to be made if you can look the other way on morality.
I'm an Andrew survivor. We had to stay on one of those for about 8 months while our housing situation was sorted. Also, know of plenty of areas in South Florida where these trailers became permanent homes. The issues were highly sensationalized.
Most of the media is weaponized. If someone hasn’t realized it at least two elections ago you ain’t been paying attention. I guess its always been that way. Just one day I woke up.
A similar business is buying and selling used office furniture. Never in my life have I seen any item depreciate so much. You can spend $100k on cubicles, and literally the day they are delivered they are worth $0. You have to PAY someone just to come and get them.
I know someone who bought and sold mainly high end office chairs as a side hustle pre 07/08 recession. During the recession he leased unused warehouse space for dirt cheap and companies PAID HIM to come pick up their not even that old cubicles, chairs, small conference tables. He sat on this stuff until 2011-12 and made an absolute killing reselling and installing it.
When we were outfitting our new office we found an auction for office furniture. An office was relocating so rather than moving their 6yo furniture they sold it.
We picked up 8 cubicles for $0.10 (the minimum bid) and 2 executive office sets that each cost $7000 new for $100 total
Office furniture is crazy.
10 years ago, I picked up 25 super nice almost new cubicles. Easily a few $1,000 a piece when new not including whatever set up charge and were only a few years old.
For free.. I did have to pay like $600 bucks to move them, though.
The businesses lease was up on the 1st and they had to be out. They wanted like $500 a cubicle. I guess the next month rent was more.
In my area, the guy who removed and disposed of medical and biohazard waste from local hospitals and doctor's offices. His description: "It's raining money!"
Incinerator typically.
Some shadier folks nuke the bio-factor by introducing a harsh acid or base and transforming it to a chemical hazmat type deal, then ship it somewhere for disposal and pocket the difference. Those places tend to be the kind of places that have the barrel fall off the boat in transit, or are shipping to someplace that dumps it in a way that most folks would consider illegal... Think China's level of care and compassion towards environment.
I helped start a medwaste company. Basically all you need is state-sanctioned incinerator or steamer. Usually steamer, and then it goes to a landfill after it’s been “sanitized”. Usually a per pound cost. Only thing specialized is red bags and boxes with biohazards symbols and company name and address. The company “Daniels” is the biggest.
It’s pretty disgusting.
I worked for a men’s health clinic that did one thing, they offered treatment for ED using shockwave therapy. Guys with no money would drop $12k on a treatment that maybe worked for 50% of the patients.
The original owner had one or two successful clinics. After a few years, he went nationwide, expanding rapidly into all major cities. He sold the company when it started to go downhill to a couple investors. It crashed and burned after that because it required a certain level of marketing and I guess the new owners knew nothing about that. I think the guy made over 100 million on the sale. He was also a total snake.
To be fair, 50% is pretty good odds to cure erectile dysfunction. Men would pay more money for lesser odds if it meant a chance at using their Willy again
Oil boom in my area when I was in high school. The dad of one of my friends was renting Porto potties for a grand a week. He'd go out and service them on his weekends. Not sure if he even owned a septic truck or if he was just borrowing it from a friend. Every now and then my buddy would get dragged along to load the portopotties onto a trailer to move to the next site.
Made more for them than their farm ever did, I'm pretty fucking sure.
Best of all, the johns are so cheap, that unlike all the guys who got into buying (financing) trucks and trailers and things, that when 2008 collapsed the market he wasn't in debt.
A lot of businesses can make a killing. Had a friend who lived on a ranch. It was his dad’s ranch that he only used to store equipment. There was a really bad fire nearby and they were worried it was going to get to the ranch so my friend went out bought 5 string trimmers a chainsaw and a front loader. Hired 5 guys from Home Depot to clear out all the brush on the ranch while he dug out a fire break with the front loader. People saw what he was doing and asked him to do the same to their land. 1 year later he had 3-4 trucks full of guys doing the same thing. All he did was drive around quoting jobs all day. Eventually I think he even hired someone to do that.
What I see from this post and its comments is a ton of people who have no idea what work and knowledge actually went into making these ventures successful
For the particular business I'm speaking about, we'll just call them Lemons, they had Bella+Canvas garments already printed with their logos. I set up a single head embroidery machine and their customer base chose from already embroidered patches of designs that Lemon made with us. Lemon chose 15 differerent thread colors they liked that their customers could choose from and get names/initials or phrases embellished on the garments. Each item took less than 5 minutes between setting up the garment, the file for the name/initials, and then heat sealed patches if that's what they wanted. We were set up for about 3 hours at each event. Profit for the business was about $3400 per event.
I worked in industrial bakery equipment manufacturing. Same thing, we would sell a $150k oven, buy it back 6 months later for $10k and repaint it. Rinse and repeat.
In fire alarms now. It's even more.
FA is a very niche market. Most of its cornered by proprietary equipment. Our charge out is just under $400/hr, power supplies are $5k each, networking cards $7k each. Keeps going like that.
They like to discontinue equipment so one part failure can result in a $500k+ upgrade project. Keep in mind some clients lose over $1m/day they are offline.
Family friend owns acres of land around a river that provides a special type of sand used in grout, stucco, and other finished construction materials. Every year it floods and deposits new sand and they’ve been digging the same area since the 60 or 70s. Unless a major event happens that disrupts the natural flow it should be good for many generations, grandfathered rights to the sand as they don’t disturb the river at all.
Back during the predatory student loan days, my boss who was a career advisor came across an affiliate marketing offer that dangled a student grant lottery of $10,000 if you gave your details. He created a landing page for it that would send people to the offer via a single Google ad.
This ad would profit him between $3,000-$20,000 a day. He made a few million dollars churning people into University of Phoenix, DeVry, etc. He paid he to get him more leads and it was my first job in marketing. The changes he made me do to the campaign made it go to a few hundred bucks and a few months later the laws changed and everything died.
He's still living a grand life.
Affiliate marketing was extremely lucrative 10-20 years ago. Today it’s way over saturated and the general population is a lot more aware and leery of online ads.
Yeah. He made bank at the right place and the right time. Now all he does is go on dates with girls from sugar daddy sites, smoke weed all day, and watch professional sports on TV lol. He has become a marketing guru of sorts but it's another dude who makes up the persona and deals with the clients. He's a character.
I said he goes on dates with them to places. He doesn't actually become their sugar daddy. The dude just uses them the first time, shows them a good time, bangs them, then makes up an excuse and bails out. There seems to be an endless supply of young women who are ready to bang 60+ old men for money and he's capitalising on it. He's got the house and car to show for it but he's still careful with his money. Do you still want the hookup?
I personally don't admire or like his lifestyle. I kind of feel bad for him every time I visit. He opened a lot of doors for me so I stay in touch.
Reminds me of the Nebraska College Football quiz Shoemoney created, an affiliate marketing landing page where everyone was a winner. The ‘winners’ would even share their results bringing in more traffic.
There’s one in LA called the Baked Potato. It’s a small music venue but potatoes are the only thing on the menu. They have about 20 different types and they’re pretty good.
Family friend owns a now decently sized (100-200 employees) industrial HVAC company. Started off doing offices and stuff like that with a single employee, but they knew HVAC and related fields enough that they could build climate controlled areas that had extreme degrees of precise temperature. I don’t know a lot about that industry, but I guess back in the 70’s when it was started they were one of the few companies around that could provide that. That ended up taking off in the 90’s within some specific manufacturing spaces and they capitalized by buying companies in related spaces. I can’t even tell you have many tens of millions the owner takes home, let alone how much profit the company is making. It’s all privately held. He hasn’t told me how much they make, but I can see his purchases and it’s a ludicrous amount. Enough that he started funding large real estate development projects (manufacturing and 100+ home subdivisions) around the city.
Freight brokerage. They owned no planes, trucks, trains or ships. Generated millions out of nothing.
My boss once made $45k in an hour on a scheme he played.
He’d send the client a bill we’d receive from a terminal for container storage charges, and then pull strings to have the terminal waive the fees for us after we’ve been “reimbursed” by the client.
Freight broker here. It is a ruthless business and the original comment is highlighting the best possible scenario which could be said for any sales job. The fact is, you need to start as a freight broker before you start your own agency because you need to learn. All you do is cold call shippers to move their freight. These shippers are constantly hounded by other brokers. If you are a good salesman and organized you can make a killing. Fyi it is extremely easy to find a job as a freight broker
I asked gpt for you bc I have no idea:
The key to starting a freight brokerage business is acting as a middleman between shippers and carriers. Here are the initial steps to get you started:
* Gain industry knowledge: While not mandatory, freight brokerage training or experience familiarizes you with regulations, logistics, and industry trends.
* Develop a business plan: This outlines your target market, niche (e.g., specific cargo types or routes), marketing strategy, and financial projections.
* Register your business: Choose a business structure (LLC, sole proprietorship, etc.) and register with your state.
* Obtain a freight broker license: Apply for licensing with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
* Secure a surety bond: This financial guarantee protects shippers if you fail to fulfill your obligations.
* Build carrier relationships: Network with carriers to establish relationships and secure competitive rates for your clients.
* Market your services: Reach out to potential shippers and highlight the value you bring, such as cost-effectiveness and efficient logistics management.
So, it doesn't seem like someone on can turn this type of business on overnight. But 🤷
Sno-balls are a popular treat in new Orleans during the summer. They're just shaved ice with a flavored sugar syrup. You can get one for about 3-5 bucks. After my mom retired, she decided she needed something else to do so she bought a food truck and began selling sno-balls. They’re very easy to make, and the cost to make one is about 40 cents. Margins on this stuff are insane. She primarily does corporate events, private parties and festivals. She easily makes 60-70 grand over the course of a summer by just making a simple product. She actually did the national fried chicken fest down here the past two years, and her revenue for just two days of work was 16 grand. Crazy.
I knew a guy who retired from Exxon-Mobile in Baton Rouge and was likely making well over six figures by the time he retired... The summer after he retired, he opened a small snow-cone stand and ended up making double his annual salary in only 3 months.
Yeah, if you have a good location, and a good sno-ball, you can clean up. Last Summer, The Aquarium in New Orleans re-opened after a renovation. They didn't have their food court finished, so they signed contracts with a few food trucks to serve food outside. My mom was one of the trucks selected. On a normal summer day, she was making on average 650-700 bucks a day. I worked with her on a weekend, and she made 2 grand the day I was there. Insane for just selling sugar water.
I love seasonal businesses. I think they're the tits, especially for people who are into lifestyle design
Guy in my area does chimney sweeping and just fishes and gardens all summer. Put two kids through college just like that and his wife answers the phone.
My sister opened a small Asian grocery store (800 sq ). 5 yes later she had 2 house and bought 3000 sq building and land for new grocery store. She was successful until too far into the religious and ....broken marriage. Another 10 yes later, she lost it all. She got stroke too. Now..she living with us and her 2 kids don't even want to talk with her. Sad ending.
She started to believed everything is in god hand. She don't even take the medicine when she sick. Just praying. She donated money to pastor and preacher. She believed god will take care the business too. She hired a guy (from the church) to run her business and he stealing the money.
Customers did not come because she preaching and praying for them even they are in other religious like Buddhist and Muslim. Husband left her to other women. Houses got foreclosed. Got stroked.Sold the business (building) and nobody known where the money go. She don't talk about it.
Did not go physical therapy. Can't talk well.
I worked concessions at various Midwest fairs as a summer job for about 10 years. The company I worked for had been doing it for 60 years and had about 40 French fry and lemonade stands.
The margins were insane. Pay kids minimum wage all summer. There were multiple times each summer where my entire cash draw was being lifted up with $20s, $50s, and $100s that were kept under the draw.
$4-$7 for 50lbs of potatoes that turned in to $700-$1200. We would go through 10-30 bags of potatoes per day per stand.
Hardest part about that industry is all the good spots at fairs are taken by the people that have been doing it for decades. Once you have a spot, the fairs let you keep it until you get kicked out for doing something dumb or retire.
I’d also like to say that at 15 years old in 2006 getting free food and travel all summer plus about $800/week was awesome. They were roughly 100 hour weeks, but if you’ve ever been to the fair you know the first 10 hours of the day you don’t really do anything and can nap in shifts.
>There were multiple times each summer where my entire cash draw was being lifted up with $20s, $50s, and $100s that were kept under the draw.
Reminds me of working at McDonadl's in the 90s. The manager's computer would alert them each time a drawer hit $1000 and they'd come by to scoop up whatever $20s (and above) were under the drawer. On a summer Saturday in drive-thru, they'd come by every 60-90 minutes.
I worked at a Burger King, about 1992-3. They kept doing $.99 Wopper sales. I was working the 4 to 10 pm shift. I was taking money in the drive through. At shift change they would tell you which car to stop taking money on, so hopefully the cash drawers would be right. I was taking too long to get out. I was shocked on the green under the drawer. The head manager was working that night. She was my buddies sister. She kind of chewed me out about have *too much* cash in there.
**$14,000!!** 😱😱
This was when minimum wage was $3.85 /hour.
I wrapped a fleet of food trucks that traveled to county fairs and events around the country. The guy had multiple teams that left homebase in the spring in different directions and made giant loops and returned in November. He was ready to pay his invoices in cash, somewhere around $100,000 . He had food, rides, support vehicles, trailers that are bathrooms, trailers that are apartments, . It was a neat operation.
Storing used pharma / biotech production equipment for tax depreciation services at $12 a sq ft in a 110,000 sq ft warehouse. Place was fully booked, and almost all of the equipment was decommissioned and only being held on to for tax depreciation until it was scrapped in 3-6 years (Stainless steel tanks / chromatography columns and skids etc). Two guys ran the warehouse, paid a cleaning crew $1000 a week to keep the place mopped and dusted, and they raked in 1+ million a month. Ran it for like 6 years, sold it for some ridiculous number and went on with their lives.
Similar vein (I work in pharma and was looking in to starting a GMP warehouse), a farmer near a Pfizer site knew one of the warehouse managers and he asked about storing equipment in a barn space he had. Farmer realized how much they'd be paying so he poured a whole new extra thick slab to take the heavy stuff and Pfizer happily leased the entire space from him for 70K a month. He didn't have to hire anyone, they sent all their warehouse people to handle the equipment since it was expensive / heavy. Raked in 70K a month and quit farming.
I'm an accountant so I see a variety of businesses everyday
Concrete is the one that shocked me the most, I mean it makes sense thinking about it, but I have 2 clients that just sell precast concrete. One of them sells those small stacking blocks for gardening, that's all he sells, and clears a million in pure profit
The other sells septic tanks and they're the main one in the region, they're over 5 mill, profit, owned by 1 dude
There are a couple others that do pouring and they still do amazingly well, 500k+
He owns a plant, manufactures them, and sells them. Most of his sales are to municipalities, construction companies, or retailers.
He didn't come up with the block either, he essentially pays royalties on each sale to the company that designed the block/patented it.
I’m going to try to think of a unique business that made tons of money and kind of shocked me
I knew a guy who was vice president of a bank (a lot of people are vice president of banks they throw that title around, but he made pretty good money)
It was also kind of a car guy and would buy used Hondas a lot of them with salvage titles and fix them up and sell them on the side and decided with somebody else and my initial impression was why would he want to own a junkyard?
I didn’t really understand the business bottle at first, but they just worked with insurance companies, taking in cars that have been totaled and cleaning them up and selling them . I initially thought they were buying all these cars and selling them, but they were getting a flat fee for storage for cleaning and for selling the vehicles.
The first location they had was making about $10,000 a week profit and I have no idea what they were paying themselves but they expanded … multiple locations and diversify their business
I ended up selling out a private equity firm involved and his buyout was 16,000,000.
His business partner ended up sticking with it in the company got even bigger and I don’t even know how much money he got when he sold.
I can think of two other examples of people I know who started businesses that I was a little skeptical about who sold their businesses and eight figure payouts so the joke is if you have a business idea, asked me what I think and do the opposite
Cool business. There’s a family company out of Texas (I think) like this, that basically gets paid by the insurance companies to take the totaled cars and from there they resell them in some fashion. They’re all billionaires now. Perfect model, get paid to take on inventory then sell inventory. Nothing but profit.
Copart… that’s probably the company you’re thinking of
They ended up buying this company from the private equity firm . they bought them because in markets that the smaller company works they were taking market share
My grandpa has a similar story. He had a friend he grew up with in the 40s and he did jobs with like brick laying when they were like 20. My grandpa went to working as a pipelayer for the refineries. His friend decided to open a scrap yard in North Texas and asked my grandpa to be his partner. Grandpa declined because he was making decent money and already had a kid so he was risk averse. By the 60s his friend was a millionaire. Grandpa retired in the 90s and his friend would mail him like $5k checks every month just because they were friends, and he did it all the way up until he died like 5 years ago. The scrap yard is still there, making bank for his kids.
I was one of the very early people to get into affiliate marketing, at least the kind I do, on social media in 2016. Now 8 years later I have a team of people running my socials for me, I just collect a % each month from their earnings. Get to stay home with my baby and make 6 figures doing absolutely nothing. I am one of the few true success stories and I feel bad bc it’s impossible to get into today and have the outcome I did yet I see so many people selling books and courses promising the stars to others if they try. I had a message recently from a woman asking for advice bc her and her husband took out a $100,000 loan on their 401k to buy a course from an affiliate marketing “guru” who guaranteed them to be rich and basically scammed them. I wish I had some magic secret but I don’t except the timing I got into it made me extremely lucky, if I had to start over today I wouldn’t be able to make anything.
We made popcorn at school. Created a group to do this. Sold it at break time to raise money for charity and to fund school trips. It was so successful that it had to be closed down because it was impacting the commercial activities on site.
Construction company.
Through a handful of other companies, the 2 dudes owned:
- the land to be developed,
- the construction company that would do the work,
- the sand / gravel company that supplies the construction company,
- the trucking company that moves the equipment for the construction company
- the development company that sold the developed land to home builders.
So on each project, it was pretty much the left front pocket paying the right front pocket paying the right back pocket paying the left back pocket, and every move includes anywhere from 20 to 100% profit.
During the boom in 05-08, profits were insane.
A guy had a loam sales business, providing landscapers and homeowners screened loam for their yard or community. He'd bring in 30 grand cash in a weekend and claim they were closed. This was most weekends. Maybe all weekends.
Sourcing and processing organic spices. Not the retail side, but the import and selling to retailers who jar and label it. Not a lot of people realize that's where the money goes for organics. Not to farmers or retailers. The margins are insane even for small single palette shipments.
Standard GFSI compliance for food safety. Most shipments can be inspected by eye and lab tested otherwise. All you need for microbial control is an oven.
A guy owned land next to a profitable business.
He ran a related business, but not competition.
The profitable business grew and bought the guy's land at a high price. Location was important.
He bought the land next door.
Repeat this two more times as the profitable business grew, and the guy retired with great wealth.
I had a pet sitting business in the early 2000’s. I offered exclusively to felines and specialized in elderly cats that needed medical care. It took off rapidly and I left my 9-5 within a few months. It hit 6 figures quickly but after I had my son my priorities changed and I reached burnout. I was a go-getter and was working 7 days a week all hours of the day. I was texting and emailing during my labour!
Most any business that offers financing model this approach.
Used car lots especially are known for this and people often vilify the salesperson for it, which has led to the current used car salesperson having quite a bad stigma in society.
Most used car lots have recouped their entire investment by the time you make your down payment and just a few monthly payments, the rest is pure profit.
I've seen a similar model with a medical equipment leasing company. They'd lease to doctors, clinics, then repossess and resell. Repeat cycle led to substantial profits, especially during economic downturns.
A T-shirt shop downtown Aspen. People would stand in line to buy Aspen logo'd t shirts for gifts and spend hundreds of dollars. The young school teacher owners built a big house in Snowmass
‘Tweezerman’. Worked his trade shows in the first 7+/- years after launch. Wildly popular professional beauty tool. Several decades later he sold the company and gave his regular employees a piece of the profit. (I, sadly, wasn’t one of them.). The line is now available retail. Im still very proud of my role, the product line and being there at the beginning,
They are. With their flat plated heads, options of slant and needle nose and made of rust proof stainless steel, they were fine tuned tension grip precision instruments. And Tweezerman guaranteed his tweezers — if you ever broke the point, you could send them in and the instrument would be sharpened or replaced & returned at no charge. They cost a little more but you got a great product. Decades later, I still have a few originals operating just like new and obviously— can still do the pitch!
That's a great business because every Tom Dick and Harry wants to start up a new restaurant, don't know how to run a restaurant. and then go bust. I've seen restaurants that only lasted 3 months.
One of my close friends used to work for a family every summer in June/July at their firework stand. She worked for them from the time she was teenager until she was in her 30s.
They would all gear up and get excited in the weeks leading up to it, everybody pitching in, and then really work SO hard for about 2 weeks. Long, long hours in hot west Texas weather, fighting giant bugs and crazy weather conditions, ha!
But man, like you said: they made BANK. My friend, who was just hired to help, would make a couple of thousand in just two weeks (and this was the 90s!). The guy who owned it had it as like a side business, and would hire his friends and family to help and then pay them very generously. They all had so much fun working together! I was kind of jealous…but I’m a total wimp when it comes to heat and bugs, so I never asked if I could join 😂
Currently working as a project manager for a security company at a very small family run business. We do all kinds of installations regarding security and we deal a monitoring service as a 3rd party vendor to hundreds of clients.
The craziest thing is that the alarm monitoring service costs us $2 a month directly from the vendor; we charge the client anywhere between $30-$90 a month for it
Of the successful/rich people I know...
something something real-estate (usually something vague and mostly likely involves them having considerable seed money to start with), a condiment/dip inventor, HVAC or any blue collar owner/operator who actually has the ability to hire/manage other people to do all the work.
I hate hearing phrases like this "hire/manage other people to do all the work."
Having owned a business for several years, I can guarantee I put in more hours per week than any of the 40 people I employ.
Do I actually build decks or install roofs anymore? No.
But to say that I just get other people to work for me is ridiculous. To actually be successful in business, you can't abdicate responsibility for anyone who works under you.
Ridiculous belief you have there.
I'm not being that literal. Of course the business owner does a lot of work. I'm saying a lot of blue collar guys can do plumbing themselves but struggle to run more than a 3 more crew or whatever. The guys that can orchestrate a lot of people are who make a killing in the trades.
> a condiment/dip inventor
About the only way I could think to make money off it would be to know how to sell (or lease) the recipe to some big chain. And it'd have to be good enough to compete with the hundreds of other dips that people would be trying to sell them every year.
Sangria from Sangria Manor (you can find them on instagram). Started at my local farmer’s market but has since grown a ton. This is the guys 2nd successful business venture, too. The first one was being a school lunch wholesaler
I had a meal prep company that I sold in 2021. Covid made us stupid money because restaurants closed, you couldn’t grocery shop, and we delivered healthy food right to your house. All of a sudden it wasn’t just dieters it was everyone ordering from us. On top of that there were food surpluses and product costs dropped by like 30-50% for a few months straight. We posted like 4 or 5 ridiculously profitable quarters and I exited on a high note.
I don't know if it counts as an absolute killing, but my friend worked at an ice cream shop two summers in a row, DURING the pandemic. She said they were making tens of thousands a month just selling scoops of ice cream. And they hired kids, so those coop/intern placements were subsidized by government grants.
Of course, this is in Toronto, a big city with a HUGE appetite for ice cream in the summers.
I'm from Alaska originally, ice cream sales are good all summer (local + tourist) and TRIPLES in winter.
Down in the states now, doesn't seem nearly so dynamic here
Summer camp in Japan. Private school pays teachers no additional salary to teach 10 days of a summer camp to some entitled kids who can afford 10k for a 10 day all inclusive camp. 80-150 students every year. Clearing a million in revenue in a little under two weeks is a great heist.
Sure, leveraging the cyclical nature of the restaurant industry, a friend's parents made a killing with a restaurant equipment supply company. They bought back equipment from failed restaurants, resold it, and profited immensely, demonstrating the power of niche markets.
My parents own a farm. My mum and I started doing farmers markets. Directly selling produce at a farmers market makes a ton of profit. People are ready to pay premium prices for organic produce directly from the farmer.
My cousins owns a used car dealership, yanno… those small ones on the side of the road. I think he had about 15-20 cars on the lot at a time.
His dealership is a BHPH business model. He makes ~$400-500k /month.
Not exactly a small business, but I was part of a start-up catastrophe reinsurance company (basically betting on hurricanes). We started with $1B is capital and ten or so people. We wrote $500M of premium in a few weeks and within four years we were 120 people operating in four countries, and had returned over $2.5B to shareholders as dividends.
When I was 17 my friend asked me if I wanted to invest $500 to buy a bunch of stained shirt ties. The plan was to clean all the stains off and sell them at a profit. I said no.
Heh. I worked as a BI developer with a startup that began generating leads for cosmetic surgeries and eventually developed a full-blown EHR for the practices they were working with. They eventually gained tremendous leverage over these practices and were able to pull... fucking boatloads.
They sold the whole thing off to private equity, and then those folks scrapped about 2/3 of the company.
Fucking bastards...
Some guys bought pre-paid SIM cards with free promo money on them, then called them empty to their own payphone numbers. Hired over a hundred students to do this. Made bank.
Every granular detail of a large network of people operating a web of internet e-commerce pharmacies.
They all went to jail, except for one guy that ended up a fugitive and bailed back to South America.
Cool people though, and good families. They just weren't very risk adverse.
I worked for a company that made solid hardwood doors. The business was booming when the original owner passed away and the business was inherited by the owner's sons.
One son was very familiar with the door construction part of the business. Hardworking man who knew his shit and was able to easily keep up the production and quality of their product.
The other son was less competent, at least in so far as what he claimed charge of. Marketing, sales, everything not directly related to production. While his heart might have been in the right place, his pride, his lack of knowledge, and his wife were CONSTANTLY in the way.
There was a man that worked there that was a fully capable and studied marketer that was mostly ignored when suggestions were made. The owner, instead of focusing on his product and promoting it in multiple ways, he focused exclusively on Google advertising until the business went downhill enough that they couldn't afford it, and then he seemingly ignored the business and focused on pumping out amazon affiliate links in multiple spammy ways. There were so very, very many other ventures into the SEO spammer territory he ventured but for the sake of keeping things simple, we'll stop with that.
The workers quickly figured out that showing that you knew something that he didn't was an indirect path to the unemployment line.
His wife was arrogant. Her 'happiness' was directly correlated to how much money she could spend. Toward the end she was quietly talking divorce to try and extract what she could from them.
It was a sad day they closed the door production facility. All that potential gone because of pride and arrogance. They're now reduced to listing other people's stuff on Amazon and... I think Etsy? Not sure, been too long since I even looked.
I'm going to have some whiskey and read this thread repeatedly, lol. My old boss had a "FedEx Office" business model - copies, shipping, mailboxes for rent. The mailbox rent pays for the operating costs of the business including lease, equipment, employees, etc. He grew it to over a million annual, sold it, new guy defaulted on the loan (personal guarantee/owner financing with a huge down payment), owner got it back after default, sold it again for cash this time... Meanwhile, he had a house in one of the most affluent areas in our state he bought 20 years ago. Sold it too at the height of the market. Cashed out and moved to Arizona to start a hobby restaurant to keep his mind occupied for his early retirement. Some people are just magnetized to the money. Not myself, I work for every penny.. and my genius ideas are just: "Sell more jobs! Work longer hours! Spend less!"
So I'm going to start by saying pyramid scheme and MLM are bad.. don't do it, because I knew the guy that made money off of y'all.
Yes, i knew a guy that somehow was able to get in on GROUND LEVEL on tons of MLMs and he was a great snake oil salesman. And it was a clique of people that did this.
Him in the same people would always find themselves in a new mlm, ground level and if you understand pyramid schemes, that's the only way to make money in it.
Anyway I had always heard my whole life how these things were such a scam and all that, but I guess once you're in you're in.
They seem to share insider information on the newest ones to be ground level in and I watched him do this with five different mlms so I know there's definitely a formula to it.
I have no interest but if somehow I was able to knew what he knew,..... I might have had the interest.
As I understand it, those kind of grifters actually create the MLMs, over and over. Kind of like finding a business to make into a franchise.
The life cycle of an MLM is limited, for obvious reasons. If they can get in, then get out, then get into the new thing (and likely take the best performers in their downline with them) they are basically a flipping operation.
Bro, that sounds like a pretty accurate description of EXACTLY what they do. I don't know what is involvement in creation was but he was always RIGHT THERE. It's always the same people on the ground floor too. They get to know each other and trust each other's ability to spin it. The amount of money this guy was bringing in was bonkers. And yes, absolute grifters. But to their credit, they were wiping their tears with $100 bills.
Started a Covid testing lab. Didn’t scale much but we did a great job, I made some better $ than I have ever seen and got to pay my medical friends really well.
A restaurant equipment supply company profited by reselling items from failed restaurants. After selling the business, they bought it back cheaply and sold it again, accumulating significant wealth.
Sounds like they had a brilliant strategy with the restaurant equipment supply business. Smart moves in buying back stock at low prices. It's a testament to how savvy business decisions can lead to major success.
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Selling bags of packaged ice. Dude started with a $2,500 restaurant ice machine in his garage. Multimillionaire now.
Those machines make great money
I did that for years. Sold the machine last year
How did you find a location to host your machine?
I had a warehouse with walk in freezer to store them and we did the deliveries to the customers with refrigerated trucks. The hardest part of It all was the back breaking work of bagging them.
Who do you even sell those to?
Construction companies pay $2.50per 10lb bag. My buddy would provide a freezer for them on site and fill em up with bags once a week. Built a route of a few dozen customers. Reinvested in equipment and scaled up from there. He now covers half of our state with his boxes.
Started at a new company in Florida and asked a guy why they needed two massive chest freezers full of ice. "To survive" was all he said. Service and install techs would load their coolers with ice everyday so they had cold water to drink. Sometimes they'd have to work in attics, in July, in Florida...they had special frozen ice vests for that.
That $2.5 of ice is worth $100 in morale too. If I have contractors working, I provide ice cold Gatorade or something. It goes long way.
Thank you from all of us guys dying in the heat.
Eskimos if you’re good
I just bought 30 liters of ice to my birthday party so I would guess anyone organizing events for one.
Fishermen too. My brother is a huge hobby offshore fishermen and has 2 ice makers just to fill his coolers/boat
I wonder what inspections would be necessary to do something like this. Obviously the health department but I’m not sure if there would be anything else that you would need to have preapproved.
Would vary state by state but ice is food so all the same Health Dept licensure would apply.
It's literally water that's frozen. No expiration date, ran through 3 filters, no inspections needed. The water used is just municipal water that's already regulated..
They don’t have to make sure your freezer is clean or anything like that? Asking because I need a new side hustle
At least in California, its a health department permit requiring an annual inspection
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Only when it melts
I knew a guy who started a tower maintenance company and when I first met, drove an old Oldsmobile tornado… and he had a bucket of tools Within a decade, he had 80 employees and was making close to $2 million a year profit Within another decade, he was basically broke because of failed marriages and a drinking problem
What is "tower maintenance" exactly? Cell phone towers?
He made a ton of money working with cell phone carriers, but every radio station and TV station… not to mention a lot of radio communication networks… a lot of utilities have microwave links Every tower that’s over 200 feet on the top and somebody’s gotta change those lightbulbs But he did make a lot of his money as cell phone companies started adding towers… which got him more into construction I think he had four concrete crews just to do the tower construction It’s kind of sad. Time with the guy and he was always easy to get along with, but I guess he can be kind of mean when he drinks… him and his wife got divorced I was married times in 5 years and every one ended badly I don’t know all the details, but I also know he had a guy die on the job that company was not found or anything, but it just seemed like everything crumbled at once
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Believe it or not a lot of these towers have basically an elevator that helps you get to the top without actually having to climb(not an actual elevator, but I think you understand what I’m saying) But as a guy who’s afraid of heights, I know that it wouldn’t be a job for me and I’ve been told by people that they’ll just be one time someone goes up and all the sudden they realize they can’t ever do it again And the Workmen’s Comp. rates are ridiculously high
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Yeah, when I installed satellite dishes we had to be able to climb a 30ft extension ladder and mount a dish to the wall and do all the work on it. In training, one of the last things we would do was ladder training. They'd walk the whole class outside, and make us all one at a time take the ladder off the van, stand it at full extension against the training center, and climb to the top wearing a full tool belt and carrying a fully assembled dish and mounting bracket. More than one person would get halfway up, start shaking, and not be able to do it. You got 3 tries and then you flunked out and had to find a new job.
Hopefully, he didn't drive the Tornado to the towers. Sounds like not a good combination 🤣 Just busting your balls. It's an Oldsmobile Toronado
Stupid voice to text😂
Actually, given how old the toronado is, not surprising that speech to text thought you meant tornado.lol. Give me a chuckle though.
Buddy who falls ass backwards into money called me once to invest 50k in one of his hairbrained ideas. I passed. He spent a few hundred grand on plain old brand new Ford trucks and hired yahoos for like $250 a day each to fill the beds with all the waste (destroyed houses, furniture, etc.) from Hurricane Katrina. FEMA was paying $2,500 a DAY per crew. He had three guys per truck and was grossing like $1,750 a day per crew. After gas and shit he cleared 1500 per truck per day. He got up to 30 effing crews, making 45 grand a day, and the work lasted almost three months. That dude absolutely raked, and never did a lick of work. Afterwards, FEMA was selling hundreds of mobile homes (they planned them as evacuee shelters but never used them) at pennies on the dollar. Literally $50k trailers for $2,500 cash. This motherfucker bought 50 of them, dropped some of the cash he'd made on land, water lines, electric, and sewer connections, and now owns two chock full and completely paid for mobile home parks with 25 units each, for which he rents at a grand a month each. Tenants pay the utilities. He has a giant pile of money in the bank from the Katrina work, sold all the effing trucks and stashed that money, and lives quite comfortably on the interest and the 50k a month he makes off the trailer parks. Guy barely got out of high school, but that motherfucker can find money in a rock.
"and never did a lick of work." The guy was hiring and managing 30 - 60 labourers, I can tell you for sure there was lots of work involved. He may not have been driving a truck, or loading/unloading garbage but I can assure you he was working his ass off.
It sounds like he finds good deals, goes all in and takes a lot of risk, and is able to execute on the plan to maximize profits on the opportunity. Those are a bunch of rare qualities to find in one person, not to mention some of it is probably luck.
The execution part is the hardest part to do correctly.
also having a few hundo to buy some trucks on a pipe dream haha
Yeah, being able to drop a quarter-mil on a moment's notice is the real starting point here.
There is something to be said for having that liquidity. Lots of people probably own assets they can get a line of credit on, but that takes weeks
He didn't have it. He had good credit and borrowed a PILE. Worked out though... Had it not, he'd have been screwwwwwwwed.
He had too have failed a bunch of these. That's the thing, you've got to keep trying.
I did the same thing during Katrina. I had a panel van, and took some buddies with a box truck over and cleaned up the whole place. Made a killing. Did the same thing during Sandy. Plus you get to double dip and sell some of that junk to the scrapers. During emergencies like that, you'd be surprised what ppl will pay to have you clean their stuff up.
And a premium to be first in line.
You buddy makes it look easy, but managing such a large operation isn’t. He’s a very talented manager. No degree can teach that.
This kind of things happen a lot more in US. In my country, we never hear or see this kind of story. Middle class to rich is non-existent. In US, it is everywhere.
It is *very* easy to start a small business in the US. A very basic, one-person business can be started simply by agreeing to do X for $Y money with someone. You want to buy some equipment but think that the delivery charge is too high? I have a minivan and a trailer and I'll deliver it to you for $Y. Make the check out to "NoBulletsLeft Trucking" and in most states, I'm now a legitimate business.
Technically you need the bank account you cash that check to to say No bullets left Trucking, but that's a matter of a DBA. I agree, it's the professionalization and scaling that's the tough part of building a business.
Did he have a partner or background in logistics etc?
Nope. He owned a used car lot that took advantage of poor people with awful credit. 🤣🤦🏻♂️ He tried to talk three or four of us into the deal and only one guy bought into two crews. He put in 25 and got back something in excess of 350. Dad and I still commiserate about it to this day.
Cool. So he was used to pulling the trigger, taking some risk/debt and making it happen with a little to lose (go bankrupt) lots to gain moment. Has this experience helped him in ventures since Katrina?
He hasn't really done much since. He ran a business where he bought giant machinery, like earth movers that are two stories tall, and leased them out to companies, and he made a killing doing that, but it was a logistical pain in the ass so he sold it. He built some RV/boat storage units that are full and I presume do okay, but he just kinda dicks around at the club playing a little golf and he travels and pretends to work on his mostly self-sufficient businesses.
making money (or trying to) is exhausting. Thanks for sharing!
Lol, 'pretending to work' in a case like this is basically having an ear to the ground for opportunities and trends to keep an eye on. It also doesn't look like I work, but somehow opportunity keeps finding me. I don't know how to explain what I do, except that I'm interested in everything
I also know of someone who had a used car lot right next to a military base and took advantage of soldiers wanting to purchase fancy vehicles at very high interest rates. Scummy, imho. Edited: milk bass - military base
Remind me of someone my dad bought an newly build house from. This guy couldn't drive and couldn't even read in his native language (never graduated past 8th grade), much less understand English. But he's a mid size developer in nyc.
Ahh the FEMA Katrina cancer trailers. My dad wanted to buy one, I talked him out of it. Definitely money to be made if you can look the other way on morality.
That's greatly overblown. The asbestos and lead paint? Yeah man, that's been sensationalized to no end.
Formaldehyde iirc
I'm an Andrew survivor. We had to stay on one of those for about 8 months while our housing situation was sorted. Also, know of plenty of areas in South Florida where these trailers became permanent homes. The issues were highly sensationalized.
Most of the media is weaponized. If someone hasn’t realized it at least two elections ago you ain’t been paying attention. I guess its always been that way. Just one day I woke up.
A similar business is buying and selling used office furniture. Never in my life have I seen any item depreciate so much. You can spend $100k on cubicles, and literally the day they are delivered they are worth $0. You have to PAY someone just to come and get them. I know someone who bought and sold mainly high end office chairs as a side hustle pre 07/08 recession. During the recession he leased unused warehouse space for dirt cheap and companies PAID HIM to come pick up their not even that old cubicles, chairs, small conference tables. He sat on this stuff until 2011-12 and made an absolute killing reselling and installing it.
When we were outfitting our new office we found an auction for office furniture. An office was relocating so rather than moving their 6yo furniture they sold it. We picked up 8 cubicles for $0.10 (the minimum bid) and 2 executive office sets that each cost $7000 new for $100 total
Have a buddy who does the same. Triple dips. Gets paid to clear old furniture. Sells them new furniture. Sells old furniture.
Yeah those really go through boom and bust cycles, but if you have the space for storage they can be very lucrative
That’s a cool story Edit: why TF did I get downvoted ? It was a good story ffs 🤦♂️
Office furniture is crazy. 10 years ago, I picked up 25 super nice almost new cubicles. Easily a few $1,000 a piece when new not including whatever set up charge and were only a few years old. For free.. I did have to pay like $600 bucks to move them, though. The businesses lease was up on the 1st and they had to be out. They wanted like $500 a cubicle. I guess the next month rent was more.
In my area, the guy who removed and disposed of medical and biohazard waste from local hospitals and doctor's offices. His description: "It's raining money!"
How *do* you dispose of biohazard? Edit LEGALLY you guys. Legally. It's not hazmat but it's close, and hazmat has a shitton of regulation
Incinerator typically. Some shadier folks nuke the bio-factor by introducing a harsh acid or base and transforming it to a chemical hazmat type deal, then ship it somewhere for disposal and pocket the difference. Those places tend to be the kind of places that have the barrel fall off the boat in transit, or are shipping to someplace that dumps it in a way that most folks would consider illegal... Think China's level of care and compassion towards environment.
I helped start a medwaste company. Basically all you need is state-sanctioned incinerator or steamer. Usually steamer, and then it goes to a landfill after it’s been “sanitized”. Usually a per pound cost. Only thing specialized is red bags and boxes with biohazards symbols and company name and address. The company “Daniels” is the biggest. It’s pretty disgusting.
how much it cost to start?
render it into bars of soap for the rich first rule
Big fireplace
Put it in regular black bags and throw it in a dumpster.
You send It to a official company that does like Daniel’s
I worked for a men’s health clinic that did one thing, they offered treatment for ED using shockwave therapy. Guys with no money would drop $12k on a treatment that maybe worked for 50% of the patients. The original owner had one or two successful clinics. After a few years, he went nationwide, expanding rapidly into all major cities. He sold the company when it started to go downhill to a couple investors. It crashed and burned after that because it required a certain level of marketing and I guess the new owners knew nothing about that. I think the guy made over 100 million on the sale. He was also a total snake.
Sounds like he was 50% snake, and 100% multi-millionaire. I'm joking obviously.
To be fair, 50% is pretty good odds to cure erectile dysfunction. Men would pay more money for lesser odds if it meant a chance at using their Willy again
Oil boom in my area when I was in high school. The dad of one of my friends was renting Porto potties for a grand a week. He'd go out and service them on his weekends. Not sure if he even owned a septic truck or if he was just borrowing it from a friend. Every now and then my buddy would get dragged along to load the portopotties onto a trailer to move to the next site. Made more for them than their farm ever did, I'm pretty fucking sure. Best of all, the johns are so cheap, that unlike all the guys who got into buying (financing) trucks and trailers and things, that when 2008 collapsed the market he wasn't in debt.
I grew up in a farming town. One of my friends family just rented their farm land to a solar company. Probably made millions.
A lot of businesses can make a killing. Had a friend who lived on a ranch. It was his dad’s ranch that he only used to store equipment. There was a really bad fire nearby and they were worried it was going to get to the ranch so my friend went out bought 5 string trimmers a chainsaw and a front loader. Hired 5 guys from Home Depot to clear out all the brush on the ranch while he dug out a fire break with the front loader. People saw what he was doing and asked him to do the same to their land. 1 year later he had 3-4 trucks full of guys doing the same thing. All he did was drive around quoting jobs all day. Eventually I think he even hired someone to do that.
Step 1: have a ranch. :)
I mean you don’t need a ranch but it spurred the idea.
What I see from this post and its comments is a ton of people who have no idea what work and knowledge actually went into making these ventures successful
The real secret is making it look easy
the real secret js making money
Live embroidery printing events. Made $64,000 in a month off one very well known business doing 16 events for them.
So you can make the custom embroidery on site, what is the turn around?
For the particular business I'm speaking about, we'll just call them Lemons, they had Bella+Canvas garments already printed with their logos. I set up a single head embroidery machine and their customer base chose from already embroidered patches of designs that Lemon made with us. Lemon chose 15 differerent thread colors they liked that their customers could choose from and get names/initials or phrases embellished on the garments. Each item took less than 5 minutes between setting up the garment, the file for the name/initials, and then heat sealed patches if that's what they wanted. We were set up for about 3 hours at each event. Profit for the business was about $3400 per event.
I worked in industrial bakery equipment manufacturing. Same thing, we would sell a $150k oven, buy it back 6 months later for $10k and repaint it. Rinse and repeat. In fire alarms now. It's even more.
Curious about how it's the same with fire alarms?
FA is a very niche market. Most of its cornered by proprietary equipment. Our charge out is just under $400/hr, power supplies are $5k each, networking cards $7k each. Keeps going like that. They like to discontinue equipment so one part failure can result in a $500k+ upgrade project. Keep in mind some clients lose over $1m/day they are offline.
Family friend owns acres of land around a river that provides a special type of sand used in grout, stucco, and other finished construction materials. Every year it floods and deposits new sand and they’ve been digging the same area since the 60 or 70s. Unless a major event happens that disrupts the natural flow it should be good for many generations, grandfathered rights to the sand as they don’t disturb the river at all.
A sand/gravel pit close to town is worth way more than a gold mine 40 miles away.
This is why we need to return to the dollar to the sand standard.
Back during the predatory student loan days, my boss who was a career advisor came across an affiliate marketing offer that dangled a student grant lottery of $10,000 if you gave your details. He created a landing page for it that would send people to the offer via a single Google ad. This ad would profit him between $3,000-$20,000 a day. He made a few million dollars churning people into University of Phoenix, DeVry, etc. He paid he to get him more leads and it was my first job in marketing. The changes he made me do to the campaign made it go to a few hundred bucks and a few months later the laws changed and everything died. He's still living a grand life.
Affiliate marketing was extremely lucrative 10-20 years ago. Today it’s way over saturated and the general population is a lot more aware and leery of online ads.
Yeah. He made bank at the right place and the right time. Now all he does is go on dates with girls from sugar daddy sites, smoke weed all day, and watch professional sports on TV lol. He has become a marketing guru of sorts but it's another dude who makes up the persona and deals with the clients. He's a character.
omg stop…hook a girl up and introduce me
I said he goes on dates with them to places. He doesn't actually become their sugar daddy. The dude just uses them the first time, shows them a good time, bangs them, then makes up an excuse and bails out. There seems to be an endless supply of young women who are ready to bang 60+ old men for money and he's capitalising on it. He's got the house and car to show for it but he's still careful with his money. Do you still want the hookup? I personally don't admire or like his lifestyle. I kind of feel bad for him every time I visit. He opened a lot of doors for me so I stay in touch.
Reminds me of the Nebraska College Football quiz Shoemoney created, an affiliate marketing landing page where everyone was a winner. The ‘winners’ would even share their results bringing in more traffic.
A restaurant that focuses on baked potatoes.
There’s one in LA called the Baked Potato. It’s a small music venue but potatoes are the only thing on the menu. They have about 20 different types and they’re pretty good.
These are popular in London
Family friend owns a now decently sized (100-200 employees) industrial HVAC company. Started off doing offices and stuff like that with a single employee, but they knew HVAC and related fields enough that they could build climate controlled areas that had extreme degrees of precise temperature. I don’t know a lot about that industry, but I guess back in the 70’s when it was started they were one of the few companies around that could provide that. That ended up taking off in the 90’s within some specific manufacturing spaces and they capitalized by buying companies in related spaces. I can’t even tell you have many tens of millions the owner takes home, let alone how much profit the company is making. It’s all privately held. He hasn’t told me how much they make, but I can see his purchases and it’s a ludicrous amount. Enough that he started funding large real estate development projects (manufacturing and 100+ home subdivisions) around the city.
Freight brokerage. They owned no planes, trucks, trains or ships. Generated millions out of nothing. My boss once made $45k in an hour on a scheme he played. He’d send the client a bill we’d receive from a terminal for container storage charges, and then pull strings to have the terminal waive the fees for us after we’ve been “reimbursed” by the client.
Damn I'd be interested in this business for sure. How do you get started?
Freight broker here. It is a ruthless business and the original comment is highlighting the best possible scenario which could be said for any sales job. The fact is, you need to start as a freight broker before you start your own agency because you need to learn. All you do is cold call shippers to move their freight. These shippers are constantly hounded by other brokers. If you are a good salesman and organized you can make a killing. Fyi it is extremely easy to find a job as a freight broker
I asked gpt for you bc I have no idea: The key to starting a freight brokerage business is acting as a middleman between shippers and carriers. Here are the initial steps to get you started: * Gain industry knowledge: While not mandatory, freight brokerage training or experience familiarizes you with regulations, logistics, and industry trends. * Develop a business plan: This outlines your target market, niche (e.g., specific cargo types or routes), marketing strategy, and financial projections. * Register your business: Choose a business structure (LLC, sole proprietorship, etc.) and register with your state. * Obtain a freight broker license: Apply for licensing with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). * Secure a surety bond: This financial guarantee protects shippers if you fail to fulfill your obligations. * Build carrier relationships: Network with carriers to establish relationships and secure competitive rates for your clients. * Market your services: Reach out to potential shippers and highlight the value you bring, such as cost-effectiveness and efficient logistics management. So, it doesn't seem like someone on can turn this type of business on overnight. But 🤷
Sno-balls are a popular treat in new Orleans during the summer. They're just shaved ice with a flavored sugar syrup. You can get one for about 3-5 bucks. After my mom retired, she decided she needed something else to do so she bought a food truck and began selling sno-balls. They’re very easy to make, and the cost to make one is about 40 cents. Margins on this stuff are insane. She primarily does corporate events, private parties and festivals. She easily makes 60-70 grand over the course of a summer by just making a simple product. She actually did the national fried chicken fest down here the past two years, and her revenue for just two days of work was 16 grand. Crazy.
I knew a guy who retired from Exxon-Mobile in Baton Rouge and was likely making well over six figures by the time he retired... The summer after he retired, he opened a small snow-cone stand and ended up making double his annual salary in only 3 months.
Yeah, if you have a good location, and a good sno-ball, you can clean up. Last Summer, The Aquarium in New Orleans re-opened after a renovation. They didn't have their food court finished, so they signed contracts with a few food trucks to serve food outside. My mom was one of the trucks selected. On a normal summer day, she was making on average 650-700 bucks a day. I worked with her on a weekend, and she made 2 grand the day I was there. Insane for just selling sugar water.
I love seasonal businesses. I think they're the tits, especially for people who are into lifestyle design Guy in my area does chimney sweeping and just fishes and gardens all summer. Put two kids through college just like that and his wife answers the phone.
Sounds like water ice outta PA
It’s pronounced wooder ice
No, water ice is Italian ice. Different than sno-balls
My sister opened a small Asian grocery store (800 sq ). 5 yes later she had 2 house and bought 3000 sq building and land for new grocery store. She was successful until too far into the religious and ....broken marriage. Another 10 yes later, she lost it all. She got stroke too. Now..she living with us and her 2 kids don't even want to talk with her. Sad ending.
I’m really sorry to hear that. How did she go from having land and being successful to that? Was it mostly attributed to the stroke?
She started to believed everything is in god hand. She don't even take the medicine when she sick. Just praying. She donated money to pastor and preacher. She believed god will take care the business too. She hired a guy (from the church) to run her business and he stealing the money. Customers did not come because she preaching and praying for them even they are in other religious like Buddhist and Muslim. Husband left her to other women. Houses got foreclosed. Got stroked.Sold the business (building) and nobody known where the money go. She don't talk about it. Did not go physical therapy. Can't talk well.
sorry to hear that. religion poisons everything.
I worked concessions at various Midwest fairs as a summer job for about 10 years. The company I worked for had been doing it for 60 years and had about 40 French fry and lemonade stands. The margins were insane. Pay kids minimum wage all summer. There were multiple times each summer where my entire cash draw was being lifted up with $20s, $50s, and $100s that were kept under the draw. $4-$7 for 50lbs of potatoes that turned in to $700-$1200. We would go through 10-30 bags of potatoes per day per stand. Hardest part about that industry is all the good spots at fairs are taken by the people that have been doing it for decades. Once you have a spot, the fairs let you keep it until you get kicked out for doing something dumb or retire.
I’d also like to say that at 15 years old in 2006 getting free food and travel all summer plus about $800/week was awesome. They were roughly 100 hour weeks, but if you’ve ever been to the fair you know the first 10 hours of the day you don’t really do anything and can nap in shifts.
>There were multiple times each summer where my entire cash draw was being lifted up with $20s, $50s, and $100s that were kept under the draw. Reminds me of working at McDonadl's in the 90s. The manager's computer would alert them each time a drawer hit $1000 and they'd come by to scoop up whatever $20s (and above) were under the drawer. On a summer Saturday in drive-thru, they'd come by every 60-90 minutes.
I worked at a Burger King, about 1992-3. They kept doing $.99 Wopper sales. I was working the 4 to 10 pm shift. I was taking money in the drive through. At shift change they would tell you which car to stop taking money on, so hopefully the cash drawers would be right. I was taking too long to get out. I was shocked on the green under the drawer. The head manager was working that night. She was my buddies sister. She kind of chewed me out about have *too much* cash in there. **$14,000!!** 😱😱 This was when minimum wage was $3.85 /hour.
I wrapped a fleet of food trucks that traveled to county fairs and events around the country. The guy had multiple teams that left homebase in the spring in different directions and made giant loops and returned in November. He was ready to pay his invoices in cash, somewhere around $100,000 . He had food, rides, support vehicles, trailers that are bathrooms, trailers that are apartments, . It was a neat operation.
> draw It’s *drawer*. Was confusing to keep reading “draw”.
Storing used pharma / biotech production equipment for tax depreciation services at $12 a sq ft in a 110,000 sq ft warehouse. Place was fully booked, and almost all of the equipment was decommissioned and only being held on to for tax depreciation until it was scrapped in 3-6 years (Stainless steel tanks / chromatography columns and skids etc). Two guys ran the warehouse, paid a cleaning crew $1000 a week to keep the place mopped and dusted, and they raked in 1+ million a month. Ran it for like 6 years, sold it for some ridiculous number and went on with their lives. Similar vein (I work in pharma and was looking in to starting a GMP warehouse), a farmer near a Pfizer site knew one of the warehouse managers and he asked about storing equipment in a barn space he had. Farmer realized how much they'd be paying so he poured a whole new extra thick slab to take the heavy stuff and Pfizer happily leased the entire space from him for 70K a month. He didn't have to hire anyone, they sent all their warehouse people to handle the equipment since it was expensive / heavy. Raked in 70K a month and quit farming.
I'm an accountant so I see a variety of businesses everyday Concrete is the one that shocked me the most, I mean it makes sense thinking about it, but I have 2 clients that just sell precast concrete. One of them sells those small stacking blocks for gardening, that's all he sells, and clears a million in pure profit The other sells septic tanks and they're the main one in the region, they're over 5 mill, profit, owned by 1 dude There are a couple others that do pouring and they still do amazingly well, 500k+
He sells stacking blocks or makes stacking blocks to sell to wholesaler/retailers?
He owns a plant, manufactures them, and sells them. Most of his sales are to municipalities, construction companies, or retailers. He didn't come up with the block either, he essentially pays royalties on each sale to the company that designed the block/patented it.
I’m going to try to think of a unique business that made tons of money and kind of shocked me I knew a guy who was vice president of a bank (a lot of people are vice president of banks they throw that title around, but he made pretty good money) It was also kind of a car guy and would buy used Hondas a lot of them with salvage titles and fix them up and sell them on the side and decided with somebody else and my initial impression was why would he want to own a junkyard? I didn’t really understand the business bottle at first, but they just worked with insurance companies, taking in cars that have been totaled and cleaning them up and selling them . I initially thought they were buying all these cars and selling them, but they were getting a flat fee for storage for cleaning and for selling the vehicles. The first location they had was making about $10,000 a week profit and I have no idea what they were paying themselves but they expanded … multiple locations and diversify their business I ended up selling out a private equity firm involved and his buyout was 16,000,000. His business partner ended up sticking with it in the company got even bigger and I don’t even know how much money he got when he sold. I can think of two other examples of people I know who started businesses that I was a little skeptical about who sold their businesses and eight figure payouts so the joke is if you have a business idea, asked me what I think and do the opposite
Cool business. There’s a family company out of Texas (I think) like this, that basically gets paid by the insurance companies to take the totaled cars and from there they resell them in some fashion. They’re all billionaires now. Perfect model, get paid to take on inventory then sell inventory. Nothing but profit.
Copart… that’s probably the company you’re thinking of They ended up buying this company from the private equity firm . they bought them because in markets that the smaller company works they were taking market share
Cheapest company you will ever deal with…
My grandpa has a similar story. He had a friend he grew up with in the 40s and he did jobs with like brick laying when they were like 20. My grandpa went to working as a pipelayer for the refineries. His friend decided to open a scrap yard in North Texas and asked my grandpa to be his partner. Grandpa declined because he was making decent money and already had a kid so he was risk averse. By the 60s his friend was a millionaire. Grandpa retired in the 90s and his friend would mail him like $5k checks every month just because they were friends, and he did it all the way up until he died like 5 years ago. The scrap yard is still there, making bank for his kids.
Wow
I was one of the very early people to get into affiliate marketing, at least the kind I do, on social media in 2016. Now 8 years later I have a team of people running my socials for me, I just collect a % each month from their earnings. Get to stay home with my baby and make 6 figures doing absolutely nothing. I am one of the few true success stories and I feel bad bc it’s impossible to get into today and have the outcome I did yet I see so many people selling books and courses promising the stars to others if they try. I had a message recently from a woman asking for advice bc her and her husband took out a $100,000 loan on their 401k to buy a course from an affiliate marketing “guru” who guaranteed them to be rich and basically scammed them. I wish I had some magic secret but I don’t except the timing I got into it made me extremely lucky, if I had to start over today I wouldn’t be able to make anything.
We made popcorn at school. Created a group to do this. Sold it at break time to raise money for charity and to fund school trips. It was so successful that it had to be closed down because it was impacting the commercial activities on site.
Construction company. Through a handful of other companies, the 2 dudes owned: - the land to be developed, - the construction company that would do the work, - the sand / gravel company that supplies the construction company, - the trucking company that moves the equipment for the construction company - the development company that sold the developed land to home builders. So on each project, it was pretty much the left front pocket paying the right front pocket paying the right back pocket paying the left back pocket, and every move includes anywhere from 20 to 100% profit. During the boom in 05-08, profits were insane.
A guy had a loam sales business, providing landscapers and homeowners screened loam for their yard or community. He'd bring in 30 grand cash in a weekend and claim they were closed. This was most weekends. Maybe all weekends.
Sourcing and processing organic spices. Not the retail side, but the import and selling to retailers who jar and label it. Not a lot of people realize that's where the money goes for organics. Not to farmers or retailers. The margins are insane even for small single palette shipments.
What's the QA like for that kind of thing?
Standard GFSI compliance for food safety. Most shipments can be inspected by eye and lab tested otherwise. All you need for microbial control is an oven.
A guy owned land next to a profitable business. He ran a related business, but not competition. The profitable business grew and bought the guy's land at a high price. Location was important. He bought the land next door. Repeat this two more times as the profitable business grew, and the guy retired with great wealth.
I had a pet sitting business in the early 2000’s. I offered exclusively to felines and specialized in elderly cats that needed medical care. It took off rapidly and I left my 9-5 within a few months. It hit 6 figures quickly but after I had my son my priorities changed and I reached burnout. I was a go-getter and was working 7 days a week all hours of the day. I was texting and emailing during my labour!
Maybe it’s just me but with 3 figures I couldn’t leave my nine to five
Oops, I meant 6 🙊
I’d love to do that on the side one day! I already do for family but it’s be neat to make a profit from it!
Cutting grass. Keep it simple, no landscaping..cut,weed whack and blow.
Most any business that offers financing model this approach. Used car lots especially are known for this and people often vilify the salesperson for it, which has led to the current used car salesperson having quite a bad stigma in society. Most used car lots have recouped their entire investment by the time you make your down payment and just a few monthly payments, the rest is pure profit.
Not to mention the likelyhood of repossession and re-selling the same car out again.
>They sold the business maybe 5 years ago, the guy ran it almost in the ground. They bought it back pennies on the dollar. God damn, that's meta.
I've seen a similar model with a medical equipment leasing company. They'd lease to doctors, clinics, then repossess and resell. Repeat cycle led to substantial profits, especially during economic downturns.
How often do clinics go out of business??
A T-shirt shop downtown Aspen. People would stand in line to buy Aspen logo'd t shirts for gifts and spend hundreds of dollars. The young school teacher owners built a big house in Snowmass
‘Tweezerman’. Worked his trade shows in the first 7+/- years after launch. Wildly popular professional beauty tool. Several decades later he sold the company and gave his regular employees a piece of the profit. (I, sadly, wasn’t one of them.). The line is now available retail. Im still very proud of my role, the product line and being there at the beginning,
Those are the best tweezers
They are. With their flat plated heads, options of slant and needle nose and made of rust proof stainless steel, they were fine tuned tension grip precision instruments. And Tweezerman guaranteed his tweezers — if you ever broke the point, you could send them in and the instrument would be sharpened or replaced & returned at no charge. They cost a little more but you got a great product. Decades later, I still have a few originals operating just like new and obviously— can still do the pitch!
You can still send them to be sharpened for free!
Textile agency between the factories and fashion houses for women's clothing. Hard work and impossible, neverending hours. But financially was good
That's a great business because every Tom Dick and Harry wants to start up a new restaurant, don't know how to run a restaurant. and then go bust. I've seen restaurants that only lasted 3 months.
I have a buddy who owns a seasonal fireworks store. He makes bank.
One of my close friends used to work for a family every summer in June/July at their firework stand. She worked for them from the time she was teenager until she was in her 30s. They would all gear up and get excited in the weeks leading up to it, everybody pitching in, and then really work SO hard for about 2 weeks. Long, long hours in hot west Texas weather, fighting giant bugs and crazy weather conditions, ha! But man, like you said: they made BANK. My friend, who was just hired to help, would make a couple of thousand in just two weeks (and this was the 90s!). The guy who owned it had it as like a side business, and would hire his friends and family to help and then pay them very generously. They all had so much fun working together! I was kind of jealous…but I’m a total wimp when it comes to heat and bugs, so I never asked if I could join 😂
Currently working as a project manager for a security company at a very small family run business. We do all kinds of installations regarding security and we deal a monitoring service as a 3rd party vendor to hundreds of clients. The craziest thing is that the alarm monitoring service costs us $2 a month directly from the vendor; we charge the client anywhere between $30-$90 a month for it
Of the successful/rich people I know... something something real-estate (usually something vague and mostly likely involves them having considerable seed money to start with), a condiment/dip inventor, HVAC or any blue collar owner/operator who actually has the ability to hire/manage other people to do all the work.
I hate hearing phrases like this "hire/manage other people to do all the work." Having owned a business for several years, I can guarantee I put in more hours per week than any of the 40 people I employ. Do I actually build decks or install roofs anymore? No. But to say that I just get other people to work for me is ridiculous. To actually be successful in business, you can't abdicate responsibility for anyone who works under you. Ridiculous belief you have there.
I'm not being that literal. Of course the business owner does a lot of work. I'm saying a lot of blue collar guys can do plumbing themselves but struggle to run more than a 3 more crew or whatever. The guys that can orchestrate a lot of people are who make a killing in the trades.
Fair enough. Sorry I assumed what you meant, instead of asking.
> a condiment/dip inventor About the only way I could think to make money off it would be to know how to sell (or lease) the recipe to some big chain. And it'd have to be good enough to compete with the hundreds of other dips that people would be trying to sell them every year.
Sangria from Sangria Manor (you can find them on instagram). Started at my local farmer’s market but has since grown a ton. This is the guys 2nd successful business venture, too. The first one was being a school lunch wholesaler
I had a meal prep company that I sold in 2021. Covid made us stupid money because restaurants closed, you couldn’t grocery shop, and we delivered healthy food right to your house. All of a sudden it wasn’t just dieters it was everyone ordering from us. On top of that there were food surpluses and product costs dropped by like 30-50% for a few months straight. We posted like 4 or 5 ridiculously profitable quarters and I exited on a high note.
I don't know if it counts as an absolute killing, but my friend worked at an ice cream shop two summers in a row, DURING the pandemic. She said they were making tens of thousands a month just selling scoops of ice cream. And they hired kids, so those coop/intern placements were subsidized by government grants. Of course, this is in Toronto, a big city with a HUGE appetite for ice cream in the summers.
I'm from Alaska originally, ice cream sales are good all summer (local + tourist) and TRIPLES in winter. Down in the states now, doesn't seem nearly so dynamic here
Sky Mall I was one of the first employees other than family in Atlanta
Summer camp in Japan. Private school pays teachers no additional salary to teach 10 days of a summer camp to some entitled kids who can afford 10k for a 10 day all inclusive camp. 80-150 students every year. Clearing a million in revenue in a little under two weeks is a great heist.
Sure, leveraging the cyclical nature of the restaurant industry, a friend's parents made a killing with a restaurant equipment supply company. They bought back equipment from failed restaurants, resold it, and profited immensely, demonstrating the power of niche markets.
OG Vape industry retail and warehouse/ lab.
My parents own a farm. My mum and I started doing farmers markets. Directly selling produce at a farmers market makes a ton of profit. People are ready to pay premium prices for organic produce directly from the farmer.
I saw a local coffee shop grow into a popular chain in our town. It was amazing to see their hard work and community focus pay off!
My cousins owns a used car dealership, yanno… those small ones on the side of the road. I think he had about 15-20 cars on the lot at a time. His dealership is a BHPH business model. He makes ~$400-500k /month.
Not exactly a small business, but I was part of a start-up catastrophe reinsurance company (basically betting on hurricanes). We started with $1B is capital and ten or so people. We wrote $500M of premium in a few weeks and within four years we were 120 people operating in four countries, and had returned over $2.5B to shareholders as dividends.
So I just need to get my hands on $1B...
When I was 17 my friend asked me if I wanted to invest $500 to buy a bunch of stained shirt ties. The plan was to clean all the stains off and sell them at a profit. I said no.
Heh. I worked as a BI developer with a startup that began generating leads for cosmetic surgeries and eventually developed a full-blown EHR for the practices they were working with. They eventually gained tremendous leverage over these practices and were able to pull... fucking boatloads. They sold the whole thing off to private equity, and then those folks scrapped about 2/3 of the company. Fucking bastards...
Some guys bought pre-paid SIM cards with free promo money on them, then called them empty to their own payphone numbers. Hired over a hundred students to do this. Made bank.
Every granular detail of a large network of people operating a web of internet e-commerce pharmacies. They all went to jail, except for one guy that ended up a fugitive and bailed back to South America. Cool people though, and good families. They just weren't very risk adverse.
A group of relatives operated a scam pharma e-commerce site? Please explain
I worked for a company that made solid hardwood doors. The business was booming when the original owner passed away and the business was inherited by the owner's sons. One son was very familiar with the door construction part of the business. Hardworking man who knew his shit and was able to easily keep up the production and quality of their product. The other son was less competent, at least in so far as what he claimed charge of. Marketing, sales, everything not directly related to production. While his heart might have been in the right place, his pride, his lack of knowledge, and his wife were CONSTANTLY in the way. There was a man that worked there that was a fully capable and studied marketer that was mostly ignored when suggestions were made. The owner, instead of focusing on his product and promoting it in multiple ways, he focused exclusively on Google advertising until the business went downhill enough that they couldn't afford it, and then he seemingly ignored the business and focused on pumping out amazon affiliate links in multiple spammy ways. There were so very, very many other ventures into the SEO spammer territory he ventured but for the sake of keeping things simple, we'll stop with that. The workers quickly figured out that showing that you knew something that he didn't was an indirect path to the unemployment line. His wife was arrogant. Her 'happiness' was directly correlated to how much money she could spend. Toward the end she was quietly talking divorce to try and extract what she could from them. It was a sad day they closed the door production facility. All that potential gone because of pride and arrogance. They're now reduced to listing other people's stuff on Amazon and... I think Etsy? Not sure, been too long since I even looked.
Pest control in a small retirement community beach town.
Storm chasers make a fortune. Electrical company linemen too.
I'm going to have some whiskey and read this thread repeatedly, lol. My old boss had a "FedEx Office" business model - copies, shipping, mailboxes for rent. The mailbox rent pays for the operating costs of the business including lease, equipment, employees, etc. He grew it to over a million annual, sold it, new guy defaulted on the loan (personal guarantee/owner financing with a huge down payment), owner got it back after default, sold it again for cash this time... Meanwhile, he had a house in one of the most affluent areas in our state he bought 20 years ago. Sold it too at the height of the market. Cashed out and moved to Arizona to start a hobby restaurant to keep his mind occupied for his early retirement. Some people are just magnetized to the money. Not myself, I work for every penny.. and my genius ideas are just: "Sell more jobs! Work longer hours! Spend less!"
Wow, that's the circle of business life!
So I'm going to start by saying pyramid scheme and MLM are bad.. don't do it, because I knew the guy that made money off of y'all. Yes, i knew a guy that somehow was able to get in on GROUND LEVEL on tons of MLMs and he was a great snake oil salesman. And it was a clique of people that did this. Him in the same people would always find themselves in a new mlm, ground level and if you understand pyramid schemes, that's the only way to make money in it. Anyway I had always heard my whole life how these things were such a scam and all that, but I guess once you're in you're in. They seem to share insider information on the newest ones to be ground level in and I watched him do this with five different mlms so I know there's definitely a formula to it. I have no interest but if somehow I was able to knew what he knew,..... I might have had the interest.
As I understand it, those kind of grifters actually create the MLMs, over and over. Kind of like finding a business to make into a franchise. The life cycle of an MLM is limited, for obvious reasons. If they can get in, then get out, then get into the new thing (and likely take the best performers in their downline with them) they are basically a flipping operation.
Bro, that sounds like a pretty accurate description of EXACTLY what they do. I don't know what is involvement in creation was but he was always RIGHT THERE. It's always the same people on the ground floor too. They get to know each other and trust each other's ability to spin it. The amount of money this guy was bringing in was bonkers. And yes, absolute grifters. But to their credit, they were wiping their tears with $100 bills.
Started a Covid testing lab. Didn’t scale much but we did a great job, I made some better $ than I have ever seen and got to pay my medical friends really well.
A restaurant equipment supply company profited by reselling items from failed restaurants. After selling the business, they bought it back cheaply and sold it again, accumulating significant wealth.
man I worked in the corporate PC world in the 1990's errybody was making a killing!
Sounds like they had a brilliant strategy with the restaurant equipment supply business. Smart moves in buying back stock at low prices. It's a testament to how savvy business decisions can lead to major success.