The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - 11 Business Ideas I’d Start If I Were a Beginner⏐Ep. #272

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Check out my newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://TKOPOD.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠�...�⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and join my new community at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://TKOwners.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠━In this episode, I break down 11 of my favorite beginner-friendly business ideas that are affordable to start, realistic, and actually scalable. These are real businesses I’ve seen work in the wild, from simple service plays to overlooked opportunities most people ignore. If you’re looking for practical ideas you can actually start without experience or a huge budget, this episode will give you plenty to think about.11 Wall printing - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTtB1D2khE2/10 Lawnmower flipping - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTJE7vHEpom/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YebLPyVcTr8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYj_Ns5LGEo&list=WL&index=69 Sticks with LED lights - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTRWxBRkn7D/8 Realtor heygen - https://x.com/mhp_guy/status/20187773531874347237 Cleaning car seats - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUHE5_UEhMb/6 Trash can cleaning - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSqwj90ElnO/Podcast Interview - https://youtu.be/7Ow9qRVCWM8 5 Hot cocoa and chips - https://x.com/mhp_guy/status/2016982470688985256https://x.com/mhp_guy/status/20184228568757084424 Kids artwork - https://x.com/mhp_guy/status/20155189136108052953 Gas station vending - ​​https://x.com/mhp_guy/status/20181275090874659702 Timelapse giveaways - https://x.com/mhp_guy/status/20194742223143940361 Cheap jetskis - https://x.com/mhp_guy/status/2019541145844687119Enjoy! ---Watch this on YouTube instead here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tkopod.co/p-yt⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ask me a question on or off the show here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-ask⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more about me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-cjk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn about my company: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-cof⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow me on Twitter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-x⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Free weekly business ideas newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-nl⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Share this podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-all⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Scrape small business data: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-os⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Today is idea overload. I have 11 business ideas for you, and I don't think you've heard me talk about any of them unless you've really been stalking me, which is a little weird. All of these ideas will be approachable, affordable to start, and all of them, yes, can scale. Some of these I've touched on very briefly on Twitter or on Instagram, and they're all proven to be popular based on the engagement that I saw on them, but I haven't really gone deep on any of them. Until now. So let's count down from 11, my least favorite, to number one, my most favorite. But I whittled these down from like 150. So even number 11 is a banger. And don't worry, my audio listeners, this episode is for you. I will be showing short form videos on my screen, but you will hear them and I will
Starting point is 00:00:40 describe exactly what's happening in them. So you're not going to miss a thing. This episode was made with my audio listeners in mind. I just ask one easy favor of you, whether you're watching on video or listening on audio. If you hear an idea that kind of remind you of a friend or a family member, share this episode with them and say, hey, listen to number four or number eight. I think you would love this because X, Y, and Z. That's all I ask. I'm telling you right now, it's not once a month where someone's in my inbox like this saying, hey, I started printing artwork on walls, and I'm making tons of money. You can do residential, you can do commercial. You charge by the square foot, and you just show up, you load the design, you load the paint, and you make money.
Starting point is 00:01:15 Okay, so for my audio listeners, what you missed here is just a time lapse video of this wall printer that sits on tracks, like train tracks alongside a wall, and it just goes up and down and prints graphics designs on a wall. Huge walls, big walls, it doesn't matter. Now, I love this because this is relatively new technology. The company that makes these wall printers only came out, I think, three to five years ago. And these printers were mostly used by businesses to print on their own walls. It wasn't used as a service, right?
Starting point is 00:01:43 And so anytime new technology is developed, new service businesses are developed around that technology. I literally have had six to ten people in my inbox, in my DMs saying, hey, I started a wall printing business. How would you help me find customers? or hey, I started wall printing business, like I'm doing restaurants, like people are doing this and they're finding success. You charge by the square foot or maybe even the square inch and you know what your paint costs are. That doesn't really very much. You know what your hard upfront costs are. That's the wall printer. And so it's just a matter of marking up your paint costs and accounting for your time. And the number one reason I love this idea is because of the time lapse effect. I'm going to revisit this a few
Starting point is 00:02:21 ideas from now. Ideas that are easily spreadable on vertical short form video with time lapses. just naturally do better because it sells itself. It's visually appealing. And so if you lived in a city of 50,000, 100,000 and you were the wall printer in the area, you could build a sizable business just within that city. There are about 1.8 million retail businesses in the United States alone. And this isn't limited to just retail businesses. It could go in warehouses, in industrial settings, in office settings. I mean, I can imagine an Amazon warehouse with a break room that has like training guides printed on the walls. You can finance these machines. They come with a warranty. They don't cost all that much. I don't remember the name of the company that prints them, but just Google it wall printing machines.
Starting point is 00:03:03 And you'll see about three or four companies there. Okay, so for idea number 10, this happened about two months ago. It was right around Thanksgiving. And I had this John Deer Roddymore that I bought 18 months ago. And I wanted to upgrade. It worked great, but I just wanted something bigger. So I put it on Facebook Marketplace, listed for 2,500. I agree to sell it for 2,200. The guy says, I'll come pick it up. So he pulls up in like a Ford F-250 with a trailer. And the interesting thing is on the back of this trailer, there are two nearly identical green and yellow John Deere riding mowers already on it. And so my light bulbs just start going off. I'm like, well, this guy's flipping.
Starting point is 00:03:36 This guy's not buying a mower to mow his lawn. He already has two. Like he's running a route. He's probably buying up all the John Deers he can find on Facebook marketplace. So he pulls up. He doesn't speak very good English. And honestly, I can't place the accent. I can't really tell where he's from.
Starting point is 00:03:52 He looks American, does not sound American. His wife gets out. they've got a toddler running around and then she's holding like a brand new baby she speaks heavily accented english so i get to talking and i'm asking him questions like what is this for and he's kind of being ho-hum about it doesn't really want to tell me i'm like dude come on like come on and so finally they're like well we're shipping these to bolivia that's where we're from hence the reason i couldn't place the accent and if you're geographically challenged that's in south america so they said that these mowers sell for six to seven thousand in bolivia specifically and like bolivia is not like a
Starting point is 00:04:25 super advanced wealthy country, but it's also not like a third world country. And so that really, really surprised me. But I talked to Chad GPT. I started looking it up. I looked in some forums. And it's a thing. And it's not just Bolivia. It's not just riding mowers, but this is just import export we're talking about here. It's an arbitrage opportunity. These John Deere riding mowers are hard to find there. And Americans don't really see John Deere as like the best quality anymore like we used to. At least that's the perception I have. But in Bolivia, John Deere is like the gold standard. Like that's the American brand that's super well built and it sells for a premium there. So what these guys do is they buy these mowers.
Starting point is 00:05:02 It has to be a John Deer and they put them in crates so they can stack easier. And they ship them to Lubbock, Texas, which is like a very, very popular shipping lane in West Texas. And then they get on another truck and go all the way down south through Mexico, through Central America to Bolivia. And they sell. And I think they said they pay like one to two dollars a pound for shipping. So call it like $5 to $700 for shipping. He paid $2,200.
Starting point is 00:05:27 So let's say he's $3,000 in this. And he can sell it for six. And he has a dad that lives in Bolivia. So that's kind of his business partner. And that's the whole business. And he had a nice expensive truck, a big trailer. I assume he did well. But wait, there's more.
Starting point is 00:05:39 There's two other parts to this business idea number 10. Well, really one part. And that's Lonmore flipping again in a different way. So then I'm on YouTube and I come across this video here, which I'll link in the show notes. I really want you to watch it. It's one of the best YouTube videos I've seen. all year. Right here. The title is flipping lawnmowers until I can afford my dream car episode one.
Starting point is 00:05:59 This guy's name is Noah, N-O-W-A-H. He lives in Minnesota or something. He's like 16 or 17 years old. He only has 17,000 subscribers. This video has over 300,000 views, and I was enthralled the entire time. I watched the whole thing. He's trying to save up to buy a car. So, coincidentally, he has a green and yellow jawed deer mower. And he goes through the process of ordering parts and fixing it and the fuel pump and the fuel filter and he doesn't know what he's doing. He's asking chat GBT and he ended up making like a thousand bucks. Okay. So then I connected this data point to another data point. I was actually on Facebook Marketplace because I was looking at interesting listings that I could make content about. I want to make a video where I buy food from people on Facebook Marketplace and ask them about their
Starting point is 00:06:40 business and how much money they're making. So I was doing that and I see this guy listing a riding mower. And then I click on his profile and he's got a ton of listings for riding mowers like 30, 40 listings, just in Dallas-Fort Worth area. And so I DMed him and I'm like, what are you doing, man? You got this like this riding mower business and he was very ho-hum about it. And it seemed to me that he was just buying broken riding mowers on Facebook Marketplace, fixing him up and selling them en masse on Facebook Marketplace. So I'm like, that's interesting.
Starting point is 00:07:08 If you have this many listings, you're probably doing very well. And then the third or fourth data point, I lose track by this point, I saw was also on YouTube. I came across another video right here by this guy named Matt Howe. He has 761 subscribers. That's 761, not 1,000. This video has 41,000 views and it's called How I Made $51,000 in one month on Facebook Marketplace flipping lawnmowers. Okay, so here's all my data points.
Starting point is 00:07:33 The guy in my own front yard who I sold my actual lawnmower to, the guy in Facebook Marketplace with a ton of listings, the kid on Facebook up in Minnesota flipping lawnmowers for profit. And then this other guy on YouTube who made $50,000 supposedly flipping lawnmowers. By the way, I'm going to have him on the pod. He's meeting with my team right now. So there'll be more info on that later. But I start going down this rabbit hole of riding lawnmowers on Facebook marketplace and flipping
Starting point is 00:07:56 them. And people are making a lot of money doing it. And the thing is, most of these things are about the same. When I had my riding mower, the freaking belt kept breaking, even though it was brand new. And I had to learn how to fix a few things. And I'm not mechanically inclined or handy whatsoever. But then it got pretty easy because I knew what I was doing. And that's, you know, how anything in life goes.
Starting point is 00:08:13 So idea number 10 is flip lawnmowers on Facebook marketplace, either by selling them to another country or fixing them up and reselling them. You could buy one for under a thousand bucks. You could fix it for, who knows, 50 to 500 bucks in parts. It might take you many hours, right? It will not be an efficient use of your time to start, but over time it will be. And especially if you live in an area, a metroplex with over 500,000 people, you can scale this business. Throw a hitch on your car, get a trailer, rent a trailer from U-H, friggin' mIH, make it happen. All right, idea number nine. Today's edition of only in Germany. This guy takes simple driftwood, simple LED He lights them Amazon, a couple tools, some spray paint.
Starting point is 00:08:51 And he makes this awesome decor that he sells for $300 to $1,200 to $1,200. And it's in Germany. So if you're in Germany, compete with him. If you're not, own the market. He started on Etsy. Now he has his own website, and he's doing six figures a year. Okay. So this guy gets branches, pieces of wood, dead wood, driftwood, etc.
Starting point is 00:09:06 He gets a router. I think that's what it's called woodworking tool that cuts out notches in the wood. And he gets these LED lights strips that you can buy on Amazon for like 15 bucks. And he lines it down the driftwood. He sands the driftwood. He stains it. He puts mounts on it and it's wall art and it's lit from behind. It's backlit.
Starting point is 00:09:24 And it looks awesome. A lot of the commenters were saying, and this is AI. It's not AI. This guy's real. Went to his website. I did my research. He's got a thriving business. So what's the idea?
Starting point is 00:09:33 Copy him. Sell that. If you like working with your hands, if you like building, woodworking, do this. How do you find customers? Organic, vertical, short form video, just like this one. By the way, all of these videos will be linked in the show notes. Okay, idea number eight I posted about on Twitter just a few days ago. This idea blew my mind.
Starting point is 00:09:49 I was on a call with this woman named Christy. Shout out, Christy. We just met on this call. And she is a mortgage broker. And her kids were talking about, you know, you should use these AI tools to make AI generated videos to grow your business. And she's like, I don't know what that means. How do I do that?
Starting point is 00:10:05 So she used this tool called Hey Jen. And she took a headshot of herself. That's it. Just a headshot. She uploaded it. And she said, you know, make a video about home equity lines of credit. like an instructional video of 60 seconds, make it look like I'm sitting in a nice office talking. So here's the video.
Starting point is 00:10:23 I won't play all of it. Hi, I'm Christy Olson. I'm a mortgage loan officer and real estate agent. And I help people build wealth through real estate by using strategies. Real homeowners are actually using. Okay, so you get the idea. The crazy, crazy, crazy part about this story is that she only had 480 followers on her Instagram page.
Starting point is 00:10:41 This is her personal Instagram. Okay. And she posted about 10 of these videos and they got between 200. and 500 views each. Okay? So we're talking three to five thousand views total in aggregate. And it looks pretty real, kind of. But then you look a little longer and it's like the mouth movement's weird. And, you know, if you know what you're looking at, then you'll know this is AI. But here's a crazy part. She got 10 new loan originations from these videos. Now, net to her, each loan origination is thousands of dollars or at least $10,000. So this is very real money.
Starting point is 00:11:16 that she made with a $50 a month tool. And this isn't about the tool. This is not sponsored. This is about making AI generated video content at scale using AI tools like these. I don't care if it's cringyeworthy. I don't care if you're afraid that people think it's AI. It works. And if you don't want to do it yourself, then offer this as a service to people like Christy,
Starting point is 00:11:38 to people that want to grow their business on social media, to people that have a headshot that they could send you that you could simply upload to this $50 a month tool and charge $50. $1,500 a month for 10 videos or whatever it is. It can be that simple. I promise you. There are people making a lot more money doing things that are a lot more simple than this. All right, idea number seven. I'm amazed at how much she's charging to clean car seats in the middle of nowhere, Derby, Kansas population, 26,000 people. Here's how she's doing it and how you can do it too. She found customers. She simply videos herself doing her job and post it to her Instagram page.
Starting point is 00:12:10 She only has 2,600 followers and she has swamped with demand. And she cleaned the things. She follows the manufacturer instructions. She picks them up in bulk. She cleans them all at the same time. She drops them off at the same time. She gets paid in advance and leaves them on the doorstep. This minimizes the interaction time. Therefore, maximizes your profit. Specialize equipment, materials, chemicals, none of that. We're talking to simple vacuum and cleaning supplies from Dollar General. You can basically guarantee that you'll never have competition in this business because people aren't willing to work in ways like this to make money. 50 bucks per car seat. I went through a bunch of the comments. People would pay up to $200 for this. And competitors are charging.
Starting point is 00:12:45 $75 to $125. She spends a little less than an hour to clean each one, which means that your profit could be between $80 and $120 an hour, which at a 40-hour job, that hourly wage would be $200,000 a year. Okay, so I know what you're thinking. I don't want to clean car seats. No one wants to clean car seats. That's why if you have small kids, your car seats are disgusting. That's the opportunity. So the question is, do you want to start a business more than you want to avoid cleaning car seats? If not, then fine. Find a different business, right? Find a sexier business. But if so, then this is a great business for you because there's a need for it. I don't think people are going to start caring about being clean less.
Starting point is 00:13:22 Like Jeff Bezos said, right? Like people aren't going to suddenly want to pay more for things or to get them shipped slower. His whole thesis about Amazon was that we always need to make things cheaper and faster because people will always want both of those things. People are going to continue to want things to be clean and tidy and germ free. That is a true principle. This rides that wave. It's a relatively new industry. So keyword difficulty is not that high. Competition is basically non-existent. You can grow it with content and don't charge 50 bucks at car seat. Like that's nothing. Charge 150 bucks. People would pay that. All right, time for idea number six.
Starting point is 00:13:58 I love good business ideas that have a good way of marketing them. And this one has maybe the best guerrilla marketing strategy I've ever seen. Here's what you're going to do. Go to the neighborhood. Go find out when the trash day is in any given neighborhood. And the day of or the day before trash day, you're going to get big shiny flyers printed. You're going to slap them on these guards. garbage bins with your ad, your QR code, etc. And that evening, when the kids are outside, the parents are getting home from work, you're going to drive around the same neighborhood blasting. Ain't nobody, don't bice me, I'm just so fresh, so clean. With a big magnet on the side of your vehicle advertising your bin cleaning services. Don't wrap your vehicle. That's thousands of dollars.
Starting point is 00:14:31 You're just trying to test the concept before going all in at this point. You charge 25 bucks per bin. It takes you five minutes with a pressure washer. You do 20 in a day. That's 500 bucks in a day. Your startup costs are less than $1,000. I just spent an hour talking to a guy making six figures doing just this. Okay, so way back in October 24, I interviewed a guy who makes six figures doing this.
Starting point is 00:14:51 He quit his six figure job to do this up in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, I think, and he's doing great. Now, there are some downsides of this business. It's dirty. It's unsexy. It's hard to scale. I said $25 in that video. I don't know how realistic that is. I think it's going to be closer to 15. I can't remember exactly what he said in the episode. We'll link to that episode in the show notes. But just like car seat cleaning, right? People aren't going to suddenly want their garbage bins to even dirtier. This is also a relatively new industry and you can start it very cheaply because good pressure washer. And I say good. I don't mean one that you could like use commercially thousands of times, but like a solid pressure washer you can buy for hundreds of dollars. So you're
Starting point is 00:15:28 in business. All right. Number five, this is a two-parter. These are both food ideas. What did Pablo Picasso say? Good artist copy. Great artist steal. This candy company admits that this is their best selling product. What the freak is stopping you from buying one of those chocolate Fountains for a few hundred bucks on Amazon. Posting up at your local farmer's market, buying some Lays potato chips. Your chocolate fountain will draw the eye of the passers by. You say, hey, do you want some of this? Yeah, I love some. Cool. Let me make it in front of you. Pour out the fresh, melted chocolate on top of the chips. They're watching their own product be made, which means you can sell it for more. You crush it down. You bring a fan to cool off the chocolate more quickly.
Starting point is 00:15:58 They pay 20 bucks. You bag it up five minutes later when it's cooled. You're in business for what? 500 bucks. Or you can sit around and think of 100 reasons why this won't work. Or you could just go test it. All right. So this one kind of speaks for itself. If you didn't catch it from the video, we're talking about a chocolate fountain with lays potato chips, pouring the chocolate over the lays, letting them dry out, cutting up into bars and selling it. So you do that at the farmer's market while everyone's watching you. It's visually appealing. You make good money. You learn a bunch of skills and you parlay those earnings into something else. Maybe something that you enjoy more or might be more profitable, et cetera. Now, along with that idea, there's another sweets idea for all
Starting point is 00:16:34 you Utah people. Let's go ahead and check this one out. What in the Utah sugar capital of the world that by looking at here? Let me explain. This is happening in India. What is it? It's hot chocolate. Better presentation. They get the marshmallow fluff. They put it around the rim. They burn it. An extra two minutes of labor. Bring your $6 hot chocolate to $9 hot chocolate. Last I checked it's pretty dang cold outside. Why aren't you posted up with a freaking six foot plastic folding table from Costco slaying this hot chocolate with this design and presentation? Your only competitors are your doubts and fears. All right. That's it. If you didn't see the video, it's just you got like marshmallow fluff around the rim of your standard like hot chocolate
Starting point is 00:17:08 cup and you get one of the little torches that you get on Amazon or whatever and you burn it and make it look nice. You put some Oreo crumbles on top, pour hot chocolate in there. It costs a tiny bit more, but you can charge a lot more. Same thing, Farmer's Market. All right, idea number four. This freaking mom right here is making six figures a year turning kids trash into parents treasure. How it works is very simple. You take all your kids' artwork, ship it to this lady and she arranges it on this big canvas and she's got an eye for it and then she sells it back to you for hundreds or thousands of dollars as long as there are parents who love their children this will be a viable business idea okay so you're taking your kids artwork you're putting on a canvas that you buy
Starting point is 00:17:44 from hobby lobby you arrange it in a nice eye pleasing way and you put some resin over it or whatever and you turn a bunch of little pieces of artwork into one giant piece of artwork that you sell back to the parents who sent you the artwork so if you saw how many tens of millions of views this stuff gets there's a market for this. You're selling nostalgia. You're selling a parent's love for their children. And I think this is very approachable. It's very cheap to start. And you know what you can do? You could even lay out all the artwork, take a picture of it, upload a chat, GBT, and say, hey, how should I arrange this? I don't have an eye for this stuff. I'm not very artistic. How can I arrange it? And it will tell you based on first principles of design. Oh, and remember at the beginning when I asked you if you think of any ideas or any friends, family that might like these, please send it to them. I just wanted to
Starting point is 00:18:24 quickly remind you of that. And if someone's sent this to you because they had you in mind, please subscribe to this. I think you'll like this channel. And idea number three. Well, you guys probably already know this idea because I covered it like a week ago. So I'm only going to touch on it for like 30 seconds. But it's wholesale distribution, gas stations, convenience stores, gift shops, whatever it is. I just can't get this business idea out of my head. And people don't really like it because it's unsexy. You think you have to have sales skills, but you don't. You just need to be willing to talk to people. In case you missed the episode, it was only posted like a week ago, episode 270, this business idea makes vending machines look dumb. And it does. It really does. You
Starting point is 00:19:00 don't need a vending machine to sell jerky or candy or chips or sodas or whatever. So I'm going to revisit that idea because I love it so much. Number two, I covered this one like a year and a half ago very briefly, but I want to go a little deeper on it. You've probably seen this guy, his name Spencer, and his channel is called SB Moing, and I'm just going to show a short clip from it. I was doing some work today in the area and I drove by and I saw your lawn. It was getting a little long. I was wondering if I could cut it and clean it up completely free for you. Yeah, I'll do it for free. Okay, so there needs to be a name for this. I'm going to call it Goodwill Time Lapse videos because it is one of the most brilliant uses of the internet that I've ever seen. You're doing good and you're making money at the
Starting point is 00:19:40 same time. You go around, you knock on people's doors. You say, hey, you need a new roof. You need pressure washing. You need landscaping, fencing, fence washing, house painting, whatever. I will do it for free. The only thing I ask is that I'm able to video it and post it on the internet. That's like a whole industry. And I talked about this a year, year and a half ago on the podcast saying, like, more people need to do this. Why? Because SB mowing slash SB pressure washing has 50 million subscribers across platforms. That was a year ago, probably 60, 70 million at this point. That's a lot of money. If you monetize that right, that could be over $10 million a year of net profit with a very small team. You just got to have some tripods, some gopros, some iPhones, some iPhones, some editors in the
Starting point is 00:20:23 Philippines and you've got to be willing to copy the format of this guy or other people like him. Shout out to you, Cole Simpson, my friend who's in Columbia, South Carolina doing this exact thing. He didn't get the idea for me. He thought of it himself and he has an eye for YouTube and he's crushing it. His videos are getting millions of views and he's making six figures a year on YouTube and he's only been doing it for a matter of months. Next year he'll probably make seven figures on YouTube. That's just from YouTube. That doesn't include sponsorships, merch, memberships or anything. There are thousands of home service ideas.
Starting point is 00:20:53 So use chat GPT to come up with ideas that are more time lapse friendly, more visually appealing. You don't need to say, oh, SB mowing already does mowing and pressure washing, so I got to think something different or new. No, you just need to think that guy has 60 million followers. I can do the same thing and just start siphoning off some of those. Or I could do the same thing and make it a little different and start siphoning off some of those. But I would also test 10 different concepts.
Starting point is 00:21:16 Softwashing, fence restoration, fence painting. house painting, indoor, outdoor, roof washing. It's funny because I just had a conversation with Cole about this today. And he's doing roofing, which is very, very expensive. But that also sells because people generally know that a roof is expensive. And so that converts to more clicks because the effort is conveyed from the video to the viewer, which helps increase retention, which helps increase the reach that YouTube gives your videos, right? But it doesn't have to be an expensive service because SB mowing does mowing and pressure washing and has tens of millions. of subscribers. That's why this is idea number two and it was almost idea number one. But idea number one just has that cool factor and there's just no replacing an idea with an awesome coolness factor, testosterone factor. So here we go. There are 30 mile per hour jet boat that costs about 80% less than a jet ski. How do you monetize that? Number one, go to olibaba, buy one of these from China, sell that sucker on Facebook marketplace. Be sure to put the word jet ski in the description because then it will appear to people searching for jet skis. And when they see how much
Starting point is 00:22:20 cheaper it is than an actual jet ski, they're going to buy. I guarantee you you can make a $1,000 profit per unit. Number two, if jet ski rental is a business, why can't jet boat rental be a business? You charge 20% less because it's not as fast as a jet ski, but you pay 80% less for the unit. So you come out way ahead. Okay, so what you're looking at in this video is a jet boat, which basically it's like a jet ski, but a little uglier. And they're shipped directly from China in a crate. and I think they cost like mid hundreds of dollars, high hundreds of dollars, as opposed to a jet ski that's, you know, many thousands of dollars. Guys, I've done this. I've imported a dozen different things from China. High ticket, low ticket, $5 things, $5,000 things, electronics, non-electronics.
Starting point is 00:23:01 You go to Alibaba, you go to Ali Express, D.HGate, T.Mu, and you just start DMing manufacturers and asking for samples and just talking to them, hopping on WhatsApp late at night because there's a 13-hour time difference. take a flyer on an order or two, make sure they have good reviews. If you go through Alibaba, you can do like the Alibaba assurance thing where they will make sure that your purchase is insured so you don't get scammed. Go to Alibaba and start looking for things that look really interesting and copy and paste those pictures over to Facebook Marketplace at varying price points and see what kind of interest you get. You don't need to spend a dime before you know which one of these are sellers.
Starting point is 00:23:38 Like they've got mini jeeps on there, jet boats, they've got golf carts for 1,500. bucks. Like, start importing crap. But before you import it, listen on Facebook marketplace to see which ones get the most clicks, the most messages, the most impressions, keep track of all of it in a Google sheet, and even pre-sell it. Like, take a $50 deposit, a $500 deposit, meet with a guy and tell them exactly what you're doing. It's no secret these are coming from China. Most people just don't want to take the risk. They don't want to wire money to China. They would rather pay a surplus for that same item so you can risk your money and wire it to China. That's the whole reason I was in business for 15 years importing and exporting to and from China because people don't want to take the risk.
Starting point is 00:24:17 The word middleman should not be a pejorative. It is a beautiful thing to be a middleman. All right, that's it. Those are my 11 favorite business ideas of Q1, 2026. These are all beginner-friendly, approachable, affordable to start. They can all scale. And I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't give a couple shoutouts right now. I have to read this paper that my beautiful 13-year-old daughter gave me. And now for my favorite daughter's shout-out. Shout-out to Signor. I will say my daughter's a Spanish teacher, she loves you. She thinks you're awesome. She mentions you almost every day.
Starting point is 00:24:46 So thank you for being an awesome teacher to my daughter, Signore. She wanted me to tell you that my second daughter, at least, does not hate you and would like me to advise a seating chart where Weston and Riley are moved across, I'm just reading this for the first time, are moved across the room and she stays with Sloan and Ella. Also, for first period, I really think that Avery and Addy should sit by each other, which is my opinion. I'm glad you like my content.
Starting point is 00:25:08 Look at this freaking Signore right here. shout out to addie don't get maddie addie shout out to navis shout out to nola my biggest fan also one last thing for signore avery does not appreciate having the worst seat ever in history and needs to be moved for medical reasons i promised my daughter i would i would give some shoutouts thanks for hanging out in the corner office love you all

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