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100 Unsexy Business Ideas: Name as many as you can!

Real Deal Denver

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I don't get this aversion to everything that's not digital marketing/apps/websites/Amazon.

Nothing's fastlane right at the start, but you can make it that way. For example through intentional iteration.

One single coffee shop won't make you rich, but 29 shops could. A normal electrician company won't be fastlane. But by either scaling or increasing magnitude, it could be.

It's probably more in the mindset. If you actually know there's a way to turn your company fastlane, the probability of achieving that is way higher.

YOU have to post more often. Rarely do I copy a post and print it out as a way to keep me focused. Yours I did.

I wonder why SO many college grads try so hard to get a job, and can't grasp the message that you just created. It might not seem like much, but it is actually a kernel - a truth - that everything else can be built upon.
 
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Chx

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Thanks for the thread. I've been interested in "unsexy" businesses. The only issue I had with it is that I didn't know of any industries.

Cool!

This thread delivers. Run your industry by a "do they need this more than once" test, and you have an interesting go of things.

Quite possibly, the only thing that could stop you is having money to work in the industry. As always, "you need a customer" not a business card. However, realistically speaking, many of these industries do require some extreme leg work, specialized knowledge, and decent capital.
 

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Two that a friend started:

Frozen drink machine rentals for events. Would rent to wealthy folks private functions, drop off, set up, pick up a few hours later.

Boat upholstery. Boating is huge locally. Bought a special sewing machine for less than $5,000, learned to use it and do upholstery from youtube, his wife actually did the work, said it blew up he was getting tons of business with simple local SEO.



Also good for the wealthy area is mobile detailing. There is one detailed I see in my office parking lot frequently. I think it would be easy to enter this market as most have terrible marketing and brand image. Car washing is huge around here since it's a wealthy and image conscious area. There are lots of car washes always packed with cadillacs and Mercedes but some mediocre reviews. Could probabaly do well mobile detailing with good service and brand image for the picky or exotic owners. There is definitely demand.

Another one is property management services...BIG business in my market.

Another idea I had was just a value skew, but requires partnering with another business. A twist on the mobile detailing.

Offer a car wash to movie goers while they are in the movie. Partner with a movie theater and sell and car wash ticket. Ive been thinking about testing this one in my area.

MJ give the example of value skew when the local theater remodeled and got new leather chairs, and improves the experience. Now MJ can get his car washed and enjoy a movie all in one go. Now he doesn't have to swing by the car wash or schedule a mobile detailed to come to his home or office.
 
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minivanman

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Two that a friend started:

Frozen drink machine rentals for events. Would rent to wealthy folks private functions, drop off, set up, pick up a few hours later.

Boat upholstery. Boating is huge locally. Bought a special sewing machine for less than $5,000, learned to use it and do upholstery from youtube, his wife actually did the work, said it blew up he was getting tons of business with simple local SEO.



Also good for the wealthy area is mobile detailing. There is one detailed I see in my office parking lot frequently. I think it would be easy to enter this market as most have terrible marketing and brand image. Car washing is huge around here since it's a wealthy and image conscious area. There are lots of car washes always packed with cadillacs and Mercedes but some mediocre reviews. Could probabaly do well mobile detailing with good service and brand image for the picky or exotic owners. There is definitely demand.

Another one is property management services...BIG business in my market.

Another idea I had was just a value skew, but requires partnering with another business. A twist on the mobile detailing.

Offer a car wash to movie goers while they are in the movie. Partner with a movie theater and sell and car wash ticket. Ive been thinking about testing this one in my area.

MJ give the example of value skew when the local theater remodeled and got new leather chairs, and improves the experience. Now MJ can get his car washed and enjoy a movie all in one go. Now he doesn't have to swing by the car wash or schedule a mobile detailed to come to his home or office.

And with that sewing machine your friend can make all kinds of money with antique cars. My friends pay big bucks to have the seats and interior sewn.
 

ALC

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Could probabaly do well mobile detailing with good service and brand image for the picky or exotic owners. There is definitely demand.
I'm not so sure about that and there's already a lot of people doing it well, i don't see the value anyone can provide, excepted doing this in an area where's nobody is doing it.

Like in the aera of Monaco there's 20 companies that do this for luxury car owners, middle class car..at work, at the supermarket, everywhere.

But there's also not a huge need as a real wash is expensive and people don't have money for this.
 
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Fern

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I actually sold some sheep to a person a couple hours away who slaughters sheep/goats/chickens mostly for immigrants in the Midwestern U.S. This is something I have contemplated doing with lambs for the past several years as I have the facilities to do it and live near a fairly large city with sizable ethnic populations.

Are you referring to halal slaughtering? You can definitely make a killing doing that. I eat halal only now and my options to buy meat directly or go to a restaurant that uses halal meat is pretty limited.
 
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Shepherd

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Are you referring to halal slaughtering? You can definitely make a killing doing that. I eat halal only now and my options to buy meat directly or go to a restaurant that uses halal meat is pretty limited.
One company I currently sell to has his product halal certified, but I haven't contemplated doing it myself. Another guy I sell to slaughters right off the farm, but is not certified although he communicates with his customers in basic Arabic and Spanish.
 

Real Deal Denver

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Ha ha! This article is worse than the slow laners. This is the brain-dead laners.

Some empty suit in government cut a deal with New York to ship their "ship"-ments to their nice little Mayberry RFD piece of paradise. And now it sits there and rots. Rotting biosolids. Could be the name of a new punk rock group. Catchy.

And the whole town wanders around wondering what to do? Oh my, heavens to Betsy, what to do?

The writer really dropped the ball on this story too. WHO made that deal, and why is it in limbo as an unsolved problem? Some landfill plan got sidetracked. Those Alabama people. Funny!

I wanted to check to see whatever happened, but this story just came out yesterday.

No brains at work anymore, and certainly no leadership. I wonder how long the idiots in this town will tolerate this?

New York ships their biosolids out. And somebody in Alabama had a hand in setting this up and approving this, uh, mess - and gets paid for it too...

I think Japan and China are looking for material to make man-made islands out of. Problem SOLVED!
 
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MakeMoreMoves

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Hm....good list. I wrote these business ideas off in my head since I wanted to be totally online when I started in business.

My biggest problem is differentiating with these businesses. Is it even necessary? Things like a landscaping company. So one of the services is cutting grass. What can someone possibly do better if there is already a large company in a local area doing this? This is the 2nd reason I avoided these types of businesses because they are like selling commodity physical products except in the services space. Can someone enlighten me how to breakthrough?

In my mind, it is just cold calling and hustling harder then the other guy. All other variables tend to be commodity variables. Like price, time, guarantees, etc. Assuming the competitor has good customer service for this example.
 

minivanman

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Hm....good list. I wrote these business ideas off in my head since I wanted to be totally online when I started in business.

My biggest problem is differentiating with these businesses. Is it even necessary? Things like a landscaping company. So one of the services is cutting grass. What can someone possibly do better if there is already a large company in a local area doing this? This is the 2nd reason I avoided these types of businesses because they are like selling commodity physical products except in the services space. Can someone enlighten me how to breakthrough?

In my mind, it is just cold calling and hustling harder then the other guy. All other variables tend to be commodity variables. Like price, time, guarantees, etc. Assuming the competitor has good customer service for this example.

Very easy answer(s) here: #1. Answer the phone. Call 10 mowing businesses in your area and let us know how many answer the phone or call you back. If it's anything like Omaha or Fort Worth that number will be 0. #2. Customer service. Lots of lawn care guys don't speak English very well and have 0 customer service skills. #3. Continually show up. You don't even have to be on time.... you don't even have to show up on the correct day.... just show up!

These are 3 of the same things that happen in the residential cleaning business. In cleaning there are a few more things but you spoke about mowing so those are what will set you apart from most guys out there. Now don't get me wrong.... they have a VERY good reason for not answering the phone or calling you back or not giving you good customer service or showing up when they are suppose to..... the reason a lot of times is because they are so busy before they know it, the time is 8pm and by then, they just want to go to bed. The larger companies may have people that are designated to answer the phone or keep their guys on a schedule and you will pay for that. Problem is.... those guys might charge $40 while the smaller guy will charge $25. So if you can be a $25 guy without all the over-head and answer your phone.... you will soon move up to be the $40 big company that can have someone answer your phone..... but then the customers that had you mow for $25 will cancel and their woes will start all over again trying to find someone that will show up...... :)
 
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DifficultTruth

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There is an entire show on CNBC called "Blue Collar Millionaires," pretty much all the industries featured on the show are ones named throughout the thread, and industries people claim are "bad," like roofing, wielding, pipe-fitting, plumbing, electrical, etc. Yet I am sure CNBC has no problem finding blue collar millionaires for their show, because they are all around. You might not notice them, because they still wear jeans and a t shirt, still drive an older pickup, no designer suits or lambos, yet they have 7, 8, and 9 figure net-worths. Sure, some of them spend some cash on toys, and those are usually the ones that make it on the show, but the ones that don't, they are the ones in your local gas station buying their coffee in the morning, in line next to you.

These blue collar guys are the ones I know, and I am sure part of it's my geographic region, I'm on the east coast, there are not silicon valley billionaire founders walking around. But you know what there are? At a local diner I go to for breakfast there is a table of generally older guys, usually around 10 of them. They wear jeans with holes in them, denim shirts, their hands are full of calluses, they shirts stitched with names of various local companies: towing, construction, etc. The difference between them and the other blue collar guys? It's their names stitched on their shirts, the tow yard a mile down the road filled with millions worth of heavy wreckers? Yup, the owner is the one who drove up in the beat up pickup, yet he has a farm with 100s of acres of private land just a few miles down the road off the main highway. The guy next to him? Well he owns a construction company and property development company, you know the huge shopping center with a 100 stores, and a big movie theater about 2 miles down the road? Yup, he owns it. You know the nearest 10 housing developments? He built all of that. Yeah, he splurged a little more and has a nicer truck, probably cost him 80k for it, oh, and his mansion that sits acres off the road so you'd never know it was there. It's only a few miles away too if you know what you're looking for. That table with the 10 rough looking old guys? They're worth more than 250 million combined. Know what else? They are not Stanford computer scientists, or Harvard MBAs, they've never even stepped foot in a community college, and they grew up poor down the street from my father. Unless you have the inside knowledge I have, you'd come into the diner, take a quick look and see a bunch of rough looking blue collar workers. I am sure this story plays out around the country.
 
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Duane

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Very easy answer(s) here: #1. Answer the phone. Call 10 mowing businesses in your area and let us know how many answer the phone or call you back. If it's anything like Omaha or Fort Worth that number will be 0. #2. Customer service. Lots of lawn care guys don't speak English very well and have 0 customer service skills. #3. Continually show up. You don't even have to be on time.... you don't even have to show up on the correct day.... just show up!

This is so true in so many areas and so many services.

The big companies don't give a fu** because it's ran by a bunch of minimum wage employees that hate their jobs.

The small companies are mainly ran by workers with poor manners and communication skills, not business savvy entrepreneurs. So it's very hard to find a company with amazing customer service, and someone that is on point with everything they do. Replying back to customers, handling service complaints, and maintaining consistency in your services.

How do you dominate the service industry?


In the beginning, you will not get that many jobs, so you don't have to worry about not having the time to do it all. This is the most crucial part, you have to solve the problems/issues well, and give your customer an amazing experience. You have the free time to treat everyone special, so do it and they will sing praises about you to everyone because 0.1% of the companies out there genuinely care about the customer. 99.9% of the companies don't care about the customer, they only care about getting paid. After mastering your craft and getting some good jobs under your belt though, you'll get some buzz about your company and you will start getting more and more calls. This is you differentiating yourself from the competition and you will see it pay off in your phone starting to blow up all day.

This is where the 12+ hour days come in to play. In the beginning, you will work from 8 am until it's dark out and you can't work anymore, and all while working, you have a blue tooth headset with 2 portable chargers and you're answering the phone and talking to customers. Have the customers text/email you their contact info and pictures of the job so you can provide quotes. Never let your phone go below 30%.

Get a calendar notification app and put everything down on your calendar so nobody gets forgotten about. Every single thing that you plan on doing even 1 hour in the future. I can't stress how important this is, my calendar is always full of 1000 little things, and I never forget about ANYONE'S problem that they called me about because I have my phone reminding me and I don't dismiss anything until after it's done. If I am about to do it, I snooze it 30 minutes until it's done.

When you get home every night after working, put all the jobs you picked up on email and send it out to the clients that you will be out there between X times... Invoice out all the jobs that you did that day... Check your ads and make the tweaks that you want to make (holy crap it's midnight already, I gotta go to sleep). Rinse and repeat until you are so busy you need to hire your first employee...

Go out with him for the first few months until he doesn't need you anymore, then go directly behind his work without telling him to make sure he is performing the same level of service you would be performing.

Then start playing the manager role where your employee/employees are doing the work and you are just giving great customer service. You are still differentiating yourself from the competition by providing the customers with great communication and managing your employees to where any issues they have are quickly solved. This is where you can start experiencing some freedom because all that you need to run your business is your phone/laptop. You can be in Vegas, on the beach, or wherever and answering phone calls and managing employees.

One thing that really kills your time, but is a smart move to make is having your employees send you pictures of all the jobs they do and you send them over to the customer with the invoice. It takes up some time, but I can't tell you how much it saves you on managing because you see the completed job so you don't have to worry if the employee is showing up and doing the work or not. Install GPS trackers in your vehicles as well and you can check on your phone where the employees are at any time.

Eventually you have enough employees and cashflow to where you can hire a manager to take over your management role, and now you're one of the big companies, but you can still differentiate yourself from other big companies on procedures that you implement with management making sure everyone is doing their job properly and still providing an amazing service for your customers. I have a lawn service company that is a massive company, but they are amazing with how they run their operation, and I will never go to a different company. They charge premium prices, but I don't care because I know I'm getting high caliber work and service.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Nothing's fastlane right at the start, but you can make it that way.

Amen!

If you're expecting "Fastlane" 7 minutes after starting, rut roh! Disappointment!
 
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minivanman

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As I was on my way to Jack In The Box at 10pm for my lunch..... yep, time slipped away today! lol Anyway, I was reminded of another business. There is a guy that started his business many years ago picking up trash in shopping center parking lots. Not the guy driving the truck through the parking lots.... he has 1099 workers picking up the trash on the sidewalks, the grass areas and anywhere a truck can't get to. If I remember right he makes about $600,000 a year.
 

12B745

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[QUOTE="
15. Exotic Animal Breeding/Trading
[/QUOTE]

My girlfriend and I are actually planning on doing this bit once I can secure funding. The breeding part is more the community and conservation reasons. However, there's some ideas tagged along to help make this bit profitable.
 

KimSemiglia

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childcare, mowing lawns, raking leaves, snow removal.

There's so many ways to make cash if you just look for it :)
What can you do with childcare?
My friend is thinking about going to school for 4 years to be a school counselor because she LOVES kids and I told her don't waste your time.

I spent like an hour looking at possibilities for her dealing with kids and most of them require education.

I just haven't brought it up again because I can't back up an alternative for her.

(and really it's a friend. Disliking kids is my biggest flaw.)
 

NadiaZ

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What can you do with childcare?
My friend is thinking about going to school for 4 years to be a school counselor because she LOVES kids and I told her don't waste your time.

I spent like an hour looking at possibilities for her dealing with kids and most of them require education.

I just haven't brought it up again because I can't back up an alternative for her.

(and really it's a friend. Disliking kids is my biggest flaw.)

Go to a local wealthy neighborhood. Tons of those parents have nannies and need someone to just watch over their kids when they're on vacation or just at work. Once you meet one of the mom, all the moms know each other and will refer you. Or you can just advertise your services on Craigslist or one of the many sites that offer nanny services.

These are just odd jobs. Not something you need to be certified for. I know plenty of young girls who make $20-50/hr (sure it's not fastlane) but if you need some quick cash it helps.

Also, if you're really good at cleaning houses or providing top lawn care, you can get paid like $50-$100/hr. People who have nice homes don't like to hire just anybody. Typically, you need a referral so start getting to know people ASAP.

After making connections, you can always hire people to do the physical cleaning and nannying and just take a profit.
 
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Real Deal Denver

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These are just odd jobs. Not something you need to be certified for. I know plenty of young girls who make $20-50/hr (sure it's not fastlane) but if you need some quick cash it helps.

Also, if you're really good at cleaning houses or providing top lawn care, you can get paid like $50-$100/hr. People who have nice homes don't like to hire just anybody. Typically, you need a referral so start getting to know people ASAP.

Man - sure changed from the pocket change I was thrown when I was a youngster...
 

PureA

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I don't get this aversion to everything that's not digital marketing/apps/websites/Amazon.

Nothing's fastlane right at the start, but you can make it that way. For example through intentional iteration.

One single coffee shop won't make you rich, but 29 shops could. A normal electrician company won't be fastlane. But by either scaling or increasing magnitude, it could be.

It's probably more in the mindset. If you actually know there's a way to turn your company fastlane, the probability of achieving that is way higher.

B-B-B-But then how can I sit on a beach with my laptop?
 

jon.M

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1. Bamboo Nursery
2. Mushroom Cultivation ( this is my current niche. In january I started a small farm in my basement. there is little competition but a very high barrier of entry)

I think these ideas are interesting.

Bamboo grows fast and is very versatile. Maybe you could even grow bamboo on your own and manufacture high-end furniture or flooring with it. Marketable as "Grown and made in the USD" or whatever country you're in.

Mushrooms are also captivating. There was this man on a Joe Rogan podcast who spoke about them, and I even think he grew some species and sold them as nutritional supplements:

 
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Doug Smith

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I love this list. Especially the obscure ones that most people would claim "That won't work"
 

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One idea I pondered for a few days was if there was a way I could make farming aquatic plants profitable. I decided the demand was too low, margin too low, and regulations too high to be worth the time. Not to mention overseas competition. However I have seen someone succeed with this but the plants were secondary.
 

minivanman

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Go to a local wealthy neighborhood. Tons of those parents have nannies and need someone to just watch over their kids when they're on vacation or just at work. Once you meet one of the mom, all the moms know each other and will refer you. Or you can just advertise your services on Craigslist or one of the many sites that offer nanny services.

These are just odd jobs. Not something you need to be certified for. I know plenty of young girls who make $20-50/hr (sure it's not fastlane) but if you need some quick cash it helps.

Also, if you're really good at cleaning houses or providing top lawn care, you can get paid like $50-$100/hr. People who have nice homes don't like to hire just anybody. Typically, you need a referral so start getting to know people ASAP.

After making connections, you can always hire people to do the physical cleaning and nannying and just take a profit.

Just in case you plan to do the cleaning gig.... stay away from large houses and rich people in a wealthy neighborhood. You will make MUCH more money with regular sized houses, mom & dad working, just regular people and can scale much faster.

Real Deal Denver..... That would change if more kids got off the couch and went out and worked like in our day. Without the 'kids' keeping the prices low, adults come on to the scene and the prices go up.
 
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NadiaZ

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Man - sure changed from the pocket change I was thrown when I was a youngster...

There's like 0 competition in my area. There's one kid who started a lawn care company and is making good money and didn't even go to college.

Neighbors saw me cleaning a yard and thought it was weird because I was female but they were also kinda pleasantly shocked to see me working.
 

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Very easy answer(s) here: #1. Answer the phone. Call 10 mowing businesses in your area and let us know how many answer the phone or call you back. If it's anything like Omaha or Fort Worth that number will be 0. #2. Customer service. Lots of lawn care guys don't speak English very well and have 0 customer service skills. #3. Continually show up. You don't even have to be on time.... you don't even have to show up on the correct day.... just show up!

These are 3 of the same things that happen in the residential cleaning business. In cleaning there are a few more things but you spoke about mowing so those are what will set you apart from most guys out there. Now don't get me wrong.... they have a VERY good reason for not answering the phone or calling you back or not giving you good customer service or showing up when they are suppose to..... the reason a lot of times is because they are so busy before they know it, the time is 8pm and by then, they just want to go to bed. The larger companies may have people that are designated to answer the phone or keep their guys on a schedule and you will pay for that. . :)


This. Most of the guys don't have a dedicated person to answer the phone, doing that alone would probabaly significantly boost sales. I remember one time I was getting voicemail after having called 6-7 guys. One of them actually called back and YELLED at me for NOT leaving a voicemail. How hard would it be to compete against that?

Another issue- billing. It's 2018, and most still take payment only by check and snail mail. I just want to give them a credit card on monthly rebill and I literally cannot do it.
 

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