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

Bbenn30

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I looked in a bigger city near here and found one company that does demolition and part of their services include asbestos removal. I wonder what you'd need to know for that part. Maybe some kind of OSHA course or something.
My brother in law did it. There's a class he took and I believe he got some kind of license.
 
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WJK

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I looked in a bigger city near here and found one company that does demolition and part of their services include asbestos removal. I wonder what you'd need to know for that part. Maybe some kind of OSHA course or something.
Look into the Federal licensing for asbestos handling.

Also, licensing applies to the lead paint issues; I have a Federal lead tester's license in order to work on my rentals because of their age. My training includes lead paint removal approved techniques. It's not a sexy activity -- but it is the law. We must test the paint before we remove a window, disturb, or scrap any old paint. I haven't found any lead paint on my property. And I must give each tenant a booklet when I rent to them -- as well as a disclosure that they sign.
 

100k

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Has anyone written poop scooping ?

Charge houses $100/month to come once per week to clean up the mess in their back/front yard.

You'd only need 100 clients to make $10k/month, 6 figure business working for yourself.

Margins would probably be 90%+.
 

Lex DeVille

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We have found some real gems in some of the junk we've found on some of the sites.

What kind of gems? You can't just drop a line like this all nonchalant and not share details!!
 
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WJK

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What kind of gems? You can't just drop a line like this all nonchalant and not share details!!
I've been doing rehabs and trust deed investments since the 1970s. And now I own a mobile home park where I own the mobile homes and rent them out. We've found all kinds of stuff over the years... equipment, vehicles, RVs, 4 wheelers, snow machines, parts and pieces, jewelry, cupboards full of packaged foods, appliances, lumber, tools, and about anything else you can imagine. I own a couple of mobile homes that people just walked away from -- they left their dirty dishes on their kitchen tables. I also have a self-service Laundromat. You'd be amazed at what people leave there. We follow the personal property laws for anything that has much value -- we have an auction. And normally I end up with it. I take a lot of it to a charity. I sure don't need more stuff.
 

dmetts

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Storage of any kind! I am about to exit my car storage business for $$$ One that I explored and didn't go after...very little required capital would be Jeep hardtop storage. 50 to 75 a month plus a fee to take it off and put back on. In my area jeeps are everywhere.

But any storage is great. Also, if you buy the building...even better!
 

Black_Mamba_427

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An investment banker from Wall St paid me 4 figures the other night to watch him eat dog food and drink out of a water bowl on skype.

That seemed unsexy to me haha

The dog poo picker idea sounds good, but I guess you'd have to live in a pretty rich area for people to pay $100/month to pickup their dog turds and then how big are their gardens? Would take ages searching a 5 acre plot lol.

When I was 16 I was training for my pilots license and a lot of the guys in the Hangar would pay me to clean their planes (little cessnas and supercubs, stuff like that). Would usually get like £300-500 per plane and it would only take a few hours. The only other competition was some polish company which were charging £500-750 and I think everyone liked the fact that I was putting the money towards flying lessons, so they were helping out. I remember outsourcing the cleaning to some friends, so I could study for school too hah.

The guy who owned the hangar dropped out of school at like 6 years old, but owned TONS of stuff (massive entrepreneur). He owned 20+ hangars at 3 different airfields. With about 15-25 planes in each one paying him £300/month.

Anyway, he asked me how much I wanted for cleaning the plane and I said I dunno, like £100. He laughed and said deal. The polish guys were the only other competition and they were charging £500-750. He said rule number 1, if you're not sure of the price for your work, let the person you're doing work for say the figure first. I ended up making a lot more from future customers in not just plane cleaning, but other business roles using that advice.

I also said it to my friends who I got cleaning the planes. They were happy with being paid £50-100 and the plane owners were happy at paying me £500 lol.
 
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Guyfieri5

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I work in the chemical manufacturing cleaning industry and it is a gold mine. Nobody wants to work in it and the guys I work with are mostly older. As a younger guy, I don't have a lot of competition which has made making money extremely easy. In the food and beverage industry in particular, there are a ton of new regulations every year so this creates more need to purchase chemicals for cleaning processing equipment. I have tried getting out of the industry a few times as it's not sexy at all and a ton of hours but there is so much money to be made.
 

Boogie

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I work in the chemical manufacturing cleaning industry and it is a gold mine. Nobody wants to work in it and the guys I work with are mostly older. As a younger guy, I don't have a lot of competition which has made making money extremely easy. In the food and beverage industry in particular, there are a ton of new regulations every year so this creates more need to purchase chemicals for cleaning processing equipment. I have tried getting out of the industry a few times as it's not sexy at all and a ton of hours but there is so much money to be made.

@Guyfieri5 @Kak,
Sexy is overrated. Nothing wrong and unsexy about profit, especially where others might be reluctant to go.
 

aabawe

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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.
out of interest, what made you start eating halal only?
 
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Bbenn30

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I had this idea at work today. Along with a small business I run I also manage a hardware store. Freight days kill us, we have to check it in piece by piece, verify our qty and item is correct, some of it needs cleaned then it all gets stocked. It's a real pain in the a$$ on a busy spring day and regularly takes us multiple days to do. These are 30k plus orders, the one today was half of a 42' trailer. Between that and helping customers it's a real bear. That got me thinking why doesn't a person just outsource that part of it to a company that can come in and their only job is to check and stock the freight. I think 4 people dedicated could have ours done in about 10 hrs without being pulled away to man the register, make paint fix plumbing issues etc. This could even turn in to a yearly count of the inventory possibly resetting aisles.
 

Oso

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Not entirely sure if this has been mentioned or not (I haven't skimmed the entire thread), but after doing some research, turns out maintaining certain insect colonies is huge profit and start-up costs (depending on the insect, specific species, etc.) are relatively low.

The idea spawned into my head after considering growing a personal meal worm colony for my monitor. Having said this, I discovered this is a massive industry (not just meal worms), and the insects are being put to good use across multiple industries (pets, food, farming, agriculture, zoos, etc.). Your biggest selling point here (again, I've done limited research) is the quality of insects/colonies you produce. Think "GMO free chicken" but for your insects.

Enjoy!

P.S. I'll even give you a jumping point: it's said crickets are hard af to breed correctly (the entire process requires 4 different staging processes/areas), hence why crickets tend to have one of the highest profit yields. I did a Google search, found a handful of poorly executed/explained guides, and exactly one website dedicated to properly breeding/maintaining cricket colonies. I didn't research into what they were charging for their "updated/easy/simple" process, but they claim their system doesn't require you constantly move your crickets into these 4 staging areas as they mature (turns out crickets are hella cannibalistic).
 

Andy Black

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Pest control. Using rifles.
 

Lex DeVille

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G

Guest-5ty5s4

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What is the business? Cleaning them?
Building, selling, and leasing them. It's a huge business, one location can easily turn revenue in the 8 figures every year if you're in a town that has a lot of refinery, chemical, dirt, mud, construction, or similar work. I'd imagine you are if you're anywhere with people! I almost hate giving this away, but I can't do every business myself... :)

And the best ones have multiple locations

*Oh, they're big and made of wood. This is not a product you buy in a store. This is B2B.

Example:
Full-Service-Capabilities.jpg


Work site is muddy. You need to drive an excavator out there. Your company leases these heavy timbers from my mat company at a daily rate.

Best businesses come from WORK
 

Lex DeVille

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Building, selling, and leasing them. It's a huge business, one location can easily turn revenue in the 8 figures every year if you're in a town that has a lot of refinery, chemical, dirt, mud, construction, or similar work. I'd imagine you are if you're anywhere with people! I almost hate giving this away, but I can't do every business myself... :)

And the best ones have multiple locations

*Oh, they're big and made of wood. This is not a product you buy in a store. This is B2B.

Example:
Full-Service-Capabilities.jpg


Work site is muddy. You need to drive an excavator out there. Your company leases these heavy timbers from my mat company at a daily rate.

Best businesses come from WORK
This looks like a good government/military contract opportunity.
 
G

Guest-5ty5s4

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This looks like a good government/military contract opportunity.
Could be, but you don't even need them since plants, refineries, home builders, construction, etc. are so plentiful and you can get millions upon millions in sales from those alone.

edit: oh I see, maybe with roads and bridges, but really you'd be going for the government contractor itself. So the company building the road is your customer.
 
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Parks

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One of the best and most profitable businesses I’ve ever seen: industrial mats. Few people know about this.

Relatable. We use these in the tree industry.


Expensive but very effective. No more tearing up customers lawns or making big mud pits.
 

WJK

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Relatable. We use these in the tree industry.


Expensive but very effective. No more tearing up customers lawns or making big mud pits.
great idea, but you're right... very expensive
 
G

Guest-5ty5s4

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Relatable. We use these in the tree industry.


Expensive but very effective. No more tearing up customers lawns or making big mud pits.
Those aren’t the ones that I mean but still good idea and similar concept. I mean the giant pallets of wood 4x4s that you drive trucks on
 
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Stephan Fradette

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I don't remember seeing this in the thread, but someone offered it on Facebook this morning...

House demolition/cleanup.

I saw prices ranging from like $14k to $35k per demo depending on several factors like location, type of building, size, how much demo is involved, haul off etc.

You'd probably need an excavator, so there's definitely some upfront investment, but you could get a pre-owned one for a few thousand bucks probably. Or borrow/rent one.

If anyone has done this, I'd be curious to learn more about your experience. What was it like? Was it worth it? Was there enough of a market for it?

View attachment 42828
Also big condo builders are looking at ways to cleanup the job site of debris in an ecological way. They would pay extra just for their own responsible conscience and for their marketing image.
 

Stephan Fradette

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I don't remember seeing this in the thread, but someone offered it on Facebook this morning...

House demolition/cleanup.

I saw prices ranging from like $14k to $35k per demo depending on several factors like location, type of building, size, how much demo is involved, haul off etc.

You'd probably need an excavator, so there's definitely some upfront investment, but you could get a pre-owned one for a few thousand bucks probably. Or borrow/rent one.

If anyone has done this, I'd be curious to learn more about your experience. What was it like? Was it worth it? Was there enough of a market for it?

View attachment 42828
There will also be a huge cleanup/ rebuilding opportunity in Ukraine after the war. Someone can probably go there with a crane for 5-10 years and come back a multi millionaire. It will be government contracts financed by other countries. So probably easier to charge more and get paid
 

The Sandman

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I had this idea at work today. Along with a small business I run I also manage a hardware store. Freight days kill us, we have to check it in piece by piece, verify our qty and item is correct, some of it needs cleaned then it all gets stocked. It's a real pain in the a$$ on a busy spring day and regularly takes us multiple days to do. These are 30k plus orders, the one today was half of a 42' trailer. Between that and helping customers it's a real bear. That got me thinking why doesn't a person just outsource that part of it to a company that can come in and their only job is to check and stock the freight. I think 4 people dedicated could have ours done in about 10 hrs without being pulled away to man the register, make paint fix plumbing issues etc. This could even turn in to a yearly count of the inventory possibly resetting aisles.

You just described Vender Managed Inventory (VMI).
 
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The Sandman

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Relatable. We use these in the tree industry.


Expensive but very effective. No more tearing up customers lawns or making big mud pits.

I know plywood is expensive these days but damn it'd be a lot cheaper than these!
 

The Sandman

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I work in the chemical manufacturing cleaning industry and it is a gold mine. Nobody wants to work in it and the guys I work with are mostly older. As a younger guy, I don't have a lot of competition which has made making money extremely easy. In the food and beverage industry in particular, there are a ton of new regulations every year so this creates more need to purchase chemicals for cleaning processing equipment. I have tried getting out of the industry a few times as it's not sexy at all and a ton of hours but there is so much money to be made.

Are you talking about manufacturing cleaning chemicals or going in and cleaning chemical manufacturing equipment?
 

Parks

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I know plywood is expensive these days but damn it'd be a lot cheaper than these!

We actually used to use Plywood but you have to double stack it or our trucks will break it. Then if it starts raining these plywoods turn into water sogged planks that are 10x heavier to move. Lol
 

Parks

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Those aren't even the right type of mats. These are:

View attachment 44742
mat_interlocking_3.jpg

7Q9A3892.jpg


Giant slab of wood for driving giant vehicles on - simple to build, rents for big bucks.

Yeah two different purposes I was just sharing the parallel. Yours scale potential and need is much more.
 

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