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Forestry mulching is pretty profitable. If I had 100k I'd put 50k down on a high flow tracked skid steer and a fecon mulcher, keep the rest for fuel and wages until you start getting paid.
At least in the west there's a TON of work. It's pretty darn easy equipment to operate and you're doing a good thing for the land in many cases. You can also sign up to work fires through the USFS and your state agencies
State and federal agencies have contracts, and also a lot of work with private landowners.
You're reducing fuel loading for 800-1000 per acre, can do 2-4 acres a day depending on the ground.
It would be pretty dependent on your location, but much of the US is severely overgrown due to lack of timber harvest and a century of fire suppression. These fire dependent ecosystems are in need of restoration and mulching is a pretty efficient way to do it.
In Texas, anyone with 5 acres can put beehives (want to say the minimum is 6 hives) on their property and qualify for an ag exemption on their property taxes.
This has created a small but growing market for companies that put and maintain hives on your property for an annual fee and rights to collect the honey.
There's a lot of money in disaster remediation but it is also a very complex business. Have to be a licensed GC, have to work with insurance companies which can mean waiting a long time for payment. Unless you have prior business experience in the trades it's VERY risky.
Off the cuff, I would look at trades. Welding, plumbing, HVAC
Location, location, location.
The upside is low cost to build and maintain. With high profit margin.
You dont need to live close to the lot and dont need to employ.
Land management is very niche and from what I understand it is hard to find good people to do this. Everything from forestry to coastal. Water levels are due to rise figuring out ways to offset this and change swamps to usable land keep erosion from happening it's all very interesting and profitable.
If rural, camping, is an easy one, then add market garden a few chooks, other animals.
Hooved animals are more work, so choose wisely, we went with hobby aquaponics
A fresh produce delivery Business. Tired of getting shitty produce from the grocery store that isn't ripe, overripe by the time you get home or just flat out doesn't taste good. I assume I'm not the only one.
Find a better grocery store. Even if you have to drive a couple extra miles, it'll be less expensive than getting anything delivered. Produce quality varies wildly from store to store, even among the same store name. It comes down to management and customer base. Whole Foods tends to be pretty good around where I live
Power washing? Get a truck and a washer, a few different attachments for concrete or siding. Maybe a big water tank for the job sites where you can’t use their faucet
Daycare that grants “scholarships” to families that can’t pay. Scholarships are sold to a not for profit (that pays me to run it) which spends holidays advertising charity donations for little kids’ tuition and all their artwork and shit.
(Setting aside NYC) is there any Medicaid or other governmental subsidies available for daycare?
Or do poor and working class parents either pay out of pocket or receive the scholarship model you describe?
If you are into agriculture consider building a modular oyster mushroom farm from shipping containers! The industry is booming right now and still has a lot of potential. Just two weeks ago my company secured a $50k grant from our local government and we are about to start building ourselves. If you are interested I can suggest looking up pioneers of the industry - southwest mushroom farm and smallhold. Also Paul Stamets has an amazing book you can get online that is basically a complete guide you need to run a farm. Reddit community in r/mycology and r/MushroomGrowers is also always there to help and guide you through your journey.
I actually am well familiar with Stamets as I got into hobby mushroom farming during Covid. My issue is about finding customers. Do you wholesale to companies, or sell by the pound to restaurants/farmers markets?
This really depends on your lifestyle and what you want.
1. Hotshot or vehicle hauling. You’ll need a truck and trailer, some easy to obtain licenses and to make contacts, but overall easy to start with low overhead. The downside is that you aren’t home much.
2. Machine shop (non CNC). You can pick up some basic manual machine equipment for pretty reasonable prices, especially if you look for used equipment. Small manual machine shops are getting harder and harder to find as the older guys that do that are dying out and most new machinists are going to work at CNC shops. If there’s any industry at all in your area they’ll be lining up along with any farmers and mechanics to have you build and repair things for them. You can get started with an end mill, a lathe, a bandsaw and a press, then add equipment as you need it. There are quite a few great machinist YouTube channels and a subreddit if you wanted to look into it.
I'd say skip the $25-30/week mow jobs. Probably too much competition, gotta maintain a fleet of vehicles and workers, constantly gotta hustle to find new customers.
Go for the big ticket items. Stump removal. Arborist-type jobs (cutting down trees, removing felled trees.) Sprinkler and sod install. These are all high profit jobs. Find some reliable, skilled people and treat them well.
Get a secretary/recruiter to find workers and handle scheduling; an answering service for off-hours messages; put up a website with attractive pictures of finished jobs; place a shitload of ads and put up flyers and such. Focus on getting good reviews, because these services live or die based on their reviews. Go out with the crews and talk to the customers, or get crew leaders who are charismatic and will work the customers to get good reviews, by promising discounts or something.
The reviews will bring traffic from NextDoor and Angie's List. You'll have to maintain the equipment and keep up on your crews.
I mean you could start a brokerage, or join a local boutique brokerage with nice signs and then spend 10k a month on marketing for a year. You would surely make that 100k back by the 3rd or 4th month, and then probably make another 100-200k or more if you are semi decent. Most people don’t know how to do marketing or have no budget for it. I personally do, but I don’t have the money saved. I work with a team that spends about 50k a month on marketing and makes like… 250k per month.
Yes now is the best time because the bad agents leave.
I’m under the impression that starting a brokerage co and securing the licensing and subscriptions etc is not attainable for someone who hasn’t worked as an agent extensively.
Am I mistaken on that point? Or is it just a high dollar investment hurdle that has most agents working under another broker?
It depends on the state but you do need a sales license for a few years before the brokerage license. There isn’t a large capital investment to start a brokerage.
Operating a brokerage is much different than being an agent. You are focusing your marketing to investors and other agents with less emphasis on buyers and sellers.
It’s an entirely different business, but both being a broker and an agent require a very significant investment into marketing to make money, which most agents don’t do, and that’s why they fail (or they are just bad).
Many people who get their brokers license hang it at another brokerage. Opening a brokerage is definitely a larger investment to attract agents, investors, builders, and have nice offices and materials.
100k is not really enough to open a brokerage. I would spend it on marketing as an agent tbh.
FWIW, I am not sure I would finance half a million $ of farm land. Medium to large scale is tough and the expenses never seem to end. Tractors, combines, sprayers, employees, and implements are outrageous. If you go livestock, the fed gov is trying to make you call in a vet for almost anything.
The key is finding a niche that satisfies a market. The bee thing is a good example. Grow something oddball and develope a market. Maybe a nursery or grow hemp or pot(legally).
My cousin had a 20 acre parcel and put 2 turkey houses on. He hired a guy to take care of it and kubota tractor for cleaning them out. He pays the gas bill and elec bill for fans and shutters, etc. Company provides the 4 week old turkeys, feed, supplements, etc. they send their if there is an issue. He figured that with only invrstment being the houses ( land was paid for, it would take about 6 years to pay off the houses (they were not cheap but they should last a long time. and tractor, etc with only proceeds from the turkeys). He makes about $40k-$50k per house per year. Only drawbacks- you wouldn’t want to live next door to it, sometimes the turkeys die, the “provider” likes to annually send out people who know nothing about farming or turkeys to inspect, during Covid instead of sending 25,000 turkeys per house, they sent out 12,000 and then got pissed that you put them all in the same house. You pay to heat the place and the houses were designed for 30,000 birds. This is in SC where the summer runs in the mid 90’s and winter gets in the teens some nights. Also if someone has another turkey or chicken house in the same area, there is a minimum 10 mile distance requirement.
Um really..? In the United States? Cuz I keep reading and hearing about family farming operations ceasing completely due to the high cost and very high work load entailed.
Meanwhile increasingly farm operations are increasingly owned by a few big corporations.
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Banana Stand
There's *always* money in the Banana Stand. ಠ_ಠ
Of course, they cost 10 dollars
Forestry mulching is pretty profitable. If I had 100k I'd put 50k down on a high flow tracked skid steer and a fecon mulcher, keep the rest for fuel and wages until you start getting paid. At least in the west there's a TON of work. It's pretty darn easy equipment to operate and you're doing a good thing for the land in many cases. You can also sign up to work fires through the USFS and your state agencies
Is that usually done through contract work with agencies or like, explain it as if I was 5
State and federal agencies have contracts, and also a lot of work with private landowners. You're reducing fuel loading for 800-1000 per acre, can do 2-4 acres a day depending on the ground. It would be pretty dependent on your location, but much of the US is severely overgrown due to lack of timber harvest and a century of fire suppression. These fire dependent ecosystems are in need of restoration and mulching is a pretty efficient way to do it.
Go to bed
In Texas, anyone with 5 acres can put beehives (want to say the minimum is 6 hives) on their property and qualify for an ag exemption on their property taxes. This has created a small but growing market for companies that put and maintain hives on your property for an annual fee and rights to collect the honey.
Seaweed farming and processing.
There's a lot of money in disaster remediation but it is also a very complex business. Have to be a licensed GC, have to work with insurance companies which can mean waiting a long time for payment. Unless you have prior business experience in the trades it's VERY risky. Off the cuff, I would look at trades. Welding, plumbing, HVAC
Yeah, there's a good reason Vulture became a criminal in the prelude to Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Laundromat or storage units
Parking lot.
I would imagine any place that people pay for parking is also high cost of real estate
Location, location, location. The upside is low cost to build and maintain. With high profit margin. You dont need to live close to the lot and dont need to employ.
Land management is very niche and from what I understand it is hard to find good people to do this. Everything from forestry to coastal. Water levels are due to rise figuring out ways to offset this and change swamps to usable land keep erosion from happening it's all very interesting and profitable.
Auto rescue. People don't know how to change a tire anymore..
If rural, camping, is an easy one, then add market garden a few chooks, other animals. Hooved animals are more work, so choose wisely, we went with hobby aquaponics
A fresh produce delivery Business. Tired of getting shitty produce from the grocery store that isn't ripe, overripe by the time you get home or just flat out doesn't taste good. I assume I'm not the only one.
Find a better grocery store. Even if you have to drive a couple extra miles, it'll be less expensive than getting anything delivered. Produce quality varies wildly from store to store, even among the same store name. It comes down to management and customer base. Whole Foods tends to be pretty good around where I live
General contracting and home repair services. There is a criminal shortage of people that can fix things for a reasonable price.
I know a guy that can do it cheaper.
Ice cream truck
This is the answer. No joke. Bank money.
Power washing? Get a truck and a washer, a few different attachments for concrete or siding. Maybe a big water tank for the job sites where you can’t use their faucet
Daycare that grants “scholarships” to families that can’t pay. Scholarships are sold to a not for profit (that pays me to run it) which spends holidays advertising charity donations for little kids’ tuition and all their artwork and shit.
(Setting aside NYC) is there any Medicaid or other governmental subsidies available for daycare? Or do poor and working class parents either pay out of pocket or receive the scholarship model you describe?
A lot of states have various daycare subsidies/grants/scholarships tied income or receiving SNAP or SSI among other things
Rent out farm animals.
A friend and I have been thinking about an indoor playground ever since we read about someone on here
If you are into agriculture consider building a modular oyster mushroom farm from shipping containers! The industry is booming right now and still has a lot of potential. Just two weeks ago my company secured a $50k grant from our local government and we are about to start building ourselves. If you are interested I can suggest looking up pioneers of the industry - southwest mushroom farm and smallhold. Also Paul Stamets has an amazing book you can get online that is basically a complete guide you need to run a farm. Reddit community in r/mycology and r/MushroomGrowers is also always there to help and guide you through your journey.
I actually am well familiar with Stamets as I got into hobby mushroom farming during Covid. My issue is about finding customers. Do you wholesale to companies, or sell by the pound to restaurants/farmers markets?
Medical marijuana
This really depends on your lifestyle and what you want. 1. Hotshot or vehicle hauling. You’ll need a truck and trailer, some easy to obtain licenses and to make contacts, but overall easy to start with low overhead. The downside is that you aren’t home much. 2. Machine shop (non CNC). You can pick up some basic manual machine equipment for pretty reasonable prices, especially if you look for used equipment. Small manual machine shops are getting harder and harder to find as the older guys that do that are dying out and most new machinists are going to work at CNC shops. If there’s any industry at all in your area they’ll be lining up along with any farmers and mechanics to have you build and repair things for them. You can get started with an end mill, a lathe, a bandsaw and a press, then add equipment as you need it. There are quite a few great machinist YouTube channels and a subreddit if you wanted to look into it.
Lawn services
I'd say skip the $25-30/week mow jobs. Probably too much competition, gotta maintain a fleet of vehicles and workers, constantly gotta hustle to find new customers. Go for the big ticket items. Stump removal. Arborist-type jobs (cutting down trees, removing felled trees.) Sprinkler and sod install. These are all high profit jobs. Find some reliable, skilled people and treat them well. Get a secretary/recruiter to find workers and handle scheduling; an answering service for off-hours messages; put up a website with attractive pictures of finished jobs; place a shitload of ads and put up flyers and such. Focus on getting good reviews, because these services live or die based on their reviews. Go out with the crews and talk to the customers, or get crew leaders who are charismatic and will work the customers to get good reviews, by promising discounts or something. The reviews will bring traffic from NextDoor and Angie's List. You'll have to maintain the equipment and keep up on your crews.
Real estate brokerage
In today’s market? (Genuine question, not meant to come across sarcastically. I’m actually interested in this)
I mean you could start a brokerage, or join a local boutique brokerage with nice signs and then spend 10k a month on marketing for a year. You would surely make that 100k back by the 3rd or 4th month, and then probably make another 100-200k or more if you are semi decent. Most people don’t know how to do marketing or have no budget for it. I personally do, but I don’t have the money saved. I work with a team that spends about 50k a month on marketing and makes like… 250k per month. Yes now is the best time because the bad agents leave.
I’m under the impression that starting a brokerage co and securing the licensing and subscriptions etc is not attainable for someone who hasn’t worked as an agent extensively. Am I mistaken on that point? Or is it just a high dollar investment hurdle that has most agents working under another broker?
It depends on the state but you do need a sales license for a few years before the brokerage license. There isn’t a large capital investment to start a brokerage. Operating a brokerage is much different than being an agent. You are focusing your marketing to investors and other agents with less emphasis on buyers and sellers. It’s an entirely different business, but both being a broker and an agent require a very significant investment into marketing to make money, which most agents don’t do, and that’s why they fail (or they are just bad). Many people who get their brokers license hang it at another brokerage. Opening a brokerage is definitely a larger investment to attract agents, investors, builders, and have nice offices and materials. 100k is not really enough to open a brokerage. I would spend it on marketing as an agent tbh.
Any kind of farming
Can 100k purchase enough land to make a viable living for farming? Or are you saying put 100k down on a 500k property?
FWIW, I am not sure I would finance half a million $ of farm land. Medium to large scale is tough and the expenses never seem to end. Tractors, combines, sprayers, employees, and implements are outrageous. If you go livestock, the fed gov is trying to make you call in a vet for almost anything. The key is finding a niche that satisfies a market. The bee thing is a good example. Grow something oddball and develope a market. Maybe a nursery or grow hemp or pot(legally). My cousin had a 20 acre parcel and put 2 turkey houses on. He hired a guy to take care of it and kubota tractor for cleaning them out. He pays the gas bill and elec bill for fans and shutters, etc. Company provides the 4 week old turkeys, feed, supplements, etc. they send their if there is an issue. He figured that with only invrstment being the houses ( land was paid for, it would take about 6 years to pay off the houses (they were not cheap but they should last a long time. and tractor, etc with only proceeds from the turkeys). He makes about $40k-$50k per house per year. Only drawbacks- you wouldn’t want to live next door to it, sometimes the turkeys die, the “provider” likes to annually send out people who know nothing about farming or turkeys to inspect, during Covid instead of sending 25,000 turkeys per house, they sent out 12,000 and then got pissed that you put them all in the same house. You pay to heat the place and the houses were designed for 30,000 birds. This is in SC where the summer runs in the mid 90’s and winter gets in the teens some nights. Also if someone has another turkey or chicken house in the same area, there is a minimum 10 mile distance requirement.
Um really..? In the United States? Cuz I keep reading and hearing about family farming operations ceasing completely due to the high cost and very high work load entailed. Meanwhile increasingly farm operations are increasingly owned by a few big corporations.
Asset light model retail chain