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Steve and Tyler have both learned so much from actually starting businesses, rather than just learning about starting businesses. So if you want to start one yourself, how should you begin?
This episode goes through some business ideas that need varying levels of skill and varying amounts of capital. Maybe one will spark an idea for you and inspire you to try something of your own.
Links:
- (00:01) - Steve buys a battery pack and Tyler buys some lightswitches
- (04:53) - Starting a side gig with limited capital
- (08:53) - Under $1000: pet sitting, personal shopping, music instruction, language translation, content creation
- (13:23) - Coaching
- (16:03) - Tax preparation
- (17:18) - Are these numbers bare minimums?
- (18:35) - Other interesting finds: medical claims billing, car detailing, lawn care, pressure washing, home cleaning, vending
- (22:17) - Home cleaning on YouTube
- (24:02) - Vending machine businesses
- (27:43) - Risk, capital, and experience
Links:
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Steve Nay:
Steve Nay:
Tyler Smith:
Creators & Guests
What is It's Not About The Money?
Solopreneurs and small business owners: learn about leadership, operations, entrepreneurship, productivity, taxes, client creation, marketing, bookkeeping, and more.
Side hustles to start with minimal capital
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[00:00:00] Steve:
Steve buys a battery pack and Tyler buys some lightswitches
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[00:00:01] Steve: Hey Tyler, you remember, uh, I don't know, a couple of months ago, I told you about how I was having trouble charging my phone sometimes because the cable wouldn't stay in there if I bumped it. Yeah. And then I got a, I got a toothpick and cleaned out the lint and then magically it worked. And so I decided not to buy the MagSafe charger battery pack thing.
[00:00:23] Tyler: Oh that's right, you had your eye on the MagSafe charger as like a very cool solution to this problem of not being able to charge your phone
[00:00:30] Steve: Right. And I even went to YNAB and was like, could I afford this? Well, yes, I could if I wanted to, but I won't because the toothpick is free. And that fixed the problem. But, but, but I think I had it just sitting in my cart in the like, save for later section just so I can watch the price. Because sometimes it goes on sale or whatever.
I did finally buy it and it's great.
[00:00:53] Tyler: you got the MagSafe charger!
[00:00:55] Steve: I got it. So that's my, that's my battery pack in my backpack now when I'm out and about.
[00:01:02] Tyler: I love that. That makes me feel a lot better because I think when we talked about that on our podcast, I asked you, you know, sometimes when you find a simple solution that doesn't require buying a fun thing to solve the problem, is that kind of disappointing to you sometimes? Cause you kind of wanted to buy the fun
[00:01:19] Steve: Uh huh. It is. Yes.
[00:01:21] Tyler: Yeah. And so you bought the fun thing anyway. I love it. I love it. I had a similar, uh, what shall we say? Escalation today in my own life of like, basically I was trying to solve a very particular, very tiny problem in my life and ended up spending a lot more money buying fun things than I expected to, I've, I've got a, I've got a linen closet that's in the middle of a long hallway in my house.
And it's far away from any light switches. So often when I go to the linen closet to like get Tylenol or something or a towel or whatever, it's, it's dark. I can't really see what's in there. And it's like, I'm not going to walk 10 feet to the light switch. So I just like pull out my phone and use my flashlight on my phone to look around in there.
So I was like, what if I got one of those little cheap, like 5 to 8 lights that you stick on your wall, they're motion activated, put a battery in there. So when I opened my linen closet, it's just lit up enough so I can see what I'm doing and I'll solve this little problem for myself.
[00:02:21] Steve: you go.
[00:02:22] Tyler: So I did.
[00:02:24] Steve: Great.
[00:02:24] Tyler: while I was shopping around on Amazon, I, uh, from years and years and years ago, I've had a bunch of Philips Hue light bulbs,
[00:02:31] Steve: Yeah,
[00:02:31] Tyler: uh, in my house.
And I've got a bunch of them that I don't use anymore because I've moved house and things like that.
[00:02:36] Steve: those are the ones where, like, you, uh, leave the light switch on and then you can control it with your phone or Alexa or something and tell it to turn the lights on and off wirelessly.
[00:02:48] Tyler: So for all the investment that those companies put into their virtual assistants, I literally only use them to control my lights and turn my lights on and off.
[00:02:56] Steve: Uh huh.
[00:02:57] Tyler: they're good for that. Anyway, I saw that Hue makes a motion sensor, but it's like 40 bucks. It's like not. You know, it's, it's not cheap, uh, compared to the little stick on the wall, cheap lights, but since I had the extra light bulbs, I'm like, Oh.
Well, I have the same problem in my coat closet in my entryway and in my pantry. Well, not really This is what I'm saying. Like it wasn't really I I went down the rabbit hole, right? So pretty soon I'd bought two of these. Yeah
[00:03:23] Steve: and those ones do have hardwired lights already in them with light switches, right?
[00:03:28] Tyler: The pantry does the coat closet does not oh, I'm sorry. I'm at the utility room another cloak not the coat
closet So yeah, both of them have regular light bulbs So I replaced the regular light bulbs with the extra Hue bulbs that I had from years ago And I bought a couple motion sensors. So now when I go into my pantry It will light up and when I leave my pantry, it will turn off the light.
Um,
[00:03:51] Steve: Well, that's fun.
[00:03:52] Tyler: was not a real problem four hours ago, but thanks to Amazon, I've actually, I just got the package, like the motion sensors are here and I am $80 poorer and this better be worth it . So here's to buying fun solutions to tiny problems.
[00:04:09] Steve: Well, I, I hope they turn out to be fun. That sounds kind of delightful. Just like the house is catering to you, its owner. You walk in the pantry, the lights turn on by themselves.
[00:04:22] Tyler: That's right, Yes. And I hope you enjoy your MagSafe charger too.
[00:04:26] Steve: Thank you.
Well, hello there, dear listener. I am Steve.
[00:04:35] Tyler: And I'm Tyler, and this is another episode of It's Not About The Money, where we discuss a wide range of topics related to creating and running small businesses.
[00:04:43] Steve: Tyler and I are both small business owners, like you perhaps, and this podcast is our attempt to make sense of the world one episode at a time.
Starting a side gig with limited capital
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[00:04:53] Tyler: So Steve, one of the most incredible things to me about the last episode that we recorded. Is the amount of learning that was happening in real time during our conversation, at least for me. And one of the things that I realized is I am actually really quite ignorant about how to run a small business because we were talking about our experiences doing it.
I was like, Oh, there's a lot that I don't know. And a lot of my ignorance kind of like was made manifest to me throughout the conversation. And I was. Really taking notes on like some of the things that my takeaways from it. It occurred to me that even though I've watched a lot of YouTube videos, read a lot of books, you know, listened to a lot of podcasts about entrepreneurship and like small business.
So I kind of felt like well versed in the topic. I'm like, Oh, I know what a small business is and roughly how it works and what I would do if I started one. Right. But, uh, there's something extremely different about doing it yourself. And it's very visceral. And I feel like you and I are learning things by doing it ourselves that we never could have known any other way.
And so we thought in this episode, uh, we would talk about some business ideas that people have started that you or anybody else could start if you wanted to start getting that like firsthand experience, like just get your hands dirty and try and start learning about it through experience instead of just listening to other people talk about their experiences.
[00:06:12] Steve: Right. I agree with that. There's, there's just something about doing it. It's just very different from hearing people talk about it, including us here in your earbuds, talking to you, uh, us talking about it, you know, if you go out and try one of these things. So the point here is not to say like, here, try one of these particular things.
Like it's, it's, uh, this is just a list of ideas and. They have different capital requirements, different experience and skill requirements, but just to like run through this and see, does this spark any ideas or is there something here that I'm really good at that, uh, Oh, I'd never thought about turning that into a business or.
I just want to learn what it is like to be a business owner. What's a easy way to get started where I already have some leverage in my skill or my time or capital, whatever it might be.
[00:07:06] Tyler: Yeah, that's right. So let's go ahead and dive into the list. What do you think?
[00:07:10] Steve: Yeah, let's do it. We'll put the link to it in the show notes so you could follow along.
[00:07:15] Tyler: And I like that they've broken the list into different... categories. So they've got businesses you can start for under 10, 000, under 7, 000, under 2, 000, and under 1, 000. I noticed that both of our businesses are on this list,
[00:07:29] Steve: they are, yeah, I was a little surprised.
[00:07:31] Tyler: and I wonder if we've started them for these amounts.
[00:07:35] Steve: Uh, one theme that I noticed, uh, among these is as you start at the low end, they tend to be service businesses where like you may not need anything, just some skills or just, uh, existing or doing something. You may not even need any training for these. And then, as the capital requirements become more intensive, like, there's a food truck on here, a flower truck, a vending machine business.
Uh, on the high end, at the 10K level, that that's where you need like fixed assets, you have to like buy some things to get the business going. And those are a little more risky as well, because you're, you're investing all this money into a thing, and then you've still got to run the business in order to make that successful.
And that will depend on how well you execute. Where the, at the low end, starting on services. If you work hard, you can start making money pretty quickly at less risk to your capital. So anyway, that was kind of interesting.
[00:08:37] Tyler: Yeah, so a lot of the businesses that you can start for little to no money are perhaps low on the skill requirements and higher on the time requirements, just as a general rule. And then it kind of goes up from there. That's interesting.
Under $1000: pet sitting, personal shopping, music instruction, language translation, content creation
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[00:08:53] Tyler: So can we talk about a couple that are sticking out to me in the under 1, 000 range? And some of these, to your point, I don't know if I'd consider them as much businesses as basically just being a contractor, but, but the one that stuck out to me immediately was pet sitting, specifically dog sitting, because I have a dog and I patronize one of these services. And I think if you're the kind of person that, uh, loves.
Dogs or pets. That's actually a really nice way to make some extra money.
[00:09:23] Steve: Hmm.
[00:09:24] Tyler: I should say, if you like dogs or pets enough to deal with other people's dogs or pets, which I'm not sure that I would like to do, but I'm grateful that there are people out there that do like to do that. And I don't mind paying them to help me out when I need to leave town.
[00:09:39] Steve: Right. I don't think I'm one of those either. We just recently finished fostering a dog for the, this rescue. That's where we got our dog from and we fostered one for about a month, uh, and you know, it was fine, but I don't, didn't enjoy the process as much as some people probably do who really love dogs. I don't know.
Ask me again in a month. I might have a different opinion, but
[00:10:05] Tyler: And you might have a different dog.
[00:10:07] Steve: And different dog.
Pet sitting.
[00:10:09] Tyler: Or another, another foster dog.
[00:10:11] Steve: Another foster. Yeah. It's quite possible. Personal shopping. I didn't realize that was the thing actually until I read this.
[00:10:20] Tyler: Yeah. That, I mean, Instacart comes to mind and similar
[00:10:23] Steve: that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I've heard of those.
[00:10:27] Tyler: So you could start there. You could also develop your own clientele, but that sounds a little more involved.
[00:10:32] Steve: Mm hmm.
[00:10:33] Tyler: Not necessarily from a cost perspective, right? I mean, but you're organizing and structuring your own business and finding your own clients as opposed to being part of an existing marketplace, I guess.
[00:10:44] Steve: Right.
[00:10:45] Tyler: Uh, music instruction. That's one I've done personally. When I was in high school, I taught violin lessons, both in a group setting and private one on one. That's
[00:10:54] Steve: Oh, nice. Yeah. My wife is a piano teacher, so
[00:10:58] Tyler: a
great one. If you've got that skill.
[00:11:01] Steve: Yeah. Great. Oh, online translating. That's kind of up your alley. Folks that you work with are...
[00:11:09] Tyler: That's interesting. That that's on here. It's tough these days, right? With the, you know, machine translation has been around for a long, long time. As early as the seventies and it just keeps getting better and better. And now with generative AI there, I think the opportunities for online translation at the lower end, like the entry level are getting sparser.
That's just my opinion and maybe observation from my career. But nonetheless, uh, I do work with many freelance translators who have great careers and great income. So it's definitely possible, but I'm going to go with that as being a high skilled job if you want to make good money these days.
[00:11:46] Steve: That makes sense. And the, this list does a, it's got two axes. One is the amount of capital you need to start with. The other is the skill level that you have to have to be successful at this kind of a
[00:12:00] Tyler: Oh, good.
Yeah.
[00:12:02] Steve: And online translating says advanced skill level needed. So that makes sense. But yeah, I found it interesting that the, they don't mention large language models like chatGPT in, uh, in the ones of these that I read closely.
Online translating doesn't mention machine translation at all. Content creation doesn't talk about chatGPT, which I can imagine would be a big part of it. If you're just writing copy, marketing copy for freelance clients, starting with a draft from
chatGPT is. Uh, is very helpful in your velocity.
[00:12:41] Tyler: Yeah. It's interesting in the translation world since the advent of machine translation, there's been an activity referred to as machine translation post editing, where you are basically just editing the output of machine translation. And now we're seeing that in like source language, right? So with what you're talking about with generative AI. I think it's a different skill set. Writing from scratch is a different skill set than editing,
and and that is possibly even a different skill set from editing the output of a large language model as opposed to the output of a human.
[00:13:16] Steve: Oh, interesting.
[00:13:17] Tyler: Potentially, yeah. So, it's, yeah, yeah, very interesting time to be in the content business.
Coaching
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[00:13:23] Steve: So you mentioned that coaching is on here. It's in a couple of places, actually. There's, there's life coaching that says under 7, 000, there's small business coaching that's under 2000. Uh, I'm curious what you think of those figures on a, on the last episode, we talked about how much you've actually invested and I think it's, it's in that neighborhood, right?
[00:13:46] Tyler: Yeah, it's a little over 7, 000. Um, I also talked about how a giant chunk of that, like almost half. Was not necessary. And maybe I shouldn't have invested, but that you can go listen to that episode to hear more about that. So yes, definitely under 7, 000. I would say under 2, 000, uh, really to get started.
Uh, there are, are coaches that I've listened to who say, all you really need is a, a Zoom account, right? And that's it. That's very low, very low cost. And then you just find your first clients through friends and family and networking and go from there.
[00:14:23] Steve: Zoom and a Rolodex.
[00:14:26] Tyler: Zoom and Rolodex. Yep.
[00:14:27] Steve: There you go. Okay.
[00:14:30] Tyler: Of course, uh, the reason I think life coaching is on here for under 7, 000 is because, uh, there are a lot of organizations out there willing to offer certifications and training for life coaches. Coaching is an unregulated industry, right? Like you don't need to do, you could just declare yourself a coach and boom, off to the races.
[00:14:49] Steve: That was my next question. Are there licenses or certifications that you have to have or should have or clients would expect you to have or
[00:14:59] Tyler: it depends on the kind of coaching. Honestly. So for like hardcore life coaching, yeah, there's a plethora of options out there. Um, for executive or business coaches, there are still other organizations that you might look to for certifications, mostly to lend legitimacy, you know, to your operation, I would say.
Um, also there's some skills that you learn in those courses. Personally, since I'm in the personal finance coaching space, I did pursue a certification, uh, from a company called You Need a Budget. Which is more geared towards how to coach people on their particular methodology, but really, is more than enough to have gotten me started off on my path.
[00:15:40] Steve: Okay. That makes sense.
[00:15:41] Tyler: And that, if anyone was interested, that was, that was on the lower end of costs for coaching certifications. It was about 500.
[00:15:48] Steve: okay. And I'm sure there are plenty out there that are
[00:15:52] Tyler: Sky's the limit. Yes. Sky's the limit.
[00:15:57] Steve: Okay, so depending on what kind of coaching you want to go into, that might be worth investigating.
Tax preparation
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[00:16:03] Steve: There are quite a few other things on here that need certification or licensing or whatever. Tax preparation is on here, uh, and it technically does not require any license. You can just hang up your shingle and say, I'm a tax pro. Uh, And so the, the article does not say that is necessary.
It does mention, actually, it doesn't even mention, um, any certifications at all. It says, consider taking online courses on tax preparation, like learn how to do the thing that you're going to do. But anyway, I did, uh, I got an Enrolled Agent credential. So that is, that was,
that was about 2, 000 for that, for me. So if you didn't go get that credential, I don't know. That's under 2000 is possible. I spent more than that, but you could do it for that much. Once you have the, the training and potentially the certification and you have your identification number from the IRS, you can start bringing in revenue as soon as you get clients. So then the tax software and those kinds of things can start to pay for themselves.
[00:17:17] Tyler: Yeah.
Are these numbers bare minimums?
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[00:17:18] Steve: So I don't know. This figure is a little low for tax preparation, but doable.
If that's all you had, you could do it.
[00:17:24] Tyler: Sounds like a minimum, like a bare minimum, but maybe not realistic for, for, uh, more substantial business.
[00:17:32] Steve: Right. So it makes me a little skeptical of the, the rest of these numbers.
[00:17:38] Tyler: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Steve: Not knowing. Like music instruction, for example, if you are teaching piano in your home, you need a piano. If you don't already have a piano, then that would be
[00:17:49] Tyler: That's
[00:17:49] Steve: big cost, potentially much more than 1, 000.
[00:17:53] Tyler: Right. I was also skeptical when you mentioned the, uh, Food truck for being under 10, 000.
I mean, unless it's like, yeah, I mean, I don't know how much the equipment costs, but it seems like it can add up.
[00:18:06] Steve: Uh, yeah, I'm guessing. That you're, you're getting a loan or a lease on the truck. And so,
[00:18:15] Tyler: oh,
[00:18:16] Steve: so the like initial investment in the monthly costs are lower, but I don't know, that's a little hard to say.
[00:18:24] Tyler: Yeah.
[00:18:26] Steve: A food truck though, especially does seem like very capital intensive
and you've got to
[00:18:31] Tyler: say, I wonder how much a deep fryer goes for.
[00:18:34] Steve: yeah,
Other interesting finds: medical claims billing, car detailing, lawn care, pressure washing, home cleaning, vending
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[00:18:35] Steve: some that I found interesting, uh, medical claims billing. I didn't know that that was a freelancer kind of a thing that you could do. That one needs a certification. But I would love to learn more about that. Like what, what goes into that? I had always just kind of assumed that the doctor's office did all that in house, but maybe they don't, maybe they outsource some of it or something. I don't
[00:18:58] Tyler: yeah. I'm not sure. There's something, I wonder if this is referring to what's like the CPT codes that are on all of the procedures and medicines and things that you, you know, there's an organization that publishes a giant book of codes. Everything you could possibly purchase in healthcare has a code and it's somebody's job.
And that might be what this is referring to, to interpret the doctor's notes into those codes. So the insurance company knows what was done and how much to charge you and how much to pay.
[00:19:25] Steve: Okay. And there's probably a lot of industry knowledge of like this insurer will pay for these things. If you code it this way, then you're more likely to get a claim paid out than if you code it this other way, even if both are legitimate.
[00:19:40] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:42] Steve: Okay. Car detailing was another one. It's listed for, what, 5, 000, I think. There's one in my neighborhood, actually. Some folks run it out of their garage. So there's just occasionally a parade of interesting vehicles.
[00:20:00] Tyler: So they do it out of their garage. They're, they're not, they're not a mobile detailing service.
[00:20:06] Steve: No.
[00:20:07] Tyler: Okay.
[00:20:07] Steve: Although I've heard of those as well. But yeah, you just drive up to their house and they'll do it right there on the driveway.
[00:20:16] Tyler: Interesting. Interesting. You know, I gotta say, I'm surprised at some things that are not on this list that I feel like could be really, um, appealing. They're a little bit different, but I was just talking to someone the other day, uh, about the trades. Right? So like electrician and plumbing type, type of work where, you know, you might need to go to trade school for two years, let's call it, do an apprenticeship for a year and a half, two years.
And then you go start your own business. And there's a lot of money in that these days, uh, and a lot of demand and not as much supply, it seems like. I think that could become really lucrative. Although it's four years before, I guess you start owning your own business, so there's that,
[00:21:00] Steve: What, uh, what kind of investment does that require?
[00:21:04] Tyler: I don't know. Unfortunately, I'm sorry, but probably, uh, you know, trade school tuition. I don't know how much that goes for. Um,
[00:21:13] Steve: but yeah,
[00:21:14] Tyler: but I think that's like it basically until you get to the part where you're owning, where you're owning the business, right? Because you're working through that apprenticeship and, and, and learn and learning the trade.
And then it, and then it starts becoming like some of the other businesses that are listed on here, like, uh, lawn care, maybe car detailing, where it's like, at that point, it's just a matter of developing your own clientele, right? Eventually hiring employees, perhaps?
[00:21:40] Steve: yeah, yeah. Interesting that it's not on this list. Cause some of them do like they need licensing or they need some kind of education or you need to already have experience doing this thing so that not all of these, I guess what I'm saying is not all of these ideas are just like something you could go start tomorrow.
[00:21:59] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Steve: Although a lot of them are, so if that's, if that's what you're looking for, there are a bunch of those kinds of ideas on here. Pressure washing makes nice TikToks. Those are
[00:22:13] Tyler: Yes, they do. Genius. Yeah.
Home cleaning on YouTube
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[00:22:17] Tyler: You know, another, another idea that's not on here is, uh, and this is something my brother in law's sister actually does, is she cleans people's homes. But not just regular cleaning, like extremely dirty homes where maybe there's like been years of potential hoarding situations or like lack of cleanliness and maintenance over a long period of time, she goes in and she cleans the homes, she does it for free.
But she records it and makes YouTube videos out of it.
[00:22:44] Steve: Oh,
[00:22:44] Tyler: And that's her business. And she's only been doing it, uh, probably about a half a year. I'd have to check and see exactly. But, uh, she's doing very well. So that was a fascinating idea, I thought.
[00:22:55] Steve: And the revenue comes from YouTube advertising, or?
[00:23:00] Tyler: I presume so. Yes. And then also, uh, affiliate marketing.
[00:23:06] Steve: Okay. Fascinating.
[00:23:08] Tyler: Um, I'm, I'm guessing, right. So I haven't talked to her personally about this, but I've talked to my brother in law about, I've watched her videos and it seems like she's done some of those type, you know, here's the cleaner I'm using. You can buy it at this link, that kind of stuff. Um, but yes, also she monetized very quickly.
She's got, like I said, uh, 25, 000 plus subscribers last time I checked and it's been well under a year since she started. So she's doing really well and I think it's just like a cool, brilliant idea.
[00:23:35] Steve: Yeah.
[00:23:36] Tyler: Cause you're providing a great service to people who really, really need it. And there's no way in many cases that they could afford it,
[00:23:42] Steve: Mm hmm.
[00:23:44] Tyler: providing that to them for free and monetizing it through these other ways.
And she also like does a nice job telling the people's stories and like, uh, in a really touching way. You know, like here's the struggles that they face in their life and here's. You know, how are we able to help them out? So it's nice.
[00:23:58] Steve: That's very interesting.
[00:23:59] Tyler: It seems like a win win.
[00:24:00] Steve: Yeah. It
Vending machine businesses
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[00:24:02] Steve: is. Uh, another one I thought was interesting on here is, uh, vending machine business, which I, I know you have a little bit of knowledge about that. This is like proposing that you go buy a machine. Uh, either new or used, and then go find a place for it.
[00:24:19] Tyler: Yep.
[00:24:20] Steve: Is that how they work? Like you, you own the machines and then the, the place where you put it just lets you put it there, or is there like a contract with,
[00:24:29] Tyler: You should probably have a contract that that would be like the more official way to do it. But yeah, pretty much you buy the machine, you stock the machine or hire someone to keep the machine stocked. And then it's just a matter of finding a location that wants you to have that vending machine placed there as a service to like, typically their clients or patrons, like if it's the break room in an office building, like they want to provide vending machines for their employees.
So they basically just like let you, because it's nice for them to be able to provide that service to the people who frequent that location and you pay for the machine and the snacks and everything, and then, you know. You get the money from it, I guess. Although I have heard, you know, depending on the location, like a lot of the people that I've talked to in the vending business, uh, do not pay for their locations because it's like mutually beneficial to the owner of the building and them.
But that is the thing that can happen, you know, renting space for your vending machine.
[00:25:23] Steve: Okay. Does it ever go kind of the other way where you're sharing the revenue with the host location?
[00:25:29] Tyler: Ooh, I don't know. I haven't got, so I, you mentioned that I have some knowledge about this. Not much. I investigated, I had the opportunity to potentially bid on purchasing a vending machine business, an existing one, and I did not do it. So all I really know is like what I did, what I learned during the research phase of that process.
So,
[00:25:51] Steve: Okay. Well, which is more research than I've done. And I find it fascinating every time you talk about it. So
[00:25:56] Tyler: Yeah, I mean, it seems like, like, look, if you have a solid route of machines that are in high traffic places and, you know, are selling regularly, it really, I mean, there's a reason it's a popular business. It's, uh, you can really do well. And I've watched people on YouTube. Sorry. I know this is like, I don't know how close to real life YouTube is, but, but that started this way just by a few.
One to five vending machines on their own, used ones, right? For a lower cost. Selling soda pop, snacks, a few locations, and then scale from there. And of course you've got giant nationwide vending companies. You've got the whole gamut, the whole spectrum of sizes and complexities there.
[00:26:37] Steve: yeah, that's interesting. That's another one that's capital intensive. It's on the high end of this list.
[00:26:44] Tyler: Yep. And if you're starting all the way from scratch, you're going to have to put in money, you know, it's going to take a while to earn back your investment, your initial investment.
[00:26:54] Steve: Oh yeah.
[00:26:55] Tyler: But if you choose a good location, the revenue starts right away almost. Right. So that's good. So choose your locations wisely. And that, and that, and that's, you know, competitive. I think, uh, the, the way to win at that is as I understand it, hustle, right? So knocking doors, finding good opportunities, finding new buildings, offices, uh, where you can put these things. The route that I was looking at was pretty awesome. Hey, they'll, you know, there were. There were downsides to it. Like they were pretty spread out. So it would have taken a lot of time to drive around all the locations, but they were in like a hotel, a big hotel, um, an airport. I mean, that sounded like a great location.
[00:27:36] Steve: Yeah.
[00:27:37] Tyler: And a few break rooms at office buildings.
So yeah, you know, almost guaranteed to sell snacks at those places
Risk, capital, and experience
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[00:27:43] Steve: cool. So it seems like there's something on this list that might interest everybody, depending on if you have a lot of capital or you want more of like a risky thing, like domain flipping is on here. Uh, like web domains. So you purchase the web domain and then hold onto it until somebody is willing to pay you a higher price for it than you paid.
Like that one seems really risky and you've got to know the market trends. Like what, what kind of
[00:28:11] Tyler: I don't like those people. I'm just going to say, I'm just kidding, but cause so many domains get snatched
[00:28:16] Steve: I, yeah, I, I wouldn't have the, the constitution to do that one.
[00:28:21] Tyler: Yeah.
[00:28:21] Steve: Uh, but then other ones of them are just like you have some skill and you work hard and you market yourself well. And you can grow that way and everything in between.
[00:28:32] Tyler: Yeah. So I would, I mean, if you're looking to start a business, I might start by looking at a list like this just to get some inspiration, but I would definitely also think long and hard about what you are already kind of good at or have some knowledge about slash enjoy, which is what you and I both did.
[00:28:50] Steve: Yeah.
[00:28:51] Tyler: And it just so happens that the businesses we chose are both on this list, but they very easily could not have been if we were interested in different things. So, there's an element to it of picking something that you're gonna, you feel like you'll be able to stick with, even, you know, when it's not the funnest, because you're enjoying the journey just for the journey's sake.
[00:29:11] Steve: Uh huh. And starting with something that you already have experience with or interest in gives you some leverage as well over folks that may not have that expertise. That gives you a leg up. You can leverage with capital. You can leverage with skills, hustle. So take, as you were saying, take stock of what you have in your arsenal, as far as interests and abilities and capital and time,
So there were some ideas and maybe something, maybe that sparked something for you that you want to try, uh, or maybe not, maybe you have other ideas.
But the point is, it's very useful to go try the thing and learn what it is like to be a business owner. Uh, because I, you know, I and Tyler both have learned things from doing it that we never would have figured out from just reading the books and watching the YouTube videos
[00:30:14] Tyler: And listening to the podcasts.
[00:30:15] Steve: to the podcast.
Yeah. Lots and lots of podcasts. Probably half of my podcast consumption is like business related things. But, uh, but a big part of that now is like, I'm doing it. So like, Oh, I understand why you're talking about this. And now I know how to apply this topic because I have this problem, whatever it is, and now here's, here's an idea for me to go try.
[00:30:36] Tyler: All right. Thanks for joining us on this episode and we'll see you again on another episode of It's Not About The Money..