Starting or purchasing a business can be one of the best or worst decisions of your life. American entrepreneur and financial blogger, Codie Sanchez, introduced 9 types of businesses and their related real data on her media channel to demonstrate whether the business can make you rich or bankrupt.
She categorizes these businesses from high to low as: S, A, B, C, D, F.
Building on the previous article:
Starting a business doesn’t always have to be from scratch. These small businesses can also make you rich (Part One).
The previous article introduced e-commerce, landscaping, laundry shop, digital marketing, and painting businesses. Let’s continue to introduce the remaining 4 types of businesses.
Car washing is not rocket science. You can start making money by visiting a store, buying a bucket, sponge, towel, car wash detergent, and foam sprayer. Knock on doors in neighborhoods where there are nice cars parked. Fancy car owners are often those who don’t want to see their beloved car dirty.
Currently, the market price for hand car washing ranges from $30 to $60. Deep cleaning the entire interior costs between $100 to $300. In upscale neighborhoods, you can charge higher fees. Initially, you can work solo. Serving 5 to 8 cars a day can earn you between $150 to $480. If you work every day for a month, your monthly income could be nearly $15,000. This income is solely based on your hard work.
A smarter approach is to visit office buildings, utilize existing water sources, and clean a large number of vehicles for office workers. However, there is a limit to the profitability of a mobile car wash business. The number of cars one person can wash is limited unless you can build a team.
To establish a scalable business, it’s best to have a fixed location, such as a tunnel car wash station equipped with automated systems. However, this requires a significant investment. It may cost around $500,000 to $1 million.
If you don’t have that much money on hand, don’t worry. The way to purchase a small business is not limited to cash only. You can obtain ownership through seller financing, angel investors, deferred payment agreements, revenue sharing, and sweat equity.
Sanchez rates the car washing business as a B-grade. It is one of the easiest businesses to start but also one of the hardest to scale and grow. So before buying sponges, clarify the type of business model you want to build. Different business models can yield profits ranging from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
In this era where everyone rushes to become an internet celebrity, earning money through self-media is not easy. Sanchez states that most people underestimate how much effort it takes, while the returns are minimal.
Currently, for YouTube videos, creators earn between $3 to $20 per thousand views. Financial and business content like Sanchez’s falls at the high end of the range ($15–$20), while gaming and prank content fall at the lower end ($3–$4). Therefore, if a single video gets 100,000 views, the revenue could range from $300 to $2,000.
In 2024, Sanchez’s channel had nearly 630,000 subscribers (now over 2 million) and over 120 million views. However, her YouTube revenue was only about $360,000, while her costs were $1.2 million. She admits that even at her highest income point, she was still losing money, but fortunately, she had many other businesses. The real profit in content creation comes from advertising partnerships, sponsorships, digital products, memberships, physical products, and speaking engagements.
Sanchez’s subscriber count and views were accumulated over several years. For most people, this scenario would not happen in their first month, sixth month, or even the first year of starting a channel. Moreover, Sanchez has a team obsessed with studying algorithms, building a real business around content creation. Most channel creators don’t reach the $360,000 income mark; that’s why many give up.
Just building an audience worth monetizing can take 1 to 3 years for most individuals. While there are exceptions, such as a few TikTok influencers who gained rapid fame, Sanchez reveals that through private gatherings, she learned that their income is far lower than you might imagine.
Another issue, similar to e-commerce mentioned earlier, is that your audience primarily resides on tech giants’ platforms, and they could cut off your exposure channels overnight with a slight policy change. Consequently, Sanchez rates self-media content creation as a D-grade. She encourages everyone to focus on creating a real product and producing content around it, rather than trying to make money solely through content. Otherwise, you are just building an extremely time-consuming and costly hobby.
Sanchez mentioned she hates stopping to refuel because it disrupts her rhythm and schedule, believing many others feel the same way.
Two entrepreneurs noticed this issue and provided a solution, earning a significant amount of money. Korey McDavid and Caroline McDavid founded a mobile refueling station called Juiced Fuel. You open an app, submit a refueling request, and someone drives to your parked car to fill up your tank.
Yes, you need to pay a higher “convenience fee” than a gas station. However, this is a service for wealthy individuals who are willing to pay to save time. It’s around $15, but for them, this is a small price compared to their hourly earnings. In the second year, Korey and Caroline achieved revenue of $385,000. By the third year, their income exceeded a million dollars. Today, their company’s business has expanded to on-site refueling services for commercial fleets, boats, large trucks, and heavy machinery. In this almost competition-free market, they are undoubtedly winners.
However, there are many things to consider. You can’t just open with two gas cans and a little determination. You need a certified vehicle, hazardous materials transportation permits, and compliance permits according to specific state regulations. Korey and Caroline’s initial investment was approximately $80,000, and most of the funding went towards compliance procedures before servicing their first customer.
However, this barrier itself is also an opportunity. The permits that make starting a business difficult are also the barrier that excludes other competitors. As long as you handle compliance correctly, you might be able to create a unique business that other competitors are too lazy to imitate. Sanchez believes this is a very promising business, but the high startup cost is why it is classified as a C-grade.
Sanchez deems this an S-grade excellent business. According to dropcurb.com, since most US cities only provide large trash removal services every 2 to 8 weeks, and Americans produce garbage at a faster rate than municipal services can handle, there is a very strong demand for waste removal services.
There are two ways to start a waste/garbage removal business. The first method is one-time doorstep collection. For instance, when someone moves, a restaurant closes, or a house is under renovation, there is a pile of waste, and this is where you come in. Charges range from $200 to $600 per job. For larger projects or commercial locations, fees could be higher.
You would need a truck, but you don’t have to buy one; you can rent one for around $100 a day. You need some gloves, tie-down straps, and strong arms. Within a day, you could make some pocket money. This is a great starting point, especially if you are a motivated young person.
According to KMF Business Advisors, a well-operated individual business can have annual owner earnings of $90,000 to $150,000. For a business with two trucks, earnings could reach $250,000 to $400,000.
However, the actual situation may be more complex. An operator on the Reddit platform described waste removal as “a very difficult business to develop and expand,” requiring much more effort than most people anticipate. A business that had been operating for eight months reported a monthly income of only $2,500, showing that early business growth is not guaranteed. Profitability depends on the cost of acquiring each customer and the efficiency of managing waste disposal costs.
The second business model is periodic garbage removal services. People are dissatisfied with existing residential trash removal services, and you can provide them with a new option. The initial investment will be higher because you have to buy a dedicated truck, but this business can be scaled. Through residential subscription services, you can charge $30 to $70 per household per month. A medium-sized garbage truck can serve about 1,500 households, bringing in approximately $60,000 in monthly revenue. Of course, you need to factor in truck maintenance, fuel costs, and waste disposal fees.
Both of these models have their advantages. They are recession-resistant—when the economy is low, trash doesn’t disappear into thin air. Besides needing a truck and driving skills, the entrepreneurial threshold is low. Moreover, garbage disposal can provide steady income. The downsides are high physical exertion, unpleasant odors, and equipment costs.
This article represents the author’s opinions and claims and is intended for general informational purposes only, with no intent for recommendations or solicitation. Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, real estate planning, or other personal finance advice. Epoch Times does not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the article’s content.