Trendy startups capture all of the spotlight, but chances are you can make more money with a boring local business. A commercial cleaning business owner recently made that claim, saying his cleaning business became profitable within 18 months and paid him more than the ‘cool’ startup he started a few years earlier.
That ‘cool’ startup bombed. Sure, it was flashy and fun, but it didn’t pay the bills. The post got a lot of traction on Reddit, where other entrepreneurs shared similar experiences.
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You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or do something revolutionary to make a full-time income. One of the top comments came from an entrepreneur who suggested business ideas like “corks for wine bottles, light switches, or foldable chairs.”
Finding things people need in their daily lives can open a goldmine as people chase the hottest trends. Someone said that a friend’s cousin makes a fortune with wired hangers for dry cleaners. The family gets flown into Las Vegas on a private jet and gets a week-long gambling spree.
One Redditor suggested that you can get into those types of businesses by sourcing suppliers and targeting bulk buyers. Another Redditor knows a billionaire friend who sells toothpicks and chopsticks. This billionaire owns most of Shibuya.
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You don’t have to convince someone that they need to buy some clothing, consumer goods, and other essentials. These products don’t need hype or flashy ads to generate sales. You just have to get in front of customers, and some of them will proceed to buy the product for years, if not decades.
“Quietly racking up steady sales on everyday stuff is wildly underrated,” one Redditor said.
You don’t have to consider boring needs that consumers have. Some local businesses service other businesses and generate lofty profits in the process.
“I run a local courier business,” one commenter said. “We pick things up at A and put them down at B. Nothing sexy. It is extremely profitable.”
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You can discover business ideas by researching and seeing what other people are doing, but you can also discover boring, profitable ideas by speaking with people.