$600 Drone Service HOAs Are Begging For

🚀 From zero to side hustle. New year, same hustle. This is The Ramen Hustle, your guide to building income streams that actually work. No venture capital required. Just grit, a laptop, and the willingness to start.

IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Want to feature your side hustle in an upcoming newsletter? Click here

——— Let’s go! ■□□□□□ ———

FRESH IDEA

HOA boards hate climbing on roofs. They hate paying contractors $2,000 to inspect 47 properties even more. That's your opening.

A DJI Mini 4 Pro runs about $760. Add the FAA Part 107 certification—a 60-question multiple-choice test you can prep for in a weekend—and you're operational for under $1,000. The service is straightforward: fly over each property, capture high-res photos of roofs, gutters, fences, and common areas, then deliver a clean report the board can actually use. Inspection pricing typically lands between $300 and $1,200 per site, depending on community size and deliverables. Most HOAs need quarterly flyovers. Lock in five communities at $2,400/year each and you're pulling $12,000 annually from relationships you built once.

The real leverage? What you're not doing. You're not climbing ladders. You're not scheduling around homeowner availability. You're not spending three hours walking a property you can scan in twenty minutes. According to HOA Commercial Construction, combining drone flyovers with selective manual inspections lets operators cover more ground while delivering more detailed reports than traditional methods alone. Companies like Drone Inspection Pros in Arizona have built entire businesses around this model—averaging 300 homes per hour using automated flight missions and AI-powered compliance software.

Property management companies are the gateway. They manage multiple communities and hate coordinating physical inspections. One relationship can unlock ten+ communities.

Alex Herman's story is instructive. After leaving an accountancy career, he started Full View Limited doing roof and building inspections. His insight: "We have got to be educators for this technology. Businesses and individuals don't yet know the benefits of using a drone." That education gap is your sales advantage.

——— ■■□□□□ ———

CASE STUDY

Rob Stephenson started flipping NordicTrack ski machines at 16—buying them for $15, selling them for a few hundred bucks. By the time he married Melissa, flipping was pulling in $42,000 per year as a side hustle, working just 5-15 hours weekly. Then his employer cut health insurance. With their third child on the way, they went full-time.

First year: $133,000 in sales. The math behind their operation is straightforward. They source from flea markets, estate sales, and literal dumpsters. One monthly income report showed $12,220 profit from 21 eBay transactions—including a prosthetic foot bought for $2.50 and sold for $200. Their best documented flip: a free chair pulled from the trash that they parlayed into $103,000 worth of inventory through continuous reinvestment.

The model works because overhead is nearly zero. No storefront. No employees. eBay takes 10%, PayPal takes 2.9%, and shipping runs about $5K annually. After expenses, their 2019 flipping profit hit $62,075—higher than median US household income—on roughly 20 hours per week.

——— ■■■□□□ ———

Want to manage and monetize your content to the fullest in 2026?

Join Forrester Research and media execs with experience spanning ESPN, Comcast, and Disney on January 14, 2026, at 10am PT/1pm ET.

Get actionable insights and perspectives from the leaders who built and transformed top media and entertainment organizations.

Register today

——— Keep going ■■■■□□———

STEAL THIS

Every morning before checking email, write down three things: what you're grateful for, what would make today great, and the one task that moves your business forward if nothing else gets done. This isn't woo-woo journaling. It's priority filtering.

The gratitude piece prevents the scarcity mindset that makes entrepreneurs chase every shiny object. The single priority task eliminates the paralysis of a 47-item to-do list. James Clear talks about this in his habits research. The five minutes you spend here saves hours of reactive decision-making throughout the day.

The template is dead simple. Grab any notebook or use the Bullet Journal method if you want structure. Date at the top, three prompts, done. Most people fail because they overcomplicate it. The value comes from daily repetition, not the format.

KNOWLEDGE DROP

First mistake: building before selling. CB Insights analyzed 101 failed startups and found 42% failed because there was no market need. People spend weeks perfecting websites and logos—none of which generates money. The hustles that survive prioritize getting paid over getting ready.

Second mistake: choosing complexity over speed. A 20-service menu sounds impressive but multiplies your learning curve and operational headaches. An Intuit survey found the biggest obstacle for side hustlers isn't competition or funding—it's time, cited by 44% of respondents. Simplicity isn't a limitation. It's a survival strategy.

Third mistake: going solo. The SBA reports that businesses with mentors have a 70% five-year survival rate—double the rate of non-mentored businesses. Yet most side hustlers grind alone, burning out in isolation. Survey data shows 67% of side hustlers report burnout from juggling their 9-to-5, family, and hustle.

The counter-strategy: Make money in week one, even if it's $50. Offer exactly one service until you're booked consistently. Find two people working on similar hustles and talk to them monthly. According to Intuit, side hustlers who stick with it typically reach profitability within 3-6 months.

READING MATERIAL