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From Zero to Side Hustle
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“Want to work this weekend?”
🕰️ In Groundhog Day, Phil Connors lives the same February day over and over until he stops fighting it and starts getting good at it. Piano lessons. Ice sculpture. Knowing exactly when the kid falls from the tree.
The day never changes. He does, one repetition at a time.
That is most of what we see in the businesses we cover. The first week looks a lot like the hundredth from the outside.
The difference is someone kept doing the plain thing, noticed what worked, and did a little more of it tomorrow.
Cheers to Friday!
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First Up, Our Sponsor
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Bins, Bales And A Depop Shop
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Shoppers on Depop, a resale app popular with younger buyers, pay for vintage clothes someone else already found, washed and photographed. They don't want to dig through a warehouse bin for one good jacket.
Goodwill's outlet stores sell what didn't move on the regular racks, unsorted, for $1.49 to $1.99 a pound.
That's the gap: buyers want the one great piece, and the bins only sell it buried in a pound of everything else.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
Buy by the pound, sell by the piece. For steadier supply, LA Vintage sells a 100-pound bale of vintage tees for $800. Depop charges US sellers only 3.3% plus 45 cents in payment processing.
The business makes money from the finds. But it grows from the misses, which go out in bulk on Whatnot live auctions.
►Josefina Beto runs the Depop shop Girlfriend Material in San Francisco, sourcing much of it at Goodwill's by-the-pound warehouse. She paid $50 for four pairs of vintage Italian leather boots and sold them for $1,000 combined. Her edge, she says, is being a reliable seller.
Zooming out: the pound price is the same for junk and gems, so your eye is the whole margin.
Think: denim, workwear, band tees, flannel.
🥢The winners will be sellers who list daily. Jacksonville's Brooke Austell pays $1 to $6 a piece and books up to $1,000 on a good week. Her rule: five to 10 items a day beats 30 at once.
🍜 The risk is your hourly rate. The Underpriced guide tracked a $100 box that made $125 profit for about 10 hours of sorting, photos and shipping, about $12.50 an hour. You get faster, but the hours are real.
You might also like ⇢ Two Iowa High Schoolers Working The Goodwill Bins, $620 In One Week
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What's your take?
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Tech Support Now Makes House Calls For Grandparents
Tech help used to mean a grandkid at Thanksgiving. Now older adults and their grown kids pay someone to come to the house and set up the phone, the TV and the video doorbell.
The devices got there first. AARP's latest survey found 90% of adults over 50 own a smartphone, and about half use a smart-home device. Three in five say the tech isn't designed with their age in mind. The relative who used to fix it often lives two states away.
The money is real. Papa, which sends helpers into older adults' homes for chores, rides and tech help, was valued at $1.4 billion, paid by health plans. The best-known tech service for older adults, Candoo Tech, works remote only. In Columbus, Suzy's Helping Hands shows up in person for $65 to $85 an hour.
Where the trend branches next:
Grown children far away who prepay a monthly visit for a parent
Senior living communities that book a weekly help hour in the lobby
Safety setups: video doorbells, fall-alert watches, medication reminders
Downsizing moves, where photos, accounts and devices all come along
► The steady money is the in-person visit, because the national players mostly help over the phone.
If you try this, offer three free setup sessions at a senior center or church, then charge by the hour and ask each family for one referral.
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Hungry yet?
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Enough talk. Go cook.
That's the plate. Reply and tell us the best thing you ever pulled out of a bin. Forward this to the friend who can't walk past a thrift store without going in. See you Monday.
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