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From Zero to Side Hustle
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The internal “heck yeah!” when you impress the boss
🎯 The Price Is Right has been asking people to guess prices since 1972, and contestants still miss badly on everyday stuff. Most of us have no idea what a pallet of mulch or a set of tires costs until we need one.
That gap is where a lot of small businesses live.
Know the price when everyone else is guessing, and you can buy from one crowd and sell fairly to another.
That’s the corner we keep looking for. Come on down.
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First Up, Our Sponsor
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Haul Away The Washer, Then Sell It
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
When a landlord renovates a unit, the old washer and dryer have to go, and hauling them to the dump costs time and money. Most of those machines still work.
Meanwhile about 80% of appliance purchases are replacements. The old one died, and the buyer wants a working one fast.
That's the gap: landlords want old machines gone today, and renters want a working one by tomorrow.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
Tell local property managers: free appliance removal, same day. Take the sets home, test them, fix the easy problems, resell. TakeMyAppliance puts washer and dryer sets at $0 to $150 in and $300 to $500 out.
The business makes money on the resale. But it grows from the haul-away.
►Amber Ericson opened a used appliance shop in Bronson, Kansas, in August 2021, stocked with machines pulled from renovated apartment complexes. By the next spring she had sold 40 appliances, with a one-line return policy: "If they don't work you can bring them back."
Zooming out: the landlord is your supplier and often your next customer. The add-ons pay too.
Mike at Ninja Budgeter made a little over $10,000 in three months, charging $25 to deliver a washer and $50 for a fridge.
🥢The winners will be the people who sign up three or four property managers and keep them. A landlord who renovates every year is a free supply that renews itself, and a buyer when a unit needs a cheap replacement.
🍜 The risk is a machine that dies a week after you sell it. Every set needs a real test, and every return eats margin. Inventory eats your garage too: one $650 fridge in a DealHunter example took 16 days to sell.
You might also like ⇢ The $200 Samsung Fridge That Resold for $650
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What's your take?
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$120 A Month For Garden Upkeep
Who's asking: A homeowner in Healdsburg, California, posting in Craigslist gigs.
For what: Weeding, trimming shrubs, blowing off walkways and clearing leaves, twice a month
Paying: $120 a month, recurring
🎟️ How common is this: The same month, a Chicago landlord with eight walk-up apartment buildings asked for a contractor to sweep halls and pick up outside litter at each building every other week, and told applicants to name their price.
Search your city's Craigslist gigs for "twice monthly," "every other week" and "per visit," and answer the ones within ten minutes of your house first.
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A Company Mapped Every Building For Insurers
Sanborn maps were hand-drawn maps of American towns, building by building, sold to fire insurance companies so they could judge a property's risk without leaving the office.
Daniel Alfred Sanborn started the business in 1867. His surveyors walked the streets and recorded what every building was made of and what might burn. Insurers subscribed, and the maps let them write policies from a desk.
When a town changed, Sanborn didn't redraw it. Starting around 1920 the company mailed paste-on correction slips that clerks glued over the old buildings. At its peak it employed about 700 people, and it eventually produced more than 50,000 editions covering over 10,000 communities.
Still cooking: Insurers stopped needing the maps in the 1950s, and the last update went out in 1977. Environmental Data Resources bought the map license in 1996, and LightBox bought EDR in 2019.
A really detailed map, it turns out, keeps finding new people willing to pay for it.
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Hungry yet?
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See what's really happening in every deal
Aligned shows you what buyers are doing between meetings inside your most important deals then surfaces the risks, openings, and next steps. No more guessing where a deal stands or finding out a champion went quiet too late. Just real visibility, so you can act before it's too late.
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In partnership with
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Enough talk. Go cook.
That's the plate. Reply and tell us which landlord in your town is renovating right now. Forward this to the friend who just replaced a perfectly good washer. See you tomorrow.
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