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From Zero to Side Hustle
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One more day ‘til Friday
🎞️ The Criterion Collection has spent forty years selling $30 to $50 editions of films most people will never watch.
It works because they never tried to be for everyone. The people who care, care enormously.
We think about that a lot. A small number of people who really want something is often a better business than a large number who are mildly interested. The first group tells you their budget. The second asks for a discount.
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First Up, Our Sponsor
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The 75-Day Line To Fix A Book
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
There is a category of object people will not replace at any price, because the value is in the specific copy.
A Bible full of margin notes. The spine goes, and the owner can live with it or learn a trade.
That's the gap: the object is irreplaceable and the skill to save it is not something anybody wants to acquire.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
A mail-in bench. The book ships in, gets a leather cover, ships back. Scriptura prices restorations from $89, most between $100 and $200, on a published 55-to-75-day lead time. The work arrives by post, so the constraint is bench hours, not your town.
The craft is local. The market is not.
►Dan Litevich started this in 2014 and has rebound thousands of books since. The detail worth stealing is what he screens for when hiring, which is not binding skill. He looks for people who love the book itself, on the theory that someone who cares about a Bible will care about a stranger's. The ceiling sits above him: Leonard's list tops out at $300.
Zooming out: the queue is not the moat, the hands are.
Think: Any object with sentimental value and a technical failure mode works this way. Quilts, taxidermy, clocks. Nobody is comparing prices, only looking for someone competent.
🥢The winners will be the ones who publish the wait, because a stated lead time filters out everyone shopping on speed. The wait is a screening tool.
🍜 The risk is that a queue is not pricing power. Legacy Bible Rebinders publishes a 12-business-day turnaround at $185, the same money with a fifth of the wait. The barrier is craft, which takes years and cannot be hired quickly, and a goatskin hide runs $13.50 to $188, so the margin on premium leather is thin.
There’ll be three nationally, all with waiting lists. The goal isn’t to bind books. It’s to own a skill whose customers arrive by post.
You might also like ⇢ The Rebinder Publishing an Upsell Menu
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What's your take?
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You Can Rent A Lawn Full Of Plastic Flamingos
Flocks of Flamingos in Eagan, Minnesota will stake 30 to 50 pink plastic birds across somebody's front yard for $125 on a weekday, or $185 for a 48-hour weekend flocking. Delivery and pickup included, $2 a mile past fifteen. The birds go back in the van on Monday.
The whole business is one van, a shed full of the same birds, and a calendar of birthdays.
🤯 And they're not the only one. Think Pink! Flamingo Flocking in Portland runs $69 for 25 birds up to $109 for 75, and Flock-n-Surprise in Largo, Florida starts at $110. Three operators, three states, one flock.
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Hungry yet?
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Enough talk. Go cook.
That's the plate. Reply and tell us the thing you own that you would fix rather than replace. Forward this to whoever is about to buy a business and has only looked at the trucks. See you Tomorrow.
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