Forget AI. Make $10K+ With These Offline Side Hustles - Ep. #311

Chris Koerner: He'd make like 20 to 30k a job. That was like his average job.

Co-host: And you could set up a job in a day.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. He made several hundred grand while doing it and then sold the company for 600 grand 18 months later, which he said he now regrets because he sold it because he was bored. He actually wasn't doing anything. Yeah, it was too passive.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Because all the panels were just rented out, which is like the dream of most people.

Co-host: Right. I love it because you pay off all your equipment in like one to six rentals.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And after that it's. It's just gravy. It's a great side hustle.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Or it could scale if you wanted.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. So for max, two days at the very start and two days at the very end, you're working.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: And, uh, for the rest you're just collecting a check. There's no maintenance.

Co-host: This could be a business that you don't need any money to start.

Chris Koerner: My oldest kid, when he was about 15 and a half, he started thinking about buying his own car. He thought I was going to buy it for him. I said no, I had to buy my first vehicle. I feel like it taught me a lot of stuff. And then we looked on B stock, started tracking different auctions. We found a rug auction. Auction. And I'm like, you want to win this thing? And so we won the auction. And as of this last week, he bought his first car. So he is.

Co-host: No way.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, he's pumped.

Co-host: Does AI have you bummed out all these terms, acronyms that you don't understand? That's fine. Because today we're going to talk about five different business ideas where you can make $10,000 in either a year, a month, a week, or a day. And they're all offline. No AI stuff, no Internet stuff. This is sweaty startup type stuff. Please enjoy. Tell me about your temporary fence friend.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, so I have a friend that started a temporary fence rental business in a suburb of Sacramento, not a big town, where he focused. And he had no domain expertise at all before starting this. And. But he's a smart guy and he's a good salesman. And so he started. He decided to do it. And so the first thing that you do is you have to buy the panels, you have to buy the temporary fence.

Co-host: Things like chain link fence.

Chris Koerner: I think mostly he did, um, like plastic. So they'd be like plastic barriers and then the panel between.

Co-host: Okay. Yeah.

Chris Koerner: And they're like 12ft apart. And you know you got the.

Co-host: So you just put those to protect the job site. Yeah.

Chris Koerner: And then you put the plastic commercial job sites.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Okay, so. So he bought those. I don't know how many feet he bought, but he bought enough. So there's obviously costs. You don't. I don't think you have to buy them before you get your first job. You just have to be ready to buy them when you do get your first job.

Co-host: Make money on your first job.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. And then how he would get his customers is he would just go to construction sites that are new, that didn't have any temporary fencing up yet, and he would just say, do you want a temporary fence? I'll rent you mine.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: For cheap. And he would start making bank. And he did this.

Co-host: They're about to buy it from someone.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Because they need it.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: It's like a liability.

Co-host: Yeah. Well, it's a legal thing, too. They probably like zoning laws. Yeah.

Chris Koerner: So you have a hot buyer. Like, they know they need it. They don't have it yet. Worst case scenario is they already paid for something that hasn't shown up yet. I guess. Uh, but I would assume legally, like, oh, if you start construction, you need within X amount of days, you need your fence up. That's probably the rule over.

Co-host: If you wanted, you could, like, anyone in the world can see building, uh, permits when they're filed.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: You can file days, weeks, or months before they ever show up on the job site. So you could get way ahead of it.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, yeah, you totally could. So, yeah, he didn't even do the. That version of it. He was just literally, when he would drive around and when he would see a new construction site, he would go there. He'd go to the little mobile, you know, whatever that thing is, the trailer set up and find the person in charge. And then he'd pitch it and then he would sell it, and then he would charge by the foot and then sort of length of time. So the longer you have it, it'd be less per square foot. And he would charge like four bucks. Linear foot or linear foot. He would charge like four bucks a foot. And then maybe eventually he'd get down to like 2 bucks a foot if they had it for a longer amount of time, which he said was super. Everybody knows in construction things always take longer than you think. So you get this passive income that just really starts to add up. Because the amount of work you have to do on this job, other than make the sale, is setting up the fence and then whatever, eight months later, taking down the fence.

Co-host: Yeah, it's active on the Front end, active months or years later. Right. If you build a commercial building, could take two to four years even.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. So for max, two days at the very start and two days at the very end, you're working.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: And for the rest you're just collecting a check. There's no maintenance. You don't have to clean these things. You don't have to remove them. If they like accidentally hit it with a tractor, they just move it back anyway. It's their job too. And, um, yeah, you have to buy the pan, whatever enough panels.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: You have to buy the temporary fence. But other than that, there's no extra ongoing costs of any kind. And he started growing it and he was making. I asked him, he'd make like 20 to 30k a job. That was like his average job.

Co-host: And you could set up a job in a day.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Co-host: Depending on how big your crew is or whatever. Hey, please just take half a second and hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this right now. It would really mean a lot.

Chris Koerner: And he started it in like the summer of a couple years ago. Well, he made several hundred grand while doing it and then sold the company for 600 grand 18 months later. Which he said he now regrets because he. He sold it because he was bored.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Honestly, probably bored that he actually wasn't doing anything.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Because all the.

Co-host: Too passive for him.

Chris Koerner: It was too passive because all the panels were just rented out. He. All the panels he had bought were on jobs.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: So he's literally doing.

Co-host: You get to a point where you got to either like triple down and keep buying more and more panels or you just start cashing checks.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. It was literally too passive for him. So he's like, I'm just going to sell the company. So he sold the company 600 grand after 18 months of.

Co-host: Plus the very passive along the way.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. After months of passive work that became too passive, which is like the dream of most people.

Co-host: Right?

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: So let's like, let's crunch the numbers. You said four bucks per linear foot. Uh, so I have a two acre property that is 900ft by 100ft. Right. It's very long and narrow. Okay. So 900 by 100. So if he were to set up temporary fencing on my property, two acre property, which is not unreasonable at all for a commercial property. Um, that's 1,000 linear feet times four. So that would be $4,000. Okay. So to get to 10 in a day, you need like a five acre lot yeah, right. Because I multiply that by two and a half. Yeah. You would need a five acre lot, um, of temporary fencing to fence off the whole thing.

Chris Koerner: I would assume these are monthly numbers that he was charging.

Co-host: Oh, really? Oh, and it comes down based on. Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Wow.

Co-host: Okay. Yeah. Holy crap.

Chris Koerner: So before, for yours, you're saying it'd be 4,000.

Co-host: So if it's a month. Yeah. So if it's a 10 month project.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: You're not collecting 10,000 cash in a day in this. If we want to get technical, you're signing a $10,000 contract that you collect over 10 months and, and you're doing the work for it in a day. If we really want to get ticky talky.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, true. But some of these are bigger where they might pay you the 10k right away or. Or more.

Co-host: Or you just. You give them a discount to pay up front.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Because.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, he said his average was 20 or 30k a job. So I bet a lot of them were like 75% up front, 25% at the end, or.

Co-host: Yeah, 50.

Chris Koerner: 50 or something like that.

Co-host: So we could sit here and talk about like, oh, you got to make this AI agent that goes at the. Like really get in your truck or car and go talk to these job sites.

Chris Koerner: You know, drive around or when you're going out to dinner, keep an eye out on what, what looks like it's going to start soon. What construction site Looks like it's going to start soon.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Call they all. I feel like they all have the big old banner like, ah, whatever, Kerner Construction. And the big old phone number. Right. Call that number and say, hey, I saw your thing. I saw the site. I saw you don't have the temporary fencing.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: I've actually got the best rates in the city. Who do I talk to?

Co-host: And don't go buy your fencing first. Sell your first job.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Then go buy your fencing.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: You probably need all that money to buy your first fencing.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Yeah.

Co-host: So theoretically, this could be a business that you don't need any money to start if you get paid up front. Yeah, a lot of ifs, right?

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Uh, yeah.

Co-host: But still.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, totally.

Co-host: That's a banger.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: All right, so I've got an interesting one for you. I was on Facebook, Marketplace, and there is a guy that makes mini mini golf holes. Okay.

Chris Koerner: Mini, mini or many m. Many, many, many.

Co-host: Right. They are mini golf holes that are portable and smaller than a normal mini golf hole. So they're mini mini golf holes. And picture like, you know, four Two by fours in like a rectangular frame. Call it like 6ft by 3ft or 8ft by 3ft. And then you've got like Astroturf down the middle and you've got like some obstacles and, uh, and it's just sitting on plywood. And so he, um, he sells these for hundreds of dollars, maybe even close to $1,000 each. So if you wanted your own 18 hole mini golf course, theoretically you could buy 18 different ones from him. See his different designs and patterns. But his biggest business is renting them out to weddings events, uh, parties, et cetera, for $300 per hole per day. Uh, which is less than the cost of the materials. Right?

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: So he rents this thing out once on Facebook Marketplace. His customer acquisition channel is free because it costs nothing to post them.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And it's paid for. And anything after that is just gravy.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, that's awesome. That's a super fun idea too, as like somebody who. I don't throw events, but if I were to, that would be a very fun thing to have at the event.

Co-host: Oh, yeah.

Chris Koerner: Unique.

Co-host: Yeah, it is. I think it would be a hit.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And to, you know, math into this, $10,000 a month, you basically need to rent out 35 of them. If it's $300 a piece, 35 holes. 35 holes or one hole, 35 times, which is less likely.

Chris Koerner: Or just two sets of 18 holes and you're good.

Co-host: Yeah. And you've got 10 grand. And, uh, your first month, let's say you do that, your first three months, you pay off all your materials. After that, it's basically net profit. It's your time, it's your gas money. Posting for free to Facebook Marketplace.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Yeah.

Co-host: That's, uh, awesome. This is in Dallas, Fort Worth. There's 8 million people here. I'm sure it could support more than one guy doing it. Yeah, I'm sure Utah could support a handful of people doing this. So.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, that could totally do 10k in a month.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Okay. Off of that, I saw very recently, like this week, for the first time ever, it is some RV resort or something. But this is just like an amenity there that you could do a version of this for two, which is. They had a mini golf course at this RV thing in like Arkansas. Uh, but it's all cornhole, which I've never seen before. So it's just a bunch. It's not as fancy as golf because with golf you need to have the thing where the, um, you know, the ball goes in and around and through and whatever. So this is just a bunch of cornhole. What do you call them?

Co-host: Boards. Yeah. Holes.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Uh, and then your bag. And then. So you just go from thing to thing, and they have, like, obstructions. You. I'll send you the thing so you can, like, put it here. Whatever. They have obstructions where you kind of have to throw it around or over or through. And, uh. And so. And it's, like, themed or whatever, but it looks super fun, man. What? No one's ever played cornhole mini golf before.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: And so they had. I don't remember if it was nine or 18 holes, but, uh, it looks amazing. And I bet the cost of that would be even cheaper because you can get cornhole board. You can make them even cheaper. Just.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Thing of plywood in a stand and a hole. But you could buy them for, like, 30 bucks off Amazon. So you see a handful of those. A handful of bags. You don't need a ton of bags because you just walk with the next bag each time.

Co-host: I own RV parks. We could, like. I would pay someone to install these. I don't want to go through the headache of working out, like, what obstacles to put. Like, that's one avenue is. Go to the RV parks.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Just show them the website of that RV park. Yeah. I do this for you.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: I charge $700 per hole.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And it's yours forever.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And, uh, then I'll maintain it. Maybe there's a small monthly fee to

Chris Koerner: come by and check on byob. Bring your own bags.

Co-host: Yes.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Yeah.

Co-host: Or you could do the Facebook marketplace route. Like this mini mini golf guy.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Um, you could sell them. You could just. You could just make and sell cornholes. Right. Forget the course.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Yeah.

Co-host: Or you could. You could rent them out to events.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Right.

Chris Koerner: Well, you wouldn't even need, like, for mini golf, you need turf for the ball to roll on before it goes in. With this, you don't need anything. You just walk on a path.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Any place that is walkable, grass, gravel, dirt, plop down the board, throw some obstructions there, and you're done.

Co-host: Oh, yeah. That needs to be more than just like, one random RV park.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Yeah. When I saw it, it just came up in my algorithm. I was hoping because of that it was in Utah, but I was sad. It's in Arkansas.

Co-host: It will be after people watch.

Chris Koerner: I hope so. Yeah. Somebody please do it.

Co-host: I mean, Utah, land of copycats.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Yeah.

Co-host: All right, so while we're on this Facebook marketplace, Slash outdoor theme. What do you know about, like, outdoor inflatable movie rentals as a business?

Chris Koerner: I don't know much. I've seen it a little. I would, as a consumer, pay for that. Yeah, I think that would be good. What do you know?

Co-host: So you can buy all of this equipment for 500 to 3,000 bucks. What you need is, uh, an inflatable movie screen.

Chris Koerner: Okay.

Co-host: Okay. And it's just like a bounce house.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Okay.

Co-host: You can get it from Alibaba for cheaper. You can get them on ebay. You can buy them from whoever else, but you just plug it into the wall. Like a bounce house.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And it inflates and it's just a big white screen with like a frame around it, and it stands up, and then you can stake it down in case it gets windy. And then you buy a projector. You can buy those as cheaply as, like, 50 bucks. I wouldn't suggest that for this. Yeah, you can buy nice ones. We bought like a really nice one for our family. That's like a smart projector. It has all the apps, like all the Roku apps on it. It's cool. Those are like 2 or 300 bucks.

Chris Koerner: Okay.

Co-host: And then a, uh, Bluetooth speaker, uh, and you can get those nice, like, nice ones for 100 bucks. Like a stand up Bluetooth speaker. Maybe two for each side of it.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And, um, backyard parties, birthday parties, um, events, uh, like neighborhood stuff, HOA stuff. Uh, I just went to an HOA party and they rented one of these for the kids to watch while everyone else was, like, eating food.

Chris Koerner: Oh, yeah, that's fun.

Co-host: There's a few companies that scaled this to multiple millions and tens of millions of dollars. Oh, that's crazy. So there's one in California called Fun Flicks.

Chris Koerner: Okay.

Co-host: They're like a franchise. They have over 40 locations. Southern Outdoor Cinema. They're in Atlanta. They do 3 to 4 million a year. In revenues. In revenue. They've been in business for 17 years. There's one in Austin that. That has 20 other locations outside of Austin. I just, I love it because it's much like the, um, the mini golf businesses.

Chris Koerner: You.

Co-host: You pay off all your equipment in like one to six rentals.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

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Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Or it could scale if you wanted scale.

Chris Koerner: Well and you lightly mentioned bounce house. Everybody knows bounce houses. Everybody knows like the blowup obstacle course versions of bounce houses and stuff. And I've rented those for some kids birthday parties over the years. I'm amazed how much money those guys still m make too. And yeah, you have to pay up front for the big old bounce house things but every time I return mine there's a line I'm waiting in a line behind everybody else who's return because everybody's always returning them like Saturday night because the party was like Friday night or Saturday day and it's always like oh, you got to return it by 8pm or whatever. least the one I get it from. So there's always this massive line. The things are frankly not well. The companies don't seem that well run. Yeah, the things don't even seem like that well taken care of.

Co-host: They don't clean them in between and

Chris Koerner: they're raking in the cash every weekend. Yeah sure it's a little like weather dependent but depending on where you're at, uh, you can make a uh, ton of money with that.

Co-host: Still, I did a deep dive on the bounce house business last year. We'll link to that. But ah, that's one thing that she said like if you just clean your bounce houses between every rental you will be in the top 10% and just

Chris Koerner: say that that's it. Uh, say we clean it every time. Cuz I that's my main hesitancy in doing it as A. As a dad, it's like, oh, those things are going to be gross.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And they are.

Chris Koerner: And in this new world of AI, I think people are going to treasure real outdoor in person experiences more than ever.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Because the like pushback of being like too online and stuff. So I don't necessarily see this slowing down or the outdoor movie or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Co-host: All right, so next one. Now you were telling me a story and I had to interrupt you because I wanted to hit record first. About a family member that buys artwork in Europe. Tell me, tell me that story.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, so. So my wife and I, we like to travel and when we travel we try to find a piece of original art. Like if we were in a different country for a meaningful amount of time, we'll try to find a piece of original art there that we think could go on. Like our art. We have like a section in a one of our rooms where it's like our art wall. It's just stuff, uh, from every place we've been. It's, it's super fun and, and, and it's pretty and all that kind of stuff.

Co-host: Now how much are you spending on

Chris Koerner: this art on like maybe 20 to 60 bucks per.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: They're almost always or pretty much always originals. We try to find originals every now and then we might splurge for one that we like, absolutely love and it's already framed and that would be like.

Co-host: Yeah, but these aren't like big names. It's not fine.

Chris Koerner: Nobody I've ever heard of. Yeah, yeah. And it always has to still fit in a suitcase on the way home. So like it's not gonna be huge.

Co-host: It's offline stuff.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Like this is not sold online. It's not found online. It's from local artists in whatever area you're visiting.

Chris Koerner: And ideally we find these in like little nook and cranny type stores, like antique stores. Not of course, whatever the version of Walmart is in Italy.

Co-host: Not hobby lobby art. Yeah, they are originals.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Okay. So anyway, we love doing that. My sister in law recently was uh, on a trip in the UK with her husband and kids and they were there for a little longer, uh, than just like a quicker trip. So she had the idea to do this, but to kind of do it at mini scale, let's call it, and to then sell them back when she got back into Utah to use it to pay for her trip. So that was her thesis.

Co-host: Put the trip on a credit card. Also use a credit card to buy artwork, bring it back home Sell. Sell it to pay off the credit card.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: Okay.

Co-host: I don't hate it.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. So she, I want to say, bought like 12 to 14 originals.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: Across the UK I think it was mostly from Ireland. And they're stunning. So it's like Irish countrysides, coast, uh, beautiful homes, like little streets, just a bunch of different ones.

Co-host: Do you know what she spent on average?

Chris Koerner: I don't think she's telling that many people how much she actually spent because she's selling these for like a few hundred bucks each.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: And some even a little higher than that.

Co-host: But she's probably paying like 50 to 100 bucks, I'm guessing.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Or maybe, maybe, maybe more towards the 50.

Co-host: Sorry, sister.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, don't watch this. Friends of her, please. But whatever. Like, she did the work.

Co-host: She.

Chris Koerner: Even if she bought it for 50 and is selling for 400, I can't just be like, oh, well, I'm just going to go there and buy it for 50.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Well, then I have to fly out there and find the store and, like. Right. That's not feasible. So I don't think it's wrong in any way to buy something for 50 and sell it for 400. It is worth. Art is worth whatever anyone wants to pay for it.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Anyway, we're going to buy one from her that she is about to sell because she kind of just like sells it in waves. And she has an Instagram account that is set up that is just for these. Um, and they're all super pretty. They're all originals.

Co-host: Big Instagram account.

Chris Koerner: Oh, no, no, it's more just like a personal little side thing. Yeah. I mean, it probably has a hundred followers or less because she shared it from her personal right to say, hey, if you want my art that I bought, go to this new account. But I think she'll be able to pay for a meaningful part of a, uh, longer trip in Ireland with her family just from this art, because she can probably clear at least a few K from just these originals that she

Co-host: bought a few K from the uk.

Chris Koerner: There you go.

Co-host: Jeez.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, but I mean, how cool is that? Like, uh, retroactively pay for a trip with the unique stuff you bought in the country.

Co-host: That's amazing. It's free. It's free vacation plus spending money.

Chris Koerner: And it takes a little work, but for some people, it's actually not work. Like, I love going into random little

Co-host: shops, but, dude, like, if I'm hurt, I'm gonna. Like, those shops are listed on Google. Right. They're online, probably.

Chris Koerner: How she found them. Yeah.

Co-host: They might not have a website even, but you could find them online. Yeah, I would just call them up and say, I know this is weird. My name's so and so. I live in Dallas, Texas. Yeah, I love artwork. Yeah, I have no idea what your artwork looks like. Do you even have artwork? Yeah, we do. Can we FaceTime? Can we, like, WhatsApp? Uh, can I see your artwork? Yeah, like, I'm willing to buy it. I'll pay for shipping. Right, sure. So we're FaceTime. That one, that one. That one. All right, those are 50 bucks each. I'll take 10 of them. Could you do 350 for all 10?

Chris Koerner: Sure.

Co-host: All right. How much is shipping? Can you roll it up in a tube? Shipping's 50 bucks. That's okay. I'll pay for it. You need 10. They're all in the same Ye. You could scale that without having.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, you could, actually. Yeah. There was. Last, uh, time I was in the UK was a few years ago, and we were in. We stayed in the Cotswolds, which is, like, two hours west of London. Anyway, there's a lot of cute little towns there and shops, and there were tons with amazing art. And so I didn't think about what you just said, but I'm going to call one of them.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Because some of them were, like. It was too big for us to, like, fit in our stuff to bring home, so we just didn't buy them. Yeah, but they were cheap, and they were beautiful, and they were originals. They were just too big. So I should just call them and I'll buy the one or two that we wanted, and then I'll say, hey, what if I bought, like, seven more?

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Um, can you give me a discount on shipping or whatever? And then I'll just try to resell them for fun.

Co-host: Dude, how about this? Even better. Calm up. You have any artwork? Cool. I know this, like, this might take you 10 minutes, and it's annoying, but I promise I'm an interested buyer. Can you just take your iPhone, take pictures, like, nice pictures up close of each piece of artwork you have, and text them to me? What's happened to me. Whatever. Yeah, Then you list them on Facebook. Marketplace. Original artwork from the Cotswolds.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Right. 375, you're saying before I buy them before?

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: That's it.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Uh, then it's like, hey, shipping delivery could take two to four weeks.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: You spend a week selling them, uh, collecting deposits.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Right. And then you come back and you say, hey, remember Me? You sent me the pictures.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: I actually have some friends that want to buy these.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: You're honestly just telling the truth.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Right.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And then I'll pay you up front.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And just ship them to me.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. I mean, sell them. The only downside to that is you could sell something that was then bought.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Before. But I think that's going to actually be pretty rare.

Co-host: Yeah. Because they probably sit there for months.

Chris Koerner: Yes.

Co-host: It's like, I'll send you a deposit back. Sorry, it sold. That's no longer available.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. That's going to be rare anyway. And, and, and even in that situation, be like, I've got 10 others ready. So. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's. Yeah, you and. Or I should do that. That, that'd be fun.

Co-host: I should do it for a test video. Like, I should, uh, record myself calling these shops and actually doing that. Yeah, I like that idea. Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, that's a good idea.

Co-host: So this is ten grand. In a week, someone could do this. I think this would be harder. But, like, we're talking 30. 30 pieces of artwork for 300 bucks. That's nine grand, right? Yeah, 40 pieces of artwork. So, like, you'd have to.

Chris Koerner: If you prepped, you could do ten in a week. You could have the little Instagram account before you could talk about the pictures, you could, you know, about the paintings, all that kind of stuff. You could tell people that they are all going for sale to the highest bidder the last week of May or whatever, and boom. Um, do it.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: I mean, I'm just thinking, like, you don't really gain all that much by flying there. If you're there. Sure, of course. But like, if you, if you make 300 bucks in profit and you buy 10 pieces of art in person, that's your whole trip.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: You basically break even, which is still great. You get a free vacation. I'm not knocking on that. Yeah, but like, you don't usually when you go there in person, kind of like we were talking about in another episode, like, your close rate goes up when you're in person, but with this in person, it's just like, it's convenient because you're there, but to fly there purposely just for that.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: It's not super efficient because you're going to buy the same piece of artwork anyway.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Maybe because you can see the texture a little better in person.

Chris Koerner: But yeah.

Co-host: Uh, yeah, I like this idea.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. I, uh, I like vintage watches. I'm wearing one right now. I don't buy them for their resale value. Uh, nor do I buy based off of the brand or whatever. Nor do I even. I don't even focus on buying ones that are expensive, per se. This one that I'm wearing right now probably cost me. I can't remember exactly, but, like, under 100 bucks. I just thought it was really cool and it was unique, and so I wanted to buy it. You can do the version of this for watches or apparel, especially if it's in countries like Japan or South Korea. You know, places in Europe, too would work. Even like Mexico. You could do it from just places that have some history and unique creators and stuff like that. But I think there's lots of different places and ways to find unique things that the. If you're there or if you call them up. If I can find a vintage watch store in Japan and just be like, hey, can we FaceTime? Show me your watch collection. Show me everything you've got that's under a hundred bucks. That's, like, original. I don't want to see whatever Timexes or, uh, I don't know, Casios or something. Just show me all your original Japanese brand stuff, and I'm going to. I'm going to buy some and resell or send me the pictures and do the Facebook thing. I think there's a version of this that is really fun for the person who's doing it, and they're providing value across the board. They're not just a middleman.

Co-host: Right.

Chris Koerner: If you can find a watch in Japan for 40 bucks, send you a picture of it, and then find me on Facebook Marketplace, and I'd be willing to pay 80. Well, everybody wins. Yeah. The Japanese store won, you won, I win.

Co-host: We're all happy. Well, I love this business because it's. There's infinite variables. There's 300 countries out there.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: There's thousands of different types of items.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And there's always going to be arbitrage opportunities.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Right. It's never going to be, like, a perfectly efficient market between all these because, like, why not like, import from Japan to Hungary.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: You know, from Poland to Colombia or Argentina. Like, it doesn't have to only be to the Right.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Or Colombia to Poland. Like, like unique food products. Like Hungary's known for their paprika. Right. Oh, man.

Chris Koerner: Well, in the algorithms these days, especially if you get into running ads, the algorithms are going to find. If you're making content on social about what you're doing the algorithm, the algorithms will find the people who want what you are doing.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: So if you're making, if you are in Utah selling Japanese watches on Facebook Marketplace, you will pop up in my algorithm.

Co-host: And even if your video gets 400 views, it's going to be 400 of the right people.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, yeah. So being willing to do that as well, uh, would for sure be key if you want to scale this up a little bigger. But yeah, tons of potential here.

Co-host: Listen, I need more people like this to interview on my podcast. So if you know of someone with a side hustle or a business that's unique and cool and super profitable, email mollymolyofounders.com that's one word. Co founders.com Mollyofounders.com Tell her your story and we'll give you a hundred bucks if we end up interviewing them. Okay, so tell me the rug story.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. So my oldest kid now just turned 16, but when he was about 15 and a half, he started thinking about buying his own car. I told him he had to, he wanted a car. He thought I was going to buy it for him. I said no, I had to buy my first vehicle. I feel like it taught me a lot of stuff anyway. I'm like, I'm sorry, but I want you to have the same experience. And at first he was bugged and then he came around. So anyway, he at the time had a part time job because he's in high school, he's a sophomore. He had a part time job at an indoor swim school just teaching little kids how to swim. He's super good swimmer and all trained and all that in Utah where we live. And like after taxes get taken out, like I don't know what his actual hourly rage wages, but he gets like 11 bucks after all the taxes.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: That's how he calculates it anyway. So that's what he makes. And he works like two days of like six hours and one day of like four hours a week anyway. But this is in November. I said do the math on how long it's going to take you to buy a car. And I started showing him cars for sale on bringatrailer.com which I love, just browsing that site. And I'm like, now do the math on how long it's going to take you to get the thing that you actually want with your current job. He did the math and he was not happy. It would be like he'd be like 22 years old. Yeah. So, uh, so he's like, well, what should I do? And I'm like, well, I've been telling you forever, like you should do your own thing, like you can. There are different ways to make money. So I showed him like 10 episodes of yours. We just listened to them actually, while driving home from Vegas. Just ten in a row. And I was like, how about this? And he already had listened to you before, at least some episodes. So I'm like, let's just listen to Chris and you just pick, like, tell me an idea that stands out to you. So anyway, we listened to a bunch of episodes and then, um, somebody said something about selling stuff and. And then it kind of centered around, okay, what could we sell and what do we have room for? And you know, what could he do? Like, he can't like, sell vacuums. He doesn't know anything about fixing vacuums or whatever. Right. So then we were just kind of going back and forth, like, what is like, the easiest thing to understand that you would have to sell where you like, can't get it wrong? And we settled on rugs because they're squares or rectangles, and whatever is on the rug is what the rug is.

Co-host: There's, uh, nothing to fix. There's no moving parts. They don't expire.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: So we figured it was the simplest thing.

Co-host: I guess the one downside is they're heavy and they're kind of big. Yeah. Which also means other people probably aren't interested in selling them as much. So there could be more demand than supply.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, yeah. So we settled on that. So I was like, okay, well, I'll try to figure out where to buy them from. And then we looked on B stock, which is like a popular site for this kind of thing. And so I started tracking different auctions, um, and it would keep my eye on others for them. But, uh, we found a rug auction and I'm like, do you want to, do you want to win this thing? And so we won the auction. And after shipping, it was like 1500 bucks for 115 rugs.

Co-host: Yeah, yeah. Like, like 8 bucks a piece. Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Uh, it was pretty cheap. Or like 12 bucks a piece.

Co-host: 12 bucks, okay. Yeah, 12 bucks a piece including shipping. Uh, for 115.

Chris Koerner: 115.

Co-host: How much?

Chris Koerner: All sizes.

Co-host: Like that would probably fill up this whole room.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, yeah, it was bigger. So I was actually out of town when they were delivered. And it was on two different pallets.

Co-host: Mhm.

Chris Koerner: And we have it like a steep driveway. But the guy helped, luckily. So anyway, brought it up, put it in. I have a barn that is wasn't all the way used. So it, it probably was two times the size of this room amount.

Co-host: So like, like a two car garage.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, yeah. It wouldn't have fit. It wouldn't have filled up a whole two car garage.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: But yeah, one and a half car garage.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Because it adds up because some of these are like 8 by 12 and then rolled up. That's still. It's pretty heavy too, right? Yeah, they're heavy.

Co-host: Two person job.

Chris Koerner: So I would say the biggest one might have been more like 10 by 14 or something. And then some, they weren't actually rugs. Some were literally just doormats. So it got as small as a doormat? No.

Co-host: Okay, that happens. Yeah.

Chris Koerner: So it got as small as a doormat and then. Yeah, as big as a 10 by 14. But it was, it was of the 115, probably whatever 90 were rugs with some doormats and then I guess some runners. The just long and skinny things.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: And did you do any research on like how much demand there would be for these in your area? Did you post them to Facebook before you bought them? Um, yeah.

Chris Koerner: Good question. Coulda, shoulda, woulda done that. Didn't do any of that.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: Um, I just figured like, people need rugs.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: I don't know how many people need rugs. I don't know how many people need rugs in Utah.

Co-host: Did you go look on Facebook to see if other people.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, we did do that. We. And yeah, people were selling them.

Co-host: What were some like, prices?

Chris Koerner: Like, it was, it was a pretty broad range between like 20 and like $200.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: So, so. And that's kind of why we decided. Yes. On the auction that we won.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: It's like, okay, if we can get these for like 12 to 13 bucks, worst case scenario, we sell them for an average of 20 bucks. That's what I was thinking.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: If we could move 115 rugs for 20 bucks. Yeah. It's not a ton of money.

Co-host: Profit.

Chris Koerner: Lose money. Yeah. Yeah.

Co-host: That's like a year of working at the, at the. Yeah. Yes.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. So that was, that was sort of the justification for just being willing to jump in.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: To do something that, you know, he didn't. Again, you don't need to learn too much about the industry. But he didn't know anything. But I also figured, I thought, I thought that it was a good choice, but I was happy he chose this as the thing that he wanted to do because I didn't want him to do something where it would require like being on a screen all the time, like, uh, building an app and trying to do the new marketing for that, Even though that's sort of how I'm built, skill wise, I didn't want that. And by selling rugs, you actually do have to learn a lot. You have to take pictures, learn how to position them the right way in a way that looks esthetically pleasing. You have to then list things for sale and figure out what they go for. You have to learn how to negotiate. Uh, you have to have people skills. Because he was just having them pick it up in person because he couldn't drive. So, you know, he had to have people skills. And I tried to teach him, like, how to do upsells. Like, hey, if they come for a $50 rug, try and sell one of those doormats that we don't really want. Right. Try and sell that for five bucks. Yeah, like that kind of thing. So anyway, he learned a ton of skills.

Co-host: So did he worry about, like, lighting for the pictures or.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, I talked to him about that. And. And the background. Like, there's a difference of having a rug, because at first it was like a rug on grass or on dirt. And I'm like, well, if you put the rug in our house, if you could, then that'd be better. Or like, make a better background in the barn that you could do. Yeah, or do turn one rug upside down, then do all the other rugs, pictures on top of that rug.

Co-host: I mean, I bought a bunch of appliances to do this, and it wasn't that hard to list them because they're all right there and I just walk around it. But with this, you got to roll them out, move them inside from the barn, take pictures of, um, them. You might need two people to move them. Um, times 115. It's a lot of work. All right. So how did it go?

Chris Koerner: Yeah, it went good. So he kept that part time job at the swim thing. Um, but he started doing this, and I had him sell through my Facebook account because he doesn't have one. So I was just like, yeah, just in the description. Just say, I'm actually Brandon's son. I'm trying to sell these. And, you know, I'm. I wanted him to be like, hey, I'm trying to sell them to buy my first car. But he didn't really want to do that very much. But I think he only did it sometimes. Anyway, he has been doing that. Um, it's been a few months, a handful of months.

Co-host: And.

Chris Koerner: And then he did do one garage sale.

Co-host: Oh, okay.

Chris Koerner: Where? Well, it's just pitched as a massive rug. Sale. And he put signs up all over our little town. And that was. That worked really well too. So anyway, he has sold about 80 of the 115 so far.

Co-host: Wow.

Chris Koerner: And as of this last week, he bought his first car. So he is.

Co-host: No way.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, he's pumped. He bought a. He bought a 1995 or something. Toyota 4Runner in his favorite color. And he is pumped.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: And I, um, think he's going to take good care of it because he had to buy it.

Co-host: Yeah. Yeah. So how much did it cost?

Chris Koerner: Like three grand.

Co-host: Wow.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. Okay, so he m. Made enough. Yeah. The average price of the 80 is probably like 45.

Co-host: Geez. So almost four times his money on each rug.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Somewhere between 45 work.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: But learning a ton of different skills.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: He's made over three grand from the 80. The rest will just be gas money or whatever. And he still got the part time job. And honestly I don't, I don't think he loves rugs anymore. Like, I think he might be anti rug as an adult. Uh, but it helped him get his first car.

Co-host: So did you like charge him interest or anything?

Chris Koerner: I did charge him a little bit of interest because I had to front the 1500 to uh, buy. To buy him the rugs. So I charged him 300 interest, which if you do the calculations. Yes, I'm aware. Let's put pretty high. But, um, but I did give him free rent in the barn for the rug space that's more valuable as well as licensed my Facebook account to him to sell it with which you can't put a price on that deal. And provided, uh, very expensive consulting services to him as well.

Co-host: Yep.

Chris Koerner: For free. So that 300 covered a lot.

Co-host: I agree.

Chris Koerner: Um, but yeah, no, I mean he, he learned, he learned a lot of stuff.

Co-host: Yeah.

Chris Koerner: And uh, he's. I don't know that I've ever seen a bigger smile on his face than when he bought his first car.

Co-host: That feels good. Yeah, man. Yeah, I'm feeling.

Chris Koerner: So can you make 10k in a year doing this? Yeah, I mean he's made 3k in like 4 months or whatever during very part time.

Co-host: He probably had weeks where he didn't do anything.

Chris Koerner: Yes, there were weeks when I was bugged. I'm like, hey, dude, you've still got a hundred rugs. Yeah, in my barn. I don't want them there when it's summertime. So he had. This is through the winter. So it's like the worst time to sell rugs. Theoretically. Yeah, I would, I would Assume the best time to sell rugs is spring and summer. But yeah, he's only got like 30 left or whatever.

Co-host: How many did his garage sale sell?

Chris Koerner: He sold a lot there. He probably sold like, he probably sold like 40 ish of the 80 and they came.

Co-host: Yeah, that was. Those were the easiest sales he made.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, man. And it was the easiest to upsell in that situation too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Co-host: Okay, so today we're doing ways to make 10 grand in a year, a month, a week and a day. Okay, so that's the year option.

Chris Koerner: Yeah. I mean, honestly, you probably can't do 10k in a week off rugs unless you have a super dialed in plan.

Co-host: Right.

Chris Koerner: But yeah, 10k in a year. There's lots of ways to make anything can scale.

Co-host: The question is how hard is it to scale and is it worth it?

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Did those rugs come from Costco?

Chris Koerner: Costco, yeah, they were Costco returns.

Co-host: Uh, and there were other rug listings.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, there was only like one other one that we were tracking when this was months ago.

Co-host: There's probably more.

Chris Koerner: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure there is. Yeah.

Co-host: So anyone in the world with 1500 bucks or a credit card could do this business.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Anywhere they buy rugs.

Chris Koerner: Yeah.

Co-host: Which is everywhere. Yeah. Brandon, where can we find you?

Chris Koerner: Uh, yeah, just find me on Twitter, Brandon. Uh, Doyle. Or Instagram, Same thing.

Co-host: Okay.

Chris Koerner: Okay.

Co-host: Hey, guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your AirPods out. You're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a five star review on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. It would mean a lot. If you want to go the extra mile, share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.