A thread on how to turn $100 into a lot more:

People are spending a lot of money on their homes right now. Its time to go get some of that money and help out some of these people.

Sound silly? Good.

It really is this simple sometimes.

Lets go 👇
Get on your computer and buy a web domain.

Get a freelancer (upwork or fiverr) to make you a logo/flyer and get $45 worth of flyers printed at your local print shop.

Buy a box of sidewalk chalk if you really want to grind and get gritty.
Go downtown with the sidewalk chalk and write “pressure washing and home cleaning 888-555-1234” as many times as you can in high traffic areas.

Go to a middle class or high end neighborhood and hand out flyers on porches and wherever else.
Get creative. You might get ran off but its low risk. Target those with dirty payment.

Your cell phone will start ringing. Book all of the jobs for Saturday.

Rent a power washer Saturday morning with the other $50 and go make $300 in one day.
Do the same thing the next weekend and then buy a power washer. Then put $200 into a website and nurture a Google My Business location.

Get reviews, upload photos, make it look nice. 50% of your biz will come through here.
Make sure you pre-treat the concrete with a bleach mixture. It makes the job 2x as easy. Get some $1 gallons of bleach and cut it 1:5 with water in a 5 gallon backpack sprayer for $60 on Amazon.

Ask the customers nicely to use their water. Borrow Gma's Prius to haul the washer.
Make a youtube video introducing yourself and put your town and power washing in the title. Link to your website.

Make posts on Facebook Marketplace (this one is key).

Within a few weeks you'll be bringing in $1,000 every weekend.
When you hit $4k in a month its time to quit your job and get serious.

“On demand” is going to be your competitive advantage so you can charge a higher price. Make sure you can offer next day service or same day service. As soon as you get too busy to do that its time to hire.
Make sure that person is presentable and clean cut. Get a business polo shirt made at your local embroider.

Target students at first because they work hard and are reliable. They have summers off which is your busiest time.
Provide amazing customer service. Answer the phone every time and be in a super eager positive mood.

This along with the “on demand” nature will put you ahead of 99% of your competitors.
Make friends with realtors in town or watch the MLS and visit homeowners the week before an open house. A home looks a lot newer with a clean driveway.

Use google maps to measure concrete area and provide instant quotes over the phone. Put out yard signs with your logo.
Eventually buy a cargo van and have your own generator and water tank inside so you can be mobile and do more jobs and charge more money.
Grow from there. Start power washing entire parking lots for shopping centers.

Get the contract to do it twice a year for $15,000 per service.

You can get one of those big ride on power washers eventually and start doing larger commercial jobs.
As your company grows launch a branch in a neighboring city with a management hire. Then another city.

Sell the company or just cash the checks and sit on the beach with your family. You’ll likely get bored and end up building another business.
Side note:

I hired one of these guys to wash the exterior doors and walls at my Pittsburgh facility a while ago.

1 out of the 10 that I called could bring their own water.

3 weeks later he showed up with a crew of 2 folks. Took them 1.5 hours. Billed me $1,000. I was happy.
Don't like power washing?

This model works for any business (including my storage business we founded in 2011).

Here is a list of others to consider:

sweatystartup.com/businesses-i-l…
The big idea here:

Start SMALL.

Don’t try to change the world. Make that first $1000 and then level up. Then level up again.

Then you look back 10 yrs later and you’re making serious money and ready to change the world.
If you like this kind of thing you’d love my podcast - The Sweaty Startup.

I’m about to launch a private community on small business and entrepreneurship - get notified here:

sweatystartup.substack.com

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More from @sweatystartup

25 Apr
“The key to success in entrepreneurship is finding and hiring spectacular people.”

☝️ bullshit advice.

The key to success is building a company that can thrive with perfectly average folks.

Finding and motivating great people is the cherry on top.
Business owners sit around and complain about how hard it is to find “great people”.

How hard are you working to recruit?

How much are you spending on advertising and bonuses to attract?
And the big one:

Do you really expect somebody who cares about your biz like you do to walk through the door?

You’re looking for unicorns! They do not exist!

Nobody knows or cares about your biz like you do.
Read 7 tweets
24 Apr
A career is like a series of games.

The key to winning is taking a step back early on and figuring out which game is worth playing and which one isn’t.

Too many people play the wrong games with stiff competition and shitty prizes and wonder why it’s hard af to get ahead.
How do you assess what games are worth playing?

Is your goal to make money and so you can quit trading your time for money as soon as possible?

Then ask yourself a series of questions:
Is this game fun to play?

If so, you’ll get a lot of people playing the game for fun and not for money.

And it likely adds value to you and doesn’t add much value to others.

People play it for selfish reasons.
Read 17 tweets
22 Apr
75% of people don’t work towards any long term goals.

Going through the motions to get paid next Friday, pick kids up from school, a few beers on the couch each night.

It’s a great way to watch 10 years pass without growing as a human at all.
Didn’t think I’d get so much heat for this one.

I’m a privileged jerk! Unfollow me now!
Side note:

Twitter is the most fun between 1-10k followers.

From there the opportunity goes up and the enjoyment goes way down
Read 8 tweets
22 Apr
3.3 million square feet of self storage was developed in greater NYC over the last 12 months.

Self storage under construction or in planning equal 17.7% of current supply on the market.

The amount of new development right now is insane.
The reason is simple:

The appetite for storage from institutional investors has never been stronger.

These developers are 2xing their money when they sell at certificate of occupancy.

We’re talking 4.5 caps on pro forma numbers.
Lease it up 50%?

4 cap on pro forma and a few more million.

Fully leased group of 4 properties in major metros?

3 cap and under.

Insane debt terms too on the commercial markets.
Read 6 tweets
21 Apr
If you tuned in for the webinar that @fortworthchris and I hosted a few weeks back, you know how big of a deal he is when it comes to real estate.

Tomorrow we're hosting a live AMA using a pretty neat software that allows you to get in line and ask a live question.
Here's the link to register and tune in:

hotline.co/nickhuber
Here's what to expect as far as format goes:

Read 4 tweets
20 Apr
The storage business isn’t always fun and definitely isn’t sexy.

We bought this 185 unit portfolio at public auction in October of 2019. 140 units were abandoned and not paying.

We were handed paper ledgers and leases (some 20 years old) at closing.
We paid $632k ($25.80 / sf) and bought it at a public auction.

It had $3,368 on the rent roll at closing.

We spent a week preparing for and organizing a public auction of the units. We got all the units cleared, cleaned, and ready to rent.

We sent auction notices to every customer (using the best information we could find online or in the records).
Read 8 tweets

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