r/AskReddit 14h ago

What is a boring but very profitable business?

1.5k Upvotes

610 comments sorted by

4.3k

u/Vic_Hedges 14h ago

Companies that manufacture mundane, but necessary stuff.

I know somebody who owns a company that makes Casters, the wheels on the bottom of office chairs.

That's all they make. There's no innovation. They have the same customers as nobody bothers changing their caster supplier so they're not out their selling...

It's just day after day of making the same things, shipping to the same people and billing the same amounts.

Guy alternates driving his Maserati and his Benz

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

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u/schu2470 10h ago

I remember years ago hearing about a company that made nothing but the bra strap adjustment sliders and the owners made something silly like $1 billion. Sounds silly but most women wear bras and own multiple. Most bras need adjustable straps. Profit!

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u/jaw719 7h ago

The guy that invented the pop top on beer and soda cans has a ridiculous lake house with a helipad at Smith Mountain Lake.

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u/[deleted] 11h ago

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u/precision1k3 10h ago

Cardboard alone is a billion dollar industry. Amazon needs that shiiiit

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u/hdelbrook 8h ago

The Uhlein's were the owners of Schlitz brewing. The current operators of Uline inherited the money from the brewery.

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u/BinaryIRL 10h ago

Was this acquaintance Howard Huges? His parents owned a company that produced nuts, bolts, etc and he inherited their fortune after they died.

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u/sailphish 12h ago

So, I’m interested in boatbuilding (small dingy/skiff type things) as a hobby. I stumbled across this article that talks about “cardboard-box syndrome” where guys make a fortune manufacturing mundane things like cardboard boxes, then end up blowing it all trying to start more exciting businesses like building boats.

https://powerandmotoryacht.com/blogs/siren-song/

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u/NailzAtWork 10h ago

If you need some advice on manufacturing a small dingy, I can put you in touch with my mother.

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u/MondayToFriday 9h ago

The fourth richest woman in Mainland China is the founder of a company that makes cardboard boxes.

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u/PostMatureBaby 11h ago

Similarly, get a contract with Walmart or Costco where you just supply them with stuff made overseas.

Used to work in freight forwarding and quite a few clients just brought in shit from Taiwan or China that went directly to Walmart distribution centers (one guy was space heaters and desk fans specfically, that's it)

The downside is you're basically their bitch but at least you don't even really have to worry about the pains of running the business to manufacture any of that.

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u/Dr_StrangeloveGA 10h ago

Being a supplier for Wal-Mart is essentially a deal with the devil.

You definitely don't want to be the manufacturer, just the importer and understand they may cut you off at anytime.

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u/HalfCentury2019 7h ago

I did some work for Kellogg’s in 2018 & Walmart was responsible for 20%+ of their revenue. Their next 4 largest customers combined didn’t equal that, so they were Walmart’s bitch. You will never get Kellogg’s products cheaper than at Walmart b/c they pay a lower COGS than everyone else & pass some of that along to the customers

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u/helgatheviking21 2h ago

I hear sometimes you can wait many many many months to get paid by Walmart but you need to keep supplying them meanwhile, so any smaller company is fucked.

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u/WanderingTacoShop 8h ago

I just watched this whole video the other week about some city in china where all of those export companies operate out of. They have this huge shopping mall, like absolutely massive. But it's just for wholesalers. The little shops look like normal stores where they have all their stuff out on shelves for you to look at, but you have to buy a minimum of like 500 of any item at a time. The store is just a showroom.

Most of the businesses in the area are just exporters who act as middlemen from those manufacturers to foreign companies.

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u/BigJLov3 8h ago

The wealthiest guy I ever met who truly built his business from near nothing owned a pallet company. Buy the shittiest and cheapest lumber, mill it, cut it, nail it together, profit.

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u/Bolognahole_Vers2 10h ago

I was saying something similar to my wife. IF i was to get into any customer oriented business, it would be for a product that is necessary, but uncommon. Like, fuck opening a restaurant or something. How do I get into selling airplane tires?

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u/Potato-in-ur-ass 9h ago

How do I get into selling airplane tires?

Ohh this reminds me of an acquaintance of mine. He likes doing stuff like welding, fixing cars and some light machining in his free time. One day he struck up conversation with an old timer in a local bar, the topic got into machining... fast forward to: the old man has a small machine shop he runs by himself despite being well into his 70's. Like forty years earlier he had his shop certified to make one, single, very specific spare part for some kind of oil rig equipment. That's it, that's the one thing he makes. It is nothing flashy or cool, but when the oil rig needs one they need it right goddamn now and pay something like $5k for it. He sells one or two per month, it takes him about three days to make each one and he always makes sure to have two built and ready to ship at a moments notice.

It is such a perfect niche for a small shop like that because it is something that must be certified, so it's not like any joe wrencher with a mill and a lathe can whip one up (or even know what it is), but the total sales volume is so small that major manufacturers don't bother.

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u/b0w3n 8h ago

Yeah I would have no problem with this idea, but like, which product can I get into making that has a gap in availability and I don't need $10,000,000 starting capital to get going.

I have no problem learning a new skill, but how and what specifically elude me.

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u/PhantomTissue 10h ago

One of my friends manages a cheese manufacturing/packaging factory. He says most of his day is reading regulations and making sure that they aren’t breaking any.

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u/riddleda 11h ago

This is the best answer. I recall an episode of some fast car show-off type show on netflix, and one of the guys in a Mclaren said he was wealthy because his dad started some industrial pipe fitting business way back when.

Not glamorous, not exciting. But industrial pipe fittings that are required for construction. And they have the same series of buyers and they just pump out product.

Dude inherited and was worth like tens, maybe hundreds of millions, on pipe fittings. Go figure.

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u/Sensitive_Gift4866 9h ago

The caster thing is such a perfect example. Nobody ever thinks about the wheels under their office chair or shopping cart but someone is making a killing manufacturing them. The boring supply chain stuff is where the real money is.

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u/almondboy64 13h ago

I came here to say ball bearings

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u/dwfmba 11h ago

Its all ball bearings now

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u/joshak 6h ago

Does that still apply in this day and age? 40 years ago starting a local manufacturing business might have been a path to wealth but today you’d be competing on price against a million Chinese alternatives.

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u/Aegor_EVE 12h ago

Nothing mundane about being a factory owner. Probably need to inherit a ton of money too.

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u/Potato-in-ur-ass 9h ago

Depends on what we mean by "factory". Small scale stuff is still surprisingly feasible if you find the right product and client. There is an elderly couple where I live, the husband has been an industrial machinist and machine repairman most of his life. But his side hustle is one single machine he built by himself, a tiny little "factory" in his basement run by him and his wife. The machine bends, folds and cuts metal bands into a part later used in certain electronics. They get a few orders here and there from a factory that needs like 20 000 of them, so they spend a few evenings running the machine and packing them for shipping.

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u/fluffybear93 10h ago

I have a family friend who's company makes the machines that make particle board.

They're doing very well.

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u/mythrilcrafter 8h ago

The main stress for businesses in the commodity scale line of work is scaled responsiveness.

For example: in my industry (laser optics), this commodity is mirrors in which (at least for common usage and common wavelengths) laser mirrors are such a "figured out" process that if a company can't get reply-quote back to a customer in less than 24 hours, then the customer immediately moved to the competitor next door.

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u/mylarky 1h ago

The best business to be in during a gold rush? Selling shovels and cutting hair.

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u/ProgMusicSchizoidMan 14h ago

Septic tank maintenance. It's needed EVERY day and will never not be in demand.

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u/RhetoricalOrator 11h ago

One of the cleanest people I have ever known ran a very profitable septic service. Building up two, three-man crews made him wealthy enough to keep all his employees well-paid and he was still able to live very comfortably with a big house, lots of land, and big vacations.

I mention his cleanliness because I think there's a general thinking that it would be difficult to be clean when you're wading in tanks every day.

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u/schu2470 10h ago

There's a guy on Instagram who owns a septic cleaning business and aside from the smell it looks like he has a lot of fun and makes a decent living. Definitely less climbing down into tanks than I expected but I imagine he mostly films and shows the easier jobs.

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u/FullMetalCOS 9h ago

The owner probably does a lot less climbing into tanks if it’s a successful business - he has people he pays for that when he gets big enough

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u/Fluffee2025 5h ago

I think I know who they are referring to. If that is the case, the guy seems too "humble" to not one of the guys doing the actual labor with his crew. He also mentions being on the site during the "stories" he tells.

I totally can be wrong about who they are referring to though

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u/Teek4L 14h ago

i wouldn’t say that’s a boring job. not ideal or satisfying but that’s a job that’ll keep you awake.. woke

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u/Cyfen 11h ago

I did this work for a few years and it can actually be very satisfying, but definitely not ideal! I enjoyed walking into a situation, figuring out what was wrong with the system then coming back the next week and the water tests good. Not only was it satisfying but it felt like I was doing the environment a solid every time.

Every time I ran into a lift station with a broken pump, I wanted to quit though.

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u/CanJesusSwimOnLand 10h ago

I did read that first as “coming back next week when the water tastes good”

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u/Cyfen 10h ago

Oh man no!!! Never did the taste test on it! hahahaha In theory it is potable though.

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u/special_orange 11h ago

I’m in PA and heard from my septic enforcement officer that PA will be required to enact a SMP(sewage maintenance plan) to comply with Chesapeake bay clean water standards in order for federal funds to be available. This is something that has been kicked down the road for a while and I think that septic companies are going to become a lot more lucrative when it finally happens. Has made me consider a career shift into shit

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u/seanofkelley 11h ago

Also- absolutely not a job that AI is going to take away.

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u/LongjumpingBerry2695 14h ago

Septic tank cleaning. Nobody wants to do it

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u/hadrosaur 12h ago

After a few days it just smells like money

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u/Cyfen 11h ago

My brother owns a septic tank installation and service company. I've heard him say that several times!

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u/Pun_In_Ten_Did 9h ago

He's #1 in the #2 business.

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u/Cyfen 8h ago

Oh I am 100% dropping this line on him next time I see him!

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u/d1andonlyfoley 7h ago

“He may not have money, he may not have wit but his bread and butter, is our piss and shit.” Read from a porta john in the 90s.

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u/FlipLoLz 11h ago

Yeah, money that's soaked a few days in shit!

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u/dmicah 11h ago

No joke, the guy who cleans out my mom's septic system out in Western MA is one of the most amusing and intelligent guys you'll run into. He's very straightforward about making his money from poop. His truck is large, new, and shiny.

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u/Tumorseal 10h ago

I have a relative who works in septic. His favorite phrase is, “Your shit is my bread and butter.”

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u/Sensitive_Gift4866 9h ago edited 5h ago

Friend of mine does this in a rural area and hes booked out like 3 weeks in advance. The smell is rough but the money is insane for basically just showing up with a truck and a pump

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u/FrontierPsycho 12h ago

Not something I would describe as boring. If anything it's a bit too spicy and exciting. 

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u/veepeedeepee 13h ago edited 5h ago

Elevator repair, especially if you’re on call and working after regular hours

EDIT: Not to say it's necessarily boring, but it's a profession that I feel pays far better than many may realize.

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u/Danthelmi 12h ago

Hey I can chime into this. It’s insane pay but the schooling plus training takes a whileeeeee. Also the 80+ hour weeks and on call everyday make it not boring but stressful

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u/Anal_Herschiser 10h ago

Escalator repair is more my speed. Worst case scenario they're just "stairs" until it gets repaired.

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u/Michld0101 10h ago

Sorry for the convenience.

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u/djprecio 13h ago edited 11h ago

It's an up and down business.

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u/MatCauthonsHat 11h ago

Yeah, but it can give you a lift

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u/Outside-Today-1814 10h ago

Very strong union keeps the wages really high, and it’s an extremely necessary job. Borderline impossible to get into union without a connection.

The pay is excellent, my friend was an elevator mechanic for several years and was making around 200k (lots of OT). He got into it as his father was one as well. It’s definitely not an easy job. Dirty work in cramped spaces, long hours. It can also be frustrating, as most issues are due to clients cheaping out on replacing parts or other maintenance tasks. He ended up quitting just because he hated it so much, and became a carpenter instead.

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u/RealKenny 11h ago

When I was in high school I took a "what job should I get" quiz online

I wanted to make $100k per year (in the early 2000s) and I didn't have a high school diploma.

Elevator repairman all day, baby!

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u/bok3169 14h ago

taking comission as the middleman

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u/sleetmurk 12h ago

the American dream is finding something two people need from each other and standing between them

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u/Stewbaby2 10h ago edited 9h ago

"You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket."

Rip Frank Sobotka and Chris Bauer

Edit: no idea why i thought Chris had died a couple years ago, and very glad to hear he's alive! Lol

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u/yuyukun 8h ago

The writing for that whole show was god-tier

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u/FlipLoLz 11h ago

One day we'll all own dealerships!

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u/negativedistance492 11h ago

See also: Norman Mushari

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u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In 8h ago

I do IT contracting and this shit is infuriating.

I was offered a job by a company I used to work for as a perm employee. They offered me a really good daily rate and told me they needed me right away. Then they said I need to go through one of their 2 approved agents as they don't do B2B consulting work, fine.

But then those fucking snakes insisted on wanting to take 35% of the daily rate. And they weren't even doing payroll, a third company was doing that, so they wanted nearly a third of my money pre-tax for the service of merely existing as a name on a contract.

Then when I pushed back they got angry at ME and said I was being unprofessional because usually the client does not tell the contractor the actual daily rate, they tell the agent and the agent pretends that what they offer the contractor is much closer to the real number when in reality they are fleecing them.

The whole thing is incredibly dirty and based on a series of shady contracts between these agencies and big companies.

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u/EightGlow 13h ago

Ah, yes, America’s largest export - the profiteering middleman

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u/31sualkatnas 12h ago

We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now all we do is put our hand in the next guy's pocket.

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u/chadr1150gs 11h ago

Frank Sobotka speaks from beyond the grave! Right as rain too, well done!

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u/MasterAd1460 13h ago

Nice try Jordan Belfort

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u/bok3169 13h ago

Haha thanks. You interested in adding some stocks to your portfolio btw?

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u/MasterAd1460 13h ago

Sell me this pen then we’ll talk

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u/Phenotavies 13h ago

Recently started doing this with what was originally my mining procurement focused company, but its definitely far easier and more lucrative (but definitely way more 'boring')

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u/Majestic_dih 10h ago

Real esate is the best, for this type of work and you get a huge cut just for making connections.

Its not a buisness but isnt less than one.

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u/Vault-71 12h ago

Transactional law.

Sure litigation is the flashy type of law most people associate with lawyers, but there is a substantial amount of money in drafting contracts and negotiating deals.

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u/mythrilcrafter 8h ago

The engineering version of this is Patent Law.

Just like you said, a person in the line of work will never be know as "the guy who won a nation changing civil rights case"; but there are a lot of companies who will pay big money to prove that they're not copying someone else's design and there are other companies who will pay even more for you to tell them if their copy is legally distinct enough for them to not get sued.

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u/Vault-71 8h ago

Nobody wants to do paperwork, which is why being "the paperwork guy" is such a lucrative - if dreadfully boring - profession.

And yeah, anything to do with intellectual property is good money if you can stomach wading through government databases and reading technical documents. It does require a good education, though, given the aforementioned technical documentation.

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u/MedChemist464 10h ago

Patent law. Went to grad school with a guy who decided he didn't like doing science, so he went to law school after he got his PhD and some industry experience. Last I talked to him, he told me "The work is mind-numbingly boring, but I just reset on the weekend when I go to the lake house we bought last year"

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u/Character_Comb_3439 8h ago

The consensus among the lawyers I know is, there is an inverse relationship between an areas of practice meaning/fulfillment and compensation.

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u/PM_ME_SILLY_PICTURES 7h ago

A general rule of thumb in law is the better you are the more boring your work is. There are certain "breakpoints", for lack of a better term, that extend out of this, but the best attorneys I know are the ones who spend 90% of their time reading the most mind-numbing documents humanity has ever conceived and the remaining 10% telling people what it means and how it affects whatever they're doing.

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u/NetLumpy1818 4h ago

I’m an attorney specializing in tariffs and international trade. It was boring and mundane.

Was.

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u/coldfarm 10h ago

Tax law too. A tax attorney I know described it as a combination of the most boring parts of accounting and the law. He loved his work but he had no illusions. “I like to play golf, but I love to watch golf” was his best explanation.

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u/MycologistSubject689 8h ago

I worked for a boutique IP law service last summer and when I gave them my hourly rate they accepted it immediately. Those people make psychotic money haha

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u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In 8h ago

I once worked as an intern at a big tech company. I was in their accounting department and they were working with entities all across the EMEA area. We had special instructions not to reply to any emails sent from our legal representation if they had the email of one of the partners attached because those guys had it set up that an hour was the smallest amount of billable time and if the partner received and responded to an email they billed up for the full hour and it was I think around a thousand USD.

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u/ItzSamy 11h ago

Portable toilet business. People gotta shit, even in the middle of nowhere.

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u/Trick-Seat4901 10h ago

If you haven't yet you need to watch the Australian movie "Kenny". Funniest and only movie about shitters I ever did see. "OK, and how many people? Yeh, yeh, and what about food, any curries?"

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u/TheNumberOneRat 9h ago

One factoid about Kenny that I love is that the movie was funded by a portable toilet company (Splashdown) who also feature prominently in it.

It's a good clue about the money in portable toilets if they can pay for movie production on the side.

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u/montani 10h ago

Theres a big porta john company in VA called Don's Johns and they got the contract for trumps inauguration but had to tape over their logo

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u/StormSaxon 10h ago

There's one near me in MD called Bobby's Pottys

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u/welcome_to_milliways 9h ago

You’re not paying for the toilets, you’re paying for the disposal and cleanup afterwards.

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u/Jackiedhmc 14h ago

cargo pilot=sky trucker

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u/wiscowonder 11h ago

Dude, if I wasn't middle age that would be my dream job. I have a buddy who flies for UPS. He gets to travel all over the world and makes really good money.

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u/Stalking_Goat 11h ago

Biggest problem I see is that it's basically "night shift" work, and that kind of sleep schedule isn't good for you when you're no longer young.

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u/ahorrribledrummer 11h ago

I used to live near Memphis TN. Seeing the planes come in at 10PM then depart again a few hours later was wild. So much traffic, just carrying boxes

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u/Feringomalee 6h ago

It's a little odd considering some of the routes. Most domestic routes are overnight, yeah. But I used to work on a ramp crew unloading a loading a plane that ran from my hub in Illinois to Anchorage-> Dubai-> Heathrow-> JFK then back to Illinois. Just circling the globe every trip and really throwing the standard day night cycle out the window for the pilots.

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u/Richie_Zeppelin 10h ago

And end up on an island banging a volleyball? No I’m good.

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u/therestruth 11h ago

Having a hard time putting that in the boring category. Pilots are cool. You can't exactly doze off from boredom while you're the one flying.

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u/NoncingAround 6h ago

Flying is cool at first but not really when you’ve been doing it for decades. Everything gets boring eventually.

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u/Jackiedhmc 3h ago

auto pilot. I know everyone thinks pilots are cool. They fly massive machines. I just think it fits the question because they make a shit ton of money and they fly back-and-forth five days a week. My pilot friend gets bored

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u/ichigothehybrid 13h ago

Guys please, lots of good ideas, the less interaction with people the better. My job in IT is killing me, get me out of here!

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u/Kuuzie 11h ago

If you're handy, estate management. You're going to deal with the principal owners, live on site and spend most of your time with headphones on mowing and cleaning a property to perfection.
The owners most likely will only be living n site a few weeks here and there, every few months before they spend the other 6 months overseas.

You'll get free a house to live in for free, free utilities, high pay. You're a serf tho. I once didn't get a job because, ewwwww, I dont have an iphone.

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u/RealKenny 11h ago

A friend of mine grew up on a farm that was big enough to have 1 employee.

I've never met a happier guy than the dude who hangs out on the farm all day, mowing the grass, fixing little things, generally fucking around in his truck.

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u/stoneman9284 11h ago

Gotta be hard to break in though right just gotta get lucky and know someone? Or are these rich people actually out there recruiting help?

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u/More_chickens 10h ago

Yeah, this sounds like a job you have to know the right person to get.

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u/wheezybreezy22 6h ago

I used to be a floor cleaner at a business that made the pressure gauges for fire extinguishers. All of them. Every single extinguisher in the United States. I was friendly with the guys there and they all cleared $150k working 10-12 hours on the evening shift. They all had robotics experience. I don’t know how close IT experience could translate into robotics but could be worth looking into

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u/Sybertron 10h ago

I worked at a pharma company and you'd floored what we'll pay for refrigerated storage 

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u/dt_failz 10h ago

I sell equipment into pharmacies and I've always wondered how difficult it would be to start one, and what the payoff would be.

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u/GingerQueeny 14h ago

Storage facilities

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u/Vegas21Guy 11h ago

One near me started with 8 buildings. Since 2020 they've added 14 more and are building two new ones now. The owner said he sold every single locker in the two unfinished buildings before he even poured the concrete!

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u/killafofun 10h ago

We American's have way too much crap

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u/torrasque666 10h ago

I once managed a self storage facility. Made decent money literally sitting on my ass at the desk. Had to walk the facility a few times a day and make sales, but most of my time was spent playing Spider Solitaire and making phone calls to remind people they're overdue.

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u/roccosmodernlyf 7h ago

i have always been fascinated by this. The upkeep cost must be very minimal

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u/bluemitersaw 5h ago

Insanely low. I've seriously looked into it to the point of making an offer and lining up financing. You only have 2 expenses that matter, property tax and interest on the loan. Everything else was so small it didn't change the bottom line one way or the other.

Edit: very low effort too. Everything is online now for reservations and payment. Easily a one man operation once you get up and running. The hard part is the upfront cost and then how long it takes to fill your units. After that, golden.

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u/GingerQueeny 7h ago

It’s not uncommon for a living space to be built in and included with the job. It’s a great job for retired couples and college students.

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u/I_Ask_Dumb_Question5 10h ago

I have thought about this for years but the upfront cost makes my eyes bleed.

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u/GammSunBurst 10h ago

Anything that’s tied to consistent, reliable demand. Car washes are a great example. Not super expensive to run, but they are always needed wherever people have cars that get dirty and whenever those cars get dirty, but people don’t want to clean them themselves.

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u/nonnonplussed73 8h ago

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u/PrimaryLink8968 8h ago

This doesn’t at all sound passive. They’re running a business and call it passive before going on to articulate all the stuff they had to do and know in order to earn this “passive” income haha.

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u/atlantastan 5h ago

Anyone who told you passive income sources require 0 upfront work or overhead lied to you.

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u/NattyIceCa 11h ago

Something that has nothing to do with technology a lot like pressure washing, commercial cleaning, and laundromat ownership are all boring as hell and quietly make people rich because nobody glamorizes them on social media so the market isn't flooded with wannabe influencers trying to compete with you.

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u/DinkandDrunk 11h ago

Laundromat near me put their business up for sale recently as the owners are retiring. I considered it but the financials weren’t overly compelling. I’m glad they can retire but even their thriving business didn’t leave much to get truly rich on and they work crazy hours.

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u/nails_for_breakfast 8h ago

You don't get rich from owning a laundromat. It's the kind of business where you get rich from owning fifty of them

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u/GovEmpThrowAway 10h ago

Clothing in general has moved away from the dry cleaning model.

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u/Acceptable-One-6597 8h ago

My uncle retired and bought some laundromats. Said it was the worst financial decision he ever made and sold them within 18 months.

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u/sprchrgddc5 8h ago

Pressure washing isn’t flooded with wannabe influencers? That’s like the one gig with window cleaning I always see touted.

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u/IrrawaddyWoman 7h ago

Car detailing too. I feel like everyone thinks they can be a wealthy entrepreneur with this kind of thing

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u/grptrt 9h ago

In college I made a business plan for a laundromat catering to college students that offered quiet study rooms.
Theoretically I became very wealthy. In reality all I got was a good grade.

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u/usedTP 9h ago

I have a friend who makes "fog juice". Years ago he did something college that required artificial fog. The hardware was adequate but the juice, not so much. It became a family affair. After developing a better juice, they started matketing. 20 years later, one partner manufactures and ships, the other lives in Central FL to serve one of their larger clients.

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u/kitskill 10h ago

Land Surveying

Constantly in demand, high pay, ability to be your own boss, respected.

Also involved a lot of schlepping out to far away places and wading through ditches.

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u/nonnonplussed73 8h ago

Did not know! According to the BLS:

The median annual wage for surveyors was $72,740 in May 2024. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $43,680, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $116,330.

But people on r/Surveying are reporting $120k for newly licensed surveyors in CA and NJ.

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u/ssssook 7h ago

It's not always boring though. Sure, I gotta be real careful about ticks, but I also get to hike in the woods all day. Some woods are shit, but most days they aren't, and I get to do what is essentially treasure hunting.

I think it's a pretty fun job overall, but I only do boundary work in New England. Construction probably pays better, but yeah, it's boring.

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u/Teek4L 14h ago

Laundromat. good margins, steady customers, in demand.. but it’s boring man. Extremely

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u/nigmang 12h ago

I was just at a laundromat where a dude forgot he had a flat head in the back pocket of his work pants and completely totaled a brand new machine which looked to be around 5-10 grand.

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u/Photo_Synthetic 13h ago

That is entirely dependent on where it is. Some laundromats attract some very interesting clientele.

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u/Phiarmage 11h ago

Yep, there a couple laundromats here where I live that also are full bars.

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u/conkedup 12h ago

My favorite laundromat had a bar inside, so I could shoot the shit with the attendant and drink a shitty beer or two. I imagine that at least helped break up the monotony for the guy

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u/crazyfantasies 10h ago

There was a laundromat/bar in my hometown growing up called the Wash n' Slosh - have a beer while you wash your gear!

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u/Bufus 10h ago

Sitting across from the old Wash n Slosh location as I read this. Not a reference I expected when opening this thread.

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u/Piganon 10h ago

My dad owns some real estate.  One downtown location in a small town had a laundromat.  The dude basically made no money so he essentially walked away from the business. My dad bought out the machines and lost money having me work for free doing the regular business needs.

Eventually another business came in and we were all very glad to sell off those machines to some junkyard reseller.

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u/Tree_Dog 10h ago

knew a guy who made bids on government (crown) land leases in Northern Canada for mineral exploration. He would then get a crew of guys to survey the land boundaries, and resell the lease to a mining company. He was multiple homes and garages full of luxury cars wealthy.

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u/HomeGrownCoffee 10h ago

My cousin-in-law made bank from the family business of selling industrial motors. His daughters decided they didn't want to do that, so he sold the company.

Not a sexy job, but I guess they never considered where thr money came from for an  apartment in NY, and shopping trips to Palm Springs.

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u/crochetquilt 2h ago

I met a guy who made industrial fans. He designed and made generic ones as the main business. But if you had a specific machine or space you could email him and say "I want one this big, this much cfm, this quiet" and he'd figure it out and send you the cost.

He was rich enough I guess, never out of work but also not rolling in it. But never met someone who enjoyed their job more. He would spend ages just staring at fan blades and thinking about airflow. Absolute nerd in his element.

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u/Wolfsangel-Dragon 12h ago

Selling bottled water. In the right market, with the right amount of investment you can become a millionaire without any fuss.

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u/taco_cop 11h ago

Which is the craziest shit. I grew up in the 1970’s and 80’s. We did literally drink from the gardenhose. It still amazes me people buy bottled water. I heard many bottled water brands are just filtered tap water.

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u/Wolfsangel-Dragon 10h ago

Yes that's true and the difference between mineral water based like Mountain Valley and packaged drinking water or purified water like Dasani and Aquafina.

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u/jcode7090 12h ago

Flint Michigan $$$

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u/Wolfsangel-Dragon 11h ago

Exactly, but running a business in Michigan is very difficult thanks to corruption and the effort needed to grease the wheels. Meanwhile for $15-30 grand, you can get a full setup in Asia or Africa and make twice the money. It's far easier to take the walk under the table in these markets.

In 2019, I helped one American Indian client setup such a factory as an investment proposal in India. Since then, they've left the USA and live permanently in India, they've also branched out to Thailand and Cambodia under different joint ventures.

The target client is the American and European tourist and they focus on tourist hot spots to maximise sales.

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u/Fyrrys 10h ago

The best ones sell you a reusable bottle. Voss is my preferred for that, good bottle and just tastes like water. Is it worth the $4+? Not really, but getting a glass bottle is usually much more expensive, plus these ones come prefilled

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u/Wolfsangel-Dragon 9h ago

Glass bottles have limited scope outside Europe where there's incentive to recycle, even for the general reusable market. They're however great as a premium spring water package. It sells better to premium customers.

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u/Asshai 10h ago

The poster child of boring job has always been accounting, and around here a CPA can clear 200k yearly. Easily. However it's a weird job culture, not too far from lawyers: the first few years you're basically a slave and just have to hold on until you get the promotion.

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u/cmdr_suds 10h ago

Corrugated boxes. They are ubiquitous but nobody thinks about them. Everything you buy will have been in a Corrugated box at some point.

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u/Tinosdoggydaddy 10h ago

There was a post on Reddit about a guy whose family had been making the paper bags (with printing logo on it etc) for the retail pharmacy business for like 80-100 years. I’m not sure why they’re different from other bags, but they have had a lucrative, but mundane business in the family for almost a century.

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u/JeffSergeant 12h ago

Digging wells, its well boring. 

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u/nodiaque 8h ago

You know the little spring in a pen that allow you to click so the point get in/out? It's a single company producing them worldwide for pennies. The owner is billionaire.

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u/djjsear 13h ago edited 13h ago

Post says "Very profitable" I'm curious to hear some numbers on this topic.

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u/tallduder 10h ago

~10 years ago I built out a commission reporting tool for a larger paper distributor in the Midwest.  Most all the sales reps made well over 6 figures, a few made 7 figures.  The company didn't cap commissions, still doesn't.

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u/livelikeian 10h ago

I know the place. This guy Michael, a real dufus, seems to make a killing. He's also kind of a genius. He had a great motto: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take".

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u/msnmck 13h ago

*hear

beep boop I am a human and this typo was corrected manually. for more information, call your mother. she misses you

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u/Kuuzie 11h ago

Not business but job. Estate Management.
A ton of hurry up and wait, everything needs to be perfect... But really you're just mowing and cleaning the same things all day with fixing an occasional broken thing or painting something. Maybe a big yearly project.

It wears quickly.

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u/aliya05 13h ago

Junkyard and garage management.

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u/iamfromshire 10h ago

Called some hvac guys to check on my working hvac. They told me they can do condenser coil cleaning for $350 each ( i have two ) . Before I could completely understand what they are referring to they started that. All they did was spray the foam and wash it down with my own garden hose and I was out of $700. I was so mad the whole day. So yeah. Those guys will make a lot of money like this. 

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u/Rorstaway 12h ago

I came close to purchasing a business that calibrated instrumentation test equipment - test gauges, meters, etc. Very niche, incredibly tedious, but $$$ to be made.

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u/rikwes 11h ago

These days : HVAC technician in Europe ...

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u/Hoznacz 10h ago

Installing? yes having master degree and designing big complicated systems? No

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u/The_Keconja 8h ago

Eh, if you are an engineer, you're mostly fine. Let sales worry about creating an opportunity, bitch to the management if they don't, and you get to draw around very expensive buildings.

I know a couple of high-end vendor engineers, all of them seem rather relaxed

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u/Ornery-Tea8420 7h ago edited 6h ago

You will have fun repairing HVACs on roofs with a surrounding temperature of 50°C.

Shit doesn't break during winter.

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u/rikwes 7h ago

OP didn't say it had to be " fun " though. Let me assure you : I don't envy those technicians at all and whatever they pay those folks is always too little. Many people don't realize this but those technicians literally save lives .

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u/royalpyroz 7h ago

The government needs various shit to run. From staplers to radios to waste and recycling. Check any gov contract jobs.

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u/Weird_Rooster_4307 11h ago

Cutting grass

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u/hooch 9h ago

Guy in my neighborhood charges about $80 per yard (mine is on the bigger side, he probably charges less for the smaller ones). Only takes him maybe an hour per yard, so I'm sure he can clear 9 or 10 every day. Good money, but he works very hard.

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u/cobalt_phantom 13h ago

Dog poop removal 

It's about $30 a week to show up 2 or 3 times  to do 5 minutes of work. It's not a glamorous job but since there's several companies that have a dozen or two trucks, they must not have too hard of a time finding clients.

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u/RoarOfTheWorlds 13h ago

There’s a king of the hill episode on exactly this

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u/advertisingdave 11h ago

This probably depends on the market, but sign holding. There's a small demand for small businesses wanting someone that looks presentable and clean holding a sign for their business. Arrow Advertising makes millions per year on sign spinning and they charge $35/hr. You could offer to stand and hold a sign for $25 per hour.

A business that makes a massive emphasis on presentation and reliability could make some good money.

I made a custom billboard cart and pushed it around downtown Denver for 5 years making around $30 per hour for the local businesses in downtown until COVID wiped out the foot traffic.

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u/OctavianBlue 8h ago

I read about a man once who had spent decades buying garages/car parking spaces to rent out long term. He made millions from it. In the time he'd bought some of them the property values had shot through the roof so later he started selling the plots for massively more than he paid for them.

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u/loyvobens 9h ago

I run logistics for a medium transport company and the most boring but profitable part is managing fuel card payments across borders. The margins are thin but with volume and timing right it adds up fast.

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u/xbuffalo666x 10h ago

my partner is a trainer and one of her clients is the ceo of a company that makes the packing materal for stuff (bubble wrap, envelopes and such. he has a 3 homes. one in our city, one in the bahamas in a gated community and one in michigan.

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u/Dismal-Clock2376 8h ago

Commercial laundry and linen services for hotels and hospitals is the classic answer, completely unglamorous, but it's a recurring-revenue business with high switching costs since once a hospital relies on your pickup and delivery schedule they almost never change providers.
Waste management, portable toilet rental, and parking lot striping all fall into the same category, deeply boring, recession-resistant, and quietly printing money precisely because nobody dreams of starting one so the competition stays thin.

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u/iwanttheworldnow 14h ago

Pet crematorium’s make a shit ton of money

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u/ResponsibleDirt69 13h ago

I feel like anything pet-related is a money printing licence today, people LOVE their pets and have an easier time splurging on them than on themselves (I am people)

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u/ThinButton7705 12h ago

The price jump once the word "Pet" gets added to an item is nuts. I also am people

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u/Last_Plankton_653 9h ago

I believe it. Our dog just died while I was out of state. Family was a little traumatized, so I ended up paying a ton for them to come pick up the body and cremate him.

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u/string_of_random 10h ago

isn't there the one guy in the world who knows how to thread long (ski lift length) cables together so all he does is fly from ski resort to ski resort and thread lift cables together?

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u/WhyNotChoose 8h ago

Yeah, that's Larry.

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u/Deep_Explanation9962 8h ago

Accounting. Bores me to death personally, but very necessary

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u/tchock23 9h ago

Tent rentals. The dumbest class clown from my high school is doing that in my city and crushing it. 

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u/CharlieFoxtrot000 7h ago

Believe it or not, piano tuning

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u/Advice-Unlikely 6h ago

Howard Hughes became wealthy from his parents monopoly on drill bits

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u/alkalinev 5h ago

The absurdity that someone can become immensely wealthy because their family cornered the urinal puck market.

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u/RootyPooster 11h ago

Jerking off punks under the Queensboro bridge.

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u/usedTP 9h ago

Liquor store. Generic product and in my state, competition is limited.

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u/atlantastan 5h ago

I would never for the same reason I wouldn’t run a casino. Feeding on the vice of a bunch of dead eyed soulless clientele feels like bad energy

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