This YouTube conversation (episode titled "My 4 Favorite Seasonal Business Ideas this Week", Jan 10, 2025) features Chris Koerner and Nick brainstorming seasonal small-business concepts. Early in the clip they note a physical TikTok-shop retail location (Outlandish) on the 3rd Street Promenade. The main chunk focuses on two Christmas-tree ideas: (1) a low-cost concierge/tree-cutting-and-delivery side hustle using BLM permits (pricing examples: $10–$15 permit cost, $60–$120 retail), and (2) the possibility of acquiring an existing tree-lot run by a local landscaping company (found via Google Maps; website appeared ransomware-locked). The hosts discuss distribution (flyers, local Facebook groups), pricing, cashflow (collect upfront), and buyer segments (experience seekers vs. convenience buyers).
Chapters
I have some legal docs out. I'm going to see how it plays out.
Why would a Christmas tree concierge business not work? I want you to tell me.
I saw this LinkedIn post. Every month I write my boss a $1,000 check, and if I don't make a thousand cold calls that month, then he can cash the check. I've never once broken it. If a business model depends on spamming someone with flyers in the parking lot of your main competitor, I am a thousand percent all for it. If you're not in that Christmas tree subscription game, then where you at? Do you remember that episode we had a couple months ago about the. The idea to take the random viral, like, TikTok shop type ideas and put them in a store? Remember that?
Yeah. Pop up. Yeah.
Well, someone's doing that on the Promenade in Santa Monica. There's a literal, like a TikTok shop. It's not TikTok shop. It's this company called Outlandish and it's a physical retail location where you can sell stuff on TikTok Shop Live. You can watch people selling live. You can test products, you can buy products in person. You can take classes on how to sell on TikTok shop. You can take classes on how to sell on livestream. And it's all right there. Exactly like we talked about.
Did they acknowledge that they got it from us?
I have some legal docs out. I'm going to see how it plays out. No. Apparently this company's been around for a few years, but they've never done like, a physical retail store until, like, last week they opened it.
I had heard that the Promenade was actually having a hard time. It's 3rd Street Promenade, you said, right? Yeah. I heard that they were having a hard time with leasing space. Like they were getting a lot of tenants leaving. I guess there's a really big homeless problem there in particular. So, I mean, it would make sense if they just have some free space to throw up that idea.
It's pretty crazy.
The company who's doing it, they're a legit company. Like, have you heard of them before?
No, but they're legit. Yeah, I never heard of them.
Come to Dallas. Next. All right, Chris, let me ask you a question. Are we the Startup Bros or the Holdco bros?
Both.
We're the whole Cobras. Thank you. You're right.
Yeah, that's what I said.
We don't just talk about startups. You like how I just, like, bulldozed through it. You're like, both. Absolutely. You're right, Chris. We are only the hold co bros. So I went, I bought a Christmas tree. And we were buying, it was $100 and like $20 tree. Typically, we will buy Christmas trees and we spend like 10 or $15. We get a permit and we go to BLM, Bureau of Land Management land.
Black lives do matter. I agree. Thank you.
Black lives matter. Land. And we cut down a tree and it's 10 or 15 bucks, and it's a cool experience. We didn't do that this year because the people we usually go with. Anyways, whatever. It's a whole long story. And so instead we went to the place that was selling a Christmas tree near our house. At the. At the grocery store. It was $120 to get this tree. So it got me thinking. Two ideas. One's a dumb idea, one's a good idea. The first one, the dumb idea is I haven't looked at any of the regulations. I don't know if it's legal or not legal. I can't imagine it's like, marketed as legal. But what if there was a concierge Christmas tree business where I go, I buy 20 permits a year, so I cut down 20 trees and I take it and I deliver that to people's homes. Now, you could get, like, as crazy with it as you wanted, right? Like, you could take pictures of it and they could choose it virtually, and the kids could look at it and they could name the tree for a couple. Maybe they named the tree three years ago and they've been watching it for three years, and it's finally ready to cut down. That's kind of too short of a period of time. But you get, you get what I'm saying. For significantly cheaper than the $120. I mean, maybe 60 bucks, you go up, you cut down 10 trees, costs you a hundred dollars because you went and bought the permits, and then you go and deliver the trees to each person for 60 bucks. You just made, you know, $600. Obviously your labor is included in there. Why would a Christmas tree concierge business not work?
Is this the good idea or the bad idea?
This is the bad idea.
Okay.
No.
Okay. Any idea could work with the right distribution and execution. Okay, I will say that, right? If. If you got Elon Musk to tweet about this idea, it would work, okay? Just by the law of large numbers. But aren't people paying for the experience of trekking up there in the mountains and cutting it down?
No. This is what I'm. This is what I'M saying it costs me 10 to $15 to buy a permit to cut down a tree. Or I go to Albertsons and buy a tree in the parking lot that's pre cut and it cost me $120.
Right?
So what I'm saying is a hybrid. If I was, if I was a young person and I'm just like, I'm just have a side hustle this Christmas, I'm going to make two grand, whatever, why wouldn't I just buy permits, go cut down trees, and then deliver these to families and then on the back end, charge them another $50 to come pick up the tree after Christmas is done? It's like your pizza business that we talked about last week, right? Like it's not necessarily. It's like I'm going to scale it, but it's just.
No, no, no, no. I don't shoot. There's no idea. That's too small for me. Okay? No judgment here on that.
My wife says that all the time. There's no such thing as too small, Nick.
First of all, Cindy, I'm sorry you had to hear that. That's my mom who listens to this. Okay, so you're.
And to. And to my mom, you're welcome because I'm sure she had a hearty laugh.
So this is an alternative to the Albertsons buyers. You're saying it's a cheaper alternative?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not to the people who are going to go cut down the tree themselves. Like, I'm not marketing to them.
Okay, that's what my question was, assuming.
Yeah. No.
Okay, so I like this because positive cash flow conversion cycle. Collect the money up front. Venmo me 60 bucks or Venmo me a hundred bucks. If you'd like it delivered. You get paid up front, right? And you could say, hey, 15 of the 60 goes straight to the BLM. That's the permit. The rest goes to me. 40 extra dollars if you want it delivered. Or you could pick it up in the parking lot Saturday morning between 9 and 11am So I like that it's cheaper. You're cutting out the middleman. You're cutting out the multi billion dollar company that's selling it in the parking lot. Why wouldn't that work?
I don't know. Why wouldn't it work? It seems like the side hustlers paradise. Like, oh, of course I'll go cut down some trees. I'll deliver them. And not only will I deliver them, but I'll pay you to pick them up too. Like I'LL handle everything end to end.
What's the distribution strategy if you're not on a busy corner? Like Albertsons is two things I thought.
Of to start with. Old school. I know I probably put flyers up at Albertsons. People are there, like, they're seeing the tree farm anyways, but then all of a sudden, they see this flyer that's like, I'll go cut you down the tree.
Cool. You are dirty, dirty tits.
And they're done dirt cheap. That would be one way. I would do it. The other way I would do it again. This is. If I was local, I would join some of the local Facebook groups and just say, like, hey, I'm doing this this year. Anybody who's interested, let me know, because there are tons of Facebook groups in Eagle, Idaho. I would just go join 20 of them since I live here, offer that as a service and see. See who bites.
I like it. Absolutely. I mean, if. If a business model depends on spamming someone with flyers in the parking lot of your main competitor, I am a thousand percent all for it.
I'm in.
I'm in. All right.
So here was my second idea with this. I got curious and I started chatting it up with the guy who was there. He was not the owner of the tree Tree lot, but he's worked with the company for a long time. And I'm like, hey, how long you guys been here? We've been doing this for 30 years. He sounds nothing like this, but it just works for this part.
This is. Yeah.
Oh, we've been doing this for 30 years. How do you do it? Oh, we just. We have to get in contact with Albert since, and they award us a contract every few years, and we just come and set up the trees. Like, really? You've had it for 30 years? He's like, yes, sir, we have. What's the name of your company? Tells me the name of his company. It's a landscaping company. A landscaping company owns this tree lot, Right. It's like, yes, sir. How long you been around? We've been around two generations at this point. So it got me thinking. I'm like, dude, this could be the perfect business to go out and, like, try to buy. So what do we do? We started doing some research. I find the name. This is the meme of Vince McMahon when he's sitting in the ring, and it gets, like, progressively more excited.
Oh, yeah, Yeah. I was thinking Vince Vaughn. For some reason, I'm like, no, no, no.
So, like, the first thing, I was just like, first I was like, you've had this for 30 years. Okay, tell me more. Then he tells me, oh, you're owned by a landscaping company. Oh, okay. You had my attention, sir, but now you have my focus.
My grandson calls me the Boomer. Silver Tsunami. Go on.
So then he tells me the name of the company. I go to the website. Guess what I found on the website, Chris.
Please don't tell me it was just plain HTML.
There was no website, Chris. They were on. They were on Google Maps because people had been giving them reviews. I click on the website, Chris, first of all, it's been ransomware.
Can you tell me the business so I can look at this up? Is it the same Google business profile listing for the tree business and the lawn care business?
No, it's just the lawn care business. There is no Google listing for the tree. The tree business. The first one that comes up is like, your connection is not private. It's like, I can't. I can't go to it. And then the second one I tried to get to. I get this, like, ransomware. Your website is under construction. If you're the owner of this domain and need assistance, please contact web support at Web support. So I'm like, dude, first of all, these guys don't care about their website because they've allowed it to just sit there as a problem.
