The Most Overlooked $3K/Day Side Hustle Anyone Can Start (with $0)

Porch pumpkins might be the best seasonal side hustle. Why? Because half of every dollar earned is pure profit.

The package number 1, it's $1,350.

This Dallas mom of 3, Heather, makes over $100,000 of profit per month.

Our sales were just at $100,000.

Oh my gosh. Not only that, but it's a very viral business. It sells itself thanks to social media.

My phone just kept going ding, ding, ding.

And customers pay you up front. That's right. Your risk is close to zero because you collect all the money up front. Today we're diving deep into the porch pumpkin business, how to find customers, how to find cheap pumpkins, and how to run this business without going crazy. So without further ado, let's meet Heather. All right, so Heather, what first inspired you to start decorating porches with pumpkins?

So we used to live across from the Dallas Arboretum, and they do this amazing display every year. It's called Pumpkin Village. In fact, I was just there yesterday with my designers.

We love it.

The amount of pumpkins they use is insane. So before I ever stepped into Dallas Arboretum, I would have like 2 pumpkins on my doorstep to represent Halloween and all the fall things. And then I saw—

What was possible.

What is possible, how beautiful it can be, all the different colors and textures. I was a one orange jack-o'-lantern girl.

Yeah.

You know, so I started decorating my own porch. People definitely noticed how like cute and pretty it was and how festive it was. And so they asked like, can you do this at my house? And back then I had 2 young children, you know, they're 18 months apart. And so the answer was no. But once my youngest was in like preschool, I just thought, you know, maybe it's time to do something.

Yeah.

I've always, I've always done something. I started thinking about like, well, this pumpkin business, how can I think that is scalable and easy? Well, I love pumpkins and people have always asked me to do pumpkins. I wanted them to be in the packages.

Mm-hmm.

From there I just created packages. I created a flyer and kind of the rest is history.

And I think that's important 'cause if you left it up to them to choose what they wanted, like they don't know and that's confusion and that's friction and that's like them just ultimately saying nevermind. Right. But if you're saying, choose this, this, this, or this, then they kind of, they have a good direction, right?

And also as a business owner, your time, you know. So they're like, oh, I want this and this and that. And then you're going, you're going to have to like stop and cost that specific thing out, which takes more time. And now, do I do custom packages? Absolutely. They start at $3,500 and they go up from there. But I'm happy to do a custom package for anyone at $3,500 or more. And that's just what I figured out. Like that's the price point that I need it to be for my time to not just take the packages.

Yeah.

That I've already created.

Well, coming from the restaurant world, imagine if there was a restaurant that didn't have a menu and people just walked in and like, I don't know, maybe some tacos, some pizza. Like what would the kitchen do?

And you know, people ask me all the time like, what package should I get? So like even like looking at this front porch, they could do any one of my packages here. Mm-hmm. You can't really like, so I'll be like, do you wanna pack? Like, are you hosting a party? Do you have something special going on? Let's do the package one this year.

Yeah.

But then the typical this year could be the package 3, and it's perfect. It's going to have plenty of pumpkins to fill up the porch. So usually when people do ask me about which pumpkin package to get, I give them like 2 options. And then I say like, and if you want to go really big, you know, this, a package 1 will fit on your porch. If you are looking for that.

Package 1, $1,350?

$1,350.

Okay.

Includes design. Okay. Clients can add on for us to pick up the pumpkins at the end of the season and take them, we take them to a pumpkin, excuse me, to a pig farm. Okay, the package 2 is $800. The grand prize pumpkins, like, if we sell those individually at $185 each, so if you think about 2 of those, that's just under $400, which that's kind of the about the price difference. Yeah, minus the few extra pumpkins that you do get with the package 1. And then the package 3 is priced at $525. And our package 3 and 4, I wanted to create a package where we could just drop off the pumpkins for our clients to create their own display. Had I had that option back before I started this business, I absolutely would have paid for someone else to just drop the pumpkins off and let me be creative. I love being creative, and so it was just really important for me to always keep that. So the package 3 is $525, but then you can add design for $75. And then the package 4 is the smallest, which is $325, and you can add design for $75. Okay. 95% of my clients do add design for the package 3 and 4.

I was thinking, we were talking about designers, and like, you should— for people that elect not to pay for your design, you should say, hey, send me a picture of what you do and maybe I'll hire you, right? Because that's, that is kind of a bottleneck, because having good designers, right?

Yes, yes.

Have you ever found a designer from a customer?

Actually, yes.

Really?

Uh, one of my designers that joined the team last year, I was messaging her to remind her to order, and she was like, are you hiring designers this year? And I said, I sure am. She's like, I love getting my pumpkins from you, but I like displaying myself.

Yeah.

She sent me a picture and I was like, you're hired.

Done. Yeah, one picture.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was, it's been great, guys.

It's 93 degrees right now. I spent thousands of to film and edit this video, and my only goal in life is for you to start a business. So if you want to say thanks, all you got to do is subscribe and/or maybe share it with a friend. It would mean the world to me. Okay, so that first year you officially launched, how did that go? What was that like? What were your sales and your order numbers?

So first year, I thought that I was gonna, you know, just do 30. That was my goal, and I quickly exceeded that in like 4 days. We ended the 2020 season designing and displaying 250 homes. Wow. DFW area. Our sales were just at $100,000.

Oh my gosh.

Literally, I was just thinking like, if I can sell $10,000 in pumpkins, like, this will be great. I'll make this Christmas money. Yeah, yeah, it'll be great. And just wow. Yeah, the wildfire started.

How much of that would you guess was profit that first year?

Uh, the first year, I mean, I was literally driving, I was loading the pumpkins myself in my Yukon. I was unloading the pumpkins myself at the home and then I was designing. And so profit margin was 50%.

Wow. So $50,000 of profit in like 2 months of work, like hard work.

Way less. This is— entrepreneurs ask me all the time, is it too late? Is it too late to start this pumpkin business? And my answer is no, it's not too late. Yes, it's too late.

If you wait, you won't do it right.

If you wait to like the week before Halloween, maybe it's too late then. But even then, no.

Yeah.

Get 3 homes under your belt. You know, I started September 27th. Like now, yes, I start back in July collecting the orders. But year 1, we started September 27th and we wrapped the week before October 16th because that's my youngest son's birthday. So I mean, 2 weeks. Yeah, 2 weeks. We just—

and today you go, you deliver all the way until like October 17th or something.

Now we go through October 17th. So this is the first year that I've opened 4 weeks of delivery for DFW, which has been so great. It's allowed us to be able to take on so many more clients. Year 1, we didn't have a website. I would be driving around with my car full of pumpkins. It was the third day I was in business. My phone just kept going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I was like, what is happening? We were driving out to Fort Worth and he was like, yeah. And he's like, oh, it's this person wants pumpkins. And I'm like, what's their name? What's their address?

I don't know.

I don't know anyone over there.

And that was a big unlock. Like, I'm selling to people I don't know.

I'm selling to people I don't know. This is so exciting. And so we got to where we're going, we did all of our designs for the day, and then like I responded back like I got the information I needed, and then I would be done for the day at like 7 o'clock at night. I would then go home, reach back out to these people, send them an invoice. They would Venmo me or pay online with a credit card, like old school, like QuickBooks.

So you expected 30 orders, you hoped for 30, and what did you get the first year?

250.

Oh my gosh.

I know. I was just in the business of saying yes. I was like, you want to buy pumpkins from me? My answer is going to be yes. Let me figure it out. And so I just kept saying yes. And I quickly, like, I had Jackson that came on to help me. I found a driver that could actually pull a trailer, and so I could do more than like 3 houses of pumpkins at a time. And I even found like 2 designers that could help me in that first year.

Okay.

And then, you know, we just built from that.

Okay. Well, I'm gonna have to ask you later about how you find these customers, 'cause that, it wouldn't work with any of that.

Gotta have the customers. And I am so thankful for all of our customers, and it's just, it's amazing.

Yeah. All right. So we're sitting here on a flatbed trailer and you've got 6 orders on this?

6 orders.

Yes. Okay. And this is a package 3, right?

Yes.

We've got, I don't know, 15 pumpkins in here plus a bunch of small ones.

Well, no, we have about like 30 pumpkins in here.

Yeah. I'm not good at counting. So.

Yeah.

All right. And what does a package 3 cost?

Package 3 costs $525 to be delivered. If the client wants the pumpkins designed and set up by us, they add an additional design fee for $75. So for a total of $600.

What percentage of customers roughly add your design fee?

95%.

Okay. So $600 most of the time.

This, because I know where this is going today, is $600.

Okay. Yeah. And then what does it cost to have them pick back up?

For a package 3, it costs $100 for us to pick them up at the end of the season.

And what percentage of people choose, choose that?

90% of our customers.

Okay. So $700.

Yeah.

Nice.

$700. Here it is.

Okay.

But you give people the option.

What are all the packages you have?

So we have a package 4 that's $325. You can add design for that one for $75. You have a package 3 for $525. $1,000, which you can add design for $75. The package 2 comes with design, it includes design, and that's, um, $800. And then the package number 1 also includes design and it's $1,350. Lastly, we have an Oh My Gourd package that, uh, I have— Oh my gourd! Uh, we have 3 different colorways that you can choose from on that. So they have like a few different number of amounts of pumpkins, and that one's $750 and includes design.

Okay.

We just got an increase in popularity of like people that don't want the orange pumpkins, and so, um, that's a way for them to, to order those.

Is that just like a trend, like the trends are changing?

Yeah, you know, they have like all neutrals. Also, if your home gets full sun, the Oh My Gourd package does last, um, really well.

Yeah. So, okay, roughly how much revenue is represented on this one?

Roughly we have 6, and the average are package 3, $36 $600.

Okay, and this will take like half a day to deliver?

Oh no, like 2 and a half hours, 3 hours.

Wow. How are you unloading these?

Well, I have Gustavo.

I mean, we'll see.

He's going to unload them, and so he will use a wheelbarrow for most efficiency.

All right, so 4— 6 hay bales, 6 orders. Is it one per house, or does it not go like that?

Well, the package 4s don't include hay. People can add that on, but the package 3s include 2 bills paid. So there's some 3s and some 4s on there, so some people had to pay.

Okay, so would you say you're the fastest in the company at designing?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. Okay, so these on average take me 10 minutes.

So this is like a $400 job?

This is the package 3, it just doesn't have the hay because of the stairs, so this is $600.

Oh, this is $600 job. What would you say for this job your profit would be?

Roughly $300. Beautiful.

So you're obviously not buying these at the grocery store. What is the big secret to sourcing these pumpkins?

The real secret is buying as many pumpkins as you need for your season. And so the more pumpkins you need, then you can get them direct from farmers.

Are there any farms that you like or prefer?

Oh, I love a farm. Pumpkin Pile in West Texas and Floydetta, they are amazing. They're a family, multi-generation family working together, and they put out beautiful pumpkins. They do a great job. Their communication is great. Their website's easy, but they do a great job, and we, we love them.

Pumpkin Pile, P-Y-L-E. D-Y-L-E. Okay, and this is not an ad. We're not being paid by them to say this. Is the— do you recommend someone starting with a farm or starting with like a distributor or—

There's just different ways to go about it. I mean, you can purchase pumpkins from a nursery. They are going to be like the bottom level of ease where to get pumpkins and get quality and variety. And then you could pick like a middleman type person. That would be like a produce distributor.

Okay, let me just see if I get it. So the very, very like the worst but most accessible option is just going to the grocery store. And that's not scalable. You're not really going to be very profitable.

Right. And you're only probably going to be able to get 3 or 4 varietals from that.

Yeah. Okay. And then one up is the nursery.

A nursery. Pumpkins are going to be a little bit more expensive, but you're going to have likely really great quality and you're going to have a great option of pumpkin variety.

Okay. And then up from there is like a grocery distributor or a broker, or is a broker one up from that?

Yeah, no, like a pumpkin broker because they're still a, they're a middleman. They're not the farm.

Yeah. And they're going to mark it up.

And they're going to mark it up. They're going to make money for helping you get those pumpkins.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's how you started?

Yes, absolutely.

Okay. And then up from there, you go directly to the farm?

Directly to the farm. And then this year we brought in 20 18-wheelers, or we will bring in 20 18-wheelers directly from farms.

Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot of pumpkins.

It is.

Okay. So we were just like up in the front. That's today's deliveries, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then this is like the back stock where they pull it all from?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. So quick rundown is there's some here, and then on the backside of the cooler, there's a whole nother huge section. Oh, wow. I don't like to run out of things.

Yeah, this is again like, eh, that's a very like advanced business tactic is overordering to not run out. Because like if you think of a donut shop will give away donuts at the end of the day because it costs like $0.05 to make a donut. They sell it for a dollar. And so if they sell out, then that's free money that they just left on the table. Yeah, but if they have 300 left, then that's like $6 worth of donuts, right?

You know, and so doing that math, it's important.

Yeah, it's funny because I just noticed like as we're filming all the pumpkins to the ceiling, I thought we were just looking at this. You got a lot of pumpkins going on. You want more customers than you could ever imagine? Come on my podcast, this podcast, the one you're listening to now. Go to tkoyes.com, tell me what your story is, and I might have you on. And if your friend has a cool story about making thousands of dollars in a short period of time, send it to them, and I'll give you $1,000 for the referral. tkoyes.com. So if you do— I mean, when you overorder, because you overorder strategically, do you just send those all to the pig farm with the old pumpkins too?

No, that's not the goal. The goal is to sell them all. Okay. And like, if I have to use this like in a display, it's just like a bonus, you know? It's not like as a grand prize.

So will you start to do more bonuses as the season gets later, if you kind of look at your inventory levels?

If I need to, yes. But usually when I'm looking at my inventory levels, and aside from grand prize pumpkins, if I'm looking at my inventory levels and I still have enough pumpkins— like, we'll have, we'll have a waitlist of 200 or 300 people. We'll look at that waitlist and we'll just pull additional trailers at the end of the season. So right now we are scheduled through October 15th, but I've already planned on— we'll have a full route day on October 16th also.

Do you do discounts for those late days, or no, it's just like— no, they wouldn't have a chance to order anyway, right? That's all they got.

Charge more.

Okay, so aside from buying pumpkins, what are your costs in this business?

We have pumpkins, we have umbrella insurance, we rent a forklift, we pay for warehouse space. I personally own a lot of trailers now. Now we do require our drivers to come with a truck and trailer and a dump trailer because a dump trailer is really efficient.

Is that for picking them all up?

For pumpkin pickup.

Okay. So if someone wanted to start this like cheaply, could they just get away with a trailer or finding a driver that has a trailer?

Yes, absolutely.

Can you store them outside?

You could. You would want to cover them.

Okay. Okay. What about fuel costs? Is that a big expense or?

Our drivers and our designers are responsible for that.

Interesting.

We have 99 employees.

Okay. How do you pay your drivers and your designers?

So drivers are paid hourly and designers are paid by the design.

Okay. Usually the businesses we create are— we're solving our own problems, right? So you're your own customer and you're the business owner. So you've approached everything in this business of like, how would I think of it? Would I want to be paid to do this? Would I want to do design? Would I want to outsource that? People might think at first, well, like, I'm just one person. Like, why should I build my business around my needs or preferences? But that's the demand. Like, even if it's a sample size of one, you're proving that there's a demand, whereas a lot lot of times people approach business and like they're just guessing from theory, like what do they want? They'd probably pay $150 for porch pumpkins when you're like they would pay a lot more.

More, more, higher, higher, right? I am the average consumer. There are people that spend a lot more, there are people that spend less than I do. So when I created these package sizes, I was really thinking about like what do I do? What do I think my friend Kara would do? What do I think this person would do? And you kind of go from there and then it is trial and error, but Specifically, like charging what you're worth.

Yeah.

That is so important. For me as a female business entrepreneur, I'm going to make sure that I am being paid adequately for the time away from my precious family.

Yeah.

And my precious children.

Exactly.

And I really think anyone should because everyone gets 24 hours in a day.

Yeah. Sometimes people approach it like, well, I know I could go get this job for $18 an hour, so I'll charge $20 an hour. But the question is, like what you said, how much would I need to be paid to spend time away from my children? Probably way more, right? So if you can't build a business at that price, then maybe you shouldn't build a business.

Some of their very first season, you could easily do $30,000, maybe even $40,000 if you got started now and got yourself out there and really marketed yourself and followed some specific strategy. Yeah. To get clients.

So, and half of that being profit roughly.

Yes.

So 2 months of work, $10,000 to $20,000 of net profit first season.

Right.

That's, that's not like pie in the sky, passive income, sexy YouTube numbers. That's realistic. That's a realistic number and it is not passive income because you need—

in order to make that percentage, you need to be working it, you need to be doing it. But yes, it is absolutely attainable.

What are your go-to tactics, tricks, secrets of Instagram, short-form video, and all of that?

Instagram, I follow what is trending now. And so on my Instagram, I don't do silly, I don't do ridiculous, I don't do all the funny trends, which— but you know, right now carousels are really hot. And during my sell season, I made sure that I was using a lot more carousels than I would previously. Like last year I would just do a single static photo because that's what was doing better. Yeah. And then also reels, like, so you have to follow what Instagram algorithm is putting out there.

Yeah.

And if you just follow some different marketing people on Instagram, they will literally give you that information for free. You just have to do a little bit of homework.

Yeah.

So that's one big thing. So Instagram, follow the current trends. But if I'm just starting out, you can use social media, but the fortune's in the follow-up and they've say a comment on your Instagram or they leave a message in your inbox.

Yeah.

You have to follow up with them.

Yeah.

I mean, especially as a brand new entrepreneur.

Yeah.

You need to follow up and make sure like, oh, coming back to make sure that I can help you place your order. I haven't seen your photo come through yet. Like you have to do the work to get those orders in.

I mean, entrepreneurs like us, we're eternal optimists, right? And so I even still, I fall into the trap of I got 10 leads, I have 10 people that want my porch pumpkins, I have 10 customers. No. No, not even close. If you follow up with them maniacally, you might have 7 or 8. Like if you do everything right, if you just like expect them to just remember a week later and follow through and start ordering, you might have 1 or 2.

Right.

So the follow-up is everything.

Everything. You can't just send an email out like, oh, I know so many people. I'm on this organization. I'm in this group.

Personalize.

Like, sure, you can send an email blast out of 200. You'll probably get 3 or 4 orders and then everyone else you need to follow up with.

Yeah, personally, one-on-one.

Personally.

Yeah, it doesn't seem scalable. It doesn't seem efficient, but it's much more effective.

It is.

Do you ever put paid ads behind your organic stuff? Like you boost it?

Yes, I do that.

Do you boost it to like a specific zip code? And that works?

Yes, I tell that in my business coaching classes.

What about, are you in the comments? Like all over the comments?

All the time. And that's again, that's because Instagram guru someone told me that the first, I don't remember the exact minutes, but it's like the first 30 minutes that you post something, you should be prepared to sit there and reply to all the comments. And so I do that.

Yeah.

You know, increase my reach beyond what we'll even see over the next week because we are on a waitlist now, but we potentially go on a waitlist so we can make sure that we're filling our routes that aren't completely full. So I can add more Lakewood homes or University Park homes.

Yeah. So, okay. So season 1, you did 250 homes.

Yes.

And I just think it's interesting that you're saying 20 to 50 is realistic. And I love that because you're conservative and you're not trying to— but like You did $250,000.

That's right.

And people watching this now have a blueprint, right?

True. I think I'm so conservative because my goal was $30,000.

Yeah.

You know, my goal was $30,000. I thought that was a realistic number. I am in DFW where we have 8 million people. Yeah, 8 million people. And then I once had someone tell me in a sales position that I had, it's like, yeah, like a $200 order. And so that's always stayed in my mind. And that's why I said yes to Prosper. That's why I say yes to Fort Worth. That's why I say yes to Lucas. I just have to put a dollar amount on it. We go there like, how far are you you and your area from huge population, say yes, go there and you can grow.

Yeah.

And just because I was the first like 6 years ago to kind of create this model doesn't mean that there's not more room for everybody.

Oh yeah. People don't understand how much the pie grows.

Right.

Like as more people see porches on pumpkins, they want it.

Right.

In a sense, more competitors is more business for everyone, right? Whereas if you were always only the only person doing this, your ceiling is, is somewhat capped, right? Right.

You don't have as much reach because not as many people are seeing it.

Right. So from 250 orders to you're creeping up on 1,300 this year.

Yes. Yeah.

That's incredible. How much like profit do you think you'll make this year?

I think our percentage margins will be anywhere from 50 to 55%.

That's incredible. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yes. 2 months of very concentrated work, September through the end of October. And then there's another like month and a half of part-time work. Yeah. That goes into it.

Okay.

At this scale, at this level.

That's like, that's what's so interesting about this business is season 1, $10,000 profit a month for 2 months. Right. Season 6, not saying results are typical, right? Over $100,000 per month of profit. That's, that's incredible. It's not often that I meet people that didn't just start a business but started a whole industry, a pumpkin movement, if you will. How does, how does that feel?

It feels incredible.

So what percentage of like all of the secret sauce would you say we covered today? Because I think people are like us entrepreneurs, we're overoptimistic, we're overconfident sometimes. Of everything there is that you know about this business, what percentage did we cover in this video?

I mean, we haven't been together that long today. I don't know, like 10%? Maybe 15 max.

Okay.

There's just so much, there's so much that goes into it. And like, yes, astute, smart people that have the brain for it and the eye, they can kind of pick apart some, some pieces. And I was happy to share, but there is so much more. Yeah. To making this business work, make it easy, and make it flow from the very beginning. Okay.

porchpumpkins.com.