Codie Sanchez warns against three popular starter businesses. ATM routes have 1-3% margins and take years to pay back. Amazon FBA sellers face account bans and Chinese knockoffs. Solo consulting has no recurring revenue and can't compete with firms like Deloitte.
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What are three businesses? Everyone online tells you to start or buy. But I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I'll tell you first, ATM routes. People love to say that ATMs are like vending machines. I think they're completely different. And one tiny margins, we're talking 1 to 3%. So even if you keep most of the surcharge, not much long payback period. So the average atm makes 1500 to 5k a year in revenue, not profit. What's a business that's worse? Probably Amazon. Fba. I think it sounds great. There's lots of people online. But then Amazon owns you. They can suspend your account overnight, copy your product. Plus there's a bunch of Chinese me too. Products everywhere. The platform is flooded with copycats. And the last one is like consulting firms. And in an age of AI where I can do just about everything, I don't love that every Tom, Dick and Larry thinks they're smarter than you with SOPs done on AI. No thanks. I also don't like that it's a transactional almost job, not business, not a lot of recurring revenue. And they're like trusting you. The consultant, not the business overall. Unless you're Deloitte or something. So if it's up to me, no ATMs, no Amazon, no consulting. Don't build your business on a house of sand.
