7 Unique Small Businesses Earning 6 Figures Annually

Entrepreneurship is hard, but the process can be simplified. You can achieve success faster, sooner, and easier. I'm Mike Michalowicz, and I'm on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. My goal for this episode and every episode is to serve you on your journey. Let's start right now on Entrepreneurship Simplified. Let me do a little nose wipe. Okay. So this is episode 15.

This is episode 15.

The nose wipe episode.

I was gonna say, is that right?

How do you sneak a nose wipe? Like when you don't have a tissue, which I really do.

It's the—

It's the— Back of the finger.

Back of the knuckle.

Back of the knuckle.

Back of the knuckle. Because the fingertip too close to the nose is always a bad look.

Yeah, yeah.

Always a bad look.

I gotta stop doing it. I do the middle finger over the nostril swipe because it gets the most of the drip.

That's true. I try and do that ladylike little dab, dab kind of thing.

Oh, I like that.

Yeah.

I wonder if we could do a fake pondering. You know, the fake pondering?

I love it.

It is funny how we do certain things. Like when— I notice when someone raises their hand, but they're not noticed, they go into a fake yawn. You ever notice that?

Yeah.

Like, oh, I got the answer. And then someone looks elsewhere.

There's also a sniffle. People do a— it's like a tick response to anxious conversation or something like that. I've seen that happen before.

I've noticed some people at the end of making a point will go, yes.

I think that's honestly, I think that's a sign of a little bit of insecurity about what you've just said. Really? Yeah, I think I've seen it and it's sort of like a deflection, like, okay, kind of like I'm casual about this, but honestly, I think it indicates that you're actually anxious about what you just said.

And once you notice something, you cannot unnotice it.

I can't unnotice it. I cannot unnotice it.

I have not noticed a tic about you. Oh, have you noticed a tic about me?

No, I have not.

Are you saying that?

No, I swear. I am thinking here. Thinking.

So I've noticed one about Andrea. Now I cannot unsee it. I noticed one about Greg. I cannot unsee it. Oh, really? And Kelsey too. Yeah.

Kelsey too?

Yeah. I don't even want to say who they are because I'm not trying to—

Yeah.

Yeah. Because then you won't be able to unsee it.

Oh, no, please don't tell me. Please don't tell me.

But we all have it.

Yeah, I guess I do. I just don't know exactly.

That's why it's a tic.

Yeah. Interesting.

I wonder if mine is the nose wipe.

Well, is your nose actually running?

All the time.

I don't think that's your tic then. I think you just need to see an ENT, hun.

I think what it is— thank you. I think it's my diet. I've noticed when I eat food, yeah, the level of mucus— I was trying to think of a better word— increases right after I eat, but certain things less. So I've been avoiding those things.

I was gonna say that indicates inflammation. Oh, so something's inflammatory in your diet.

Yeah, so I've been changing my diet and don't have— I've been more focused on protein.

Ah, is it making a difference with the nose?

Yeah, everything. And the GI, everything.

Really?

Yeah. And I feel embarrassed, like it took me like 52 years to figure this out.

Oh, Mike, we had no idea. We had no idea how much the gut and everything else was connected. Now everybody knows about it and everybody's doing these like swab tests and these different allergen tests. And I love all the stuff that's coming out. Like Kelsey just did all this amazing testing and she has this awareness of things she's, maybe not allergies, but things that you're sensitive to and your body inflames from. It's good information.

It's good information.

When is that gonna become the norm? Like we all just, Maybe it is. Maybe.

Soon.

Hopefully.

Yeah.

Yeah. So Mike, I came across this great Reddit thread and the prompt was, somebody wrote, "Who has interesting small businesses that make profit each month?

What's your story?" I'm so happy you looked that up. I thought it was so cool.

Yeah.

I was scanning through this. So give me some stories.

Okay. So, well, I have to say there's a bunch here, but one of the ones I didn't, that wasn't mentioned was a guy writes and hosts, or a girl, I'm not sure, writes and hosts murder mystery games. Interesting way to make a living. And then there's a course that somebody sells on how to use a specific calculator for the SATs because there's apparently like 7 points on the SATs that if you get it right with the use of the calculator— 7 points is a big deal on your SATs or ACTs. So that was really cool. Nick Cage. This guy. "I own a window tinting company in the Southeast U.S. Took me a few years to get really good, competent at the installs and I'm still figuring out the business side of it, but very profitable." profitable company industry with pretty low cost of entry. Around a 75% profit margin on car tint and closer to 85% on residential commercial jobs. I'm the only employee, which obviously helps, but even when I have help, margins never dip below 50%. Overhead is very low. I took about $6,000 to get started, tools, etc., and I pay about $1,100 a month in supplies. Went from making around $2,400 a month during doing tint for a car dealership to making around $10,000 a month now. I'm sure I could make more if I hired some help, but I like it the way it is and good help is hard to find in this industry.

What a cool— That's a good business.

Yeah.

I mean, $10,000 a month, that's $120,000 a year. Now the question is, is that gross or is that actual take-home? But even what he's purporting is take-home is 75% profit margin. That means he's taking home $7,500 a month. That's not too bad.

That is not too bad. He doesn't say if he's got a family to support or anything. No. If he's part of a couple and they're a dual income family or something like that, that's good.

It's not bad. Here's a couple of questions that are concerns or just observations, probably a better choice of words. If Nick stops working for a week or two because he's not feeling well, does the income just stop? Here at the office, as an employee, if you take a sick day you still get paid, right? Is that true?

I'm asking.

Is that true?

Yes.

I didn't know how we have it structured. It's gonna ruin the whole thing. So you get paid. So there's some form of predictability.

Mm-hmm.

And Kelsey still gets paid. We still all get paid. Except for these self-employed people. Generally, there isn't a company that's still generating revenue.

Right.

So the benefit of our itty-bitty company here is there's 8 of us working, and if you're off or I'm off, there's still money coming in with some predictability.

Some work is happening.

Yeah, so there's predictability. So one of the risks Nick runs as a solopreneur is it's, it's all dependent on his effort and availability. So that's a risk and I hope he's addressing that. He says he has help, but the margins never drop below 50%. What I would challenge if I knew Nick is can we have this business running only with said help and he removes himself and is it really sustainable? So my parents used to clean our office, my first business. They acted as our cleaning company.

Aw.

Yeah, it was such a nice gift. Yeah. And since my father passed away too, I've been reflecting on things like that. What a kind soul.

Yes, generous thing to do.

So instead of having time alone at home, they're coming to my office once a week or twice a week and doing a big-time vacuuming, cleaning and stuff. And I didn't consider that cost. I'm like, look, I have an office, how efficiently run. And I kind of was bragging to myself that we were very sustainable and profitable, but that I couldn't have employed my parents and say, hey, could you keep doing this for eternity?

Right.

Or whatever. There's a certain point where that wears out. And I wonder with help, if this is a buddy helping out or someone steps in, they pay him a little side money, but when they're— when he doesn't need him, doesn't need that person and then doesn't pay that person.

Right.

But what if he wanted this person the business to operate without him, he may need that person full-time. And there's gonna be times that he's not tinting windows and so forth. So this is another consideration. I'll tell you the upside.

Okay.

Material costs are very inexpensive. It's just plastic. I don't know if you ever watch those— I'm sure you have— those commercials where it's like, you know, for $19.99, get ShamWow, but wait, if you act now, you get 2 units. Those tip things usually cost the the company 400% less. So it's a 4 times markup. So that's usually their cost for a $20 item is $5 max.

Wow. Wow.

Yeah. So what they do, those commercials, they know consumers buy at a very high level. $19.99 or even now it's like $29.99. It's throwaway money for many people.

For a lot of people.

Yeah. So what they say is back calculate, what can we make for $5, make it a throwaway. So that's how ShamWow comes about, all those cheap little products. Gotcha. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, but what I'm saying is window tint, the materials are very inexpensive, and so it's just labor. I think it's a great market to be in. Right available supply, very inexpensive to get. There's an impact on the consumer right away, so I think it's a great business model they have.

Excellent. All right, let's try the next one.

Next door.

Next one, I'm on a boat, is a "I live in a large tourist city and we have a major river 40 minutes away. We operate all year, but summer is our busy season. Not rich by any measure, but it's low overhead, low stress. I meet lots of interesting people, flexible schedule, plenty of time to see my kids, travel, and hobbies. There is a high ceiling. Two of the other companies gross over $2 million a year. I'm nowhere close to that, but it's nice to know I could grow the company. Happy where I am for now. Make $10,000 to $15,000 a month in the summer, $2,000 to $3,000 in the winter. Biggest expense is expenses, fuel, vehicle maintenance, and insurance. Been in, been in business 4 years, in the industry 7 years. Only regret is that I didn't do this 20 years ago.

You know, to me, this is a really successful business. I was just at Camp Clockwork.

Yeah.

And yes, yes, we sat around a table. There was 40 of us there. Adrian was facilitating. Adrian Dorson, the co-founder with me of, uh, Clockwork, Run Like Clockwork, the organization that teaches it. And we're sitting at Camp Clockwork, which is literally at a YMCA. Ah, that's great. It's beautiful. We went on like a big swing, a massive swing. It was a 40-foot But swing.

Oh my gosh.

We played tag. It was just a lot of fun. Then we sat around. We sat around the table and we said, "What is success?" And there is this kind of public media-driven, social-driven kind of definition, which is more money.

Yeah.

That's success. And then there was the real answer, which was these entrepreneurs. And they said, "Time with my family. The ability to have— to experience hobbies and do things. Not to worry about money, but not to make tons of it." Yeah. It was just interesting. What success was defined by is balance. And so when you were reading this story from I'm on a Boat, I'm like, this person is wildly successful.

Mm-hmm.

It's interesting that her perspective is there's a ceiling of $2 million in other companies, and now I know that, but I don't have to have that.

Right.

That landed with me.

Yeah.

Like, oh, this person's got it going on.

Yeah, they got the priorities. They know what they want.

I hope our listeners don't think that, well, since someone else is doing $2 million, that that's the standard you have to do.

Right.

It's in the book Rework. I finally remembered. There's a book titled Rework. I did not want to like this book.

Why did you not want to like it?

I just read it and I was like, oh, it's kind of like browny and stuff. I don't want to like it. But there was a line in there. It said the right size business will find you.

Ah.

And I was like, oh, that's a great line. Yeah.

So, okay.

Kudos to them.

Yeah. So this is another example though of a solopreneur, right?

Yeah, it is.

Well, I think I read somewhere that like they have, they have some friends who kind of help out in the busy season. But again, there is that downside of of having it all on your shoulders. So if something goes wrong with you, something goes wrong with your business.

Do you remember Debbie Nexon? Yeah. So Debbie started a business as a sports club.

Organizer, right?

Organizer, yeah, yeah. So you could join the Morris County Sports Club and play kickball. I actually joined that and stuff. And once she started growing it, she first was dependent upon friends. So the problem with friends is they are volunteers.

Right.

If I call and ask you a favor, which actually happens a lot. You're more than willing to do it as a friend. But there's a certain point I'm burning the relationship in the currency. I can't become too dependent. And I didn't talk to Debbie in detail about this, but she said basically there was a point you have to go to hired people. That becomes a transaction simply monetarily. So I'm wondering if this person, how sustainable is the friends? And if you are using friends, I think it's an onus on us as a business owner to have an active dialogue saying, hey, be honest with me.

Tell me when you're at your breaking point.

And that's okay. I know I I'm using you, uh, to my advantage, and I don't want to do this into perpetuity.

Right, right. Smart.

But if I did that with you, you'd be like, no, no, I don't care. I would tell you Christmas morning.

No.

Hey Amy, could you come and make breakfast for us? Yeah, of course, Mike.

I'll be right over.

No problem. I had nothing to do Christmas morning with my family.

All right, next one, uh, Levenstreg. So this one's funny. We create digital comics, animated videos, strategic visualizations, basically everything drawn with story and life. I'm the founder and CEO of a creative agency in Denmark Denmark, small Nordic country.

Thank you.

I hate that the Americans have to be told that it's a small Nordic country. I assume it's the Americans. I don't know. My business is now more than 9 years old and I still love my work and my life. Love being an entrepreneur. The first year was crazy. I went all over Copenhagen on a bike to get business to hire us and it more than worked out. Now we get hired by global businesses all over the world to visualize their strategies, tell their corporate story, and create their animated videos and comics. I love my business. Our agency was profitable from the first year on. That sounds like a dream of entrepreneurship, but does not sound like the usual path of entrepreneurship.

No, no. It's funny, going all over Copenhagen by bike, uh, that's classic door-to-door sales.

Yeah.

And there is an opportunity there because no one does it. If you want to get noticed, look at what everyone else does and then don't do that.

Gotcha.

So I suspect his competition was setting up websites, running Facebook ads, and mail marketing. Mail marketing. Yeah. Saying, why isn't everyone coming to me?

Yeah.

I bet you there was he was noticed by some people like, who's this dude on the bike? Yeah. Now, first of all, have you been to Copenhagen?

Uh, no.

Okay, it is like bike mecca. Yeah, like, so it's not like he's a weirdo because he's on bike. Like, everyone—

everybody's like Amsterdam, right? Everything's the same.

Yeah, same as Amsterdam. Here where we are, you know, someone rides a bike, it's kind of like, what's going on? Remember who's that girl who worked for us from Spain?

Oh, Anna.

Anna. And would ride—

Sylvia.

Yeah, riding their bikes up Main Street. Yeah, it's like, what are you doing? And where's your helmet?

So funny.

So the— but the fact he was knocking on the doors, I suspect other people didn't do it, and that's why it worked, right? Uh, and now he has a global presence. That's the other thing too, is some businesses— the window tinting story, no. But business like this, you can go global. I just challenge people is own your backyard first. That's where you have the most intimate knowledge, uh, you have understanding of the culture and so forth. Master your skill set there before you try—

because there's going to be challenges and learning hurdles to overcome that are going drain energy from your business once you take on—

For sure.

Next steps, global steps.

Yeah, because the needs will be different. There's a learning curve. There's a learning curve. There's cultural differences.

Right.

Like, I get why you put Denmark's a small Nordic country. Maybe it's for us, but not everyone recognizes that. But if we said Taylor Ham making cheese, he'd be like, what are you talking about?

Yeah, right, right, right.

Well, it's a North Jersey thing. So the cultural differences are significant for a business like this and their ability to understand those things if you're trying to sell into it. So start in your backyard.

Yeah. Good, good advice. Okay, so Modern Dipper. I like this one. Hi, I have a small business in Connecticut called Courtney's Modern Dipper. I make small batch cottage cheese dips. I started in 2018 when I was laid off from my project management job. I sell wholesale and have a little storefront.

Yeah, storefront, difficult business to be in is retail. I don't know how often you walk up and down Main Street and look in the windows, but a lot of stores are just empty. Yeah, there's one restaurant down the street, I've never seen anyone there ever. It's alarming. Yeah, it's alarming. It's like Mediterranean, you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you look and they have a massive dining room, it's always well kept and so forth.

White linens on the tables.

White linens. No one's there.

No one's there.

And they're in business for like a couple years, it seems like. Maybe not, maybe a year now. But nonetheless, retail business is hard. And maybe they're making business by takeout and maybe she's making, making revenue in some capacity. Here's what I like. She said she sells wholesale, so that's probably where her main revenue source is. The storefront really becomes an advertising arm for some recognition. Um, I also like that it's, it's what I believe to be unique category, cottage cheese dips.

I, yeah, I never heard of it.

I bought cottage cheese at the supermarket and it's just this ball of curds. Yeah.

Yeah.

So kudos to her. And if, if she's doing some unique spin on it, special flavors and so forth, uh, different texture.

Yeah.

Then you become famous for it. There was a place called Miami Rice.

Yeah.

Remember that?

Yes. Next to the Where the pasta shop is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, in Denville, town over from where we live. And my God, that was the best. And then Hurricane Sandy came through, wiped them out, and they never came back.

I was so disappointed. So sad. So disappointed because I love rice pudding.

Me too.

Such good stuff. Yeah. Okay. TJ Clark. I own a health-friendly weekly meal preparation service. We sell calorie-friendly bowls of fresh food without preservatives. We sell 100% juices. Story is simple. Business partner lives in Arkansas, a very obese state. People either don't know what to eat or are too lazy to cook it. They come to us and order Monday through Thursday. "and we deliver it to them Sunday through Monday. Been doing it 5+ years and sell roughly 4,000 to 7,500 products a month." He doesn't say what his income is, but he's got a good base of customers, it sounds like.

Yeah, I mean, if your revenue is $10 an item, whatever they may be, that's $75,000 a month. That's good revenue. Now, of course, you don't know what the costs are. You don't know how profitable it is, but it's juice. Yeah, it's very difficult to determine. Well, actually it's more than just juices now I'm looking at this. Yeah, meal prep. What I like is targeting a specific need for a community that doesn't have access to it. But I do challenge presumptions. She says people either don't know what to eat or are too lazy to cook it. I don't know if either are true. I'm not saying they're not.

Right, but we don't know.

People either don't know what to eat, maybe that culturally they ate a certain way and sustain that. I know I eat a certain way because that's how I was raised. Like, that's— it's not how everyone eats, and that's not the truth. So maybe it's cultural. And it's— what we have to be careful about is saying that no, people don't know what to eat. They may know, but can we work with how they're raised, if you will, right? Um, and then too lazy to cook it Really?

I—

are people in Arkansas, you know, just be careful of those generalizations.

Yeah.

Um, but there is an opportunity to address that. So maybe people are too busy to cook, or maybe people, uh, don't want to spend more than a few minutes because they're enjoying something else, right? Really get to understand your customer so intimately that you, you don't put these generalizations on them, and then you can enhance your services and products to cater to their natural fit.

Yeah.

Once you do that, you can potentially take off. Malcolm Gladwell came out with a new book called The Revenge of the Tipping Point. I just started reading it.

Okay.

So he wrote The Tipping Point 25 years ago or something.

Mm-hmm.

And writing this book to just look at his concept from a different perspective. But the tipping point is that ideas, businesses, all these things that spread like an epidemic.

Mm-hmm.

There's a starting point.— and there become these super spreaders, people that just don't stop. If you master what this community really needs and understands them intimately, I think you're in a much better position to start a super spreading event, right, where someone can't stop talking about you. Excellent.

Yeah. All right, uh, Strongish Opinion: I started writing a newsletter 1.5 years ago, making over $3,600 MMR right now. Additionally, make a ballpark $6K monthly through one through one-on-one hourly coaching. Fell into the coaching because of the newsletter. People asked and I agreed to do it. Have run a few corporate training sessions for related reasons. Overall making around $10,000 per month, around $8,000 or so after fees and expenses.

On a newsletter. Do you know a guy, Jeb Walker?

Do you recognize that name? Yeah, I remember him.

What an awesome human. Just like a nice guy.

Yes, I remember dealing with him and he was wonderful.

Wonderful. Just a wonderful human. And he started with a newsletter. Of financial advisement newsletter. That's right, I forgot. So his story is his wife was the breadwinner, he was stay-at-home dad, um, but as his children were starting to get older, he said, got more idle time, so I decided to go back to college to figure out what to do. He said he was in class for one day and he was ready to pull his hair out because it was so bad. He walked out of class and said, I'm just going to write They were taught— it was a finance class. He said, "I'm gonna just write about this stuff because I know more about this than this professor even alludes to." Right. And he started his newsletter effectively that night. Got a few subscribers, got a few, and then it went to hundreds, then went to thousands of people subscribing for his weekly download and suggestions, and turned into this whole greater business of marketing techniques using email communication. Ah. I love this story and all these stories because they're kind of like a side hustle.

Right.

The more specialized you are in something, the more unique you become and the bigger the premium is you can teach. You know, I, I'm a hobbyist on the guitar, but if someone wrote a newsletter for people who play guitar at home in New Jersey and don't know how to sing, like, there's such a unique appeal to me. That now becomes a superior newsletter to all the other alternatives that are generalists.

Right.

So it's the great irony is if you want to dictate a bigger premium and attract audience, the more narrowly focused you are, the more you become attractive. Don't start broad, start narrow. That's what Jeff Walker did. I'm assuming that's what this person did as well. I love that you collected these stories, you and Kelsey. This is amazing.

Yeah. How are we doing on time, Mike?

Oh, it is, uh, 9:52 Eastern time, so we're good.

Okay, we're good. Okay, uh, BootyQuack88: I am a one-woman marketing agency. Hope to eventually hire employees to do the actual work while I manage the projects. I do primarily proposal writing for large corporations, but also do graphic design and general copywriting. No overhead besides Adobe Suite, internet, and my laptop. I net about $10,000-$15,000 per month depending on how much I work.

This is so great. When I hear one-woman marketing agency, I wonder how she gets those clients. I wonder if large corporations I'm picking BMW because we're in our building, the biggest client of S3, that's our neighbor upstairs. Yeah, the landlord and neighbor, and they have a marketing agency. BMW, I believe, is their biggest client. I think so. They're also a very, they're boutique, but they have 20 folks. They just expanded, maybe 30 folks. So they can perpetuate, or they can pitch the depth they have and the variability and the redundancy and all that stuff. When I hear a one-woman marketing agency, Will BMW have the confidence in them?

I don't know.

That's just a question I have.

Right.

But maybe if you sell to a department, to one person there catering to one specific need, maybe that's the way you do it. It's also proposal writing and maybe that's the norm. So it's just interesting. The risk she runs is the same as that first scenario, the window tinter, Booty Quack here. That's a great— I hope that's not her name. I'm Booty Quack. The risk they run is if she's sick, she's not available, she may not be able to deliver. If she's not able to deliver, does she lose that client? Is that client a recurring client? So it's just a risk. I encourage her and everyone, if you're a one-person show today, while you're still listening to the podcast, hire a personal assistant part-time. People get really nervous like, "I can't afford a full-time person." No, but you can find someone perhaps offshore in the Philippines or a neighborhood person or an Amy Cartelli who's looking to get back to work.

Yep.

Hire a person part-time just so you have some redundancy, just so you can start giving them some, some work.

Yeah.

And so not everything's dependent on you.

I have a question, Mike. Is there such a thing as insurance for solopreneurs? I mean, things that cover you if, you know, the loss of your income?

Should you— yes, there is. So you can do disability insurance.

Okay.

You can get, um, health insurance that if you have some kind of situation, it covers your health bills. And you can get things like, uh, who's that That commercial duck, quack, quack, quack. Yeah, you can get the companies like that that will then bridge certain things. Okay. When I was talking with an insurance provider, they said the most important insurance is disability because you're 5 times more likely to be disabled than you are to die. To die. Yeah. Yeah. So everyone gets— most people get health insurance or life insurance and few get disability.

Yeah.

So I have both personally.

Um, so yep, smart. Yeah. All right, I want to talk a little bit about, um, your previous businesses. Yeah, actually, could you tell tell us a little bit about them? How did you get started and why those specific businesses?

My very first business was on, uh, in Booton Township.

Okay.

Uh, when I was 8, 9 years old and I started collecting rocks and sticks. And back then, glue was good glue. You get Elmer's glue, it doesn't do anything now. It doesn't do that, but you put on your hand, you can peel off like a whole new set of skin, right?

Yeah.

Roll it up. Well, you could glue sticks and I make rock guys. And then I went to an acorn head. I call them acorn men because they wear little acorn hats.

Yeah, that's so cute.

Yeah, and I'll go around selling them to the neighborhood. And, uh, it's a good moneymaker because people feel guilty if they don't buy something. Yeah, you're the neighbor didn't buy something. So I learned how to go door to door and say, here's the acorn man I made. Yeah, uh, and whatever, 50 cents or whatever the fee was back then. Um, my second business, I just wanted to do like kind of side hustle things because I've talked a lot about my other businesses, but— and these are all just little, yeah, things. When I was in 5th or 6th grade. You remember Scott Griffith? We were talking about him.

Scott Griffith. Yeah.

He was my first customer. Uh-uh. I bought or was gifted a tape. I can't remember the band. Let's just say it was AC/DC.

Okay. That sounds about right.

Yeah. A tape. And I came up with a, I'm going to rent these out for a dollar a day.

You rented your music out?

Yeah. I said, I went to Scott and for example, I said, you can have this tape. It's just rent $1 a day. You can, or you can buy one and they cost like $9 or $10 and like you can copy it. So just take it. Get copy and you gotta return to me next day. But I also knew that people wouldn't return it. So, because people forget. So the next day I'm like, hey, how'd you like the tape? He's like, oh, it was awesome, man. I'm going to listen to more of it tomorrow. I'm like, okay, it's another dollar. By the end of the week, I'm like, I'm getting rich. And then like after 2 weeks, I'm like, he owes me $14. I've made so much money. I'm like, so I need the money. He's like, uh, I lost the tape. I'm like, I'm like, oh, I'm like, well, give me the $14 now.

Right.

He's like, no. And I'm like, what do you mean, no? He's like, I'm not giving you the money. That's too much. I don't have the money. Oh, and then like the tears start welling up.

That's when you had your hitman go out.

Yeah, my hitman was Skinny Mike. Nothing to do. Eric Holmes was like, I'll kick your ass. You get near him. I'm like crying. And the business was—

Oh God, this is so—

It was kiboshed. I lost out. I lost my favorite AC/DC.

So this was not a good— I thought this was such a cute and wonderful business model, but now I'm thinking this is a shit business model, Mike.

Yeah, but we talked about the Edison thing. You learn from your failures, right? Right, right. Failure one is you gotta have some kind of enforcement mechanism, some kind of lean. Like, I had nothing, no authority or control. I couldn't take a possession back. I didn't have his lunchbox or something. So he had all the control. Secondly, I had no enforcement, no collections mechanism. In fact, he had the reverse.

He had Eric Coleman coming after him.

He's still terrified. He's probably listening to this right now. I'm so gonna kick Michalowicz's ass, that weakling. And then I had no protection. I had one asset and it was in full control of the customer. And when it was lost or destroyed, or maybe just decided to keep it, I was out of business. I had no redundancy. I didn't make a backup of my own tape. I could have recorded it myself and copied it.

Right, right.

None of that stuff.

I love this story. That's, I think, my favorite story of yours.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe because I knew so many of the characters, but I really do love that story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Same time I see Scott, I'm like, you still owe me money. The last time I saw that Griffith, this is a few years ago, he's sitting there, he's at the deli. I bought him lunch. I'm like, dude, I haven't seen you so long, I like to buy you lunch. He's like, oh, thanks so much, man.

Man.

Oh, it cost me another $14,000.

Are you ever gonna learn?

It came full circle, and I gave him the $14,000. I'm an idiot. So that's the two businesses I wanted to do.

Now, what about your first, your first entrepreneurship business after college? What was that like? Yeah, what was that model?

My first one was computer network.

So here's what I did that on your own?

No, with a business partner.

Okay.

But he almost backed out. So I was working for a company called MicroStrategies here in, uh, Denville, New Jersey.

And was this your first job? I don't even know this because we were not exactly seeing each other.

Yeah, I was all pissed at you.

You were not pissed at me.

No, no, no.

But we weren't seeing each other and I don't know what happened in this stage of your life. So you got outta college and this was your first, like, form, your first real job with benefits kind of a thing. Yeah.

You're like, yep. Okay. Yep. So how it happened is this grownup job, I won one job offer in college, it was with the government. So I went through all these interviews. I wanted to work for Ernst Young. They interviewed me and they didn't hire me. I actually went through a second round of interviews. I was so confident I was going to get the job. I'm like, "Okay, I'm moving to Tysons Corner, Virginia." That's where I was being interviewed. Oh, wow. And I'm like, "I'm going to get—" I think the people that were going on board were getting $35,000. I'm like, "My God." I'm like, "That's rich man money." I went through a second round of interviews and they said, "Sorry, you're not our type." I'm like, "Oh my God, what am I going to do?" Well, I had one job offer with the government, the Defense Logistics Agency, the DLA. I'm like, "What do you do?" They said, "You help get fuel for the tanks and all this different stuff." And they go, "It's a lot of—" This is in the interview. They go, "It's a lot of red tape. I hope you're okay with boredom." I'm like, "I'm not going to get bored in—" Boredom. I'm like, uh, okay. But I had no other offer, so I didn't say no, but I didn't say yes. Okay. So then, um, I started— I interned at a place called MicroStrategy, and I called them, and I— and they said, yeah, we'd love to have you, you were such a great intern, definitely have a job, we'll send you an offer. And nothing comes, nothing comes. Now it's like a month away from graduation, I call them, I'm like, I didn't hear from you. They said, oh, we'll get to you, we really want you so badly. Now there's like a week away, and I'm like, I gotta Pulver Quartz, I called them. I said, "Hey, I know you guys were preparing an offer for me, but I'm taking another job opportunity. Thank you." Got the offer 10 minutes later. Oh, geez. Yeah. Which kind of set a seed of disappointment with them. They were kind of playing a game. Yeah. Came on board, performed very well there, but then with another guy saw I should start my own business. And I did have this little seed like you kind of stretched me out. And if they did intentionally or not, I felt that way. Right. And so me and this guy Barry, uh, started AllMech, our new— our company, our own computer company. But a week before, or a day before we start AllMech, we agree this is the launch day, we're gonna tender our resignation, give 2 weeks' notice. And, uh, Barry, the day before that, says, I got a family. He was— he was in his 30s, I was in my early 20s. Gotcha. He's like, I can't do this, I'm out. And so I said, as a bluff, I said, I'm doing this no matter what. And I said, I'm going to take you down as a competitor. You should, I mean, just join me or else. And he's like, ah, and he did it. He joined you. He did it. But I also acquiesced. I said, listen, I know you got to make money. I said, I'm young. I was engaged to Krista already. Right. But I said, I will forgo my compensation. I put in $15,000, borrowed from my parents. He put in $15,000. I said, all $30,000 is basically going back to you as salary. And so he took it as a salary. Okay. I took no salary. And that was the trade-off.

That was the trade-off.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Brave. Yeah. And it wasn't smooth. We can talk about some other times. You know, I did things I didn't know you couldn't do. I called on— solicited customers of my old employer. I didn't know that was— I literally did not know.

Right. That that was a no-no. Yeah.

That— yeah. So he sued me, rightfully so, and we settled the next day. But, um, yeah, it was a bumpy exit. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was foolish. Yeah. But I'm so grateful. So I was 23 years old starting a business. Wow. Full— you know, the first full year I was 24. Yeah. And I haven't looked back. It was the greatest thing I ever did. It was terrifying. Right. It was, and it still is terrifying at times. It can be, but it was the best thing I ever did. Okay.

One more quick question. After working with so many companies, and you've done, worked with a lot of different companies, what are some of your favorite and most profitable?

That I've had or worked with? Wow.

That we invested in? Yeah. I think the, like the ones you've invested in.

There's a candy store out in Montana. It's just such a cool, Candy Town USA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so cool, not because they sell candy. What's so cool is they're a home or destination for grandparents to bring their grandkids and show them what it used to be like. So they have a soda fountain there. Ah, I love that. You can get soda floats and sit at the counter and the—

Oh my gosh.

So there's this one grandfather who brings his granddaughter there. Every Thursday is the day they come together and grandpa shares stories and asks about— It's such good connection. Yeah. So it's just good companies doing things like that. That's one of my favorite businesses. Just because of the impact it has. There's a guy, Joe, who sells appliances in Detroit. It's like a good appliance store. Here we have— I've bought from P.C. Richard's and stuff, and these big appliance shops, it's all about the transaction. Joe just wants to make sure like the appliances are the right things for you and they'll serve you. And there's just a goodness there. So I love that business. My heart calls out to Jared. He's got Kill Devil Diesel. They make engines for monster trucks and stuff. Whoa. Uh, it's just a fascinating— is that— that's got to be unique, a unique business. His challenge is he's a technician, he knows how to do this stuff, and now he became a business owner and it's a whole different set of skills. It's really freaking hard. So my, my heart calls out to him, and they're doing such good things. Um, the list goes on. Sandy Waggott, who I just saw, she has an MSW. It's MSW Interactive. It's social media Marketing that they manage for you, website design, right? She is— she cares so much about her company. She loves on the people so much. You can tell.

Yeah, just tell from what she posts and what she shares with her. Yeah, she just cares. She's all heart.

She's all heart. All heart. So I just spent some time with her just this last week and just— it's just when you— I guess when you know the business owner behind it, you know their story and their reason. Yeah. When I see a business owner use their business as a platform to express their nature a platform of expression, that's when an entrepreneur's nailing it. And all those cases, that's what people are doing.

And that's when the right size business finds you.

And that's when the right size business finds you. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, Mike.

Thank you. Yeah. And just so you— just so our listeners know, we're investing, we're actively investing in businesses. We started Prosper Group. That's right. And Prosper Group is designed specifically to invest in these businesses. And we invest with expertise and, and our efforts and, and work. So if anyone's interested in that, they can email Amy@MikeMichalowicz.com and say, "Tell me about Prosper Group." Yeah, we can get you more details.

Get you connected. All right, in the news, Mike.

All right, give me a good one.

Did you hear about this? Don't fall for fake dentists offering veneers and other dental work on social media. No. I have not seen these ads, but apparently they're becoming kind of prolific. There's a rising trend of unlicensed practitioners offering veneer techs, offering low-cost veneers, often promoted on social media, which poses significant health risks. All states require dental procedures, including veneers, to be performed under the supervision of a licensed licensed dentist. Unlicensed individuals are selling training and certifications that lack legitimacy. So of course there's all kinds of health problems, including broken teeth and infection. And so just so our, our listeners are aware, you have to watch out for people who are offering to do it for much less money than a dentist would do it, or in a location that is questionable. Yeah, my basement. Yeah, right.

I'll tell you why I think businesses like this, these, these scam businesses are successful, because it plays into vanity. And many of us want to have the better look, the better appeal, and we are willing to ignore the telltale signs as a scam because we're going to gain the better things. I remember these injections where people were increasing their gluteus maximus. Get out of here. Yeah. Like, you know, you want Baby's Got Back type thing. Oh yeah, yeah. And these doctors would insert salines, chemicals and stuff, and deadly lip injections too. Deadly and causing gross deformities. Yeah. But these, these quacks don't have to show their legitimacy because they know people will look right past that when it's vanity-oriented. Yeah. You know, if I'm— if I have a toothache I'm a lot less likely to get scammed because now I have a health problem, very concerned. But if I'm looking to get a veneer or something that makes me look better, in my opinion, I'll look past things. So just be careful.

I'm thinking that even the idea of having to go through my doctor's office to get something taken care of, even if it's vanity, is part of the reason why somebody might go do something like a, you know, an unlicensed practitioner route, just because the whole process, the, the friction of getting an appointment with your doctor, waiting for that, and then, you know, It's also, it can be, I don't know, embarrassment a little bit.

Yeah. You know, yeah. I've heard these stories about breast augmentation and what people will do to get it done. But there can also, I believe, be some kind of discomfort, shame, embarrassment that someone's considering or whatever it may be. And so you can go to these kind of, you know, no appointment necessary, just walk-in procedure. Clinic. Yeah, clinic. Yeah, walk in. You put the word clinic, it sounds so real. Right. It's a walk-in clinic, you know, you don't even see the doctor that's working on you, right? Uh, and, and there are these quacks and, and it's deadly. So yeah, be careful.

A little PSA for our readers. Yeah.

All right, so this was an episode of Entrepreneurship Simplified. I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Prop First and some other books, and I'm joined in studio by Amy Cartelli, a longtime friend and, uh, great curator of, of tips and knowledge along with Kelsey. I know you do this, Kelsey, but just our goal here on the show is to share insights with you to help you in your business. I'm wishing you tremendous success. I do ask one favor: would you be willing to rate and review our podcast? We want to get the word out, we want to spread the word, and if you are willing to do that for us, that will achieve that objective. Thanks for joining us and have a great day. Bye-bye.