Happy Thursday!
I'm building a private community called TKOwners for people who want to turn all these insights into real businesses. We have a slack channel where we drop insane AI tools and possibilities everyday. If you're serious about staying ahead of this AI revolution, check it out at tkowners.com. It's where the hundreds of action-takers hang out.
Okay, let’s get into it.
I sat down with a guy named Kyle a few weeks ago to talk about a pretty unknown business that’s been around for a while. It’s crazy lucrative and once set up, almost completely passive (I don't use the word passive lightly, you know that. But this one is a real exception. Once you build it and get a client in the door, this thing runs itself.)
He works an hour or two a day. Has clients who have been auto-paying him every single month for five years without a single conversation. Over $100,000 a month in revenue with under $5,000 in overhead.
He calls himself a website landlord. I want to walk you through exactly how it works and how you can copy it. And if you’re inspired by his hustle after reading this- go check out the full episode on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
You build a simple website targeting a specific service in a specific city. Something like "junk removal in Austin" or "epoxy flooring in Denver." You do basic SEO to get it ranking on page one of Google. Then you find a local business owner in that niche, give them a free week of calls to prove the leads are real, and charge them a flat monthly rate to keep those calls forwarding to their phone.
The overhead? Around $25 a month per site. Hosting, a domain, and a call tracking number. Kyle's company does $100,000 a month with less than $5,000 in total overhead. Those margins are almost offensive.
Step 1: Find a Supply-Demand Gap
Before you build anything, you need to find a niche and city combination where people are searching for a service but there aren't enough good websites competing for that traffic.
Kyle looks at competition, not just search volume. If you search "concrete contractor Dallas" and there are 200 established companies with decent websites, that's a tough fight. But if you search "spray foam insulation in Tulsa" and the top results are outdated garbage sites that haven't been touched since 2009, you've found your opening.
Great niches Kyle mentioned: epoxy flooring, spray foam insulation, junk removal, autoglass repair, crime scene cleanup. Basically any home service that homeowners need urgently, with decent search volume, where local competitors are lazy about their web presence.
Start with Ahrefs. Search your target keyword plus city, then look at the competition scores on the sites already ranking. Weak sites with low domain authority holding page one spots? Green light. Use ChatGPT to brainstorm what a homeowner would actually type into Google when they have this problem. Build a list of 30 to 50 keyword variations and run them all.
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Step 2: Build the Site
Here's where most people overthink it. Kyle showed me one of his live sites mid-interview, a really basic autoglass repair page in New Orleans. It's been generating around 50 calls a month for five years straight.
Google doesn't care about pretty- it cares about fast load times, clear content that matches the search intent, and incoming links that signal authority. Your site needs four things: a clear explanation of the service, the city in the content and URL, a contact form, and a call tracking number.
For building, start with Weebly or Hostinger if you don't know WordPress. Yes, WordPress is better long-term and cheaper, but the learning curve will slow you down when you're just getting started. Get the site live, get it ranking, then worry about optimizing your stack later. And honestly now you could probably use a vibecoded tool for these basic lead magnets.
Spend your energy on two things: content and backlinks:
1. Write clearly about the service and answer the questions homeowners are actually searching.
2. Reach out to other local or industry sites for links back to yours.
That's 80% of ranking according to Kyle, and he's been doing this for six years. Don't get paralyzed reading SEO blogs about schema markup and algorithm updates. That stuff matters for massive national sites competing against major marketing budgets. It doesn't apply to outranking Bob's Junk Removal LLC whose website looks like it was built during the Obama administration.
Step 3: Let the Calls Prove It First
Don’t reach out to a client before you have proof. Once your site starts getting calls, let them go to voicemail for a few weeks. Capture the data. Then, when you've got 20 or 30 documented calls sitting there, pick up the phone and call the best company in that niche in that city.
Kyle's pitch is casual on purpose. He doesn't sell. He presents it like he has a problem he needs help with: "Hey man, I've got this website getting like 50 calls a month for junk removal in Austin. I'm not in the junk removal business. Could I just send them to you for a week for free, no credit card, no contract, just see what you think?"
Almost everyone says yes. Then the leads do the rest. By the end of the trial week, if the business owner made money, the next conversation isn't about whether they'll pay. It's about how much.
Step 4: Close/ Set Your Rate
Kyle doesn't use contracts. He doesn't need to. He has leverage because if the client cancels, the calls stop. They know it and he knows it. That’s better than any piece of paper. (And if they do drop it for some reason, he can take the leads to the next junk removal business or window washing business or whatever the niche is.)
Flat monthly rates outperform pay-per-lead almost every time. Business owners want to know their number going in. Kyle charges between $300 and $5,000 a month depending on volume and niche. He'd rather charge slightly less and have a client who never bothers him than charge maximum and have someone second-guessing every invoice.
Once the site is ranking and the client is locked in, the work is genuinely passive. He has clients he hasn't spoken to in five years who auto-pay every month. His most common task at scale is following up on declined credit cards.
Step 5: Stack the Assets
Every site you build is a new income stream. They compound.
Kyle targets low-competition local searches intentionally. He doesn't want to fight a $50,000-a-month SEO agency for personal injury attorneys in Los Angeles. He wants to quietly outrank Joe, Bill, and Steve in a mid-size city with outdated sites they haven't touched in a decade.
Once a site is live and rented, you're barely touching it again. You move to the next niche, the next city. Kyle puts it this way: a hundred niches times a thousand cities is a million possible combinations.
The Numbers
Kyle's company runs about $100K a month with under $5K in overhead. He's been doing it for six years. His first client, a workers' comp attorney he texted a screen recording to, wired him $6,000 within 20 minutes and is still paying him every month today.
Kyle has over 100 clients and most have been with him for years. The autoglass site in New Orleans has generated around 50 calls a month, for five years, and the client pays $600 a month. They've talked maybe five times total.
Sit with that math for a second.
Go execute:
Run keyword research for one niche in your city. Pull up Ahrefs or just Google the term yourself and see how weak the competing sites look. If you see opportunity, buy a domain with the city and service in the name, set up a basic site, write a few pages of genuinely helpful content about the service, and submit it to Google Search Console.
That's day one. You're not spending thousands of dollars or quitting your job. You're planting a seed. Kyle's first client paid him $6,000 and that relationship is still alive six years later.
The best time to start was when Kyle started in 2019. Second best time is now.
You can just do things.
And again- if you want to learn more about this hustle- go check out the full episode on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And when you start it, come back and let me know how quickly you landed your first 6K monthly client!
Lastly, I'm always looking for cool, unique businesses to share on my podcasts. If you have one and are comfortable sharing your journey, drop your info here!
Have a great week!
Chris
P.S. I share deep dives on business ideas and complete playbooks three times a week on YouTube and every podcast platform.
