Newsletter #00063

Happy Sunday!

Today I want to cover the 5 best business ideas I came across this week, and why, starting with #5:

5. Appliance delivery (NO, not appliance rental like I already covered 2 weeks ago and in this video)

If you remember from my interview with Kyler above, he got his start by delivering appliances for big box stores.

Would you believe that many big box stores don’t deliver their own appliances? Dumb, right? So you’d just do this:

1. Scrape all the appliance shops in your area.

2. Call and ask if they deliver.

3. Make a list of the ones that don’t.

4. Print a flyer advertising your services.

5. Show up at the shops that don’t deliver, drop off your flyer, and tell them to call you any time they need.

They pass the cost on to the customer, so its no skin off their back. Kyler was making a couple hundred per delivery.

4. Creative claw machines.

On episode #104 (Youtube - Apple Podcasts - Spotify - Everywhere else) a caller asked what I would do with a claw machine that she just acquired. What would I fill it with? Here’s what I told her:

• Mystery packs of cards

• 1 of the packs of cards has a $1,000 card in it. You combine the inherent thrill of a claw machine with the thrill of gambling.

• Swap out the items every month to see what really resonates.

• Put a sensor on the machine to make a noise every time people walk by.

I can’t remember what else I told her, but it’s the first segment in the links above. What a fun business.

3. A bike smoothie business.

A while back I posted this video and a caller on the same episode as the one linked above asked how I’d launch that business.

Easy - farmer’s markets!

What do you have to lose? A $100 booth rental fee? This business is amazing because:

• Less labor costs

• Very visual - grow on social media

• Good margins

• Low overhead

• Very novel

• Can validate the concept at a farmer’s market and scale any which way you please

2. A Klaviyo email marketing agency.

Yep, same Q&A call in episode. A guy was asking if I think the business is still viable that I wrote about a year ago here.

Absolutely I do! I think almost any idea is still viable after years and years have elapsed. Read that newsletter and give it a shot!

1. A memory booth in assisted living facilities.

I honestly think this is one of the best ideas I’ve ever covered on my podcast. You can find it here on episode #101: (Youtube - Apple Podcasts - Spotify - Everywhere else)

What is the idea?

Place a booth in an assisted living facility where AI can instruct residents to tell their life stories. It will help the facility increase their census (occupancy) and it will preserve memories for families.

You get to do good and make good money at the same time! It’s a beautiful thing.

Today’s newsletter is a little shorter than normal because I’m tired, y’all! But before I go, a quick question…

I’m thinking of testing something a little unique…

A ton of you want to start a business or side hustle in 2025. I want to help with that. But how? I don’t want to be a course guru, but I can’t work for free, and I also don’t want to sell my time.

I may have a creative solution that would look something like this:

• I create a 4-8 week email-based outline/course/accountability program that starts on 1/1/25. To get you from “what should I launch?” to “I have paying customers! I’m profitable!” in 4-8 weeks.

• Every Monday you get an email with ideas/guides/instructions, and every Sunday you fill out an accountability check-in form so I can see you’re doing what you promised.

• The cost? Free! But not really…

• You would pay something like $100 - $300 upfront, and if you actually complete all the steps, launch your business and fill out the accountability form every week, you get a 100% refund at the end of it.

• Yes, that would mean I eat Stripe’s 3% processing fees. I would literally lose money and time if all of you successfully started a business. That’s a gamble I’m willing to take.

So it’s a double whammy:

• You either come out of pocket a couple hundo and don’t have a business to show for it, (but you learn a ton of skills) or…

• You pay nothing AND have a business at the end of it.

Can you tell me what you think of this idea with the poll below? How should I tweak it? Longer, shorter, not email based, etc?

I’ll tell you right now, I just don’t have the time to launch a full blown community or to really get meaningfully involved. I can fit in one more email per week but that’s about it.

Maybe we could do a weekly Q&A call together or something?

I’d love to hear your feedback on the price point, format, structure, etc.

A lot of what you’d see in the emails would be stuff I’ve talked about in the past, but more clean and organized.

I COULD do a system where if you do some of the steps you get some of the money back, but that seems like a logistical nightmare. Issuing partial refunds to hundreds of people of varying amounts…no fun. I’d rather it be all or nothing.

The purpose of the cost is so you can be pot-committed. So you will be more likely to launch a business! “That which is easily gained is easily lost.” I truly believe that. If I merely wanted to make money from you I’d just sell the course and keep it easy.

Anyway, please vote below. I will read every word of your feedback that you can submit after voting!

One last thing:

I want to answer your question on my podcast! Can you leave me a quick audio message with your question right here? It can be totally anonymous if you prefer. Chances are very good I’ll answer it, because y’all don’t ask enough questions!

If you want more depth to everything covered above you can watch/listen here: Youtube - Apple Podcasts - Spotify - Everywhere else.

Thanks for reading! Lots of cool stuff coming soon!

Your favorite toxic optimist,

Chris Koerner
chrisjkoerner