Anyone doing anything interesting offline?

Vadym said:
Feel exactly the same way - am helping friend start a moving business so I can help X days a week whenever the feel arises. But lawn care sounds interesting too.
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I figured I pay a guy $50 per week to cut my grass, so right there I would save $1200-1400 per year. Grab a few accounts, get outside in the sun, and shit if it makes me some beer money I'm good with that. I just miss being outside and smelling that fresh cut grass. Something very therapeutic about it. Nothing like putting the headsets on, smoking a joint, and putting your brain on cruise control.

I'm going to be like Forrest Gump, and just cut that grass for free.
 


^^^ LOL I hear ya man. More than once I've looked out my home office window at the guys cutting my grass, cleaning my pool, or whatever else and wished I could trade places with them, at least for the day.
 
One of my buddies has a landscaping business (lawn care and snow removal). He has 2 large commercial accounts and pulls in a couple hundred grand/year. He also seems like he never works because he's always calling me at 10am on a Tuesday to go get drunk.
 
Best cure for your problem is to get a part-time job, seriously.

Nothing will break up your monotony, get you some social interaction (and laid), like taking up a part-time job.

As an added bonus, after a week or three, you'll realize how nice sitting on your ass is and randomly tell your boss to fuck off as you walk out during a shift.
 
Michael_ said:
Best cure for your problem is to get a part-time job, seriously.

Nothing will break up your monotony, get you some social interaction (and laid), like taking up a part-time job.

As an added bonus, after a week or three, you'll realize how nice sitting on your ass is and randomly tell your boss to fuck off as you walk out during a shift.
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Boss? Job? Psssss....
 
blue collar work pays more than most ppl think. for every tumbr 1bn sale, there's many guys making 6-7 figures year with their hands
 
guerilla said:
We had a yard sale today. I cleaned up. Like a boss.

Offline is tough because it limits your mobility.
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It doesn't have to. Simply go to the people. Being willing to go mobile with your business removes all limits many traditional offline business face. The key is to be willing to change on a dime. If you go to the people your chance of success improves exponentially (same as online).

The barriers are also high. It's usually much further behind tech, which is not a good place to be in a world that is moving increasingly faster.
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The barriers don't have to be prohibitively high (your products should be). It takes some creativity and thinking outside the box.
You've also usually got to deal with a lot more people face to face, either employees, suppliers and customers. Depending on how you feel about human beings, this can be a big negative.

That said, there are probably 10s of thousands of awesome offline opportunities. Not every opportunity is equal, on or offline.
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Agreed. But if you want people to give you money, you must communicate with them. There is tremendous opportunity in an offline mobile business (maybe not tumblr opportunity) if you simply go to the money.
 
I do have an offline biz, some of you know what it is. Anyways, if you want to compete in lawn care, flipping houses anything where a dumb fucking moron thinks there is easy money you have to know the numbers in the real world like you know corporate level ppc campaigns. How much per sq.ft. is a good deal on a house? What does it mean if the ridge has a sag to it, whats a sill plate and is it bad if its rotten lol, would you even notice? Youll get fucked man if you dont know basic stuff. Dont rely on a home inspector to tell you whats a good deal or not.

I used to be a moderately decent auto detailer. Like no swirls under lightening, no dirt on the back side of wheels, stupid wastes of fucking time, kinda like seo bro. You would actually be better off learning how to use a random orbital buffer, paint clay and microfibers and charge $300 for a clay and 2 step buff of peoples cars.
 
dsiomtw said:
I can think of lots of reasons. I'm sure you could too if you tried. Margins and market reach aren't the only things that are important in a business, and they certainly didn't stop any of the millions of people that made millions and billions offline before the Internet.

No doubt. I know some too. It can happen to almost anyone regardless of where they first find success though. Success tends to lead to confidence, sometimes overconfidence, and worse, arrogance.

I've already done all that, and spend more time playing than I do working. The problem is I still spend 20-25 hours a week in front of a computer, which I don't really enjoy any more.

If I'm being honest, I don't think I ever really did.

I've realized I don't really even like "marketing". I like creating and building cool stuff, but the rest not so much. It's always just been about the money, which is no longer as motivating of a factor as it used to be.
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Good luck. Sounds like you're looking for an excuse justifying what you want to do, rather than anything else. If you want to go mow lawns, do that. Don't post on wf asking for opinions. My opinion is that it's a low skill low risk low reward biz that won't go very far.
 
mituozo said:
Good luck. Sounds like you're looking for an excuse justifying what you want to do, rather than anything else. If you want to go mow lawns, do that. Don't post on wf asking for opinions. My opinion is that it's a low skill low risk low reward biz that won't go very far.
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If he can provide the lawn mowers and the clients he could easily outsource the actual work and concentrate on building the client list.
 
mituozo said:
If you want to go mow lawns, do that. Don't post on wf asking for opinions. My opinion is that it's a low skill low risk low reward biz that won't go very far.
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I have no interest in mowing lawns. My opinion is that your reading comprehension isn't that great.

Lots of money to be made there though. I know a guy who is co-owner of one of the more established lawncare/landscaping businesses in the high-end suburbs of DFW, and let's just say that when the new Cowboys stadium went under construction he dropped the $3 mil for a box to "entertain clients" like it was nothing.
 
I've been searching for offline business opportunities too. After researching each idea for about a month, I decide it's not worth my time. I wish I could find something though. I'm getting so sick of wasting my life in front of a computer.
 
If you're just looking for ways to make money, instead of doing something interesting and with some sort of future, or non-monetary payoffs, then you're going to struggle to stay motivated.

I never go into the kitchen and wish I could be our cook. I love cooking, but I love what I am trying to work towards a lot more.
 
^^^^^ Amen brother. I've spent literally 100s of hours trying to come up with a viable business related to either of my 2 true passions in life (aside from family and all that). So far no luck. There just isn't a whole lot of money involved in the things I REALLY want to do.
 
transistor said:
I've been searching for offline business opportunities too. After researching each idea for about a month, I decide it's not worth my time. I wish I could find something though. I'm getting so sick of wasting my life in front of a computer.
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I know how that goes. The logical side of me says to just keep doing what I do online and make plenty of money working part-time, spend the rest of my time doing what I REALLY enjoy doing, and be thankful for that.

That's basically what I'm doing now. The problem is that I'm still sitting in front of a computer for 20+ hours a week and that is in direct conflict with what I want to be doing - both mentally and physically.
 
You want cash cow offline business.

1. Car Wash
2. Laundromat
3. Own vending machines.

So much profit it's just stupid. Several years ago, myself and two partners were buying a piece of commercial real estate near a extremely busy shopping center to build a full service car wash. This was on a road that saw over 20k traffic volume per day. By our estimates, it would have been paid off in a year and then it's just a gravy train. Even with all of the EPA and clean water bullshit hoops you have to jump through just to get the tunnel installed, it would have been so worth the effort to get that thing built.

Unfortunately one of the partners got a divorce in the middle of the deal and if fucked the whole thing up and we had no choice but to back out. If that had gone through, I'd most likely never have gotten into online stuff.
 
Check out them lines brah...

dauxlandscaping_IA-mowstripes2.jpg
 
^^^^ Yeah those seem to come up a lot in "offline business" discussions. I know there are a few big car washes in my town and I can only imagine how much they make.

Bummer to hear about your story - hopefully the online stuff worked out even better for ya.

It is interesting to go through bizbuysell and see the numbers behind different types of businesses ...
 
efeezy said:
You want cash cow offline business.

1. Car Wash
2. Laundromat
3. Own vending machines.

So much profit it's just stupid. Several years ago, myself and two partners were buying a piece of commercial real estate near a extremely busy shopping center to build a full service car wash. This was on a road that saw over 20k traffic volume per day. By our estimates, it would have been paid off in a year and then it's just a gravy train. Even with all of the EPA and clean water bullshit hoops you have to jump through just to get the tunnel installed, it would have been so worth the effort to get that thing built.

Unfortunately one of the partners got a divorce in the middle of the deal and if fucked the whole thing up and we had no choice but to back out. If that had gone through, I'd most likely never have gotten into online stuff.
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My buddy owns a bunch of car washes. Cleans up.
 
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