6 Simple Side Hustles You Can Start With Zero Experience⏐Ep. #266

Chris Koerner (0:00)

You've probably heard of my friend, Greg Isenberg. Well, Greg was kind enough to have me on his podcast, and we turned into idea machines. We talked about six different ideas, all of them approachable to anyone from anti-drink spiking stickers, to bike washing stations, building apps for Facebook Marketplace without coding experience, bending machines, 3D printing products, Pokémon, you name it. We talked about it. Please enjoy this episode with Greg. We'll see you next time on The Koerner Office.

Greg Isenberg (0:31)

Before we get in, what type of categories of ideas are we talking about?

Chris Koerner (0:34)

Approachable, low startup cost, low friction to start, affordable. In my opinion, everything is scalable. I just hate it when people say like, is that even scalable? Like, yes, it's scalable. The right question is how hard would it be to scale that to whatever number? Because for some, $100,000 a year is scale. To some, $100 million, right? So these are all scalable.

Greg Isenberg (0:56)

So these are ideas that can be anywhere from $10,000 a month all the way up to?

Chris Koerner (1:01)

8 figures a year, $10 million a year in revenue with double-digit profit margins.

Greg Isenberg (1:06)

Okay, you have my attention.

Chris Koerner (1:08)

You ready?

Greg Isenberg (1:08)

Yeah.

Chris Koerner (1:09)

Look at the thing right here. Guys, I'm amped up about this business. I'm a cyclist and I hate washing my bike. Everyone hates washing their bike. Germany is the world leader when it comes to health and fitness trends, and those trends always come out west. Here's exactly how you make a thousand bucks a day doing this. This is a mobile bike wash automated on a trailer. You know how many places you could post this up at? Bike parks, bike shops, trailheads, cycling races, but thousands of cyclists, all of them need this. And it's a perfect business right now because cycling has exploded in the last few years. E-bikes, mountain bikes, road bikes, gravel bikes. There are millions of cyclists in the US spending thousands of dollars on their bikes. And these aren't casual riders. They're people that have five to $15,000 bikes that care about maintenance, but they also don't have time or the desire to wash their own bike. It takes an hour. You need a hose, soap, brushes, degreasers. Most people are in apartments. They don't have a good outdoor space. So what do they do? They just don't wash their bikes or they pay a bike shop way too much money to do it and wait a week to get it back. But if you showed up at the trailhead after their ride with an automated bike wash, 20 bucks for a full wash and dry? Forget about it. It takes five minutes. They pay you back on the road. It's easy sale. 40 washes a day at 20 bucks each is 800 bucks in revenue. No inventory. No employees needed to start. You just start with you and a trailer. What do we think?

Greg Isenberg (2:19)

I love this idea. I also think that you could put this product at popular bike paths. In Canada, at our house in Canada, it's on a popular bike path for cyclists. You can actually cycle for 130 kilometers on this bike path. Every maybe 15 kilometers, there's a little station where people could hang out, have a coffee, have a bite to eat.

Chris Koerner (2:46)

Fix a flat.

Greg Isenberg (2:47)

Yeah, exactly. Fix a flat. So it's just like, how do you... And the cities operate that, like the towns operate it. So I would do a deal with them and be like, let's split the revenue on this. This just makes your bike path just more, like a better experience. So you're happy, you're also getting some more revenue. And then you have distribution there.

Chris Koerner (3:07)

Oh, I love that. You sell a dozen of them to a city and just like charge an ongoing maintenance fee. And instead of trying to make 1000 bucks in a day, you might make 50 bucks a day, but a lot more passively.

Greg Isenberg (3:17)

A lot more passively, yeah.

Chris Koerner (3:19)

I like that a lot.

Greg Isenberg (3:20)

The other thing that comes to mind is like, but how do you actually go and, okay, like let's say this is a good idea. How do I actually go and build this? Like how do I manufacture this? Like what are the next steps?

Chris Koerner (3:29)

I don't think you need to manufacture anything. I think you start with a rented trailer, a $200 pressure washer and like very manually you cleaning bikes in areas where there are dirty bikes right then and there, right? And then you go from there. You save your money and you buy one of these when you can afford it. I don't think you have to start with that.