👻 Dads Will Pay $45 for This One Thing

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If you’re new here, we turn $1 into thousands building these weird but simple side hustles. Welcome to Ghost Business 👻 Your (mostly) weekly email

TLDR;

• Lawn mower blade sharpener

• Startup cost: $200

• Revenue: $45 per blade

• 25 blades/week = $1K+ weekly profit

• Market: homeowners and lawn pros

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Most people don’t realize their mower blades are duller than a butter knife. You fix that. Offer on-demand sharpening for $45, and suddenly every dad in a 5-mile radius is bragging about “blade efficiency.”

All you need: a bench grinder ($100), sharpening jig ($30), and basic PPE ($50).

• Startup: $180 total

• Price per job: $45

• Profit per blade: ~$40 after consumables

• TAM (total addressable market): ~15M U.S. households with lawns (Seattle metro ~500k+) 🔥 even 0.1% penetration is 500 loyal customers.

The MVP

Post on Nextdoor, Facebook Marketplace, and Reddit:

Wait until you get your first booking to buy all of your equipment

Sharpen from a driveway or garage. Offer same day turnaround and throw in free balancing as a “bonus.” The speed and convenience justify the higher price.

• 3 jobs/day = $135/day

• 10-minute turnaround per blade = 30 mins of work (minus commute)

• $5 in grinder wear every 20 jobs

Path to $1,000 a week

Go mobile. Offer Saturday drive-up sharpening in Home Depot or Ace Hardware parking lots. Customers drop blades off while shopping, and you finish before they leave. Partner with local lawn care guys… give them $5 referral cuts.

• 25 blades/week × $45 = $1,125/week

• Add $10 upsell for balancing = $1,375/week

p.s If you found this insight into the newsletter industry valuable, imagine how helpful it could be to someone else dreaming of starting their own hustle!

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Viability:

1 [building spaceships] 🚀 to 5 [easy peasy] 😊 

This is stupid simple: plug in a grinder, wear goggles, and charge $45.
Startup costs are under $200, and customers come back every mowing season.

(As usual each business will have it’s own setbacks, and it’s all about the execution and consistency rather than just having the idea)

It’s a great day to be great!

Love, Mike 👋