Welcome to Ghost Business 👻 Your Tuesday & Friday email, where we turn $1 into thousands building these weird but simple side hustles

Green Thumbs Up

Green thumbs up… In a past life I used to be a plant daddy. I would dive deep into the wild world of monsteras, humidity and decor. But ultimately just really liked writing about plants.

But one day everything changed. One day I looked into the business of plant-fluencers (plant based social media handles) and saw shocking that shocked me. Plant propagation sales. Plant props of rare plants can be a significant side hustle - IF you have the patience and care to do it.

Plant propagation: the process by which new plants grow from a various sources, including seeds, cuttings, and other plant parts.

You’re pretty much an urban house plant farmer.

Okay but how would you start this hustle?

1. Buy an expensive house plant (I recommend a fast growing one)

2. You grow the plant to maturity (6mo-1yr)

3. You propagate the plant into smaller trimmings and plant the trimmings

4. Grow those (6mo-1yr)

5. Now during this propagation, you sell off the trimmings for $50-$150 ea

6. At this rate you should be able to maintain selling 5 to 10 trimmings a month which could range from $250-$1,150/mo

Most of your expenses would come from soil, fertilizer, and some small plant accessories that could come in under $100

The MVP (Getting your first customer)

Leaf me alone… There may not be an easier market to sell to. Plenty of plant friendly folks are always on the hunt for rare(ish) plants.

I’m personally privy to the Monstera deliciosa Thai constellation

Post this prop or cutting in any plant group in your area and you’ll have a line out the door.

You can always check what’s hot on Rare Plant Fairy, they keep a solid inventory of the latest and rarest plants in demand.

You can post these cuttings for sale in:

• FB marketplace

• OfferUp

• FB local plant groups

• Etsy

Getting Your Next 100 Customers

Monstera in the sheets… Growing this hustle is tough. Your inventory needs constant care and shipping can be suss.

Luckily once you can make a name for yourself, you can start to pump out these numbers.

If I were to build this out to 100 customers, I would stick to one variety of plant. They would call me Monstera Mike. People would be green with envy. My thumb would be greener.

1. Document your growth

2. Make a landing page

3. Learn how to ship props

4. Live that “work from forest” life

Do a couple of giveaways, people who follow your FB Marketplace account get a chance to win a cutting (or item) for example. This will help boost your items for sale and increase income.

Viability:

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

Time = money, this hustle is for the green thumb with patience. This can take up to a year to get off the ground, but once you have steady growth, the side hustle will flourish.

Reputation is everything here as well. If you’re known for sending out dying plants or having subpar props, word gets around fast and you may be shunned from certain groups.

(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 👋