👻 My Neighbor's Kids Are Making $1,000 Every Weekend Doing This

In partnership with

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;

• Shaved Ice (lemonade stand on the street style)

• Sell 50 to 100 customers Friday through Sunday

• Make about $1k in revenue every weekend

I’m going to start every email with an ad… (please click it to help support this newsletter 😍)

Looking for unbiased, fact-based news? Join 1440 today.

Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.

Subscribe to 1440 today.

 🚨 this is that ad to click… remember?? 👆

Shaved ice is exactly what it sounds like: a mountain of fluffy, snow-like ice drenched in neon syrup that kids go feral for. It’s summer, it’s cheap, it’s a cash machine.

My neighbor’s kids (ages 13 and 15) bought a shaved ice machine on Amazon for $200 (like this one)  and grabbed a starter syrup kit for $40. Add in a folding table, some cups, and a cooler, and they were in business for under $300.

They started small—just parked on a busy street outside their house Friday through Sunday, holding signs and blasting Kidz Bop. Nothing fancy.

Their current numbers

Every Friday through Sunday, these tiny entrepreneurs build their setup outside their house on a busy street. They’ve got a folding table, a cooler packed with ice, and one of those little neon flags that says “SNOW CONES”. It’s not high-tech, but it works.

They charge $5 per cup, no matter the flavor.

The flavors? Rainbow, Cherry, Blue Raspberry, and whatever other sugar bombs came in their starter kit.

They’re serving between 50 to 100 customers a day, depending on the weather and what’s happening nearby (a little league game = instant boom). That means they’re pulling in $250 to $500 a day, and again—this is just Friday to Sunday, a few hours at a time.

Let’s break it down:

• The shaved ice machine cost about $200

• The starter syrup pack was around $40

• Cups, spoons, ice, and a few signs maybe another $30

So all in? They were up and running for under $300, and made that back in one weekend.

Even better? Their cost per serving is crazy low. A bag of ice from Safeway runs $3, and it gets them through dozens of cups. The syrup lasts for weeks. Their margins are around 80–85%, easy.

They keep their cash in a tackle box and take Venmo for tech-savvy parents. Pure hustle.

And they're having fun. Which makes it even better.

Scaling to $1,000 a day

If these kids were ruthless little CEOs (and they kind of are), here’s the roadmap to upgrade the snow game:

1. Double Down on Volume

• Add a second shaved ice machine ($200 again) so two people can serve at once

• Get a commercial-grade cooler and prep extra ice

• Use Square or Venmo QR codes to speed up payments

2. Pop-Up at Events

• Farmers markets, soccer tournaments, neighborhood festivals, or even Costco parking lots (location, location, location)

• Offer custom flavors or "unicorn snow" or “blood of thy enemy” to upsell

• Charge $8–$10 per cup in these premium spots

  • (super side note; I just saw a loaded potato for sale at a seafood festival for $28… 😳 You can price higher!)

3. Hire Their Friends

• Pay them per shift

• Kids love working for other kids who have money and freedom

4. Blast on Instagram + Nextdoor

• Post videos of the “flavor of the day”

• Partner with local mom influencers to shout it out

• Run $5 coupon days or “name that flavor” contests to go viral locally

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!

Hit the share button below to pass this on to a friend, colleague, or anyone who's ever thought about turning their passion into profit.

Viability:

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

You only need about $300 to start, margins are fat (each $5 cup costs ~50¢), and it runs just Friday through Sunday, making it a perfect weekend moneymaker. The work is simple (ice + syrup = profit), and even kids can run it, but it loses a point because you still have to show up, serve people, and stand outside—so it’s not totally passive, but pretty dang close.

(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 👋