Making hundreds of millions of dollars is not complicated. In fact, I would argue it’s as simple as finding a boring business that you’re willing to commit to. Every day, I’m flooded with hundreds of boring businesses to invest in, and a few I’ve been willing to write million-dollar checks to. In just a few minutes, you’ll understand the most important concepts and business models to make billions off of boring businesses. There are two basic types of cash flow businesses I want to focus on. Property-oriented businesses and service-based businesses. I want to start by focusing on property businesses.
This Business Turned $2,100 into an $8 Million ATM Empire.
These are appealing because people think of them as an easy way to make passive income. Let’s look at my three favorites. This first business can make anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000. This Business Turned $2,100 into $8 million per month and only takes a few hours to operate. In some cases, people have turned $2,000 investments in this business into millions. Paul Alex, a retired San Francisco police officer, started his ATM business in 2018 to supplement his income. He purchased his first ATM for $2,100 and installed it in a nail salon. That single machine generated him $500 of profit per month. Encouraged by the results, he gradually expanded his operation and started installing ATMs in other locations.
By 2021, Paul owned over 30 ATMs nationwide. His ATM business was generating over $10,000 a month in profit, which allowed him to retire from his police job. Today, his company, ATM Together, earns over $8 million a year and helps others to start their own ATM businesses.
So, what was so smart about how Paul started this business? Well, first of all, he didn’t go all in at the beginning. He still kept his day job. He had a specific opportunity locally within a nail salon where he knew the owners. And then when he did expand, he didn’t do it all at once. He did it slowly. He went from one to two, two to four, and gradually expanded his ATM footprint. The key in the ATM business is location and maintenance of your ATM machines. If you don’t have money in the ATM machines for people to be able to take out, your ATM is not going to make any money.
If your machine breaks or is not functional for whatever reason, it’s not going to make any money, and you’re going to be responsible for fixing it. So, making sure you understand how you’re going to build the infrastructure to be able to maintain your ATM machines and also to be able to continue to negotiate to keep your ATM machines in the right places. These are going to be the keys to being successful in this type of business.
The 95% Success Rate:
I can’t write a blog about cash flow businesses without mentioning laundromats. According to an industry publication, there’s a 95% success rate in laundromats, almost double the national average of a 50% success rate for most businesses. So, what makes laundromats appealing? Well, everybody is in search of that elusive passive income. And at least on the surface, laundromats look just like that. You find a good location, you put in some machines, people put in money, wash their laundry, you go, you collect those machines or you collect those credit card swipes, and your work is done.
You pay for the building, pay for the water, you pay for the detergent, whatever the inputs for laundry would be. And then you can set it and you can forget it. But it’s really important to understand here that in business and in life, if it sounds too good to be true, it often is. Laundry mats can be a great investment, but remember, you’re still going to be responsible for the maintenance of all those machines, for actually collecting that money, making sure that you have a safe, clean environment consistently, and most importantly, have the right location because people are not going to choose you if it’s not convenient and not in the right area.
Laundromats can be great profitable cash flow businesses and a great entry point for people to get started. But if you want to scale it, in my experience, it takes more capital than people often realize. And that’s one downside of laundromats from my perspective.
The Tax-Free Equipment Rental Boom:
I will pay you $10,000 a month to start this next business. I was opening up our plant in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we had a problem. Our air compressor broke. This was during CO, and they told me it was going to be 3 weeks before we could get a new one. I didn’t know what to do because without an air compressor, it was impossible for us to run our business. I started scrambling, and I found a local rental company that had a diesel version of this air compressor that we were able to get up and running within a couple of hours.
I paid them $500 a day to rent this air compressor, but it was well worth it to be able to keep our operations going. That’s when I first started looking into the rental equipment business. There are companies all throughout the country, every single day, that require a piece of equipment that they do not have on site, any type of equipment you can imagine.
This is where the opportunity comes. If you have that equipment in stock, in working order, ready to go, then companies will pay you a premium to rent that equipment on a daily basis. Even better, it’s an incredibly tax-efficient business. Not something people think about. If you buy equipment for $100,000 and you’re able to rent it out for $60,000 over the course of that year, you’re actually able to write off 100% of that $100,000 against your income.
So that $60,000 you make is tax-free. And think about now, with all of this talk of tariffs and all of this change, one way or another, more manufacturing is likely to come back to the US. So, I think that the equipment rental business is only likely to increase over the next decade, making this an opportune time to be thinking about it, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.
Yes, you’re going to have equipment that you have to maintain. You have to figure out the logistics of how you’re going to get that equipment from your place to that customer’s place, and make sure you’re doing it timely manner. All overcomeable problems, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. I would encourage you to start small from the beginning. Really learn the ropes before you expand it. It’s not the kind of thing that I would go all in on day one. Those businesses we just talked about are generally good for making thousands.
The Millionaire Trade School Path:
But if you want to make millions or billions, I actually don’t think property businesses are the best way to scale. Services businesses, however, cost less to start and have more upside if you do it right. If you skip college and go to trade school, I genuinely believe this business may be one of the smartest ways to become a millionaire. So, a few years ago, I decided to do this playbook. I had already built our air filter business into a decent size, but I really saw the opportunity in the service-based business, and just how big service-based businesses can be.
So, I decided to partner with a friend that I met back at Goldman Sachs to go out and start our own service-based business in the HVAC space. We call it filter by HVAC solutions. The beauty of the service business is very capital-light. What it does take is knowledge and systems to be able to go out and scale it. That’s why, if I were starting out and I didn’t have money, what I would do is go to trade school and really learn the HVAC industry, maybe even go out and work for a successful HVAC business for a while before getting started.
So, if you have the knowledge and the ability to offer a good, high-quality service at a fair price, you’re going to be able to find a business model that scales.
How to Become a Trades Monopoly:
So, how do you get started in something like this? You follow my blog. You start locally. You start building in one small community, become the best, build your systems around that one specific community, and then you slowly start to expand it out from there. Social media and the ability to reach local communities at scale have completely changed the game. And what I found is that most local businesses are still not really utilizing it in the ways that matter. They’re still spending millions of dollars on outdated marketing tactics like billboards and radio, all of these types of things.
When the reality is that the attention has moved, the things that the younger demographics are looking for from these services have also changed. And so if you’re able to tap into that, you can ultimately find a scalable business. The hard part about service businesses is that they can be easy to start, but that means they can be hard to stand out.
This Business Can Be a Monopoly:
That’s why I love this next business so much. I’ll never forget when I first came back to Talladega, Alabama, to start what is now filter by. I was looking around at the local industry, and you know what? There wasn’t much, but one of the richest guys in town. Local unassuming country guy that probably didn’t graduate from the eighth grade, but he was extremely successful. And you know what business he was in?
Emergency tow truck services. If your car stalled on the side of the interstate, he was the guy that you called who would come and tow you to get you out of harm’s way. But this guy was even smarter. He realized that the real money was when the 18-wheelers had a problem and they needed to be towed. If you had an 18-wheeler that went down on this long stretch of I-20, he was basically the only person in the area who had the equipment needed to be able to get your truck towed quickly.
And best of all, it was a high-margin business, and he could basically name his price. The beauty of this business is you don’t have to start big. You just have to start in one truck, one service area. You buy the truck, start advertising, and you’re in business. If you want to scale your business, you scale the number of trucks in the service area that you have.
Obviously, the downside here, of course, is you’ve got to have the equipment. You’ve got to maintain your trucks, and you’ve got to have qualified drivers who are rated to be able to go out and do it. Not easy, but overcomeable, and certainly can be scalable.
How to Win in Waste Management:
Not enough people are talking about the fact that there’s an $80 billion boring business that you could start today. Patrick Dovigi, a hockey player from Ontario, Canada, started GFL, or Green for Life, in 2007. He began by managing several small Ontario waste management companies, then aggressively expanded by making more than 100 acquisitions. His big break came in 2011 when GFL won a Toronto trash collection contract, beating out much larger competitors. Under his leadership, GFL grew from a small local business to a multi-billion-dollar empire. Now serving customers across Canada and the US with over 20,000 employees. Today, GFL is publicly traded and recognized as one of the top waste management companies in North America.
So, why is waste management so great? Well, it’s a huge market. It’s something that basically every home or business needs. They need their trash picked up. Is trash collection an easy business? No. There are environmental concerns. There are lots of large players already in the market. So, how would I get started if I wanted to get into this? Well, I would study my local market and find what my local service is missing. And the answer may be very different depending on the community.
Maybe you do your research and find, hey, they’re only picking up one day a week, but I know that there’s enough demand for, you know, doing it two days a week or doing it on a different day of the week. Maybe that’s your opportunity. I don’t know. But my guess is that if you study it closely enough, you may find an angle that you’re going to be able to exploit. That little angle might become your gateway to a multi-billion-dollar business if you play your cards right.
Conclusion:
Thank you for reading this blog. The truth is, wealth often hides in plain sight. From ATMs to air compressors, from tow trucks to trash collection, these “boring” businesses prove that fortune favors consistency, patience, and grit more than flash or hype. If you’re willing to start small, learn the systems, and scale strategically, you can quietly build something massive while everyone else chases trends.
FAQs:
1. What are boring businesses?
Every day industries with steady demand and low competition.
2. Why do boring businesses make millionaires?
They offer consistent cash flow and scalability over time.
3. Which boring business has the highest success rate?
Laundromats with about a 95% success rate.
4. Do I need a lot of money to start one?
Not necessarily, many service-based ones start small.
5. What’s the biggest key to success in these businesses?
Smart scaling and choosing the right location or niche.
6. Are these truly passive income businesses?
No, they require effort, but can become semi-passive with systems.
