222 - 3 Home Service Businesses You Can Start with Under $20K with Anne McGinty

25:38So I would definitely buy a business. Yeah. And there's probably a bunch that are available right now. Well, and the crazy thing about healthcare, this is going to sound really crazy to people who have operated in really competitive businesses. If you talk to any provider, they will tell you the same thing. Oh, I'm so busy. Oh, what's your marketing look like? I don't really do any marketing. We just kind of opened and we started getting clients. The barrier is so low. You're not operating against Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. You know what I mean? You're operating against people who really aren't that sophisticated.

26:09So that's another reason why I like that space. The downside risk isn't terrible. How many clients would you need in order to reach profitability? Well, there's two things. Me and my skill set, I would buy a business. And so you'd probably need around 50 to 100 patients in order to have it be running profitably. If I was doing just a straight services business, let's say we did the Christmas tree lighting, you probably need 10 really good clients. And you'd want to choose a high ticket, high paying offering to build a business around. So probably 10 clients. It's crazy. That sounds pretty, not too crazy.

26:50That sounds pretty doable. It's not doable. And like I said, for me, I love elder care and the autism clinics because there's also a component of that makes me feel good. It feels like I'm actually doing something good. So those are businesses I would personally start. But there's a myriad of services businesses that you could get into that aren't necessarily those. So that's my number one. I love that you get purpose out of it, too, because as I mentioned again, I am not great at coming up with businesses for purpose. I am good at coming up with businesses that will make you some money so that you can grow your money.

27:21This is something that I, like, as I've aged, you know, from my 20s to 30s to 40s, now I'm sort of looking back in retrospect and going, okay, I didn't do a whole lot for purpose other than raise my family at the best possible way I could. What can I do now for purpose? So I'm sort of like a late bloomer in that sense because my other two businesses are also equally not as

27:49purposeful. I would just push back a little bit on you. You're successful because you did have a purpose. Your purpose was, I want to architect a lifestyle that is this, right? Like that was your goal. And so I think people really run into issues when they don't know what their goal and their target is and what motivates them. If they just think it's money, that's a problem. But if people like you are like, no, no, no, no. I want to have freedom. I want to do X, Y, and Z things. So I do think you had a purpose. Like you shouldn't dog on yourself. Okay, fine. That's fair. Hey, I don't know if you remember this, but when we started this podcast, we entered into a social contract.

28:26I would spend time, energy, and money producing this podcast, interviewing these individuals and giving you insights into how to build, buy, start, grow your business. And you would like, subscribe, and leave me a five-star review. Now, out of that, we both get to talk to really cool people and hear really cool insights. We both get a ton of value. But I just want to help you keep your word. So would you do me a favor? will you go leave a five-star review for me on Apple or Spotify? It would really help. And if you want, even share this with a friend. I do think that the greater purpose that we felt was being the best employers that we could be.

29:01It was providing for our family, obviously. And when it came to interacting with our clients, it was kind of like becoming friends with them. So establishing that level of trust so that I wasn't being a salesy, doing it for myself kind of a person. Like, yes, we were profiting greatly, but we also were doing it because our client truly wanted the service that we were providing. We weren't trying to tick up another dollar sign. It was just like, what is it that you truly want? And then we would let that lead the show. I think if you were truly doing it for business, then you wouldn't have said any of those words.

29:38Like if you were truly just doing it to make money. Just for money. Yeah. That's where we found the purpose. And there was a client who I, One of our clients, again, he lives in a mansion and he is one of the nicest guys. And I was talking to him just about how the hardest part of the business was feeling like we were just promoting commercialization of Christmas. And so it just was feeling like there was a lack of purpose, as we've been saying. And he said, oh, I completely disagree. Every time I wake up in the morning and I drive to get out of my driveway and I see the front of my house, it makes me so happy.

30:12and then I go to work and I'm happy all day and I spread that around. And then when I come home at the end of the day, I'm happy because I see my house is so pretty. So that was nice to hear. Boom. Purpose. See? Come on, man. I'm not like changing the world though. You know, it's not. Don't do that. We all change the world. We all change the world. That's such a, I hate that. I want to leave my dent in the universe. Like, anyways. You're making me feel better. Thank you. You should feel better. You're very talented. You're very successful. And you've done a lot of cool things. What's your number two business?

30:47Okay, so my number two business is fairly related. It would just be exterior cleaning and detailing for high-end homes. And this would include pressure washing, window cleaning, solar panel cleaning, and gutter cleaning. Would you package all of those together? I would package them. I wouldn't provide them as a package, but I would market my business as providing all of those services. And I would just do it really high end, like white glove approach, focus on the branding, focus on the service, and go once again for the high net worth people because they all talk. Like we would sometimes work with home managers and the home managers would talk to each other.

31:28They started compiling booklets online. I guess they were online, but they started originally. I just dated myself. But they would start doing online sharing of their home service contractors. And so then we became, we were part of that list and it just sold itself. So once again, if you're doing people, you got to imagine these homes, they've got floor to ceiling windows. They're like 20 feet tall. They don't know how to clean them, but they want their windows cleaned. And that might be once a season. So it could be four times a year just to clean all of their windows on their house. And that can be quite lucrative, just window cleaning.

32:11And again, you would go back to that lens of ultra high net worth. That's the area you're going to target. You're not just going to do that bundled package anywhere. No. And I'm sorry for people who need that service and they're not technically in the ultra high net worth category. But the reason why is that if you're going to the expense of sending your team to one location, it'd be great if that team could stay at that location all day. Then you don't have any lost profit in transportation. You're not going from site to site. And there is actually lost time with just the setup and the breakdown.

32:44Because if you need ladders and things, all of that time really adds up to lost revenue. So if you can just be at one site for the whole day, and all it is is a matter of I'm sending a team of two or four or six or eight, then you're just getting more efficient. How would you acquire those customers? What would you do? I would probably do the same thing that I did before. I think I would find the zip codes. I would find the zip codes. I would really look in my area to see where those people live. And then I would sort of draw regional maps, like circle them on a map and then pick within there, like what is the best place and try to get my foot in the door anywhere with them.

33:27And you could even let them know, I am willing to do this for you for free just to see how you like the service if you would be willing to refer me to your neighbors. And the person will probably love that. Or obviously with social media, there are ways that you can do this as well. Well, I was going to say social media. The reason I like those businesses, the cleaning businesses, pressure washing, for example, is because there's a stark before and after. in trying to acquire customers, you can go through the paid channels or you can try to grow organically through social media. And not all companies have good social media content, but companies like pressure washing, stump grinding, window washing, gutter cleaning, literally the job, you just capture it and post it.

34:13It's good content for you to be able to create. So it fulfills two different functions. So I like those kind of businesses. It's almost like two birds with one stone. Well, and what I like is that it's so easy to train. It's a pretty, you know, low skill, but also like high profit. It's like you're saying high margin type businesses. I think, I don't know what the going rate is for like a single window pane inside and out right now, but it's probably like, I don't know. What do you think it is? Like$40 a window? I have no idea. And you got to think about some, I'm talking about a standard size window inside and out.

34:50So not like one of the giant ones. Once you start going to giant windows, it just adds up. If you're doing a mansion, that could be a$20 ,000 job just to clean somebody's windows. I was just doing a deep dive on this. Two businesses that I thought were really cool, pressure washing and then garage epoxy businesses. Pressure washing, you buy a rig. This isn't ultra high net worth targeting, but it's just pressure washing. You buy a rig, you just buy yourself. You need a truck to transport the rig, a way to get customers. But you can, by yourself, as a solo entrepreneur, be doing$10 ,000 a month.

35:22I'm not going to say easily, but there's a path to that that's pretty replicable. Epoxy floors in garages, you can be charging$2 ,000 to$4 ,000 just depending on how big the garage is. A pop, you can do one of those a day with a small crew. You can have a million-dollar garage epoxy business fairly easily with high margins. And, you know, you're in one spot and you don't have to be running a bunch of different crews. So I do think this home services space in particular, there's just a variety of different businesses that you can start. You're just deciding to niche down even farther. Well, so the only reason I don't like the epoxy garage business as much is that it's not repeat.

36:01So another big part of how I choose businesses is that they're repeat. I'm not going to start a painting business because you're going to have to wait seven to ten years before you get that client again. and customer acquisition is one of the hardest things. So if you can just get a customer, keep a customer and then grow your services with that customer, then you're becoming more and more efficient. See, I like, I like that's a cool lens. Yeah, I know that's a cool lens. Like, is that what's the recurring or reoccurring revenue with this, with this customer? Because Christmas lights is not recurring revenue, but it is reoccurring revenue.

36:35I don't think I know the difference between those definitions. in my mind the way that i understand it recurring revenue is like every single month they're paying me this set fee recurring revenue would be i know that i'm going to do this job for them again at certain time points so you know it's going to happen again but it's not necessarily locked into a contract that you have mrr i didn't realize they were two different words like that i just i've always said recurring yeah i mean so like recurring revenue businesses sas businesses with really easily measurable MRR are typically valued a lot higher than reoccurring businesses.

37:11Like the difference in valuing a home alarms company and a Christmas lighting company, right? Like one's going to go for much higher multiples than the other. And it's because it's much stickier. It's like a subscription. Yeah, yeah, exactly. ChatTBT says, really helpful here, between$8 and$40 per window. See, I'm in the Bay Area, so I'm going on the high end. Yeah. I've never heard anybody paying$8. Like 20 years ago, I think it was$20. Maybe the window's like this big. They're like,$8. No, my husband before, when he was in his early 20s, he worked with a window washer. And I think back then they were charging$22.

37:55So that was a long time ago. That was one of my first jobs as an adult was a window washer. You too? I got fired very quickly. I was not good at it. I was not good. Okay, what's your second business? Here's my second business. And we'll probably just have to do two because we talk too much. Second business going in the same vein. I'm going to describe this business for you first, and then I want you to guess what it is. Okay? This business is growing in the United States at over 15 % a year annualized growth rate. It's going to do about$50 billion. It's going to grow. It's doing$18 billion in 2023.

38:32It's going to do$50 billion by 2030. The average revenue per location is approximately$1.5 million. Whoa. Mm-hmm. It's a med spa. Med spa. That is on my list. You stole my list. Sorry. I freaking. Yes, longevity, wealth, and health and wellness. Yes. Yeah. I mean, so you're looking at things like, for men, testosterone replacement therapy, other hormone replacement therapies. For women, there's this thing that I'm just now learning about, don't ask me how, called perimenopause, which is like the period before you reach menopause that has been underinvested, understudied. People are not, they haven't necessarily been treating this, but they are starting to treat it now with hormone replacement therapy for women.

39:21Yep. In particular. And then there's other things like obviously Botox, fillers, other injections as well. To me, that would be the kind of combination here is taking advantage of that macro trend is we're getting older. We're not just vain, but we want to be healthier too. And so we like these things like, you know, platelet replacement therapies, testosterone therapies, hormone replacement therapies. And I just think that that's a macro tailwind that you could step into. I've never met a med spa owner who wasn't crushing it or like complaining because they were too busy. The episode that just dropped on my podcast today is with a hormone replacement therapy specialist.

40:00Is it really? Yeah. She started a business called Inner Balance. It's BHRT, so Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy. It's available in soon to be 50 states. But currently, the problem is that it's considered a luxury item. So it is not readily available. It's not covered by insurance. So you do have to put, and med spas are also costly to build. They can be, but there's some other things that you can do that aren't as costly. I just talked to a business yesterday. They do all the consulting for med spas and they also offer the medical director for med spas. So if you're doing anything medical, it has to have a physician signing off on us.

40:42So you have to have a medical oversight. This company is doing $7 million, this is like the third year operating,$7 million top line,$2.5 million bottom line. And they're able to service people all over the country because their physicians are board certified in all the states that they operate in. What? Because they have one for every state? No, no. As a physician, you can be licensed in multiple states. And so me, Nick, if I'm licensed in five states, I could do oversight for all of those med spas in those different states. Do you have to take the board in every single state? Okay. Every single state?

41:19Well, some states have reciprocity. So it's like if I'm licensed in this state, I'll have a reciprocal license in another state. Some states will say, well, if you're only doing this scope, you don't have to get another license. But most states, you have to take the board. You have to become board certified in that state in order to operate. So I just love that business now because it's like I could do it where I don't have to have a physical location. I could be offering kind of a lot of support services to people either with a physician oversight or just helping them start up or helping them understand which services to offer.

41:55I love that space. Another thing in that that I've loved recently is have you heard of these clinics? Man, I'm debating whether or not. I'm just going to say it. So my wife and I are going to go this year. you pay between$10 ,000 and$20 ,000 depending on the plan, and they just do a full workup. They do a blood panel. They look at your hormones. They do a stress test on your heart. They do an MRI, everything. And then based on that, you meet with a bunch of different specialists, and they give you recommendations first on, hey, we noticed that these are your genetics. You should be careful. Don't eat any more wheat because you actually have gluten.

42:28You didn't know about it. Or, oh, you had this much plaque buildup in your arteries. Be careful about X, winesy, but it's concierge. And now you have a baseline. And so anytime that you have an issue and you get labs drawn, you can sort of market against the baseline. I think services like that, where you just go to one place, you pay some money. And again, it is ultra high net worth, but it's hands off. It's white glove. And these nurses take your blood and they walk you through these things. And it's sort of adjacent to a med spa. I think those are amazing businesses, Just incredible businesses.

43:00I wouldn't have the first clue how to get through all of the licensing for something like that. You need like a radiologist and you need phlebotomist and you need... What I would do is I would find, I would partner with a physician because like you can't own a medical practice anyways without partnering with a physician. So I would just find a physician who's entrepreneurial and in that space. And it's like, you'd be utilizing their license for the most part. Yes, there are some other business things that you'd have to get, but I would just piggyback off of what they're already doing and think about how do I go and market to the customers?

43:31Because if I bring the demand, I know I have a physician and a team who can fulfill it. And it's not that much research. Sure, you need a phlebotomist to take the blood. You need a nurse to help with the stress test. Obviously, you need an MRI machine that could be expensive, but I'm sure you can rent those. You also need different specialists. So do a little bit of research and see which specialist you're supposed to have, a dietician probably. Anyways, but I just think that those are amazing businesses because like you said, wealthy people want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting to me that you're doing the body scan.

43:59I was curious about that. Have you heard of Function Health? Yeah. So we did Function Health recently. Where is that? Function Health is anywhere. It's online. It's an app. What this is called is functional medicine? Yeah. Because, okay. So typically what happens now is I go to a primary care physician and I'm like, hey, doc, I'm not feeling so great. And he's going to ask some questions and prescribe something based on my symptoms. But he's not talking to my cardiologist, to my dietician, to whatever other specialists that I have, right? It's very siloed. And so it's not, for lack of a better word, holistic.

44:35Functional medicine is really looking at the whole picture. And that's why it's becoming. Yeah. Because these things are so interconnected. Well, and this is a whole nother conversation, but I don't know if you knew. So I had two autoimmune conditions that I went to probably 12 endocrinologists for over the last 13 or so years, maybe 14 now. And for all of that time, well, it's okay because for all of that time, I told them that I thought I could cure it and they would say it's impossible. Autoimmune conditions are not curable. And I was like, well, I don't believe you. I think that they are. So three years ago, I went down my own rabbit hole and checked out all the books from the library and started seeing integrative physicians, acupuncturists, functional medicine doctors, whoever I could see.

45:19And then I just did my own research. I've cured myself. My blood tests are now completely normal. No way. All of all of it. All of it is in the normal range, except for actually, no, not all of it. All of it for my thyroid related diseases in the normal range. I did find on the function health test that, you know, there are other things I need to look at, cholesterol. But beyond that, I have cured myself. And I know there are like hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have also cured their own diseases that the conventional medical world says is not possible. Primary care physicians is just like, that's like basic sort of knowledge.

45:59Sorry for anybody that's listening out, that doesn't agree. But the specialists even, if they haven't seen it in a double blind study, then they're not going to prescribe it or follow it. I literally was told diet will do nothing. It'll revert back. Lifestyle will do nothing. It might work for three months and then it'll revert back. And they just don't know. And so when they don't know, they just tell you what they do know as fact. Primary care physicians are amazing. All doctors are smart. They're in it for the right reasons. For the most part, I'm sure there's outliers, but they're like a mechanic, right?

46:33You bring your car in and it's like, something's wrong. And the mechanic goes and they're like, ah, I think it might be this. but this is an Audi. I don't work on Audis. I need to bring in a specialist. It's not like they know everything about everything. And that's why the functional approach where you're looking at everything holistically has become much more popular because we're not doing that. And we should be doing that. We should be doing that. I think that's the future of healthcare. And as AI starts to grow, I feel like healthcare, education, those two, I think are going to be the biggest ones that we see.

47:08And back to macro trends, people with disposable income, higher net worth, they're willing to spend and they are spending more on these types of things. They're worried about where their food comes from. They're worried about what they're putting into their body and what's around them. They're worried about microplastics and what bottles they're drinking out of. So they're willing to spend more on these things. And I think that's, to me, that's just another macro trend that you're like, oh, I could do something in this space to take advantage of it. And the med spa, the wellness space, it still feels like we're very early in it.

47:37And I just love that. I agree. I talked to my business broker the other day and he said the exact same thing. He was like, don't steal my idea, but med spa longevity space in 10 years time is going to be, I forget what quote he said, 10 times bigger than or five times bigger. I don't know. He just said, that's what he's seeing as well. But then you don't want to be a part of the fad too. I don't think, It's not a fad. This is the way I look at it, right? We said mobile IV hydration. Yeah. So getting hydrated is just really important. And there are now places where you can go to and it's nice. You got a comfortable chair and I can just get hydrated and I'm feeling kind of sick.

48:18Hit me with some vitamin C or you know what? My whatever energy levels are low. Hit me with X, Y, and Z. So they've already got these like distribution channels for med spas and these mobile hydration clinics, et cetera. And then at the same time, they're working on things that did even faster clip because of CRISPR and the technology that they've developed for gene editing that I think in the next few years, we're going to see rapid improvements and innovation in longevity, in treating diseases and helping our cells kind of reverse aging, but they need a distribution channel in order to get that to the masses.

48:54What are they going to piggyback off of? They're not going to piggyback off of my primary care physician. They're going to piggyback first off of those med spas and those locations that kind of seemed a little woo-woo at first. Fringy. They're the ones they're exploring. Yeah, exactly. That's where they're going to push through. So to me, it's not a fad. This stuff is happening and it needs a distribution channel. I think that that's going to be part of the distribution channel, which is why I like getting into the med spa space right now. Yeah. Yeah, no, I 100 ,000 % agree with you. But it might also be because where I am in my headspace and where my husband is, and most of the people we know who are in their early mid 40s are all looking at this right now for their own personal use, for their personal reasons.

49:37And so we're seeing the trend happen in real life. Like, I don't know if people in their 20s would necessarily have the resources or ability to take advantage of something like that. How old are you? You can take this out, but how old are you? I will be 40 in October. Yeah. See, okay. So we're similar in age. My business broker is he's not too far off. He's around the same age. But I think this is sort of where we are in our lives too. It's like this midlife area where we're like, oh gosh, okay. How are we going to age well and live as long as we possibly can? But yeah, there's a lot. I saw the other day.

50:11Well, there's just a lot of science that's coming out right now. I mean, neuroscience, quantum physics stuff. There's also a Food Allergy Institute. I don't know if you heard about it down in L.A., but they can completely eradicate food allergies for people with severe allergies if they're between the ages of 18 months and 25 years old. Like kids who were going into anaphylactic shock with a peanut are now eating 58 peanuts a day and they're fine because they're doing something by giving small doses of like a molecular. it's not identical but it's closely similar to the structure of the peanut and then they're gradually just increasing it and it's administered at home through gummies Wow and it takes somewhere around two and a half to four years My gummies usually don't have that in them My gummies are usually like sour worms It's not eradicating things, it's probably causing more problems than I should be.

51:13Yeah, that's what I love about entrepreneurship is that they're going to develop these things and then in order for them to get distributed, they're going to need entrepreneurs to do that. For example, Ozempic. We've all heard of Ozempic. Their stock has actually kind of taken a massive hit because I can't remember who their owner is. Nordic? I don't know. Anyways, no, all these generic GLP ones. So these generic GLP ones have come out and then entrepreneurs were like, oh, we could actually spin this up and have some virtual telehealth prescribe this to people and make some money. And so like all these small virtual providers have popped up and are writing the prescriptions.

51:53They're not going to Ozempic. They're going to these sort of generic GLP ones. But in doing that, it's gotten to a lot more people a lot quicker than it would have if it was just kind of held with Ozempic. So I think the same thing is going to happen. There's going to be entrepreneurs who see, oh, this is a cool development. How can I jump on this to make some money. And the money incentive is not a bad incentive because that money incentive is actually going to drive people to have greater access. So anyways, I get excited about the next 10 years. That's true. I think I read something the other day too about a study that was recently done showing that Ozempic, you can get the same effect as Ozempic with a healthy gut flora, gut microbiome.

52:32Oh, really? I think so. Yeah. I'll forward it to you. It was a scientific study that was pretty much saying that like people can get this from their own bodies. They can achieve the same result, but they don't want to. It's probably a lot harder. The population is sort of, that's the thing. The population is stubborn and, or maybe they lack the time and the resources too. It's probably not as easy, you know, as Empec's just like, oh, cool. I take this once a day, whatever. I know. And whereas what you're talking about is probably like, you'd have to have this diet and then you'd have to eat at these hours and you'd have to make sure that the biome is at these levels and people are like too hard to give me the pill.

53:11I want the pill. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm glad that we both had med spas though. I know med spas and well, I haven't been to a med spa, but I have been very curious about just aging. Well, you know, I, I have my collagen, I'm taking my ashwagandha or the it's adrenal health so it's got like all the things in it holy basil and ashwagandha and that helps keep my cortisol levels at a sustained level so i don't spike and i go for like a walk every day pretty much for four miles like just because that is like the best kind of exercise you can get is a labco right now are you a doctor like what is happening i've got my hot magandhi that I take in the morning and then I take my, I do my sauna a couple days a week.

54:02I've managed my O2 levels. What the freak? Jeez, dude. So good. I feel like out here, that's just how it is. Everybody, everybody's sort of, they're doing the ice baths and the cold, cold plunges and the it's, there's so much information now on how to stay healthy. It's just, it feels like too much, too much information. It's great. It feels good.

54:27well okay this has been awesome we only got to two of the three but i think that they were really good ideas for us to talk about people can come find you on how i built my first small business that's how i built my small business how i built my small business or they can just get my website yeah and mcginty one of my favorite people how about my small business go and find her she's crushing it in the podcast world go and find her for this short period of time because she's probably going to stop. And I don't want you to miss out on her wisdom. But this has been awesome. I appreciate you. Well, I think I look forward to interviewing you in a couple of weeks.

55:01Let's do it. It's on the books. We'll talk soon. All right. Hopefully you liked that episode. And if you've made it this far, you're either really committed or you're stuck doing yard work and you can't actually skip on your phone. So while I have you, the show is growing, but I have a favor to ask of you. Will you please help me grow the show? I want to reach more people. There's a couple things that you can do. Like and subscribe is the simplest thing. Obviously you want to get notifications for when the next episode is coming out. But if you go the next step, will you leave me a review five star on Spotify or Apple?

55:32What that does is it tells the algorithm that, oh, hey, this is a high value podcast because more people are leaving reviews for it and it then pushes it out to more people. So that's why when people are like, will you like and subscribe and put the five star rating? It's not just to make themselves feel better. It's actually to get more exposure for the show. So if you do that for me, I would greatly appreciate it. And I'll see you next time.