5 Examples That Prove Money Is Truly Everywhere

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Published: November 22nd, 2022

Below is a guest post by Jakob Greenfeld, the author of Business Brainstorms, a free weekly 3-minute newsletter, packed with under-the-radar trends, business ideas, and actionable frameworks. He’s also the co-founder of the lead gen agency Damn Good Leads.

5 Examples That Prove Money Is Truly Everywhere

Most people think you need a truly world-changing idea to become a successful entrepreneur. That’s not only completely false but also an extremely paralyzing thought.

So I always love when I come across a frame-breaking business that reminds me that money can be found truly everywhere if you know where to look.

They also perfectly illustrate that you don't need to do what everyone else is doing to find success. You can just do your own thing (even if it's weird af).

Below are 5 of my favorite examples:

1. The Lego Man

There is a guy who calls himself The Lego Man, who charges ~$50/month for his paid community dedicated to seeing "Lego as an alternative asset class". Last time I checked the community had 200+ paying members.

Quick math: that’s $10k+ in monthly revenue.

What this example perfectly illustrates is that even a “boring” hobby like Lego can be properly monetized if you find the right angle. So if you’re looking for a side hustle idea, a list of your hobbies and niche interests, no matter how boring they might seem, can definitely be a great starting point.

Once you have this list, start researching all the ways people already monetizing them. Then brainstorm how you can help them make more.

💡 Starter Story's related case studies:

What is "golf disc"? I didn't know! It was this founder's hobby and started a $12M/year company thanks to it.
This founder made $200K thanks to his whiskey-tasting hobby.

2. The $600K PowerPoint template

Some marketplaces show you exactly how often any given product has been sold. When I discovered that this is the case on Graphic River, a marketplace for graphic assets, I spent hours digging through the data to find out what’s selling best.

I was shocked when I saw how much money some people were making selling PowerPoint templates.

One template titled Motagua in particular stood out. Priced at $15 it sold more than 40,000 times.

Quick math: that’s $600k+ in total revenue.

So there’s clearly a ton of demand for high-quality templates. However, the PowerPoint template market seems pretty saturated. There are thousands of templates available on the Graphic River marketplace alone and most never sell more than a handful of copies.

But the good news is that new tools emerge all the time. For example, just recently there was a gold rush with Notion templates. One guy made $2,000 selling a “plant manager” template. Others made more than $10k, and some even hundreds of thousands of dollars selling Notion templates they created.

The earlier you can jump on such a trend, the better.

💡 Starter Story's related case studies:

What I love about bloggers is the many ways they can make money. This starter makes $216K per year selling Canva templates to use on Pinterest.
Let's face it, most people (1) aren't creative at all and (2) don't have the time to spend thinking about what to post on social media. These two factors have helped this starter build a $1M/year business selling a social media post templates subscription.

3. Dog poop in a jar

What better way to illustrate that money is truly everywhere than by talking about a business making millions selling poop?

There’s of course ShitExpress. For just $16.95 they promise to send a piece of “gluten-free kosher horse shit” to any address around the world.

But there’s also the emerging category of “dog poop in a jar”. Here the promise is not to annoy an irritating colleague or boss but to help dogs with digestive issues. By “absorbing fecal material sourced from extensively screened healthy dog donors” the dog’s gut is seeded with beneficial, dog-specific microbes. Or so the theory goes.

What is clear, however, is that the company behind this genius business idea is making a killing. Just recently they raised $8.6M in fresh venture funding.

On a related note: interest in dog supplements, in general, is exploding right now.

One of my favorite frameworks to come up with fresh ideas is the observation that the opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. For example, Red Bull is a product that tastes worse than Coke (by all objective measures), is more expensive than Coke, and comes in a smaller can than Coke. And still, it’s selling like crazy.

Similarly, not just making it easy for people to send others something nice can be a solid business, but also sending something awful, as illustrated by ShitExpress.

Another takeaway is that even the most worthless thing (e.g. dog poop) can become valuable if you frame it the right way.

💡 Starter Story's related case studies:

Did you know that this guy makes $25K/month sending chocolate d*cks? Not much to add.
Also, to totally be sent without the intention of being annoying, these greeting cards that never shut off became a $100K/month business.

4. White Noise Podcasts

Ever since Joe Rogan’s $200M deal with Spotify it’s well known that there’s significant money to be made with podcasts. But producing a podcast is a lot of work.

So what if I told you that it’s possible to create a profitable podcast without even recording anything?

No, I’m not talking about extremely sophisticated AI-generated audio content.

Instead, several of Spotify’s biggest podcast hits are simply computer-generated soothing static and calming sounds.

And yes, the royalties they’re getting from Spotify are definitely worth the effort. Maybe not in Joe Rogan’s league but with around $18K/month nothing to be scoffed off.

What I love about this example is that it nicely shows that there’s absolutely no need to overcomplicate things. Find something with proven demand (e.g. white noise) and then focus on distributing it in a novel way (e.g. as a podcast).

💡 Starter Story's related case studies:

Are you good at marketing? Go niche and focus on podcasts! This starter charges $3K per month for his podcast growth services.
Another way to make money with podcasts: Create other forms of content -> blog posts, tweets, short videos, etc. This agency makes $420K/year repurposing podcast content for companies.

5. Cheap Houses Japan

For many people browsing real estate listings is just a fun hobby. But the founder of Cheap Houses Japan managed to turn precisely that into a serious side hustle.

He’s charging $10/month for his weekly newsletter that includes the 20 best house listings he discovered.

My estimate based on its ranking on the Gumroad marketplace is that Cheap Houses Japan is generating at least $20k/month this way.

A great framework to apply here is “Clone & Own”. In short, the idea is taking an idea that's working in one country, and cloning it in a new geography. So instead of writing about cheap houses in Japan, you could share research on cheap houses in, say, Portugal or Canada.

Another interesting angle could be to explore once again the opposite of this idea. What about Expensive Houses Japan (or whatever other country you want to focus on)? I’m pretty sure this could also work as people love aspirational content. Just look at the millions of views penthouse tours are getting on YouTube.

💡 Starter Story's related case studies:

Newsletters are great to make money, we showcased plenty of examples of people profiting from this business model. Super easy and cheap to get started!

A newsletter for crypto enthusiasts that makes $30K/month.
This guy started a newsletter that shares people's working setups, grew it to $24K/year, and got acquired by a YC company.

Quick hitters

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🛍 This e-commerce tool has generated $17.5 million in sales in less than a year. Helps Amazon sellers create the best pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns. The company has grown by more than 3X to $600K ARR, mostly thanks to leveraging an awesome marketing channel: creating explainer videos for YouTube. What an amazing strategy.

🐝 This flavoured honey brand made $16K in sales in just 30 days. Great starting point: working on something you already have knowledge of (her family owned a honey business). Also, there are some great super actionable tips she shares, like this small hack that increased their revenue (sending an automatic email with a ‘free shipping’ code for abandoned carts).

Thanks for reading!