13 Crazy Business Ideas To Start In [2024]

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Updated: February 22nd, 2024

Want some crazy business ideas to help you make crazy money?

Everyone has a crazy business idea. Some of us just don't believe they're crazy enough to pursue. Often times weird and unique business ideas can also turn into profitable businesses.

Building a strong business takes a lot of work, but building a weird one takes even more. To help give you inspiration, here are some weird business ideas that I think can be profitable in 2022.

In this article, we've compiled a few unconventional ideas to get your small business off the ground.

Here is a list of the top 13 crazy business ideas you can start for today:

1. Start a pet rental business

You've probably heard of companies like Airbnb, but have you heard of a pet rental business? This is an innovative new business that is beginning to emerge and it's already reaching millions of people around the world. Pet rental businesses might be a great opportunity if you have pets and rent out your home often or if you're a dog walker.

There is a need for renting out pets, such as from schools looking to set up a temporary petting zoo or city residents considering keeping their own animals. Therefore, if you live on a farm and are wondering how to make more money, you might think about renting out the animals you've raised.

2. Start a parking lot cleaning business

Have you ever considered starting your own parking lot cleaning business? You can start your parking lot cleaning business with a small investment. Not only is it super profitable, but you'll be doing the world a favor. Everyone loves clean parking lots.

Getting started with a parking lot cleaning business can be a little tricky because there's an important step you'll need to take before you can do the job. Believe it or not, you need a license to operate the business. This may sound silly, but your local government has particular requirements for parking lot cleaning businesses.

However, once you have completed this legal process you can invest in some good cleaning equipment and start working as a parking lot cleaner to start earning from this viable side hustle option.

How much you can make: $120,000/month

How much does it cost to start: $800 (?)

How long does it take to build: 45 days (?)

We Quit Our 9 To 5 To Start An Airbnb Cleaning Service. Now We Make $1.4M/Year

Former banker builds a vacation rental cleaning service from $800 to gross over a million dollars a year, providing opportunities for underserved communities to provide income through connecting top-rated cleaners to hosts in need through a referral model offering cleaning services, marketing, sales, accounting, bookkeeping, technology and more while empowering cleaners to provide fair and sustainable pricing, offering free resources and education through a short term rental podcast, and expanding to help as many hosts and cleaning services as possible.

Read this case study

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3. Start a pet hotel business

Starting your own pet hotel business is not as difficult as you might think. With the right knowledge and hard work, you can achieve a lot in the pet industry.

A pet hotel is a place where people bring their cats and dogs for short-term boarding. It's a business that provides pet-sitting services in which customers can board their pets while they're out of town, or while they're at work.

Over 60M households own dogs or cats in the United States. What happens when they leave town or go on vacation? Pet boarding is a lucrative industry that can be served locally in any state or city across the world.

4. Start a hangover cure products

Do you love drinking beer or wine? Why not turn that passion into a money-making business? This hangover cure business is about making and selling your homemade hangover cure products to help people get over their hangovers in a natural way.

In fact, if you want to create remedy hangover cure products, then you need to make sure that your product(s) are as effective as possible. It is only through extensive research and testing (and more likely than not, trial and error!) that you can come up with something that people actually want to drink after they've had a few too many alcoholic beverages.

5. Become a wedding officiant

A wedding officiant is a person who performs official duties at a wedding ceremony. The wedding officiant works with the couple to prepare materials for their wedding ceremony and perform the marriage on a particular day.

The duties of a wedding officiant include:

Helping the couple personalize their wedding ceremony
Keeping up with the wedding trends
Writing and performing wedding ceremonies
Performing civil ceremonies and legal intent
Completing the marriage license and filing it appropriately

To become a wedding officiant, you need to be an ordained or invested member of a religious group where you can perform the weddings. Alternatively, you could be a public official with a state license to perform a wedding.

How much you can make: $50,000/month

How much does it cost to start: $2,500 (?)

How long does it take to build: 45 days (?)

This Couple Started A $50K/Month Business Helping People Get Married in Denmark

This husband and wife duo started a wedding consultancy agency, 'Getting Married in Denmark', which has gone from doing 5-10 weddings a month to 80-100 weddings a month in just 4 years, massively growing their revenue.

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6. Offer a jail time experience

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to do time in prison? You can now experience what it would be like to be locked up behind bars! People will pay to have that kind of unusual experience.

If you have enough room or are prepared to make renovations, you can build your own prison and provide visitors with an unforgettable experience. To get the full experience, including role-playing and perhaps even a taste of prison fare and labor, they book your rooms for hundreds of dollars.

7. Become a professional cuddler

Imagine being a professional cuddler for a living. Getting paid to snuggle your clients may sound strange, but this type of service has been in high demand over the last few years.

Think of 'snugglers' as a more personal therapist. They get paid for many services: hugging their clients, listening to their problems, coaching them, comforting & reducing stress, cooking and eating meals together and more.

How much you can make: $11,300/month

Time commitment per week: Min. 5 hours/week

How I Make A Living As A Professional Cuddler

Professional cuddler, Sam Varnerin, developed her successful one-to-one cuddle service, Snuggle with Sam, as a result of recognising the universal human need for connection and touch, which also led to her opening Sam’s Snuggle School, a course for aspiring professional cuddlers.

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8. Start a rage room

Starting a rage room business can be a lot of fun and a good way to make some money on the side.

Daily work and numerous other responsibilities can make people's lives super hectic and stressful. They might feel suffocated & angry and would want to vent that anger without harming themselves or their surrounding people. This is where the idea of rage rooms comes. Rage rooms are where people can come and take out all their anger and rage by smashing objects like plates, glassware, old electronics, etc.

You can start your own smash room and charge a lot of money for it if you have a sizable empty space and random objects to break. This is an alternate method to getting wasted or bingeing indoors for extended periods of time.

9. Build a breakup guide app

Have you ever experienced a breakup? If you have, you are aware of how frightening that sensation can be.

You can try building an app to help people get over their bad breakup experience. Thanks to the tools that are now readily available online, anyone can now create their own app with little to no coding experience.

Your app can be a person's virtual best friend if they are having a hard time moving on after a breakup. You can design phases with tasks to assist clients in moving past the breakup. Through your app, you can provide breakup advice to people in need while being sensitive to their situation.

10. Become a virtual dating assistant

Being a dating assistant is an online job that's safe and a fun way to make money online. You do not need any specialized knowledge for this virtual work, just motivation and passion for helping people in their love life.

As a virtual dating assistant, your job will be to help people create their profiles on dating apps, and make the profiles look presentable with good bio & images, plus you will also need to help your clients with the online interaction with their prospective dates.

11. Start a cat cafe business

The only thing that can make a local cafe better is cats. Grab a cup of coffee and snuggle a cat at the same time. Recently, cat cafes have been popping up around the country. Some of these cafes are independent operators, while others work with local humane societies to get cats adopted.

Create a network of cat cafes where people can interact and play with cats. Once established, a cat cafe business can increase its revenue by hosting events. Events often draw lots of people in, and a business can charge more for each person because there's a special event taking place.

You might consider the following options for your cat cafe business:

Adoptions: This type of cat cafe has cats that can be adopted. Some cat cafes specialize in rescued cats while others specialize in pedigree cats. These cat cafes can also have a combination of both.
Permanent residents: This type of cat cafe has several resident cats on the premises. Similar to the adoption cafes, these can be cats that have been rescued or pedigree cats, or both.
Full-service dining: This type of cat cafe has a full menu of food and beverages for its customers and sometimes for its cats as well.
Themed cafe: This type of cat cafe is designed around a specific theme. Garden themes and whimsical themes are quite popular.

How much you can make: $40,000/month

How long does it take to build: 180 days (?)

We Started The First Cat Cafe In Southern California ($40K/Month)

A cat cafe in downtown San Diego overcame initial challenges and grew from earning less than $200K annually to generating up to $50K monthly in revenue, focusing on strategic business model adjustments and leveraging unique market positioning to reach and engage both tourists and local residents.

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12. Become an Airbnb host

If you are interested in becoming an Airbnb host, the first step is to create a listing for your property or a portion of it on the Airbnb platform.

This will allow travelers from all over the world to rent your space and enjoy a personalized and unique accommodation experience.

By creating a welcoming atmosphere and providing excellent service to your guests, you can enhance your profile and attract even more visitors to your property.

With the potential to earn a steady stream of passive income, becoming an Airbnb host can be an excellent way to monetize your property.

How much you can make: $35,000 — $270,000/month

How long does it take to build: 215 days (?)

How I Bootstrapped An Airbnb Management Service To $35K/Month

HostButlers is Ireland's first professional property concierge service for short-term rentals on Airbnb, boasting over 200,000 hosted guests and profitability from month 5.

Read this case study

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13. Become a ghostwriter

Some people say that if you want to make money online as a writer, blogging is the way to go. While blogging is one way to make money writing articles, there are other ways people can make money with their writing talents. When you write an article for someone else, you are a ghostwriter and you will not have your name on the published content.

As a ghostwriter, you can help people share their stories and ideas with the world while you make some extra cash.

How much you can make: $1,500 — $62,500/month

How much does it cost to start: $267 (?)

How long does it take to build: 90 days (?)

How We Started A $514K/Year Content Curation Agency With Just $35 [From India]

Content-Whale, a content curation agency, has achieved a Rs. 4 crore ($514k/year) turnover 4-5 years after being started with just Rs. 2500 ($35), and has a pool of more than 500 writers, aiming to become a market leader in the global content market.

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meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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