I was talking to a friend the other day who recently switched jobs. He’s happier and less stressed in his new gig, but he’s also a bit wistful. You see, he decided to stayed in the tech industry. He switched to a smaller, more flexible organization so he has more autonomy and less corporate BS, but he still wonders what it might be like to leave the rat race behind and strike out on his own.
He wondered, as we chatted, what it might be like to own his own small business, to serve his neighbors with a necessary service, but also to make his own schedule, decide what he does and how he does it, and to actually see all of the profits, however large or small, from his hard work.
He threw out an interesting career option … that of a septic truck operator.
I have to admit that my initial response included a bit of revulsion. But the more he talked, the more I could see the upside: pump a handful of septic tanks a week and then the rest of your time is yours. Maybe eventually you could hire an operator and finally achieve the dream of passive income.
In addition, startup costs are minimal; you need a truck, a bit of training, and a fairly easy to obtain license. You could make enough to live on, maybe even match your tech salary, with just a few hours of work per week. Marketing would be fairly simple; you know exactly who your target market is and they desperately need a reliable service provider. Quality service should be appreciated (because who wants to deal with sewage somewhere that it doesn’t belong?), so a premium could likely be charged for superior service. Likewise, innovative product development could prove lucrative since the industry has not changed much in generations. For example, I would think people with septic tanks would be happy to pay a reasonable, ongoing fee in exchange for keeping an eye on their tank and emptying and servicing it as needed.
I think my friend might have stumbled on all the ingredients for a successful small business:
- A task that people hate doing or wish to ignore
- That results in some sort of “pain” when we do ignore it
- With Low startup costs and barriers to entry
- In an industry that has seen little innovation
- Bonus: Is an existing small business in your community with an owner that is nearing retirement age (so you can acquire the business)
And the cherry on the top of this sweet sh!t sundae is that you’d be doing work that serves your local community in many ways. Sure, it provides a solution for a stinky or otherwise difficult problem, but because you live in the community with your customer, it also creates the social capital necessary to build strong small cities and towns because it reinforces the relationships and “social glue” we need to trust each other.
It also keeps real money in our communities instead of sending it off to some corporate headquarters where the profits disappear into the pockets of CEOs and shareholders. And it contributes to a diverse local industry cluster that strengthens the tax base and possibly even diversifies employment opportunities and wages.
So the next time you’re dreading going in to the office, sitting in rush hour traffic missing your kid’s soccer game, struggling to keep your mouth shut in another project status meeting that’s going nowhere, or combing LinkedIn for a new job, maybe stop and consider doing something entirely different. The corporate hellscape we currently call work shows no signs of improving anytime soon, but our small cities and towns are ready and waiting for us to invest in them. The investment just might be worth the reward on a number of different levels.
If you’re ready to make the leap to owning your own business, but are unsure where to start, you’re in luck because the next cohort of my Career Nirvana program starts soon and this time it will have a focus on small business ownership. Should we count you in?
Let’s build something better. Let’s do it together.
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