Articles Ranking
Businesses you can run two days a week
Only two owners in the database have stated their hours, and both run vending routes. Six entries, ranked by how well the short week is documented, with what each one paid for it.
Two owners in the database have said how many hours they work. Both run vending routes. That is the whole of the hard evidence for a two-day week, and a ranking that pretended to more would be padding. So this list has two parts. The first two entries are ranked by the hours the owner stated, fewest first. The next four have no published hours, and are ranked by how completely the entry documents the business running without the owner in it. That second ordering is our judgment and is explained under the table.
His own account of time on the route itself, mostly ordering stock online and restocking one machine. Five part-time employees do the rest for about 10 percent of revenue. $500,000 in sales in 2022.
His typical week, eight years after paying $60,000 for an existing route. More than 100 machines, over $58,000 a month gross, run with family and employees from one box truck.
No hours published. Subcontractor crews did the work while the founders ran sales and scheduling from laptops, at $65,000 to $70,000 a month. A buyer then took it over, and the entry reports it still runs past $1 million a year.
No hours published. Sixty-eight facilities with no on-site managers: gate codes, cameras, online booking and a central call team.
No hours published. An operations manager at roughly $75,000 a year runs the company. He reports gross margin of about 20 percent at that stage, down from about 50 percent working the truck himself.
No hours published. He describes the business as on cruise control a little bit, and still handles customer service and marketing himself. $2.1 million of revenue in year two.
For three to six: a sale is the strongest proof that a company did not need its founders, so Robinson and Silesky come first. Huber's structure is documented in detail, though he and a central team still run it. Landwehr's entry describes the founder as no longer required and gives the cost. Hecht is last because he still does two of the jobs himself.
Why both stated figures are vending
A vending machine sells without anyone standing at it. The labor is restocking and repair, which can be scheduled and handed to part-time staff. Gram reports $800 to $1,300 a month from a well-placed machine and pays five part-timers about 10 percent of revenue between them. In most of the other trades here the service is a person arriving at a property, so cutting the owner's hours means paying someone else for every one of them.
The vending page has the costs. Neither owner started on a short week. Gram's first year brought in about $5,000 and he kept his job for roughly three years. Hill bought his route in 2014, and the two-day week is reported eight years later. His entry also notes he spent the early years learning to repair and move machines.
What the short week cost
Each of the six paid for the time in a different way, and only some of them published the price.
Margin. Landwehr's sequence is the plainest: about 50 percent gross alone, 30 to 35 percent with crews, about 20 percent once the manager arrived. The margin cliff piece works out how much more revenue that takes to come out ahead.
Capital. Hill paid $60,000 for placements someone else had spent years collecting. Huber and Hagberg buy facilities at $40 to $70 a square foot, and before that built one in Ithaca for $2.4 million. The startup costs page sets those beside the cheap starts.
A different job. Robinson and Silesky stopped cleaning windows in 2019 and started running customer acquisition, scheduling and quality control. Hecht never owned a dumpster. Their hours moved to a laptop. The entries do not say how many hours that was.
Left out, and why
Holiday lighting. Steve Hunsaker books more than $800,000 in about eight weeks. That is a short year and a very long week inside it, with three or more crews out daily. It answers a different question.
Laundromats. The usual pick for passive income. Dave Menz says his are not: four attended stores, about 40 employees, and a day job he kept for years. His entry calls the unattended version the failing store he bought for $85,000.
Portable toilets. Daniel Tom's day starts at 4 a.m. at the yard, with 19 employees and almost 2,000 units.
Litter cleanup. Brian Winch began part time around a warehouse job, which makes it a fair evenings-and-mornings start. More than forty years on, his entry says he still walks the properties.
Mobile home parks and franchisors. The owners are plainly not doing the daily work at 250 communities or 200 locations. None has published their own hours, and running a system that size is not a two-day job on any evidence we hold.
How to use it
If a short week is the goal, the documented route is to own something that sells unattended, or to own the customer relationship while others do the visit. Both took years in every case here, and the second costs margin. The picker sorts the models by how you want to work, including the route and asset types this list leans on. The exit ledger is worth reading next, because a business that runs two days a week without you is also one a buyer can take over, as the third entry shows.
A note on the source of all this: several owners on this list also teach their model, which gives them a reason to describe an easy week. Today's article on the second business covers how to read their figures.
Common questions
What business can you run two days a week?
The only documented owner who reports a two-day week is Adam Hill, who runs more than 100 vending machines in Tampa Bay grossing over $58,000 a month. He bought the route for $60,000 in 2014 and the two-day week is reported eight years later, with family and employees doing much of the restocking.
Is a vending machine business really four hours a week?
Marcus Gram says he spends about four hours a week on the route itself. That is with five part-time employees, who take about 10 percent of revenue, and after a first year that brought in about $5,000. He kept his full-time job for roughly three years.
What does it cost to step back from a service business?
Margin, mostly. Kyle Landwehr reports about 50 percent gross margin working his junk removal truck alone and about 20 percent after hiring an operations manager at roughly $75,000 a year. Other owners paid in capital instead: Adam Hill bought an existing route, and Nick Huber's storage facilities run with no on-site managers. The margin ledger has the figures by stage.
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