Articles Ranking
The ten lowest Boring Index scores, ranked
Storage unit flipping at 82, mobile detailing at 83, both HVAC buyers at 84. The bottom of the index holds a $50 million franchise system, a $6 million car wash chain and the database's one failure.
The Boring Index scores every entry in this database out of 100 for how unglamorous it is, and a business needs 80 to get in. Our top ten ranked the highest-scoring trades. This page goes to the other end: the ten owner entries with the lowest scores, from 82 to 87, and what each owner reports.
The index weighs inverted glamour at 40 percent, demand that ignores the economy at 35 percent and absent competition at 25 percent. Across all 33 owner entries the mean is 90.0, the median 90 and the range 82 to 99. Owner entries are scored separately from trades, so an owner can sit a point or two away from the trade's own score. Ties share a rank and are listed alphabetically. The next score up, 88, is shared by three entries, so the cut at ten is clean.
Paid about $10 for his first abandoned locker in 2024. In 2025 Mike's Unique Treasures brought in $135,000, with roughly $82,000 of operating earnings, per documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. His entry says the panel debated this score hardest, because auctions carry a gambling glamour the rest of the category lacks.
Started GoDetail with $500 of equipment between high school and college. UpFlip puts it near $900,000 a year at 60 percent gross margins.
Bought a rural HVAC company turning $2.1 million with roughly $800,000 of stated owner earnings. Seller fraud and a key employee who left to compete ended it in bankruptcy.
Paid $400,000 with partners in 2021 for a company doing about $1.2 million, using an SBA loan. His target for the following year was $2.72 million; no result against it is on record.
Started with $150 of gear in 2017, reached $65,000 to $70,000 a month and sold about four and a half years later. The company still runs above $1 million a year under its new owners.
Augusta Lawn Care reports more than $50 million in systemwide revenue across 200-plus locations. His entry says he tests the methodology, because nothing about the trajectory is dull even though the work is.
Started in 2008 with $300 of used tools, including a $50 mower. Plan-It Vision does $22,000 to $29,000 a month at roughly 30 percent margins, per UpFlip.
Rising Tide reports nearly $6 million a year at over 20 percent margins from three locations. The entry docks points for the visibility that a decade of national television coverage brought.
Started Cool Aunt Cleaners in July 2023 with her last $2,000. CNBC Make It reported $10,000 a month in October 2024.
Started with about $5,000 in 2015. Bumble Bee reports $120,000 to $140,000 a month and more than $5 million cumulatively, with a second market in Atlanta.
What the order shows
Three whole categories sit here. Every entry in the database filed under trades, lawn and landscape and vehicles and detailing is in this list: both HVAC buyers, both landscapers and both vehicle businesses. Three of the seven cleaning entries are here too. The waste and sanitation category, the largest in the database, has no entry in the bottom ten. The methodology explains why: the glamour factor penalizes work most people have seen done or done themselves, and scores fragmented competition, as in cleaning, in the middle.
A low score is not a small business. The list includes Augusta's $50 million-plus system and Rising Tide's nearly $6 million, two of the larger reported figures in the database, and one of its three founder exits in Orange Window Cleaning. It also includes the database's one documented failure. The methodology page says this directly: the index measures how durable an opportunity is, not how large it gets.
The low scores are where competition is visible. Detailing, lawn care and house cleaning are the trades a reader is most likely to have tried or hired, and two of the cheapest starts in the database are here: Robinson and Silesky's $150 and Kokenge's $300. Low entry cost and familiar work bring more competitors, which is what the absent-competition factor measures. The startup cost ladder and the margin ledger show the same owners by what they spent and what they keep.
The full list of scores is in the database, and the revenue ranking sorts the same 33 entries by size. This site is one of SideRoad's weekly builds, and the scores are recalculated as entries are added.
Common questions
Which documented business has the lowest Boring Index score?
Michael Haskell's storage unit flipping business, at 82, the database's floor. His entry says the score was debated hardest, because auctions carry a gambling glamour. He reported $135,000 of revenue in 2025 with roughly $82,000 of operating earnings, per CNBC Make It.
Does a low Boring Index score mean a worse business?
No. The bottom ten includes Augusta Lawn Care at more than $50 million systemwide and Rising Tide Car Wash at nearly $6 million a year. The index measures how durable an opportunity is, not how large it gets.
Which categories score lowest on the Boring Index?
Trades, lawn and landscape, and vehicles and detailing. Every owner entry in those three categories is in the bottom ten, along with three of the seven cleaning entries. No waste and sanitation entry is. The methodology explains why familiar work scores lower.
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