Seasonality as a feature, not a flaw

Two owners in this database have sharp seasons, and they describe them in opposite terms. Steve Hunsaker books more than $800,000 of holiday lighting in about eight weeks and treats the rest of the year as almost free. Kim Hatch reports up to $200,000 in a peak month at Turner Septic and about $30,000 in a winter month, and calls managing that gap the hard part of the job. Both run good businesses. The difference is what the off-season costs to carry, and that is the number to look at before deciding whether a season is a feature or a flaw.

When the off-season is free

Hunsaker started in 2020 after reading a Reddit thread, with a ladder, racks on a Ford Fusion and no crew. His first season grossed about $35,000. Five seasons later Valley Christmas Lights runs three or more install crews a day at peak and did more than 200 houses in one two-month season, plus commercial work for hotels and bars in Scottsdale.

What makes the short season work for him is that almost nothing has to be paid for between January and October. The crews, the marketing and the trucks are all concentrated in the same window, when every customer wants the service at once. His entry describes it as extreme seasonality producing extreme density: every crew hour and every marketing dollar lands while intent is at its peak. Our article on route density makes the same point about geography. A pool route makes money by keeping stops close together on a map. Hunsaker keeps them close together on a calendar.

The season also does some of the selling. Takedown in January is the natural moment to book next year, so a one-off install turns into a recurring customer without a separate sales effort. Nobody enters the Christmas light business in December, which keeps casual competition out of the window that matters.

When the off-season is a bill

Hatch's trough is not free, because her business is trucks and trained technicians. Turner Septic runs 18 jobs a day and pumps up to 400,000 gallons a month at peak. If she let crews go in a $30,000 month, she would be short in a $200,000 one, so she keeps them on payroll through the winter. Her entry is direct that this is a deliberate cost, financed every year, and our piece on the rural paradox explains why it is worth paying in a small New Hampshire market where replacements are hard to find.

Mike Andes learned the expensive version. The founder of Augusta Lawn Care has written about burning $100,000 in one winter keeping crews busy on pointless work rather than admitting the season was over. Keeping people through a slow stretch can be the right call, as it is for Hatch. Paying them to look busy is a different decision, and Andes describes it as one of his clearest mistakes.

A season is a feature when the quiet months cost little to carry. When the business is its people, the quiet months are part of the price. The comparison, so far

Selling the season before it arrives

The database has no documented snow operator yet, so the seasonal services page publishes industry benchmarks and labels them as such. The most useful idea there is contractual rather than numerical: sell the snow season in September at a fixed price, paid whether it snows or not, and the weather becomes the customer's risk. The exit ledger shows what that is worth at sale time. In the benchmarks it quotes, per-event snow books trade at 2.5 to 4 times EBITDA and contract-heavy commercial books at 6 to 10 times. Same trucks, same snow. The difference is whether the revenue was agreed before the season started.

The same ledger notes that snow-only operators sell at a discount to combined landscape and snow companies. One listing in its table pairs snow and stormwater work with a summer street-cleaning operation. Buyers pay more for a business that has something to do in every month.

What seasonal owners build next

The owners here tend to keep the seasonal business and add a year-round one beside it. Hunsaker added a permanent exterior lighting company under a second brand, for year-round installs once the seasonal brand was established. Nick Huber and Dan Hagberg started Storage Squad at Cornell on the academic calendar: pick up students' boxes in May, store them over the summer, return them in September. While running it they built a permanent self-storage facility in Ithaca for $2.4 million, which Huber now values at over $10 million. They sold Storage Squad to 1-800-PACK-RAT in January 2021 for a reported $1.65 million to $1.7 million and put the proceeds into Bolt Storage, which rents all year.

Snow follows the same pattern at industry level. Per the survey figures on the seasonal page, only about 4 percent of snow removal professionals run snow as their only business. For most it is what a landscaping or excavation company does with idle trucks in winter, which is the lawn and landscape problem Andes ran into, solved from the other side.

How to judge a seasonal business

Start with the trough, not the peak. Ask what a slow month costs to carry: if the answer is storage and insurance, the season is working for you, and if it is a crew you cannot afford to lose, budget for it before you buy the trucks. Then ask when the revenue is agreed. A season sold in advance through contracts or deposits is a plan, and one sold job by job is a forecast. Last, ask what the customers need in the other months. Hunsaker and Huber both answered that question with a second business.

The picker has a filter for seasonal, compressed models, and the margin ledger shows what the documented trades keep. Every owner mentioned here has a full entry in the database. This site is one of SideRoad's weekly builds, and the seasonal category will add a snow operator once one publishes real numbers.

Common questions

Can a seasonal business support a full-time income?

The documented case says yes. Steve Hunsaker's Valley Christmas Lights books more than $800,000 in about eight weeks in Scottsdale, five seasons after a first solo season of about $35,000. It works because the off-season costs little to carry.

How do seasonal service businesses handle the slow months?

It depends on what the business is made of. Kim Hatch keeps Turner Septic's crews on payroll through winter months of about $30,000 so she is not short-handed in $200,000 peak months. Mike Andes says he once burned $100,000 in a winter keeping lawn crews busy on pointless work, which he counts as a mistake.

Do seasonal businesses sell for less?

Episodic ones do. In the benchmarks quoted in the exit ledger, per-event snow books trade at 2.5 to 4 times EBITDA while contract-heavy commercial books trade at 6 to 10 times, and snow-only operators sell at a discount to combined landscape and snow companies.