This is a filter, not a personality quiz. Tell it what you can spend and how you want to work, and it returns the documented models that fit, each one linked to a real owner in the database and the figures they actually reported. No result here is hypothetical.
No model in the database matches that combination of capital and working style. Loosen one of the two.
The cheapest documented starts in this database: $150 of window cleaning gear, about $250 of litter tools, roughly $1,700 for a junk removal truck, and $2,000 for a cleaning company. The full cost ladder runs from there to $3 million. Those four starts produced, respectively, an exit before 25, a 40-plus-year six-figure run, a business sold in 2024, and $10,000 months inside fifteen months.
Before hiring, solo and route work: junk removal at roughly 50 percent in year one, striping near 55 percent, bin cleaning at 50 to 70 percent once routes are dense. The pattern every documented owner reports is that margins compress as crews and managers arrive. Landwehr's sequence, 50 percent to 20 percent as he hired his way out of the truck, is the clearest statement of the trade in this database.
Both are documented here. Dave Menz bought a failing laundromat for $85,000 and built a chain reporting $2 million a year; Nick Huber buys rural storage at $40 to $70 a square foot; Ryan McCoy bought a franchise territory already running and did $900,000 in his first year. Buying converts capital into existing revenue. Starting converts years into equity. The database contains no evidence that either path is generally better, only that both work when the operator is serious.
Startup costs are the documented figure where an owner in the database reported one, and typical industry ranges otherwise. Every model links to the database, where the sources live.
Built by @gloverbuilds
Fifteen years building companies quietly. Now I ship them in public, with the real numbers.
SideRoadA new business every week, built in public with real revenue. ShipWolfThe solo-founder launch kit behind the weekly builds. TextScrubrStrip hidden formatting and AI tells out of any text. Boring MillionairesDocumented owners of profitable, unglamorous businesses. All links open in a new tab.