The database Entry no. 006
Eight weeks of Christmas
Steve Hunsaker found the business in a Reddit thread in 2020: hang Christmas lights for people who don't want to climb ladders. His first season made $35,000 out of a Ford Fusion. Valley Christmas Lights in Scottsdale now books more than $800,000 in roughly two months a year.
Most businesses in this database run all year. Steve Hunsaker's runs for about eight weeks, and that is the entire point. Valley Christmas Lights installs custom holiday lighting on homes and businesses around Scottsdale, Arizona, compressing more than $800,000 of reported revenue into the stretch between late October and New Year's, when everyone wants lights and no one wants to be on a ladder.
Hunsaker was in tech sales in 2020 when he read a Reddit post about earning extra money hanging lights. He started with no crew, no trailer, and a Ford Fusion with ladder racks, and grossed about $35,000 that first season. The season that convinced him it was a real business was also, by his own account, the hardest of his life. Five seasons later the operation runs three or more install crews daily at peak, each with a trained lead, stocked truck, and standard operating procedures covering everything from the walkthrough to the cleanup.
Selling to people who could afford to do it themselves
The positioning is deliberately upmarket. Hunsaker told a Scottsdale paper the company did over 200 houses in a two-month season, alongside commercial work for hotels and bars along the local strips, and he frames the gap in the market bluntly:
"There's very few maestro-level, white-glove services for this trade." Steve Hunsaker, to Scottsdale Progress
Custom-fit commercial-grade lights, design mockups before installation, takedown and storage included: the product is really the absence of hassle, sold to households that measure the cost against their own December. Takedown in January conveniently doubles as next year's renewal conversation, which is how a seasonal service builds a recurring book.
What the season teaches
The obvious objection, what about the other ten months, is the model's feature. Hunsaker has expanded into permanent exterior lighting under a second brand and teaches other home-service operators through a training community, but the core insight stands on its own: extreme seasonality means extreme density. Every crew hour lands in the same eight weeks, every marketing dollar hits when intent peaks, and the rest of the year costs almost nothing to carry. A business that is boring for ten months and frantic for two turns out to be a very good business.
Common questions
How much does a Christmas light installation business make?
Valley Christmas Lights books more than $800,000 in a roughly two-month season, five years in. Hunsaker's first solo season made about $35,000, which is the more honest benchmark for a first year with a ladder and a sedan.
What do you need to start hanging Christmas lights?
Hunsaker's starting kit was a ladder, racks on a Ford Fusion, and commercial-grade lights. The real barriers are seasonal urgency and rooftops, not capital, which is why the service commands premium prices in wealthy zip codes.
What happens the rest of the year?
Mostly, nothing, and that is the design: revenue concentrates into eight weeks while the off-season carries little cost. Hunsaker layered a permanent exterior lighting company on top for year-round installs once the seasonal brand was established.
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