30 thousand foot view

Quickest way out of the rat race is to start winning it

OK, we’re going to do the 30 thousand foot view of how you actually start the financial freedom process.little by little we’ll drill down farther and father into details until you really know how to launch and grow a passive income stream.

So, if the goal is to become financially free with passive income, which is getting paid while you’re not working, why would the first big step be for you to add more work and have even less free time?

It’s a fair question but im going to assume that if you’re reading this with any real intent, that you are not currently rolling in a bunch of excess cash. But I guess even if you were, this might still be a step to take because building a business is more valuable in the beginning than buying one or acquiring it by some other means.

In either case, the first business is probably the hardest because it combines inexperience with knee jerk reactions. Many people try to build a business with something they already know or are good at, or something they like. Now all of those can have pro columns. But the best kind of business to start is the one that’s needed. You don’t have to like it, in fact you can almost hate it, but how necessary or in demand is it?

The other consideration is how big is the lift from starting the business and being the sole worker to offloading that and not really working at it. Combining those two things to get the right formula is actually quite hard at times. As Henry Ford said “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it”. I can attest to that. And as a final nail in the coffin, you need to do your best analysis, but don’t over analyze it to the point of paralysis.

Yeah it’s actually the hardest step in my opinion. Having built and sold several businesses, it can be infuriating to want to just get up and run with it. But doing your homework can change that success ration A LOT.

How well can the business scale? Some businesses hit walls depending on your area or availability. Do you want to grow something so big you’ll really never get out of it? Because I don’t. I want to grow a micro business that I can grow until profitability and either have a random investor buy it out, or even better, bring someone into the business with the knowledge that they will learn the business and buy you out of it.

Regardless of the exact strategy you want to do. I would push for 6 months consistent profitability before starting the process of offloading it or transferring it. I’ve found that if you can achieve 6 months of solid profitability in a necessary industry, the business will likely survive.

Ok let’s dive into an actual example here pretty quick. But one last aside. Why are we looking at a business where you are working instead of a passive income stream right off the bat? Because of what the business offers you. A business has purchasing power that you likely won’t as an individual. So the main reason isn’t the business itself. But it’s what the business can do for you in the future.

Alright, here’s an actual example of a micro business that I started, grew, perpetuated to another state, and sold, while maintaining the ability to continue that business in my home state:

In the desert, western United States there is a very real problem with gophers. Yes those little tunnel rats that wreak havoc not just on flower beds but serious agricultural problems as well as golf courses, orchards, etc.

Well about 15 years ago I discovered the absolute secret to consistently catching these guys. It was the age ole “build a better mouse trap” problem, but instead of building a better one, all you had to do was buy the right ones, and it made all the difference. It was absolutely unreal how much better simply switching to a different (and yes slightly more expensive) trap could be. The catch rate went up nearly 100%. So it was a game changer.

But the reason for the business wasn’t discovering the secret. It was proving to people that I could do it more effectively than previous attempts. The issue was finding the right clientele. There was always people willing to pay to remove them, but who was really affected in a way that they would pay big dollars for consistent work?

My first thought was farmers, and while it was true that they were the most affected and most eager to have their problems solved. They also had the tightest pocket books. You had to squeeze every last dime from them, and the jobs became increasingly difficult over bigger and bigger areas. But golf courses and schools were the ticket. Reliable, consistent work and they were easy to work with.

It took a few years (remember this is all side hustle, not my regular 9-5) to get all that knowledge and experience together but when it all came together it was worth it. Finding young men that wanted to do the work was also a plus. Many young people had chaotic schedules with school and activities so getting gophers was the ticket for them. Part time work with pretty solid pay. I finally found someone out of state who wanted to do it on a real full time basis. So I sold the business.

They way I sold the business was probably the only real mistake I made, because I just did a lump sum + a payment plan which quickly ran out.

The real lesson here wasn’t in starting or even growing the business but in the fact that I didn’t retain any ownership of it. Now I was at least careful enough to not sell the name, and also maintained the ability to continue the same business in my own state, while not competing with the buyer in their state. But I would have been in a much better position had I retained a small percentage of ownership. The business still exists today and would be an added lever to pull because anything over two years operation with profitability is a gold mine to use for bank loans. On a personal level I would likely not qualify for some passive income purchases like a rental house, but a business owner or investor might.

We will dive further into the details on this in the future to really dissect how starting turns to sales, which starts creating logistics, expenses rise, and you face growth problems. But for now, think of how simple removing a garden pest can become a business. How you can train others to become the employees, and so forth.

The biggest help early on that I can give you is to really understand how to TRIAGE a situation. To this day I think it’s the single most effective skill you can hone. Now couple that with Occam’s razor and you’ve got an almost instant gut feeling machine about opportunities that will help you start cash flowing. So we’ll do our first deep dive series into triage in the next article.

April 23rd, 2025