🏠 $300 million cleaning out people's homes

GM. This is Work "After" Work, the newsletter that's packed with more flavor than a Krispy Kreme doughnut 😋

It's Friday, let's boogie:

• 🧹 The decluttering business

• 😂 Meme of the day

HELP STOP THE HOARDING MADNESS

Have you ever seen Hoarders on TLC? It's the show that helps people get rid of the garbage they've been saving for past 30 years.

It's common for their homes to look like this:

Turns out, hoarding is a serious disorder nearly 5% of the world's population deals with.. there are 7.8 billion people in the world. That's 390 million people that are hoarders - bigger than the US and Canada combined.

And as hoarders get older, their children are usually the ones faced with the massive problem of having to go through their stuff and throw out what isn't needed.

This conundrum is shown by this subreddit group for children of hoarders quadrupling over the past four years.

That's about as up and to the right as it gets and this trend isn't going anywhere. If anything, it will only grow.

We have a whole population in the US of baby boomers (70M of them to be exact) that are aged 58-76 and aging. It's the generation before them that's causing this trend but the boomers will only exacerbate it.

The national average to declutter a house is $450 and the secret sauce to this business is what you do with these items after removing them and is exactly how 1-800-GOT-JUNK makes $300M a year.

Here’s two specific opportunities I see with this trend:

1. Start your own decluttering service

With hoarders only growing across the globe, starting a decluttering service could literally make you a multi-millionaire.

Phrases like “Junk removal for seniors” have increased on Google by over 180% this past year.

It might not be the most luxurious business but that's what we want. Something nobody knows actually makes a sh*t ton of money.

Now, the secret to this business might surprise you.

You can make money in two big ways:

Number 1 is pretty straightforward - you collect a fee to haul years worth of crap out of people's homes but what happens after this? What happens with all the old clothes and shoes you now have?

1-800-GOT-JUNK donates it to charity and guess what this is? Yep, a tax right off.

All that junk they remove from people's homes goes to charity and allows the company to save millions every year in taxes. You can do the same.

Plus, you know you have at the very minimum 12,000 customers just from that subreddit group alone.

2. Publish how-to-guides for shadow boxes

You might have just said "What the heck is a shadow box?".. don't worry, that was my reaction too.

And I was surprised to find out, they're getting pretty hot. The term "memorial shadow box" has tripled over the past four years.

There’s always specific sentimental items loved ones give to you before they pass. Commonly it's a wedding ring or necklace that's passed down through generations.

Shadow boxes are a way to leave behind precious items without having a bunch of other stuff that has no value and will only burden the people who have to get rid of it.

You could provide a course on how to create the most memorable shadow boxes for their loved ones or provide this as an in-person service.

If you want to be savvy you could combine one and two. There's a whole personal side to hoarding because this is a real disorder people deal with. Providing a decluttering service along with therapists that share the value of a shadow box and the minimized burden customers would be putting on their families would help the process go more smoothly.

There's a reason Hoarders has been airing for the past 13 years, it rarely goes smoothly. A combo of these two businesses would be valuable.

TODAY'S EDITION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY ARRIVED

If you ever wanted to get into real estate but either don’t have extra cash laying around or don't want to be a landlord getting up at 3am to fix a broken hot water heater, now is your time.

I have a pretty cool service for you. It’s called Arrived. It’s kind of like Zillow but instead of you just window shopping, you can invest in the houses you like and think have potential.

How it works: you invest (on average for at least 5-7 years) and buy shares of the home. Then every quarter you get paid depending on the home's appreciation and rental income... without ever having to pay closing costs or put down 20%.

Obviously it goes without saying, there isn’t “no risk” in investing. Property values can go down (even though I don’t think we’ll experience anything crazy, which is why I bought a rental property a few months ago) it is something to consider.

Check it out if this interests you, they're the first company to do it!

MEME OF THE DAY

That's all I got for ya today folks!!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.