August 23, 2026

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Chaotic, bright, cartoon-y illustration of a house with lots of different people working on and around it, including painters, pool cleaners, chimneysweeps, movers, arborists, and lawn maintenance workers.

Greg Kletsel

Editor’s note

Good morning. That landscaping business you and your friends tried to start in high school before realizing it required time and energy you preferred to spend on video games wasn’t a half-bad idea. Turns out, that’s all the rage these days. Welcome to Sweaty Startup Brew, a special edition on the movement devoted to starting “boring” and often physically demanding businesses (as opposed to VC-backed tech companies). The next million-dollar powerwashing success story may be waiting at the other end of this newsletter.

Break a sweat

You don’t need to change the world to get rich

Male plumber lying with his head under a kitchen sink fixing a pipe

Unsplash

There are two types of business pitches: raise VC funding for an AI-powered plumber booking tool, or borrow some cash from your mom to start a company that actually fixes people’s toilets. Many enterprising folks are lured by the latter path—rejecting innovative business ideas to found unglamorous companies like carwashes or childcares, known as sweaty startups.

The term was coined by the entrepreneur and content creator Nick Huber, who started a storage business while studying at Cornell University in 2011, grew it to 25 college towns, and eventually sold it for $1.7 million. Aside from running a storage private equity firm, a real estate consulting company, and a staffing agency, he now makes content advising aspiring entrepreneurs on starting low-risk businesses that don’t need to be explained to anyone.

No need to reinvent the wheel

Huber thinks the way to go is starting a local business and patiently growing it to achieve a solid income, an approach he details on his podcast and in his book, The Sweaty Startup: How to Get Rich Doing Boring Things:

He contends that, unlike hyped Silicon Valley startups or trendy services like yoga instruction, old-school businesses are more likely to succeed, since competitors are often weak and there’s stable demand.
His list of recommended businesses includes mold removal, firewood delivery, and portable toilet rental services.

Huber isn’t the only one who made a business out of talking about running a business. The 24-year-old Micah Stanley—who makes up to $75k a month from operating vending machines that sell vapes—makes videos and teaches courses on how to follow in his footsteps.

There’s evidence that “boring” businesses increasingly lead to wealth. The share of US income made by people in the 1% (those making $550k+) from midsize regional businesses like flooring and plumbing has grown to 34.9% in 2022, from 30.3% in 2014, according to an analysis by University of Chicago economists.

Young people are rolling up their sleeves: The number of applications to start a business from Gen Z has grown 66% in the year leading up to June, more than any other age group, according to the Bank of America Institute.—SK

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SCRUB A DUB DUB

Fortunately for car cleaners, the people love ASMR

Man wiping down center console of car with a rag and spray cleaner

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It seems we all still yearn for those childhood trips to the car wash, because videos of dirty vehicles getting a thorough scrub are garnering millions of views on social media. On TikTok, where ~2 million clips are tagged with #cardetailing, the trend is driven by a new generation of bootstrappers who have foregone more traditional jobs to start lucrative car-cleaning businesses.

One reason for the car-detailing career boom is its low cost of entry. You can start with a couple hundred dollars worth of cleaning supplies, and the profession doesn’t require any certifications (but training courses are on the rise). According to the Wall Street Journal:

A former Amazon warehouse worker who started his own car-washing business in 2022 now makes ~$18,500 per month from the venture, plus another $50,000 from car-detailing classes and coaching.
Another car detailer who runs a $1,995, three-day training course for car detailers said inquiries have spiked by more than 50% in the past four years.

Zoom out: Some entrepreneurs who do car detailing full-time initially got into it as a side hustle when the pandemic threatened their main lines of work. This type of crisis-induced pivot has precedent: The International Detailing Association, a group representing the industry, was founded when hordes of professionals pivoted to the field during the 2008 financial crisis.—ML

DON’T SWEAT THE TECHNIQUE

Lawn mowing, pest control, junk removal, oh my

Person in green outdoor work clothes pushing a wheelbarrow while doing lawn care

Unsplash

Do you want to be the millionth person with a tech startup? Or do you want to open a local, customer-focused business that no one will find compelling at a San Francisco party but can be just as successful?

Here are some real-world examples for inspiration:

Window washing: One man went from office drone to bartender to cleaning storefronts after buying $100 worth of equipment from Home Depot.
Junk removal: No, not what a vet does to your dog—the business of picking up and hauling away trash worked out pretty well for a group of teens.
Landscaping: There’s mowing the lawn to earn an allowance from your parents and there’s mowing enough lawns to make millions of dollars.
Vacation rentals: A husband and wife started a business that allows travelers to stay in residences near the water.
Mobile vehicle repair: When you think about it, bringing the mechanic to your busted car makes more sense than the other way around.
Painting: If you’re thinking brushwork done by someone with an art degree in a Soho loft, think again. We’re talking about the residential kind.—DL

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Chartered territory

Crazy for car washes

Photo infographic showing a car detailer washing a sports car with a hose, the car covered in soapy suds, viewed from the side. In the background there are two bubbles, one smaller that says

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

There are already more car washes in the US than there are locations of Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald’s combined, but the market isn’t close to saturated, according to industry experts, who predict rapid growth in the coming years.

Why? People are increasingly ditching the sponge and bucket in favor of something less hands-on. And as car wash revenue increases, so does investor interest, attracting private equity firms that want to scale things up, Bloomberg reported.—BC

Place to be

New indie bookstores are popping up everywhere

Woman browsing in an independent bookshop full of shelves of used books

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The only thing trendier than lamenting that no one reads anymore is quitting your copywriting job to start a cozy bookstore. More than 600 indie bookstores opened in the US last year, according to the American Booksellers Association, in a sign the bookshop boom isn’t slowing down:

The ABA’s membership tripled in the last decade to 3,417 stores.
The majority of its member stores said their revenue increased in 2025.

Small bookshop owners—many of whom are lifelong book lovers who switched careers—say they offer something Amazon could never: a third-space to meet people, as well as intimate knowledge of local reading tastes.

Single-genre shops are en vogue. Many newly opened bookstores specialize in romance, which has seen a surge in popularity thanks to influencers on the literary corner of social media known as BookTok. Then there’s Brooklyn’s BEM bookshop, which focuses exclusively on Black culinary writing, and Atlanta’s Grim Reader, a mobile horror bookshop operating out of a hearse.

Barnes and Noble is also expanding…with plans to open 60 new locations this year and a revamped strategy of mimicking the curation at small bookstores.—SK

mail bag

We asked our readers to tell us about their own sweaty startups. Here are some of our favorites:

“My wife and I run a residential composting business. Our customers pay a monthly subscription and we give them a food-grade bucket to put all their food scraps and compostables into. Once a week we swing by and pick it up and drop off a clean bucket. All the scraps get given to our flock of fowl (chickens, turkeys, ducks, muscovies, and guineafowl) and they scratch through it for the best bits.”—Nick from Columbia, MO
“Ten years ago I started a piano tuning and repair business. No one else in my area was doing it anymore. The field seems to be increasingly popular lately, but some people still have no idea what my job is about—especially if they don’t own a piano. I love it, and, yes, I do make good money.”—Mary from Erie, PA
“My family’s business is the nation’s only retailer of lost luggage. The airlines successfully reunite over 99.9% of checked bags, but with millions of passengers flying daily, the fraction of a percentage of bags that are left unclaimed is still a sizable number—enough to fill a 50,000-square-foot retail store in Alabama.”—Matt from Atlanta
“I paint parking lines for a living. I started this business a couple years ago and it replaced my W-2 income within a few months. It’s just me and a bunch of college guys working in the middle of the night (when lots are empty). This means I usually have more time at home with my family during the day.”—Cinco from Waco, TX
“I started a small business that turned into a big business. I sold, rented, and leased golf carts to campers, golf clubs, and summer camps. When I told people what I did and explained it to them they lit up because everyone loves to drive or ride in a cart!”—Larry from Lake George, NY

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ICYMI, use your Sunday morning to get caught up on some of our most-clicked recent recs:

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Written by Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, Brendan Cosgrove, Matty Merritt, Adam Epstein, and Abigail Rubenstein

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