Go off the grid
Estimated Reading Time: 3 Minutes
The world is an amazing place. Beautiful scenery awaits us at every turn, especially here in the United States. National Parks are waiting to be explored, huge reservoirs that provide endless boating opportunities. There has never been a better time to explore.
In just the camping industry alone, revenue is expected to push 22 billion dollars in 2023. Any time there is an industry this size there will be great opportunities for a small business to profit.
There are a lot of things you can do to make money off camping enthusiasts. If you live near a thoroughfare to the mountains, set up shop with a big pile of wood on a Friday afternoon to sell to campers.
That’s a pretty specific set up though, and is generally hard to replicate if you don’t live in the right place. Instead, let’s go a little more technical.
These days everyone wants to work remotely, whether it’s from their home office or a beach in Hawaii. But the possibilities are growing more and more. What if you could play video games online from a remote mountaintop? Or stream your zoom meeting while on a houseboat in Lake Powell?
With Starlink all of those things are possible. Anywhere there is a stretch of open sky you can have all the internet you need.
The problem is, a Starlink set up is expensive. $500 for the initial hardware costs, and $150 a month after that.
For the occasional traveler it’s just not worth it to buy one. But there is a growing trade of entrepreneurs that buy the device and cover the monthly fees by offering rentals for $20-$45 a day.
Here’s how the math works out:
$500 startup cost, $150 a month.
$30 a day rental.
5 days rented to cover your monthly cost, and 16 extra days rented to get your startup cost back.
If you rent it out every single weekend(9 days), then you will make your money back in 4 months.
How to get rentals
In our local market, if you do a general google search for “starlink rentals”, there are 2 companies that rank organically.
This one that is actually really solid.
And this one that seems really sketchy.
https://satellitephonestore.com/catalog/rent/satellite-terminals/starlink-rentals
It would be insanely easy to set up a site and start competing for these organic search visitors. All you would need is a $10 domain from Google Domains, build a site on Carrd, write some basic content about your business and you will likely rank number 3 or better.
After you’ve gone this route, create Facebook Marketplace listings and post ads on your local craigslist. This is where all the rentals are coming from for most people right now. Direct all that traffic to your site to boost your SEO.
Then you are off to the races. With some cash flow you can start buying accessories to offer add ons for your customers.
It’s up to you how to scale it at that point.
Rent a campervan and equip it with Starlink
Automate tedious processes like review collections
Get your financials in order
Focus on the customer, do things to make it easy for them to be in business with you
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