13 BUSINESSES That Are Still Wide Open Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 Right now, in 2026, there are entire industries where demand has outpaced supply so badly that customers are calling five, six, sometimes 10 different companies just trying to find someone who will pick up the phone. Not tech companies. Not AI startups. Businesses that involve trucks, tools, and showing up. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking it quietly for years.

00:19 The skilled trades gap in the United States is widening, not closing. By 2028, the construction industry alone will need roughly 500,000 additional workers just to meet current demand. But, here's what makes this interesting for you and me. Where most people see a labor shortage, a certain kind of person sees a wide-open highway. No traffic, no competition.

00:38 Just miles and miles of empty road with customers standing on both sides waving you down. After studying dozens of industries where demand consistently outstrips supply, I found 13 businesses that are still wide-open right now. Not wide-open in theory, wide-open in practice. Real people running them, real numbers behind them, and real customers waiting for someone to show up.

00:56 Some of these you've never heard of. A few will sound almost too simple to work. And the last one on this list is so overlooked, so deeply hidden in the infrastructure of every house in America, that the people running it are quietly pulling in $5,000 to $8,000 per single job with almost no competition in most cities. My name is John. Let's get into it.

01:15 Business 13: parking lot striping and line marking. You drive over parking lots every single day of your life. You pull in, park your car, walk into the store, and never once think about the lines on the ground. But, someone painted those lines. And someone gets paid to repaint them every one to three years because paint fades, weather erodes it. And here's the part that matters most.

01:36 The Americans with Disabilities Act requires those lines to meet very specific standards. If a property manager lets them go, they're exposed to ADA lawsuits. That's not optional maintenance. That's legal compliance on a schedule. A professional gas-powered striping machine, something like a Graco or Titan Line Laser, costs between $3,000 and $10,000.

01:54 Total startup including stencils, measuring tools, and a van or trailer runs $5,000 to $35,000. And what does that investment return? A solo operator can gross $8,000 to $15,000 a month during peak season. A small two to three-person crew, $25,000 to $50,000 a month. And here's what nobody tells you. The paint itself, the actual material you're putting on the ground, is usually only about 10% of what you charge the customer.

02:23 Your margins run 30% to 60% on most jobs. Operators on our A Sweaty Startup say the biggest mistake newcomers make is bidding solely by the linear foot. The real money is in pricing out ADA compliant handicap spaces, crosswalks, fire lanes, and specialty stencils as separate line items. Each one adds profit. You're not selling paint, you're selling compliance, and compliance has a deadline.

02:47 Business 12, solar panel cleaning. There are now over 5 million solar installations across the United States, and that number is climbing every single quarter. But here's the problem nobody talks about. Solar panels lose 20% to 30% of their energy output when they're covered in dust, pollen, bird droppings, or hard water deposits. Most homeowners have no idea.

03:06 They install $30,000 worth of panels on their roof, and then never clean them, watching their electric bill slowly creep back up without understanding why. The solar panel cleaning market sits between $790 million and $1.57 billion globally, and is projected to more than double to over $3 billion by 2033, according to SNS Insider Research. Startup cost?

03:29 As low as $2,500 to $3,000. You need a water-fed pole, a deionized water filtration system, soft brushes, and a safety harness. That's the entire toolkit. Solo operators in sunny regions like Arizona, Texas, and California are grossing $5,000 to $15,000 a month. Charging $100 to $350 per residential visit. And your primary cleaning agent is just purified water.

03:56 Here's what that means for competition. You cannot use tap water or regular soap on solar panels because it voids manufacturer warranties and leaves mineral deposits that actually reduce efficiency further. Most people who try this business don't know that. They show up with a garden hose and Dawn dish soap and create more problems than they solve. Once you learn the correct method, most of your competition has already disqualified itself.

04:17 Think about it like this. Every solar installation is a customer who doesn't know they need you yet. There are 5 million of them already and hundreds of thousands more going up every year. Most of those homeowners will eventually notice their energy output dropping and start looking for answers. You want to be the answer they find? The real model here is locking in quarterly or bi-annual maintenance contracts.

04:37 The sun keeps shining, the panels keep getting dirty, and you keep showing up like clockwork. That's recurring revenue attached to a piece of equipment that costs more than most cars. Business 11, mobile tire services. This one is growing at 9.53% annually, according to Business Research Insights. The mobile tire service market was valued at $680 million in 2026 and is projected to reach $1.55 billion by 2035.

05:05 And yet, most people don't even know this service exists. Think about that. A billion-dollar market where the biggest challenge isn't competition, but customer awareness. A professionally outfitted van with automated tire changers and balancers costs $10,000 to $80,000, but you can start with a basic mobile setup, jack, portable compressor, and hand tools for as little as $600 to $5,000.

05:25 A single well-routed van can generate $24,000 to $46,000 per month. Owner-operators report take-home pay between $54,000 and $126,000 a year. Let's do the simple math. If you service eight vehicles a day at an average of $150 per service visit, that's $1,200 a day. 5 days a week, that's $6,000 a week, $24,000 a month from one van. And you haven't hired a single employee yet.

05:55 Here's the part that separates the people who make this work from the ones who struggle. The biggest hurdle operators site on our small business isn't the work itself, it's customer education. People default to brick and mortar tire shops because they don't realize that you can come to their driveway, their office parking lot, or their job site. The operators who break through stop chasing individual consumers and start targeting B2B fleet contracts.

06:16 Plumbers, electricians, delivery companies, anyone with a fleet of vehicles that can't afford downtime. One fleet contract with 30 vehicles can replace 200 individual customers. That's where this business cracks open completely. Business 10, boat cleaning and detailing. If you live anywhere near a coast, a lake, or marina, this market is sitting right in front of you, bobbing gently in the water.

06:38 The boat detailing industry is valued at over $2 billion and growing at 5.4% annually through 2035. But here's what makes it fundamentally different from regular car detailing. The coating on boat hulls is called gelcoat, and working with gelcoat is a specialized skill that most car detailers can't cross over into without significant training. Use the wrong buffer speed or the wrong compound and you can permanently burn through the finish.

07:01 That learning curve is your competitive moat. A lean mobile setup costs $1,000 to $5,000. A professional standard package with a dedicated van, marine grade buffers, and a commercial pressure washer runs $12,000 to $25,000. Solo operators typically gross $60,000 to $150,000 a year. Small teams that lock in marina contracts pull $250,000 to $400,000 or more with per job margins of 40% to 60%.

07:30 Let's do the math on a typical week. If you detail two boats per day at an average of $400 each, that's $800 a day. Run that 5 days a week and you're at $4,000 a week, over $200,000 a year solo. And that's without touching a single yacht, where single yacht prices can run $2,000 to $5,000. The smartest operators don't wait for the phone to ring. They build relationships with marina managers who are desperate for reliable detailers and transition individual clients into monthly subscription maintenance plans that

08:01 converts a seasonal, weather-dependent service into predictable, recurring revenue. You stop being a service call and start being a line item on someone's monthly budget. The marina needs you. The boat owners need you. And in most markets, there are maybe two or three people actually doing this work at a professional level. That's why it's wide open.

08:17 Business nine, fence installation and repair. This one is a sleeping giant. The global fencing market sits at roughly $34 billion and is expected to hit $52 to $79 billion by 2033, according to industry reports. That's a 5.7% to 6.9% annual growth rate being driven by new housing construction, homeowner demand for privacy, and commercial security requirements that aren't going away anytime soon.

08:42 A low-end owner-operator model costs $2,000 to $10,000 to launch. A full professional setup with a work truck, power augers, post pounders, and proper insurance runs $15,000 to $75,000. Residential jobs average $1,500 to $8,000 each, and a two-person crew can generate $20,000 to $30,000 per month during peak season. Gross margins run 30% to 45% with net profit settling between 10% and 25%, depending on how tight your estimating is.

09:14 And here's what nobody tells you about this business. Operators on Our Small Business say the biggest margin killer is poor estimating, not bad workmanship. Underestimate the post count or the terrain difficulty and your profit evaporates on a single job. The veterans have also mostly abandoned the old method of digging holes and pouring concrete for fence posts.

09:31 They've switched to post pounders, machines that hydraulically drive posts directly into the ground. It's faster, cleaner, and actually creates a stronger hold in most soil conditions. One equipment upgrade changed the entire economics of their operation. And here's a warning they all repeat. Always call utility locates yourself before any job. Hitting a gas line or fiber optic cable doesn't just ruin one job, it can bankrupt a new fencing business overnight.

09:55 Now we're entering the second half of the list and this is where the businesses get more interesting and honestly less glamorous, which, as you're starting to notice, is exactly why they're still wide open. Business eight, septic tank inspection services. Let me be clear, this is not the pumping side. This is the inspection and certification side of the septic industry and almost nobody makes that distinction.

10:16 Every single real estate transaction involving a property with a septic system requires a professional inspection before closing. Everyone, no exceptions. That's a built-in, legally mandated customer pipeline. The septic services market is valued at roughly $8.1 billion in the United States with a steady 6.7% growth rate. But here's the economics that change everything.

10:38 Pumping requires a vacuum truck that can cost $30,000 to over $200,000. Inspection requires a camera, a certification, and knowledge. That's it. Start-up for inspection only runs $10,000 to $15,000. Solo inspectors charge $250 to $400 per inspection and can clear $75,000 to $150,000 annually. And the gross margins on inspections alone? 75% to 80%. Read that again.

11:06 75% to 80% gross margins. Those are software company margins on a business where you're standing in someone's backyard looking at a tank lid. The smart play, according to operators on Reddit, is to start with inspections to keep your initial investment minimal, build your reputation and referral network with local realtors who need you for every closing, then add pumping services later once you can afford the truck.

11:27 You start lean. You grow into the capital intensive part. You don't gamble your savings on a $200,000 truck before you have a single customer. That's how boring businesses are supposed to scale. Business 7, mobile fleet washing. There are over 13 million commercial trucks registered in the United States. Every single one of them gets dirty, and the companies that own them need those trucks clean.

11:46 Not out of pride, but because a filthy truck rolling down the highway is a rolling advertisement that screams, "We don't care about our business." Fleet managers know this. They're looking for someone reliable to keep their trucks presentable. The broader mobile car wash market is $12 billion globally and climbing toward $25 billion by 2035 at nearly 9% annual growth.

12:09 Fleet washing is a stable recurring B2B niche within that market. A basic entry-level setup costs $4,000 to $10,000. A professional commercial rig with heavy-duty pressure washers and EPA-compliant water reclamation systems runs $10,000 to $50,000. Commercial fleet washing operations generate $100,000 to $500,000 or more in annual revenue because the entire model is built on recurring contracts.

12:32 You show up every week or every 2 weeks, same trucks, same location, same invoice. Margins are 45% to 60% gross with net profit in the 20% to 30% range. Here's the pattern you should be noticing by now. The most profitable businesses on this list aren't selling one-time services to random consumers. They're locking in recurring B2B contracts where the same customer pays you the same amount every single month like clockwork.

12:57 Fleet washing is one of the purest examples of that model. And here's the moat that keeps competitors out, environmental compliance. To win B2B fleet contracts, you must reclaim your wastewater and stay EPA-compliant. That means investing in a water reclamation system and understanding local discharge regulations. It sounds like a headache, but it's actually your biggest competitive advantage.

13:17 Most people won't bother with the compliance paperwork and the equipment cost, which means most people can't compete for the contracts that pay the most. The regulatory burden is your barrier to entry and it works in your favor. Business six, concrete coating and polishing. Walk into any high-end garage conversion, brewery taproom, or warehouse showroom and look down at the floor.

13:37 That glossy seamless surface that looks like polished stone is either epoxy or polyaspartic coating and someone charged $3 to $12 per square foot to apply it. The concrete coating market is worth $4.5 to $5 billion and growing at 4.5% to 8% annually as homeowners convert garages into living spaces and commercial properties demand durable, low-maintenance flooring.

14:01 A lean startup runs $15,000 to $20,000. A professional rig with heavy-duty diamond grinders, industrial dust extractors, and a full chemical kit costs $40,000 to $75,000. Solo operators generate $8,000 to $15,000 a month with gross margins of 30% to 60% and net margins between 20% and 30%. Michael Gerber writes in The E-Myth Revisited that most businesses fail not because the work is too hard, but because the owner doesn't build a system around the work.

14:31 In concrete coating, that system is preparation. Operators on Reddit say it over and over almost word for word. The decorative part is easy. Preparation is the business. Most floor coating jobs that fail, and there are plenty, fail because the concrete surface wasn't properly ground, profiled, and cleaned before the coating went on. Moisture, contaminants, or bad grind will cause delamination within months.

14:54 Get the preparation right, invest in the right grinders and testing equipment, and you're operating in a completely different league than 80% of your competition who are cutting corners on prep to save time. One more thing worth knowing. Polyaspartic coatings are rapidly taking market share from traditional epoxy because they cure in a single day instead of 3 to 5 days.

15:15 That means more jobs per week, faster revenue, and significantly happier customers who get their space back immediately. The operators who've made that switch are pulling ahead fast. Business five, tree removal and arborist services. This is a $35 billion market in the United States alone, growing between 5% and 14% annually. Trees grow, trees age, trees fall on houses, cars, and power lines.

15:39 And when they do, homeowners don't comparison shop. They call whoever can show up first with a chainsaw, a crew, and proof of insurance. Startup costs range from $10,000 to $50,000 for professional-grade chainsaws, climbing gear, rigging equipment, and a wood chipper. But insurance is the hidden cost that actually keeps this market wide open. General liability plus workers compensation coverage runs $2,000 to $8,000 a year.

16:03 And that's on top of your equipment costs, because this is genuinely dangerous work and insurers know it. Solo operators typically gross $100,000 to $200,000 annually. Mid-sized operations with two to three crews hit $500,000 to 1 million. Here's what separates the operators who build wealth from the ones who grind themselves down. Simple residential removals, taking out a backyard tree that's leaning too far, are often a race to the bottom on pricing.

16:30 Uninsured handymen with chainsaws will undercut you every time on a single backyard job. The real money is in storm emergency response and municipal contracts. When a hurricane or ice storm rolls through and 4,000 trees are down across a county, municipalities don't call the cheapest option. They call the company with insurance, heavy equipment, and crews ready to mobilize immediately.

16:49 That's where the $10,000 to $25,000 single-day invoices live. One operator on our Sweaty Startup described working a three-week storm cleanup contract that brought in more revenue than his previous four months of residential work combined. The trees don't schedule when they fall. But if you're ready when they do, the payout is extraordinary. Thomas Stanley in The Millionaire Next Door found that most American millionaires aren't in glamorous industries.

17:13 They own tree service companies, pest control routes, paving businesses. Industries where the work is hard enough, dirty enough, or dangerous enough that most people won't do it. That difficulty is the filter. It keeps the market wide open for the ones who stay. Still with me? Good. Because now comes the part of the list where the numbers get serious and the businesses get genuinely ugly.

17:35 And I mean that as a compliment. Business four, commercial grease trap cleaning. Every restaurant, every commercial kitchen, every hospital cafeteria, and hotel kitchen in America has a grease trap. It's a box, usually buried in the ground or installed under the sink that catches fats, oils, and grease before they enter the sewer system and cause blockages.

17:53 And by law, local health departments and environmental agencies require these traps to be professionally cleaned on a regular schedule. That's not a suggestion, that's a legal mandate with inspections and fines attached. The global market for grease trap services sits at roughly $7.2 billion. Startup cost is steep because you need a vacuum pump truck, and a reliable one runs around $150,000.

18:15 But, that high barrier to entry is precisely why this business is wide open. Once you're in, there are shockingly few people competing with you. Solo owner-operators with 50 to 100 regular restaurant clients net $75,000 to $150,000 a year. Multi-truck operations do $500,000 to $1 million or more. Margins are 40% to 50% gross and 15% to 30% net after disposal costs.

18:40 And here's something you need to understand about disposal. Brown grease, the sludge from traps, is heavily regulated and expensive to get rid of. Yellow grease, which is used cooking oil, can actually be sold to biodiesel processors. Experienced operators on Reddit say two things. First, never cheap out on your truck because breaking down with a full tank of grease in July heat is exactly the catastrophe you're imagining right now.

19:03 And second, the restaurants you serve become your most loyal customers because the last thing a restaurant owner wants is to deal with is finding a new grease trap company. They want someone reliable who shows up on schedule and makes the problem disappear. Let me be honest with you for a moment. This business is genuinely disgusting. Nobody wakes up dreaming about pumping grease traps.

19:23 And that is precisely the point. The boring factor is the advantage. Nobody's competing with you because nobody thinks it's exciting enough to try. Business three, commercial kitchen exhaust hood cleaning. Every restaurant with a cooking hood, that is virtually all of them, is required by NFPA 96 fire code to have that hood system professionally cleaned on a regular schedule.

19:43 Not recommended, required. Fail the inspection, get caught with grease build-up in your exhaust ducts, and the fire marshal can shut the restaurant down on the spot. This is a $4 billion market heading towards $6.5 billion by 2033, according to Data Horizon Research. A lean startup costs $8,000 to $10,000. A top-tier professional setup with commercial hot water pressure washers, chemical grade degreasers, protective tarping systems, and proper ventilation equipment runs $10,000 to $50,000.

20:14 Small crews generate $100,000 to $400,000 annually. Individual hood cleaning jobs pay $900 to $2,100 depending on the size of the system and how badly it's been neglected. Here's what nobody tells you about this business. Experienced crews report an effective hourly rate of $200 to $300 per hour once they've built their efficiency. And the reason that rate stays so high is the same reason the market is wide open.

20:38 The work happens at night, usually 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. after the restaurant has closed and before the morning prep crew arrives. While the rest of the world is sleeping, hood cleaning crews are inside commercial kitchens with pressure washers, soaked in industrial degreaser, scrubbing years of accumulated grease out of ductwork and exhaust fans in conditions most people would walk away from immediately.

20:59 It is physically demanding. It is messy and unpleasant. And because of all that, most people who hear about the money say, "Sounds great." and then never actually do it. Do the math on this one carefully. If your crew cleans three hoods per night at an average of $1,200 per job, that's $30,600 per shift. Run five nights a week and you're generating $18,000 a week, over $900,000 a year from a business that requires less than $50,000 to start and has a legally mandated customer base.

21:28 The numbers almost sound wrong. They're not. Business two, propane delivery and tank services. The propane market is enormous. We're talking $92 to $100 billion globally in 2025, scaling toward $167 billion by the mid-2030s, according to Precedence Research. But the size of this market isn't what makes it remarkable. What makes it remarkable is a competitive moat that most people don't understand until they study the economics carefully.

21:54 The company that owns the tank sitting on the customer's property effectively owns the customer. Switching propane providers doesn't mean just making a phone call. It means physically disconnecting, removing, and replacing a 500-gallon tank, which costs hundreds of dollars and creates logistical headaches that most homeowners simply won't endure. That's customer lock-in baked directly into the business model, not through a contract or a subscription fee, but through the physical reality of a large metal tank bolted to

22:20 someone's house. Now, the startup cost is significant and worth being honest about. Bulk delivery requires $750,000 to $2 million or more for bulk storage, DOT-compliant delivery trucks, and hazmat insurance. That's not a weekend project. But there's a lower entry point that the smartest new operators use. Start with 20-lb tank exchanges for gas grills, fire pits, and food trucks or target RV park and campground deliveries.

22:44 Both require far less capital and let you learn the industry, build relationships, and generate cash flow while you scale toward bulk delivery. Net margins run 5% to 15%, which sounds thin until you understand that the volumes are massive and the customer retention is nearly permanent. Morgan Housel writes in Same as Ever that the businesses that survived the longest aren't the ones with the highest margins.

23:06 They're the ones with the most durable customer relationships. Propane delivery is the definition of durable. Once that tank is on someone's property, you're their provider until they actively decide to endure the hassle of switching. And most people, year after year, simply never do. Rural areas are especially underserved. There are communities across every single state where just one or two providers serve entire counties.

23:27 Add a third option, offer better service and competitive pricing, and you'll have customers before your truck leaves the lot. And now, number one. If you only pay attention to one business on this entire list, make it this one. Because it's the one almost nobody is talking about, and the people who are already in it are not exactly rushing to spread the word.

23:45 Business one, crawl space encapsulation and moisture control. Right now, underneath millions of American homes, there are crawl spaces that are slowly deteriorating. Moisture is seeping in through the soil. Mold is colonizing the wooden floor joists. Insulation is sagging, wet, and useless. Energy bills are climbing because the thermal barrier between the ground and the living space has been compromised for years.

24:06 Termites are finding their way in through damp wood. And in most cities across the country, there are maybe two or three companies that specialize in fixing any of it. The crawl space encapsulation market is valued between $800 million and $1 billion with a growth rate of 9% to 15% annually. That's one of the fastest growing niches in all of residential home services.

24:27 And the average ticket per job, $5,500 to $8,250. That's for a single residential crawl space. Non-franchise owner-operators are scaling between $350,000 and $1.5 million in annual revenue. Gross margins run 40% to 60% with net owner earnings typically falling between 15% and 22% on $850,000 in annual revenue. That's roughly $150,000 net income after every expense is paid.

24:55 Startup costs run $50,000 to $200,000 depending on your approach. With franchise models like Crawl Space Ninja running up to $450,000. But, here's why this business is the most wide open on the entire list. Three forces are converging at the same time. First, the aging housing stock across America is creating a tidal wave of deferred maintenance. Homes built in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are hitting the age where crawl space problems become impossible to ignore.

25:24 Second, energy efficiency building codes are getting stricter every year, pushing home owners and home sellers to address what's happening under their floors during inspections and renovations. And third, almost nobody wants to do the actual work. You're crawling on your belly underneath houses in full protective gear, installing heavy-duty vapor barriers, sump pumps, dehumidifiers, and interior drainage systems in spaces that are dark, cramped, and often home to things you'd rather not encounter.

25:50 The physical toll is real. The working conditions are brutal. And that is your moat. That's the wall that keeps competitors from flooding in. Walker Deibel writes in Buy Then Build about the concept of acquisition entrepreneurship, buying an existing small business in a growing market instead of starting from zero. Crawl space encapsulation is exactly the kind of market where that strategy works beautifully.

26:10 Now, there are small operators across the country doing $300,000 to $500,000 a year who are getting older and want to retire. Buy one, inherit their reputation, their customer list, their referral network with realtors and home inspectors, and their equipment. Then, build systems around the operation and scale it. You skip the hardest years and start where most businesses take a decade to arrive.

26:33 And here's what's happening right now that makes this even more urgent. Operators on Reddit report that in many metro areas, the wait time for a crawl space encapsulation appointment is 4 to 8 weeks. Customers are literally waiting 2 months to give someone their money because there aren't enough companies to serve them. When was the last time you heard of a business where the demand backlog was measured in months.

26:52 That's what wide open looks like in practice. Here's what ties every single business on this list together. None of them are trendy. None of them would go viral on social media. You'd never see someone filming a TikTok about crawlspace moisture barriers or commercial grease trap schedules or the finer points of parking lot ADA compliance. And that's the entire point.

27:11 The opportunities that are still wide open in 2026 are wide open for one very specific reason. Most people are too busy chasing exciting ideas to notice them. Let me tell you about two people, a man named Marcus and a woman named Elena. Both decided to start a business at the same time, roughly 2 years ago. Marcus wanted something modern, something that sounded impressive, something he could explain at a dinner party without people glazing over.

27:35 He jumped from idea to idea, a subscription app, a DTC brand, a content agency. Each one felt thrilling for about 3 months before the reality set in. The market was crowded, the margins were razor thin, the customers were fickle and constantly chasing the next thing. Elena picked one of the least impressive sounding businesses she had ever heard of.

27:54 She bought a used pressure washing rig and started cleaning commercial kitchen exhaust hoods at night. Her friends thought she was out of her mind. Within 18 months, she had four employees, 140 recurring restaurant clients, and was clearing over $400,000 a year in gross revenue. Marcus is still searching for the right idea. Elena stopped searching the moment she started doing.

28:13 The question isn't which of these businesses sounds the most appealing. It never is. The question is which one can you start with what you have, where you are right now? Because the market isn't going to wait for you to feel ready. These doors are open today. They won't stay open forever. Every month that passes, a few more people discover these opportunities and the window gets a little narrower.

28:32 If this video shifted the way you think about opportunity, hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications so you don't miss what's coming next. Drop a comment and tell me which of these 13 businesses surprised you the most. I genuinely read every single one. I'm John and I'll see you in the next video.