Contrarian Thinking - Read If You Need to Hide a Body

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We’re back with another out-of-the-box way of generating cash. Today, that box is a coffin.

Today in 10 minutes or less, you’ll get:

• About some gory vids that are disgustingly satisfying
• An evergreen biz model that’s literally death-proof
• How to get millions of views on TikTok with blood and guts
• How to make your grisly crime scene squeaky clean
• Tactics to scale your viral corpse cleanup to $1m+/year

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CONTRARIAN THINKING FRAMEWORK

The SWOT Analysis

Strengths. Weaknesses. Opportunities. Threats.

It’s a framework those of us in business, consulting, or investing had drilled into our heads. A way to measure not hope and dreams of what a situation might be, but what it actually is.

If I look out on the US right now, I see many strengths and opportunities. Yet I see one glaring weakness. It is… us. Only about 17% of Americans know how to start a fire, 25% of us can’t change a flat tire, and 49% of millennials don’t own any sort of tool or drill. This article today is about a very dirty, but profitable and very needed business. As I wrote about it, I came across this quote from Mike Rowe of the original Dirty Jobs:

-Mike Rowe

Here’s to those who keep the crap flowing in the right direction, and stop the blood from flowing in the wrong direction.

Blood + Meth Labs + Hoarding, Oh My

I’m a little obsessed with true crime.

Podcasts. Netflix specials. Documentaries. You name it.

So, when I was scrolling through TikTok and saw the scene of a bloody murder and a meth lab, it was a train wreck I just couldn’t stop looking at.

The vid was from Sadie Marshall, a pro crime scene cleaner.

Along with murders, she tackles “biohazard raw sewage, animal hoarding, and disgusting smell removal” just to name a few.

I watched a couple of videos (ok, I fell into a multi-hour TikTok hole) and learned she can make up to $50k just for one cleaning job. Then I actually went to a job site in Florida with another crime scene cleanup company.

Dirty business AND unconventional money-making opportunities? Sign me the f up.

Booming Body Business

Turns out there are hundreds of private crime scene cleanup crews in the US.

“People die every day,” Sadie said. Not a Disney movie, but potentially a death-proof business model. Here’s the story… Sadie’s Pro Cleaning first got its start in 2018. Back then, they only offered commercial and home cleaning services.

But then the pandemic hit. All of a sudden, people didn’t want her in their homes anymore.

So, she did what any great entrepreneur would do and pivoted to cleaning up grisly crime scenes.

Okay, maybe not any great entrepreneur.

Still, she used her biohazard training from the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification to good use and pivoted to crime scene cleanup.

Which also can include cleaning up after epic house-party ragers, trash hoarders, and, um, explosive bathroom situations.

(Look we’ve all been there, ok?)

One 29-year-old trauma cleaner spent just $300 on cleaning equipment (gloves, trash bags, Costco size bottles of disinfectant, etc.) and turned it into a booming $300,000/year business. Another started with $15,000 and now does $12 million dollars a year.

Bottom line: The body biz is booming, and it’s only going to get even bigger.

Cash for Corpses Recap

(This works for any service biz, btw, if you’re like me and pass out when giving blood)

• Low upfront cost: A quick trip to Costco for all your materials
• Zero barriers to entry: No certification is needed
• High earning potential: Earn more than $1m by scaling (see below)
• Always have customers: Death is one of two things assured in life (the other is my awesome emails)
• Massive potential to go viral: This puts you at an unfair advantage over other businesses

BY THE NUMBERS

Let’s Get Into the Math

Crime scene cleaners make roughly $600/hour doing a job that requires no degree or certification.

Let’s assume, to start, it’s just $200/hour and a part-time gig. Call it ~5 hours a day, 3 days a week.

~$3,000 in revenue a week

~$300-$500/month for gas and supplies

~$11,500-$11,700/month in the bank

That’s an earning potential of ~$138,000-$140,400/year just on a part-time cleaning gig. That’s $276,000-$280,800/year full-time.

How Much Would It Cost to Start?

Let’s be honest: you’re a Contrarian. You’re gonna want more—and that means doing this right.

Option 1: You can go the Unconventional Acquisitions route and buy an entire crime scene cleanup biz with a cash flow of nearly a million bucks.

BUT, if you don’t have a cool $2.8 mil lying around, there’s Option 2:really getting your hands dirty. Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty with all the tools and training you’ll need to start bagging bodies.

Let’s start with your personal protective equipment (PPE). If you freaked out with the rest of the world in the beginning of the pandemic, you probably have a bunch of this lying around your house already.

I’m talking:

• Vinyl gloves: $8 for a pack of 50
• Hazmat suit: $12
• Respirators: $15
• Face masks: $40 for a pack of 50
• Goggles: $13

Equipment total: $88 (all these things can be found on Amazon btw)

Then you’ll need the cleaning supplies—and this is where it gets messy. Every crime scene or massive mess after a party is different. That means you’re likely going to need a ton of different tools for different occasions. To start, it’s smart to have a few essentials:

• Shovel: $40
• Mops and bucket: $80
• Medical grade disinfectant: $40
• Industrial deodorizer: $65
• Sponges and cloths: $15-$20
• Hazardous waste disposal bags: $35 for a pack of 150

Tools total: $~275

And of course, you’re going to want a van or truck to haul all these things around. That’ll run around $3,000 for a down payment (assuming it’ll cost $30,000 with a 10% down payment).

All in, you’re looking at spending roughly $3,365 on equipment.

Of course, you might not want to get your hands dirty quite yet—that means getting training from services like the Hazmat School, which offers a Crime Scene Clean-up course starting at $129. There are also online courses that help you get certified in OSHA’s blood-borne pathogen training for as low as $30.

So, if you really want to ball out, it’ll run you a little under $3,500 to get started in the body biz—and you can always do more for even greater returns.
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P.S. We're diving deeper into one of these businesses (Spaulding Decon) later today on YouTube.

PUMP THE NUMBERS

Tips to Hit $1m (and Beyond)

#1 Increase your body count

Sure, you can earn $600/hour by yourself. If you want to go far, go alone. But if you want to make 8 figures… hire some people.

An example:

You go full-time and hire five people to do your dirty work. The average cleaning tech earns $40,000/year at 40 hours/week. Your biz spends about $1,600/month on supplies.

That means:

~$101,733/month net income

~$1,220,800/year in the bank

Boom. You’re already in the Two Commas Club with a few hires.

Sadie’s company ballooned from just one person (her) to more than 100 employees since the pandemic. Now she’s suffering from a horrible disease called phone-constantly-ringing-with-new-customers-itis.

#2 Go viral for a cash steroid injection

“Almost 80 million people on TikTok know who I am,” Sadie says. It even led to her body biz showing up on A&E—resulting in tons of new customers.

Take advantage of the internet’s obsession with true crime and cleaning videos. Literally, everyone loves a before and after shot of dirty things turning spotless.

Hell, I wrote a whole article about my obsession with cleaning porn.

For you, that means firing up TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and even Facebook Reels (for all your boomer friends). Sadie has plenty of videos of her cleaning up everything from swarms of death flies (yes, you read that right) to the houses of hoarders. This is the “show, don’t tell” school of next-level marketing.

#3. Humans over Zoom calls

I know that compared to our world of instant gratification, firing humans by Zoom, and largely hijacking ourselves into the metaverse, this business is hand-to-hand combat. It’s for the few who are still willing to get dirt underneath their fingernails. There’s a wild thing I’ve seen with those who have been in the trenches of crime scenes, on battlefields, in emergency rooms, and it’s that they can often carry the burden more lightly than others. The callouses hide their hearts.

Why? These entrepreneurs are the last interaction people will have with their loved ones through a tragedy. They are the ones who clean up when no one else will. They can laugh at the horror because sometimes that’s all you can do.

So, while everyone else goes and tries to start the next social app while another one ends, you return a haunted house to a home. While Andrew Tate shows off his 475th car earned by pimping cam girls on the internet or telling teenage boys how to cough “be a man,” you show up with a van that makes the world a little cleaner.

The old saying goes: the only two things we can expect in life are death and taxes.

I say, why not make money doing both? And maybe, just maybe, why not make this world a little bit better? Clean a meth lab out of a community, help a family when no one else will, and give someone a chance to feel at peace walking into their home.

Question everything.

CONTRARIAN EXTRAS

The Not So Boring Section:

🤓 Don’t want to SWOT… SOAR instead with one of these alternatives​

🙈 See No Evil, and 42 other true crime shows to tick off your list

🍸 Death and Taxes also happens to be a cocktail… cheers

The Woman Making $12M a Year From Cleaning Dead Bodies

Don’t miss this one later today…

​Spaulding Decon is the premier crime scene cleanup, hoarding cleanup, and meth lab cleanup company in the US. Talk about a new type of entrepreneur... turns out this dirty biz can be massively profitable.

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Codie & Contrarian Crew

Written by Codie Sanchez, Edited by Rananda Rich and the Contrarian Team

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​Disclaimer – This is the “Be an adult” section. Everything mentioned above isn’t advice, just a recount of what I did. That said: This article is presented for informational purposes only. The opinions stated here are not intended to recommend any investment or provide tax advice. Neither are they an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any current or future investment vehicle managed or sponsored by Codie Ventures, LLC or its affiliates. All material presented in this newsletter is not to be regarded as investment advice, but for general informational purposes only. Day trading and investing do involve risk, so caution must always be utilized. We cannot guarantee profits or freedom from loss. You assume the entire cost and risk. You are solely responsible for making your own investment decisions. We recommend consulting with a registered investment advisor, broker-dealer, and/or financial advisor. If you choose to invest with or without seeking advice from such an advisor or entity, then any consequences resulting from your investments are your sole responsibility. By reading/sharing this newsletter or consuming our content on our other channels, you are indicating your consent and agreement to our disclaimer.

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