Get the 5-minute newsletter keeping 2M+ innovators in the loop: https://thehustle.co/
For over a year, we’ve brought you stories about the ways popular businesses, industries, and products make money. We’ve studied the sound of pickleball and its impact on growing the game, uncovered what makes a win at the Tour de France so worth it for a brand, and explored the multimillion-dollar business of owning a vending machine. Here’s a look back at our hustle that brought you Hustlenomics.
For over a year we’ve looked at the ways different businesses and industries make money we studied the sound of pickle ball traveled back in time with a tour to France cyclist and made one vending machine entrepreneur a dollar richer here’s a look back at our hustle that brought you hustle
Nomics what do you get when you cross badminton pingpong and Tennis the fastest growing sport in America pickle ball this is the first time I’m ever watching the game of pickle ball and I am so late to this party embarrassing the popularity of pickle ball spiked during the covid-19 pandemic and since then
It’s exploded even more turning the heads of some high-profile athletes and investors but with all that growth also comes growing pains when so many people entered the sport that it was going on for 10 and 12 hours a day and that’s where the sound Province really started
To emerge so what does it cost to be America’s fastest growing sport did you get that and why isn’t everyone buying in the first game of pickle ball was actually played on a backyard badminton court in 1965 today there are roughly 10,000 known places to play pickle ball in
America the states with the most locations California and Florida I play about 3 or 4 days a week in Florida here in Pittsburgh I don’t have enough courts I hope to play this afternoon though I think I have 5:30 match meet Bob unsh a retired professor of engineering a USA
Pickle ball ref and the founder of pickle ball sound mitigation LLC more on that last one later between 2021 and 2022 the number of Pickers in the US doubled with nearly nearly 9 million people playing the game regularly and in total more people played pickle ball than basketball Golf and Tennis so why
Is pickle ball so popular you’re always playing with with new people the barrier to entry of the sport is so low doesn’t matter the age I mean everybody gets along even though as a former professional tennis player totally addicted I’ve gone to the dark side today I’m in the other pickle ball
Hotpot of the Country California more specifically Newport Beach where the association of pickleball players known as the at is hosting its largest professional tournament Ever come on there are more than 1,400 players at this tournament Pros amateurs family friends are here and then there’s me I grew up not far from these courts when they were just tennis courts but developers in Orange County and around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the economic value of pickle
Ball in Florida investors have poured close to 200 million dollar into 15 private indoor pickleball clubs and entertainment venues combining food and Sport are on the rise chicken and pickle plans to open seven new locations in 2023 and 2024 I think people are thinking this is worth betting on this
Could grow to be a major sport it could have major ad advertising Revenue in time for a professional sport that’s not even 3 years old Major League pickle ball is already backed by a Fortune 500 company and Hazard Bush purchased its own team for an undisclosed but
Estimated seven figures this year 16 pro teams will compete in six tournaments Nationwide for more than $2 million in cash prizes for contacts that’s roughly the same amount awarded to professional cyclists in the tour to France a race that’s been around for more than a century this is so much more intense
Than I thought it was going to be I understand why people love this sport but pickle ball is also in a pickle because of this the sound of the ball hitting the paddle aka the P okay that P sound is loud but it kind of adds to the energy
Of the sport like I see why in the moment it makes it more exciting but I also see how it could be really really annoying if you’re not playing the game the game naturally starts out with some Physics that are fairly loud compared to other sports so exactly how loud is
Pickle ball almost as loud as a vacuum cleaner according to a study by Bob unsh and yel University plus the PAC has the same musical pitch as the backup up alarm on a trash TR the solution sound barriers like the one Bob helped design for his own
Community in Florida can knock off 10 to 15 DB but they can also cost tens of thousands of dollars another solution better paddles this is our cx14 it’s all carbon fiber made this one’s you know Make some noise but it’s not a noisy racket this was I think
$230 I have a set of golf clubs and every Golf Club costs that much and it lasts typically for years and that low cost of Entry along with the low physical barrier means pickle ball could have a very long life ahead of it and a shot at becoming an Olympic sport pickle
Ball and fundamentally is a great way to uh get exercise and if you can find an inexpensive way where it’s fun and you think you’re getting good at it I think the growth of pick a ball is unlimited what do live crabs used cars and Moy Shandon champagne all have in
Common they’re sold in vending machines around the world along with some other interesting items but most of us are more familiar with machines like this one people keep walking by asking me if this machine works we’re going to find out I walk down this street in San
Francisco a lot but I never noticed this vending machine until recently as reported by the hustle running a vending machine business comes with its share of hurdles starting with finding the right machine and the right location so how much money can a vending machine actually make and who collects
It and there you guys go that’s how much money was in the the soda machine this is haime ianus a YouTuber and vending machine entrepreneur 5 years ago he bought his first vending machine for $2,500 I started my vending machine business is right out of high school I
Invested all of my savings and it was a huge risk but I knew back then that you had to take risk especially if you wanted to start a business within just a few months haime says that machine was bringing in about $800 a month it blew
My mind it motivated me even more to go out there and buy more machines and put them on more locations and that’s exactly what I did today haime and his girlfriend Elizabeth own and operate 47 machines across the Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan area a small fraction of
The nearly 5 million machines in the US as of April 2023 the US vending machine Market was worth $10 billion I talked to some vending operators who earned up to $88,000 a year per machine based on his research of vending machine purchases made in the US between 2009 and 2012 Dr caps found
That Regional locations played a huge role in consumer Behavior those in the Midwest and the South were more likely to purchase than you no well in San Francisco in the Pacific or west region there’s no card reader on this machine but thankfully I was taught to always carry some cash thanks
Dad the average wholesale unit of a can of Coke will sell for about 52 at Sam’s Club this vending machine owner is looking at a 48% profit margin with every can of Coke purchased not bad Nationwide most machines are stocked with the basics candy chips and soda and
Despite being plastered with Pepsi and Coke logos the majority have no affiliation to Big Brands that’s because the vending machine Biz requires a lot of moving parts so it’s better suited to smaller operators like Hae and this auto shop in San Francisco which I learned has owned and operated this machine since the
1980s across his 47 machines haime does $28,000 in total revenue per month that’s roughly $36,000 a year still operating costs are steep according to a survey by hustle riter Zachary Crockett the biggest cash burners for vending machine operators in 2020 were insurance ation commissions and credit card transaction fees but
Even with half of the money going back into the business to cover things like gas payroll inventory and Warehouse rent hae’s net income is still more than the median household income in San Francisco 1300 M West in San Diego California Quinn Miller operates 57 machines that bring in $3,000 a month according to
CNBC the best part he works just six hours a week it presents a viable opportunity to earn some additional income for very little time but vending machine owners making six figures are the exception in its survey the hustle found that the average operator only owns about 13 machines that each gross
$39 per month sometimes more sometimes less throw in those overhead costs from earlier and an operator earning $55,000 a month in Revenue might only take home $2,000 but the draw of earning a passive income even on a small scale can be worth it so it’s not surprising the global vending machine Market is
Expected to rise from $18 billion in 2022 to $30 billion by 2027 I still have a long way to go but I’m glad that I did start pretty young and that this is something I want to do forever all that’s how much I enjoy it Americans we love to stuff our faces
And there’s no better place to do it than the all you can eat buffet from the salad bar to The Carving Station to the dessert trays all you can eat buffets are a hungry Diner’s paradise and there are literally hundreds of them in some states but how does a restaurant that
Serves unlimited food actually make money and is it possible to out eat an all you can eat Buffet the American style all you can eat or Ace Buffet got its start in the 1940s when a Las Vegas hotel publicist named herb McDonald put out a late night spread of cold cuts bread and cheese Hotel guests loved it and his experiment became known as the Buckaroo Buffet a
Nod to its $1 price restaurant chains like Sizzler and Golden Corral modeled their entire dining experiences on herb McDonald’s concept Sizzlers knew all you can eat buffet CT where do we start owners of a buffets entice diners with a tempting offer paying a single fixed price for any amount of food you eat
Even though most restaurants figure you’ll only eat about a pound a restaurant determines how much to charge you by dividing the average number of customers they get per day by the price they pay for their daily food selection according to a hustle analysis the average Buffet costs about $20 ahead but
It can cost restaurants1 19 of those $20 just to cover overhead leaving just $1 in profit because margins are so slim buffets rely heavily on high-foot traffic but serving so many people often results in massive amounts of food waste and in Buffet world food is money so
Buffet operators have cooked up a few hacks to survive in a world of door dashed Poke Balls step one put the cheap filling stuff at the front one study found that almost 70% of all food people eat comes from the first three trays suckers step two use smaller plates less
Space means less waste step three swap the serving utensils use larger spoons for cheap foods like mashed potatoes and small tongs for costlier items like roast beef and step four refill those water glasses but could it be physically possible to eat enough food to offset
The cost of Entry at an ace Buffet the short answer is yes even buffets take Overeaters into account because they lose money on them the good news for every overeater there’s roughly 20 normal eaters who consume a standard amount of food sometimes less in which case buffets recoup the money they lose
And to really keep things under control some buffets brand themselves as all you care to eat but the real enemy of Buffets isn’t the overindulging it’s actually big Tech in a 2019 survey by the National Restaurant Association consumers report nearly 60% of their restaurant meals were eaten off premises
Thanks to the rise of food delivery apps and mobile ordering plus our appetite for Endless eating has changed in 1998 there were 5,000 buffets in the US in 2018 that number was down to 3700 with fewer and fewer in business these days it may seem like the all you can eat
Buffet is on its way out but as an American institution of pure gluttony chances are we’ll always be hungry for more on October 21st 2022 Taylor Swift dropped her highly anticipated album midnights and broke Spotify there were so many streams Spotify crashed so much excitement so much hype it actually crashed Spotify
For a little bit Taylor Swift is the most prolific artist of our time if you think about it now in just 24 hours mid nights was streamed more than 184 million times making it the most streamed album in a single day on the platform but while it proved to be an
Instant knockout for Taylor it’s a dagger to thousands of other artists and that’s because of the tricky way musicians get paid by streaming their music on Spotify it’s so complex and convoluted anyway you have to write a 50-page freaking novel to explain how a royalty is paid on a stream to buy the
Average artist a cup of coffee you’d have to stream their music more than 1,000 times so why are artists paid so little on a platform that generates more than1 billion annually the answer boils down to two baffling payout equations that change every month as the largest platform in music
Streaming Spotify has been on top since the app debuted in 2011 today it boasts close to 200 million paid users and more than 80 million songs from 11 million artists but some of the biggest names in music have a serious bone to pick with the streaming giant including Taylor
Swift their beef artist payout on its website loud and clear Spotify explains that it does not pay artists or songwriters directly instead Spotify pays the rights holders hold up exactly who are these rights holders let’s take it back to before Spotify was Spotify ahead of its launch CEO Daniel e set up
A royalty payment structure that agreed to send approximately 67% of revenue from music streams back to rights holders including record labels which usually reap the biggest benefits he also gave three of the biggest labels a combined 18% ownership stake in the company and that’s really how Spotify
Was allowed to succeed it’s more about how can we raise our stock price how can we get dividends back to our shareholders the artist is the afterthought according to Jeff definitive guide to Spotify royalties Spotify pays two separate royalties to stream a song one for the recording and
One for the composition in both cases Spotify takes money out of its monthly net revenue pot to pay the royalty fees it owes record labels and songwriters but how it distributes that money varies based on who it’s paying and how many times their music was streamed on
Spotify in a given month compared to the total number of streams on the platform this is what Spotify calls stream share and it’s usually dominated by bigname artists like Taylor Swift so if you have one artist going super viral it takes up a lot of that oxygen each artist now has
To contend with Taylor Swift taking up a greater share of the pot that they all share compared to apple music and Amazon Spotify has one of the lowest payout rates in the world of music streaming and here’s where things get even more complicated stay with me on this record
Labels get paid for for a song recording based on their previously negotiated royalty rate with Spotify but songwriters can’t negotiate royalty rates for their compositions take the song I Will Always Love You recorded by Whitney Houston written by Dolly Parton recording artists like Whitney get paid
Whatever cut of the deal is outlined in their contracts but the US government establishes a fixed rate for Dolly’s cut so this is why artists get they don’t have a singular voice they don’t have the lobbying power and so complex combined with the history of exploitation and new goals based on
Market share the artists are the roadkill in a Mad Max movie in November 2019 music rights holders and distributors in the US earned 0.0004 cents in royalties per stream on Spotify while self-published songwriters earn .5 despite once claiming it was never built to help artists make a living
Spotify has made more of an effort to help artists mon ize their music Beyond streaming they can now link directly to their merchandise and concert ticket sales on the app and get paid directly by fans via cash app AKA the artist tip jar still these features may not be
Enough to convert the many critics of Spotify from industry insiders to the reigning queen of streaming herself I’m not going back to school but I do need more pens so take when was the last time you bought something for just $1 or even $125 for me it was probably a pack of
Gum like 10 years ago at one of thousands of dollar stores in the US George Washington can buy you batteries picture frames and condiments all for a fraction of what they cost at other chain stores I mean I can breathe in the direction of a Walmart and it cost me
$40 but are dollar stores really as wallet friendly as we think many people believe that it is cost effective but in reality it often is not so then why do we keep shopping at Dollar stores and how do they manage to stay afloat on such teeny tiny Sales today there are more dollar stores in the US than CVS Walgreens Walmart and Target locations combined and there are two chains that dominate the market Dollar General and Dollar Tree just a few months ago dollar General announced the opening of its 19,000 store that’s more locations in
The US than McDonald’s and despite selling items for as little as $1 a pop these corporations can generate as much as $30 billion in annual revenue that’s because Dollar Store profit margins are relatively High Dollar General makes basically 30 cents on the dollar in profit for every you know sales dollar
Which is more than Walmart achieves how is that possible dollar stores buy their inventory in enormous bulk quantities which allows you to buy that pack of birthday candles for just $1 even though they bought it for only 21 speaking of commonly shopped items like birthday candles are intentionally
Placed at the back of the store by putting staple items here dollar stores Force Shoppers to weave through other aisles first resulting in impulse buys and increasing their grand totals at checkout according to numerator the average Dollar General customer spends $641 a year while the average Target customer spends nearly twice that amount
So then it is more cost effective to shop at Dollar stores right take this 1.7 o bottle of pantin shampoo on a per ounce basis it’s actually more expensive to buy this size for $125 than it is to buy at full size and full price somewhere else what the dollar stores do
In order to keep their prices at a dollar or in the case of Dollar Tree $125 five is that they pressure their product manufacturers their their wholesalers to create smaller products for them so it’s really false economy nearly 90% of Americans have visited a dollar store at some point in their
Lives so what keeps us coming back for more tiny shampoos that’s ultimately what it comes down to I don’t I don’t have choices to shop elsewhere I can see how it would be so difficult for a family for a single mom to make it in this economy right now Rebecca robot
Started her YouTube channel Dollar Tree dinners 2 years ago and has since launched a Tik Tok account with 1 million followers her recipes max out at just $258 per person and are exclusively sourced from Dollar Tree stores in her area I get messages from several people
Who say that they’re only able to feed themselves or they’re only able to feed their families because I taught them how to shop at Dollar Tree in a time when grocery prices are so insanely High according to the American American Journal of Public Health dollar stores are now the fastest growing food
Retailers for homes in the US and they’re especially present in food deserts where access to Fresh affordable Food is Almost non-existent it’s clear that they obviously are targeting for the most part lower income communities whether it’s a rural community or whether it’s an urban neighborhood this
Is a map of food insecurity rates into Cab County Georgia just outside of Atlanta and this is a heat map of dollar stores in the area as a state Georgia has the second highest dollar store count in the US and according to county commissioner Lorraine Cochran Johnson
There are 70 in De Cab County alone three of which are located less than 2 mi apart obviously it’s just one down the road generally good thing yeah they have a lot of things that you can get in there and it’s very convenient cuz I just live down the street it’s cheap and
Convenient in a request for comment the Dollar General Corporation told the hustle that approximately 75% of Americans live live within 5 m of a Dollar General store but according to the institute for local self-reliance more dollar stores often means less access to fresh produce and groceries if
You get two or three of these within sort of a concentrated area it makes it almost impossible for a full-service grocery store to survive and for a new grocery store to even consider opening Dollar General says its stores operate alongside local Grocers and claims they are not a grocery store but still offer
Comp components of a nutritious meal buying a can of chicken at $125 might not be a good value as opposed to buying a pack of chicken but for somebody who lives in their car they don’t have means to cook a fresh pack of chicken so that precooked can of chicken is their only
Option most dollar store shoppers make less than $40,000 a year but now six figure households are more likely to shop at Dollar Stores than they were last year the reason my dollar is on inflation between 2021 and 2022 the purchasing power of Mr Washington declined about 7.4% due to inflation and
After 35 years of keeping its prices at just $1 Dollar Tree Incorporated announced in 2021 that the majority of its products would now cost a25 according to then president and CEO Michael winsky the increase in price would give customers access to a broader product selection is to protect that
Profit margin because things are costing them more something you can still buy for just $1 greeting cards I guess you can never have too many there’s something magical about pumpkins we eat drink and carve them up every year and there’s one place you’re guaranteed to find the perfect one the
Pumpkin patch in 20121 the US produced roughly 1.8 billion pounds of pumpkins but most pumpkin patches are only open from mid-september to Mid November so how do they stay afloat the other 10 months of the year let’s start from the ground up Selling pumpkins at a pumpkin patch is not only great for our Instagrams it can also turn a pretty good profit a farmer that sells their pumpkins directly to Consumers can bring in 10 times more money than selling them wholesale to Big grocery chains but owning and operating a seasonal Enterprise isn’t easy pumpkin
Patches rely on yearround luck and strategy to be a Smash Hit in just a few months time yet the increasing profit ility of pumpkins in recent years makes the gourd worth a grind in 2021 Americans plan to spend a record breaking $10 billion on Halloween and
According to axios 2022 is shaving up to be another big year for the industry a typical farmer can plant 3,000 Jack lanterns per acre of Farmland but after the Harvest not every pumpkin is sellable sometimes only half the pumpkins planted make it to the patch an acre of sellable pumpkins pric priced at
$483 each can produce a rough profit range of $3,000 to $88,000 per acre depending on the overhead costs of fertilizer labor and insurance it’s not a small chunk of change but a lot has to go right in the months leading up to harvest in order for a successful season
To follow the best time of year to plant pumpkins is from early May through the end of June although different pumpkins mature at different speeds pumpkins are a lot like fashion what was trendy last year may not be as popular this year so it pays to plant a variety of unique varieties
Of course the most popular pumpkin variety is the Jackal Lantern which takes more than 100 days to mature but timing is only half the battle the other half is far less controllable like any crop pumpkins require optimal weather conditions to make it through the growing season if it gets too hot
Pumpkins can mature too early and show up in a August too cold and they’ll still be green in October and don’t even get me started on what happens when there’s too much rain or not enough yes Mother Nature can make or break the growing season but after the Harvest
It’s all about business most patches establish multiple streams of Revenue to maximize seasonal profits especially Urban patches Mr Bones is located in Culver City California and there’s no shortage of photo ops the cost of admission ranges from 10 $1 to $30 depending on when you go further north
In sish Washington Craven Farm sells all ofart tickets for activities like it’s $5 hay ride and apple cannons and let’s not forget all the opportunities to sell mouthwatering treats like apple cider and pumpkin Donuts hard to believe the pumpkin was once the food of Desperate Times talk about a plot twist and as
America’s obsession with the magical orange fruit continues to grow the pros are running a profitable patch in just 2 months time continue to outweigh the cons year out this is the P Dome an inactive volcano in central France that sits more than 1400 m above sea level
It’s been a Roman Temple a tourist destination and one of the hardest stages in the Tour of France the most famous cycling race in the world there are three types of stages you have stages for the sprinters for the attackers and for the climbers this year
The pad doome returns after 35 years off the route and is one of 8 m Mountain stages in the 21 stage tour well it starts in the beginning already with um with some serious climbing and then they immediately go into the pyrames after that it will be relatively calm and then
They have freed the D then after that it’s it’s relatively calm again and I think the end is pretty highish but this story isn’t about how hard the tour to France is it’s about the money that’s fueled the Race’s Legacy for more than a century money is what and profit is what
Motivates every single component of the tour to France from the Riders to the sponsor to the tour itself I don’t think it’s fair to say that that’s the only thing that makes the sport work or makes this event work so how does an event that’s free to the public make enough
Money to command the world stage every year and is all that climbing really worth it historically the Tor of France has cashed in a few different ways auctioning off stops along the route to the highest bidding cities charging companies a fee to follow writers and publicity care an and allowing local
Brands to sponsor the tour but it wasn’t until the late’ 60s that the tour to France actually became profitable thanks to its current owner the Amory Sports organization or ASO they have been kind of this focus of criticism about the role of money in sport ever since they were founded while TV broadcasting
Rights now make up the largest piece of the tourist Revenue town hosting fees and publicity Caravans still bring in a significant chunk of change with some Brands paying up to $700,000 to be one of the more than 200 Cars following the pelaton no not that pelaton that Paton
But that’s nothing compared to what some companies pay to sponsor entire teams I know that our budget during 1997 in 1998 was probably under 5 million would would seem quite small in today’s world this is Marty Json a professional cyclist from Salt Lake City Utah and a two-time
Rider for the US in the tour to France in the late 90s the team’s title sponsor was the United States Postal Service I also did hear that you know the Postal Service had never spent marketing dollars anywhere that was as successful as the dollars they spent with the team
Teams that compete in the tour rely almost exclusively on title sponsors for funding with some recent budgets exceeding $50 million in return title sponsors get to name the team and put their logo on everything most importantly on jerseys at times writers will even break away from the pelaton
Just to give their sponsors more air time the the live cameras helicopters over their heads and then the motorcycle camera so they can be on TV for hours the rider will turn themselves inside out to keep that sponsor on the television screen since the tour was founded in 1903 sponsors and writers
Have been Banning together to secure a tour to France win on red range envisioned this as being an individual’s race uh where the longest cyclist over 3 weeks would win the Tour but in practice what really happened was that there were these Stables of riders who were all
Sponsored by the same people and so they colluded unofficially with each other to help a few of the big Stars win today the writer who wins the tour with the fastest overall time walks away with the iconic yellow Jersey and more than $500,000 in cash prizes while the
Slowest writers take home much less the teams that perform worse in the Tour of France come out of that tour with like a few thousand bucks in priz man and they you’ve been riding through hell for 3 weeks as for the ASO they give away more
Than $2 million in cash prizes but are notoriously secretive about how much money they take in from the tour when we reached out a spokesperson told us that the organization does not communicate on the topic of business but according to sources the hustle spoke with in 2020 it’s estimated that the tour’s total
Revenue ranges from $60 to $150 million and Based on data collected in the last decade the aso’s tour profits could range roughly from 12 to $30 million maybe it’s true maybe it’s not and maybe maybe they’re making even more money but the thing is it’s not always about the
Money that’s especially true for cyclists who often get the short end of the stick when it comes to benefiting from the sports business model but it seems the Tor of France will always attract the world’s top riders for richer or poorer that is your Utopia is
To be at the most challenging event on the planet that is everything ah the mouthwatering role of the gas station hot dog you may see it as a stomach ache waiting to happen but what if I told you that this $2 Marvel is the Saving Grace of most gas station owners especially
When the price of gas goes up because ironically most gas stations make literal Pennies from selling their core product so how do they stay in business and stay relevant in economy that favors going electric allow me to pump some Insight here’s the problem making gas is expensive it starts as crude oil sourced in States like Texas and North Dakota then gets shipped to refineries where it’s processed into gasoline by the time it reaches the pump the profit is only a fraction of the price listed on the sign
There’s a lot of variance in how much station owners make on gas but on average the markup on a gas gallon is around 30 after accounting for the overhead costs of Maintenance credit card fees and theft the average profit per gallon is just 5 to 7 cents let’s
Say your local station makes 5 cents off a gallon of gas even if they sell 4,000 gallons in a day they’re still only taking home 200 bucks that’s a lower profit margin than grocery stores one of the lowest margin businesses so why don’t they just raise their prices well
Have you ever ever wondered why gas stations are almost always located right across the street from one another each station wants to be where the most drivers are like freeway exits and drive-throughs so raising prices often means losing customers and that loss is felt even more in a tough economy yep
They hate this inflation crap as much as the rest of us inflation so how do they stay in business it may surprise you to learn that the lighters candy even that questionable sush sui sold at gas station convenience stores bring in 70% of total profits according to a study
Conducted by the National Association of convenience stores 44% of gas station customers go inside among them one in three ends up indulging in some kind of trait and that conversion rate is crucial because gas stations are dying great in 1995 there were close to 200,000 gas stations in the US today
There are only about 115,000 some have gone away thanks to the boom of electric vehicles but others have stayed relevant by installing costly EV charging units so whether you’re filling your tank or charging your Tesla what drives a gas station’s business has little to do with fueling
Your car it’s that quick trip inside their convenience store that makes all the difference where those $2 hot dogs are as much a snack as a secret weapon on November 6th 2022 Carnival’s giant new Celebration cruise ship embarked on its maiden voyage from Europe to Miami along the way it raised the flag
Of the Bahamas making it one of roughly 100 cruise ships registered to the island nation for centuries ships have flown the flags of other countries and some Cruise Lines select countries for their ships with one thing in mind money they have millions of American passengers but when you look at the
Numbers Behind These companies it’s pretty astonishing to learn the extent to which they go to avoid paying into the US tax system on top of that the industry’s major players make billions through a laundry list of onboard Secrets most of which are hidden in plain Sight as of December 2022 there were roughly 300 cruise ships in operation around the world those 300 ships host over 30 million passengers every year out of all of these monster ocean liners Carnival celebration ranks among the largest with enough rooms to accommodate a small American town on board
Passengers can choose from more than 20 restaurants two of which were co-created with the mayor of flavor toown himself guy Fetti grabbing a bite at gu burger joint is included in the price of a ticket while dining at his Pig and Anchor Restaurant is not a typical cruise ship to Charlie earning about
$100 net profit per passenger per day just from onboard spending so when I say you know they’re they’re Artful in being able to get their hands people’s pockets um you know it’s almost an understatement our breakdown found that for a pre-pandemic 7-Day Cruise in 2018 the average passenger spent
$1,060 on a ticket and $650 on board after subtracting overhead costs a ship made out with roughly $291 in net profit per passenger per Cruise that’s higher than the profit margin of global Hotel chain Hilton and here’s where those flags come into play according to International maritime law
A ship must prove it has a genuine link to its country of registry but when it comes to cruise ships not everyone is convinced that link is so genuine well a lot of people say that’s actually the benefits that these countries get from the cruise lines are actually fairly insignificant
And nominal compared to the revenue that the cruise lines make off of these relationships take the carnival Corporation for example since it’s founding in 1972 Carnival has been Incorporated in the Republic of Panama and headquartered in Miami Florida but ships like the celebration fly the flag of the Bahamas why Carnival tells us
It’s because the Bahamas has the world’s leading registry for vessels in the cruise industry and it’s where their ships spend the most time but critics of the cruise industry argue that foreign flags are flown to avoid paying millions of dollars in US taxes it’s purely an
Economic uh arrang M you give the panan government Dex millions of dollars and they give you the flag and everybody’s happy under an obscure Century old section of the US tax code the earnings derived from foreign Incorporated vessels remain tax-free in the US so basically the law incentivizes foreign
Registration and reduces the amount of taxes cruise ships are required to pay Carnival told the hustle that in 2019 it paid the majority of its $71 million in federal corporate tax tax to the US government but according to NBC without a legal tax exemption it would have paid
Closer to 600 million the irony Cruise radio estimates that cruise lines typically pay a lower Federal corporate tax rate than the Us corporate tax rate of 21% and yet still benefit from Services funded by taxpayer dollars especially when ship happens when the carnival Splender engine caught fire off the
Coast of San Diego in 2010 it required $3.4 million in government recovery Aid the cost for a person overboard could be up to a couple million dollars when cruise ships have lost power and gone a drift at Sea those recoveries have been in millions of dollars and medical emergencies dozens of new cases
Confirmed today a growing crisis rather aboard cruise ships penned up in quarantine lied to by Cruise officials it’s total lockdown at the onset of the covid-19 pandemic Cruise stocks plummeted more than 60% in just 3 months and 2020 quickly became the worst year on record for the industry without
Business ties to the US government most Cruise Lines weren’t eligible for federal stimulus so they turned to the American taxpayer again we ask you to book a future princess Cruz to your dream destination as a sign of encouragement for our team I actually called norwegian’s Cruise booking
Hotline in March of 2020 and I asked them is it safe to go on a cruise ship right now and a salesperson told me that Corona virus didn’t exist in tropical climates which you know is not true but the economic Tides May soon be turning in favor of cruise lines in August 2022
Bloomberg reported that Carnival Cruise bookings nearly doubled and the leading Global Cruise industry trade group expects demand for cruises to surpass pre-o Levels by the end of 2023 whether or not the cruise industry sinks or swims it’s unlikely its major players will change their methods for making a
Quick Buck both on board and on the high seas there’s an old Broadway saying that goes you can’t make a living but you can make a killing but when a show appears to be on the verge of flopping sometimes it kills its Leading Lady when the musical Revival of funny girl opened at
The August Wilson theater actress beanie felstein stepped into the starring role but just 4 months and a handful of scathing reviews later feldstein prematurely took her final vout and just Weeks Later the production announced her replacement actress leam Michelle according to variety the average ticket during feldstein’s run sold for about
$100 Michelle’s opening a week charged $2500 for the best seats in the house and $570 for the worst casting strong leads isn’t the only thing that can make or break a Show’s financial success so what goes into up producing a Broadway hit and are Broadway shows really as profitable as they Appear theatrical performances have been happening on Broadway in New York City since before the Revolutionary War you know that one from Hamilton today Broadway encompasses 41 theaters in Midtown Manhattan each with 500 seats or more preo Broadway gross nearly $2 billion during the 2018 2019 season
Variety called it a new golden age then Co hit dimming Broadways lights for a full 18 months and since its reopening in September 2021 profits have barely scraped the $1 billion Mark there are lots of different ways to be part of the business of Broadway and lots of
Different ways to make or lose money this is Dr Derek Miller a professor theater historian and principal investigator of the visualizing Broadway project Broadway is just complex enough to be totally fast fting and just small enough to be at least feel a little graspable a little bit like one can
Actually sort of get one’s arms around it to understand how Broadway has endured crises like covid and the Great Depression you have to understand how it makes money on Bradway Productions kick off like any other business with money from investors they typically give producers between 25 and
$50,000 each to cover a Show’s upfront costs for musicals that number is about 10 to to $20 million or $70 million if you’re Spider-Man then comes sorting out the weekly production budget the biggest costs are salaries and theater expenses keep in mind most shows run six days a
Week with only one dark day you almost never see shows performing on Mondays but some shows have started to change that they’re saying hey look we don’t have any competition maybe Monday is a good night to try to run this production we can catch a certain kind of audience
During Broadway’s Golden Age season audience numbers peaked at nearly 14.8 million people a dream for theater owners they take home 5 to 7% of the weekly box office gross plus an additional flat fee of $10 to $220,000 according to variety leam Michelle’s opening week a funny girl gross $2
Million breaking box office records for the August Wilson theater but what about when a show underperforms to protect themselves financially theater owners and producers usually set up something called a stop Clause the stop Clause fundamentally protects the producers from being evicted as long as they’re running above
The stop Clause the theater says if you don’t make x amount of the box office potential for 2 weeks in a row then we can throw you out when Beetlejuice the musical reportedly failed to meet its ticket Revenue quota for two consecutive weeks in 2019 it was evicted from the
Winter Garden theater it’s replacement the music Man starring A-list actor Hugh Jackman according to Broadway producer Ken Davenport only 20% of producers and investors recoup the money they invest in a show and funny girl just might make the cut before it closes this September even rarer are the breakout successes of
New musicals like Hamilton the New York Times reported that it cost $12.5 million up front to produce the show less than a year into its run it had fully recouped every penny the the biggest piece of the recouping equation is ticket sales the goal is to sell
Enough tickets at a high enough price to exceed the weekly operating costs of Production shows today use something called Dynamic pricing which means they adjust the price for almost every seat in the house based on demand a tactic also used by Airlines so fundamentally what producers need to understand is the
Relationship between what it’s going to cost them weekly to perform the show and the potential income they can earn at the theater and leam Michelle’s case that number is still in the high 200s and could go even higher as the show nears close which is most likely why
She’s the face of funny girl shows change stars for all kinds of reasons the number one reason is that the star is not doing this thing a star should do which is to attract audiences to a production and like that other Broadway saying goes that’s show
Biz this is an Airbus a350 it’s roughly the length of a football field and holds more than 3 300 passengers and this is me the anxious traveler in seat 23k most of us are all too familiar with the wo of modern-day air travel especially postco it’s a far cry from
How the industry actually started out roll tape welcome aboard welcome aboard the spacious cabin attractively decorated air conditioned but dve and you know it was kind of An Affair To Go flying uh now it’s more like trying to avoid the pain points of flying pain points like long lines longer
Delays and shoving your appropriately sized carry-on luggage into the overhead compartment according to the Federal Aviation Administration nearly 3 million people fly in and out of US airports every day but not every passenger generates revenue for the more than $750 billion global airline industry Airlines actually make very little money
If any money off of actually flying in many cases they actually lose money on on that physical ticket that you’ve purchased but there is one ticket that does help Airlines land a profit so which one is it and which ticket is the best value for your money most airlines offer four classes
Of seating economy premium economy business and first class and a growing demand for perks like comfier seats has major US Airlines like American and Delta expanding their higher price seating offers by 25 to 75% the reason Co gave Leisure Travelers a chance to experience life at the front of the
Plane now as Airlines look to recoup their losses postco having extra leg room will cost you on average Americans are paying almost 20% more for airfare in 2023 the difference in price between my premium economy ticket and a business class ticket on my 10hour on my
10hour where did I go on my 10-hour flight from LAX to London Heathrow was about $700 and it’s a similar price breakdown for domestic flights too a recent sample roundtrip ticket from New York to Los Angeles on three major airlines started at about $300 for economy $900 for
Premium economy and $1,200 for business there’s a lot of separation between these um classes and Airlines will do basically anything to try to extract either a more money or more miles from you right and they sort of guilt you into it Airlines use something called Dynamic pricing to sell seats it’s a
Strategy where businesses adjust the prices for their offerings to account for changing demand of course the faar goes up uh but it’s also not uncommon to see very last minute tickets you know let’s say even for tonight or tomorrow drop really low because the airline says
Okay we’ve got x amount of seats left over we’re likely not going to sell it for a higher price let’s offer it for something Airlines aim to fill 100% of the the seats on their aircrafts to turn a profit or at least 70% to break even as reported by Forbes during the
Pandemic but some seats are more important to fill than others so which class of seating generates the most Revenue if you answered C first class you’re wrong it’s actually those slightly less bougie business Flyers that generate the most profits on Long Haul flights like mine still jet lagged
And I lost my neck pillow again Columbia business school professor Jeffrey heel told the hustle that one business traveler pays for five to six economy Travelers so what exactly makes business class best inclass for most Airlines Airlines measure profit per square foot and the average business class seat
Takes up 10 ft of space according to upgraded points compared to economy and premium economy they’re only 30% roomier yet they can cost three times as much some of the biggest selling points along along with more space our faster check-in airport lounge access and of course better food and drinks take
Business flyers on British Airways on some flights they even enjoy high tea in the afternoon it’s very fancy a higher level of service up here means Airlines can charge 3 to five times more money for these seats to cover their overhead both on board and behind the scenes
According to Forester research if US Airlines don’t make improvements to their customer experience they risk forfeiting an average of $1.4 billion in annual revenue that cash is largely generated by loyalty programs as business traveler reports they’re the secret Cash Cow of the airline industry and in some cases are valued higher than
The airline itself I am very Pro status I I happen to have American Top tier status just a few days ago my parents were flying out to Las Vegas their flight canceled it was on American so of course I immediately called American and I got them a seat within 5 minutes of
That cancellation major airlines in the US aren’t the only ones capitalizing on their High spending business Flyers entire business only Boutique airlines are emerging worldwide like Frances La comp and the MDES Beyond it’s a concept not far from the Golden Age of travel when everyone on board got the same
Level of service but while you might think selling only business class seats could lead to higher profits most single class Airlines tend to fail it’s not like uh United where they’ve got crew all around the country different bases different hubs with a smaller Airline like that you may be the only one flying
That day and so you know for them to recover it’s going to be a lot harder whichever Airline you choose to fly or class of seating you choose to buy airfare in general is 177% more expensive than it was a year ago so which seat is really worth your money
And worth losing your neck pillow it’s entirely up to you I like to sit in first class don’t we all so I’ll find ways to you know make that happen if you’re smart enough you can really find good fairs good opportunities to upgrade I have a friend his sort of Mantra is
Either you turn left into the premium cabin or you turn around and get off the plane oh Christmas tree oh Christmas tree how profitable are thy branches at an average price of $78 each Christmas trees make up a $2 billion a year business but it isn’t as Holly Jolly as
It sounds because for every year trees are sold it takes about 9 more years to grow them all over again throw in the growth of the artificial tree business and farmers are looking at one blue blue Christmas so how do they recoup the money they miss out on while their trees
Flourish and can they compete against the increasingly popular fake Tree every year about 25 million Christmas trees are sold in the US but before we’re rocking around our Christmas trees at home Christmas tree farmers are waiting because almost all varieties of the Christmas tree follow the same general production cycle after being purchased as a Seedling a single
Tree spends 2 years in the nursery then gets planted in its own 6×6 plot of land where it grows and grows and grows for almost a decade until it finally reaches a mature 6 ft that’s the same amount of time it takes to become a licensed physician and during that time it’s a
Bit of a financial black hole for Farmers because land labor and equipment is expensive and a lot can happen during those 10 revolutions around the Sun but if all good things really do come to those who wait then Christmas tree farming is no exception in 2019 The
Washington Post reported that 98% of all real Christmas trees on the market came from tree farms but it all depends on what things will look like 10 years out because planting too many trees could flood the market while planting too few could cause a shortage like during the 2008 recession when struggling Farmers
Dipped below their usual planting quota 8 years later prices spiked and have trended upward ever since but when the waiting game is over and the time comes to finally sell farmers can either go with u cut which allows the public to cut down their own trees or wholesale
Which supplies the tree lots that pop up right after Thanksgiving Farmers typically earn $8 to $10 per tree that’s $1 per tree per year of growth still striking a wholesale deal with a major retailer like the Home Depot could net seven figures and while that’s great for
Farmers once the retailer has the trees it typically marks them up by 100% or more a price hike that inspires some holiday Shoppers to buy their trees in a box behold the artificial Christmas tree looks like a tree smells like plastic but their public appeal only seems to
Keep growing in 2019 American bought nearly the same amount of artificial trees as real trees unlike the real thing fake trees take minutes to manufacture and can sometimes retail for more and while the faux fur Market has made big gains in recent years it’s unlikely to stop Christmas tree Farmers
From taking their own 10-year Journey because according to the purists you just can’t beat the real thing every year Americans spend billions of dollars on gift cards and every year billions of dollars worth of gift cards go unspent gift cards are a cash equivalent that can be used at nearly any store or
Restaurant for the Gift Giver it’s a hassle-free OneStop shopping experience and for the gift opener it’s one less present to fake being excited about but when a gift card goes unused there’s only one winner the companies that sell the cards get in losers we’re not going Shopping there are countless reasons why gift cards go unused they expire get get lost or we don’t like the restaurant or retailer that issued them I’m no stranger to unused gift cards I have an entirely separate wallet for my collection according to an August 2022 survey 47% of us adults say
They have at least one unused gift card voucher or store credit that adds up to $21 billion Nationwide although many people say they plan to spend the money around 6% of gift cards are never used according to a study by andur marketing me I still have fully loaded gift cards
From my sweet 16 but the fact is if you don’t use them you better prepare to lose them between 2006 and 2018 gift card sales skyrocketed in 2018 alone those sales totaled $160 billion this entire chart represents one trillion dollars of sales and depending on where you live certain states have
Laws that allow gift cards to to incur inactivity fees if they aren’t used within 12 months these fees often range from $2 to $5 per month which can quickly eat up your balance lucky for me it’s illegal to charge these types of fees in California
So this has yet to become a gift card graveyard but where does the money go when it’s left unused when you buy a gift card you essentially exchange cash for credit that can be used later big companies like Cheesecake Factory don’t count that money as Revenue until your
Next shopping spree eating spree and because most gift cards can’t expire for 5 years under federal law companies have to plan for the possibility that they may not be redeemed until way into the future and until that day comes those unused balances are flagged as liabilities often amounting to massive
Sums of money but after a certain amount of time the law allows companies to estimate the amount of gift card money that will never be redeemed those sums are called breakage income and they’re essentially free cash for the company to put it into perspective the money that Starbucks earned in breakage income in
2017 could have covered 57 million cups of coffee despite this retailers actually make more money when consumers spend their gift cards the reason customers typically feel inclined to spend more than the amount they were gifted they also tend to buy items at full price still if you’re like me and
You’re having trouble spending your cards you should know there’s an entire ecosystem of sites where gift cards can be exchanged for cash up to 90% of their value bye-bye plastic Purgatory today I am shopping for Thanksgiving dinner it’s the most popular holiday in the US and
Yet some Americans are opting to skip it why take a look at this graph it tracks the average cost of our Thanksgiving dinners over the last 20 years as expected the price has steadily increased 3 % on average every year since 2003 then it seemed to almost
Level out until the pandemic hit in 2020 but what happened here in 2022 when costs increased by a record 20% we really had a convergence of various factors that kind of came together and compounded each other resulting in some of the highest price increases that
We’ve seen in a generation if I were a dinner roll where would I be so will this year’s grand total top out at another alltime high and why is it costing us so much more to enjoy Thanksgiving the price of our Thanksgiving meals gets called into question every year with media Outlets warning of skyrocketing prices especially ahead of the holidays food prices are high this year’s Thanksgiving dinner will cost you more inflation tends to creep prices up every year and with droughts changes in consumer demand
And fuel costs impacting us more in recent years food prices are becoming even more volatile too ironically the first Thanksgiving in 1621 was held to celebrate the Abundant Harvest that year ooh cute dog now it’s a window into some of the biggest problems facing the American economy problems like supply
Chain issues and labor shortages generally speaking price increases for food at the grocery store is around 1 to 2% from year-over-year but over the past 3 years we have seen a significant departure from that average we reached double digit price increases in August of last year and this is because there
Are a lot of factors that have affected both the supply and the demand for food over the last decade the cost of our Thanksgiving meal rarely exceeded $50 to feed 10 people but in 2022 it shot up to $64 total so what does that actually look like sides like cranberries sweet
Potatoes stuffing and rolls average between 3 to 4 bucks bus for what you’d purchase in store and if you want to talk turkey that’ll set you back almost 30 bucks okay so here’s the deal I already have a lot of what I need to make Thanksgiving dinner at home in my
Pantry and fridge things like butter milk eggs Etc but the things I don’t have I’m going to shop for today and then compare the prices of those items to what they cost last year this year I’m sticking with the classics here’s what’s on my list for sides we have
Sweet potatoes green bean casserole cranberries stuffing and dinner rolls for dessert you either love it or hate it it’s got to be pumpkin pie and of course the main event the turkey sorry guys a key factor in the cost of last year’s Thanksgiving dinner was grain Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent
Commodity prices surging to record highs the price of wheat the price of corn other grains which translates into higher feed costs when you buy a turkey at the store the average weight is about 15 lb back on the farm it takes about 3 lb of feed for one turkey to gain 1 lb
Multiply that by the estimated 46 million turkeys we eat each Thanksgiving in the US and you’re looking at 2 billion pounds of feed needed for the holiday spread to make matters worse the high paath Aven influenza AKA bird flu outbreak of 2022 drove the price of the bird up by
73% in 2023 the average price for a 16lb turkey is $27.3 a nearly 6% decrease from last year still how are consumers coping in the aftermath of record inflation shopping for food at more affordable stores is one way dollar stores are now the fastest growing food retailers for
Homes in the US skipping Thanksgiving Al together is another option one in four Americans said they were bowing out on the holiday to save money in 2022 the poorest 20% of American households spend about a third of their disposable in income on food while the average household spends roughly 12% of their
Income on food so it’s these lowincome households are the ones that are having to make real adjustments in order to put food on the Thanksgiving table and we’re all feeling it but it’s it’s hitting them the hardest so what about this year will we be carving turkeys or carrying
Takeout okay so far things in my cart are about the same if not a little more expensive than they were last year the only thing that isn’t this guy which also happens to be my favorite side but then again I do live in one of the most expensive cities in the country
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation 2023 is Thanksgiving dinner for 10 comes in at $617 almost $3 cheaper than last year as for my grand total about $50 for 6 people which isn’t bad but I definitely spent the most on the fresh produce which I probably could have bought for
Cheaper if it were hand some other tips to help you save money on your next holiday meal shop around look for the best deals don’t go shopping when you’re hungry and then you can get creative you know you can host a type of potluck Thanksgiving meal have people contribute
A dish but you don’t have to bear all the costs of preparing the meal whatever your Thanksgiving dinner looks like or cost this year remember to enjoy it with the people you love the most and now we cook Happy Thanksgiving every year around the holidays our mailboxes are flooded with
Cards that look like this and this and this since the first holiday card was sent back in 1843 the grading card industry has exploded today it’s worth $6.9 billion in the US and according to Hallmark we send over 1 billion Christmas cards every year which may
Sound like a lot but it’s actually a billion fewer than we sent a few decades ago I end up with a stack of holiday cards every year that are as thick as this 4 50 page book which I still need to read but what does it really cost to
Buy and send hundreds of holiday cards in 2023 and in a world of e-cards and social media posts why do people still bother to send them at all as a Market North America dominates the greeting card game according to the design Marketplace company minted most people send 50 to 100 cards each others
Send hundreds more I’m thinking about sending over 350 so 350 to 500 cards I will send out every year Raven wolf sends hundreds of holiday cards to total strangers and it always brought up their Spirits so I started doing it more and more and more each year and yes it costs
A lot of money now but I still do it I I wasn’t going to do it this year I said I can’t do it and I I’m doing it in 2014 time labeled Christmas cards America’s first social media and in 2021 The Washington Post reported that Millennials were embracing the tradition
As a throwback gesture as a millennial myself I’ll admit I’m a sucker for sending and receiving holiday cards and most of the ones I get include a photo of my loved ones dressed in matching outfits you guys are adorable taken by a professional photographer I’m here in
Dallas Texas at the Mustard Seed photo studio I have some of my Christmas minis today so let’s go inside the studio and check out the space this is Melissa mcowan a professional photographer based in Dallas Texas in 2020 she ditched her career as a Sports Coordinator and made photography her full-time job people
Will pay you know 315 for it 275 for a 15minute session and I’m like at first when I started all this I was like no one’s going to do that no one’s going to pay me that much money and they keep paying me and I keep raising my prices
On average Melissa’s clients spend anywhere from 200 to $800 for one of her 15minute holiday mini sessions that’s depending on what extras they order the package includes an in studio photo shoot complete with holiday backdrop sets and props a choice of eight digital prints complete with editing done by
Melissa herself and the option to purchase more photos if desired she snaps close to 500 photos in a single 15minute session and does as many as eight of them back to back I can rack up almost 2500 in just a day if I wanted to within a 2hour time frame and so from
There you can do multiple many sessions throughout the whole entire Christmas season I’m pretty much already booked in August for November and December dates on average photographers based in the US charge 100 to 250 bucks per hour depending on their skill level but when it comes to Holiday photography you’ll
Likely spend more for the opportunity to pose in front of a winter wonderland I tried my Best that’s because it cost photographers like Melissa anywhere from $60 to $250 just to rent out a studio space for 1 hour I’ll spend about maybe about $1,000 or so looking at Studios trying to pick the best one that I think my clientele would love because a lot of my
Clients they love the glamour so I’ll try to find those Studios that do offer that type of look but capturing the perfect picture is just one part of the holiday card equation next comes designing the physical card on platforms like Shutterfly selecting one of their design templates can cost you anywhere
From 70 cents to a bck 50 per card a cheaper but less personalized option is to buy Cards in bulk they’re cheap still kind of cheaper in price where they’re like 40 of them in there for six bucks which is great when it’s finally time to mail your cards the expenses keep coming
In 2023 it’ll cost you 66 cents to post one card and if you’re waiting till 202 for to send New Year’s cards prepare for another hike so what’s the grand total well if you spend $300 on professional photos another $150 on designing and printing 100 cards and 66 cents on
Sending each one you’re looking at roughly $516 to wish family and friends happy holidays expensive holidays it’s more like it unsurprisingly we’re sending fewer cards than we used to and not just because it’s ridiculously expensive a study exter University found that sending 1.3 billion holiday cards emits
As much CO2 as charging 22 billion smartphones and with most of us eventually tossing those cards in the trash guilty the popularity of sending eCards is soaring but how is the shift to digital greetings impacting business for photographers like Melissa to create an e-card you have to really set
Yourself apart from the other Powerhouse companies that are already out there so it’s all about like knowing how to design and how to do your own kind of layout to create the best ecard that you can for your clients it would be easier if you created a package for that so
It’s definitely something I would consider as for Raven she’s sending the real thing I want to give people like you know that holiday cheer I don’t like to receive I like to give that’s what I do so I just want them to be happy one down 99 to go Go