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Buy panels, drop them at a construction site, collect rent for eight months while doing nothing — $20-30K per job, sold for $600K after 18 months
several hundred thousand in revenue during the run · sold the company for $600,000 after 18 months
"For max two days at the very start and two days at the very end you're working. And for the rest you're just collecting a check." He sold it because it got so passive he was bored — and says he regrets it.
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This comes from Brandon Doyle on Chris Koerner's podcast, describing a friend's business — so it's second-hand, and the numbers are recollections rather than statements. Read it with that caveat, which is set out fully in the credibility note. The friend started a temporary fence rental business in a suburb of Sacramento — deliberately not a big city. Doyle is emphatic that he brought nothing to it: "he had no domain expertise at all before starting and but he's a smart guy and he's a good salesman." The business is renting temporary fencing to construction sites. Most jurisdictions require an active construction site to be fenced, which means every new build in the area is a buyer with a deadline and no discretion about whether to purchase. He bought panels — mostly plastic barriers with panels between them, spaced around twelve feet apart. Then he drove around looking for new construction sites that hadn't got their fencing up yet, walked into the site trailer, found whoever was in charge, and offered to rent them his. Doyle's version of the pitch: "Do you want a temporary fence? I'll rent you mine. For cheap." The numbers Doyle gives: "I asked him he'd make like 20 to 30k a job. That was like his average job. And you could set up a job in a day." He started it in the summer of a couple of years prior, "made several hundred grand while doing it and then sold the company for 600 grand 18 months later." The reason for the sale is the most revealing detail in the whole segment. He sold because he was bored — every panel he owned was out on a job earning money, and there was nothing left to do. Doyle: "it was literally too passive for him. So he's like, I'm just going to sell the company." And now he regrets it.
The prospecting method was driving around. He had no domain expertise before starting, worked a suburb of Sacramento rather than a big city, and looked for new construction sites that did not have fencing up yet.
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Data credibility: 📎 Creator-Reported and second-hand. Brandon Doyle describes a friend's business on Chris Koerner's podcast; the operator is never named, never interviewed, and no documents, contracts, dashboards or sale paperwork are shown. The core figures — a $20,000-$30,000 average job, 'several hundred grand' in revenue during the run, and a $600,000 sale after 18 months — are Doyle's recollections of conversations with his friend. Pricing detail is explicitly uncertain: Doyle gives '$4 a linear foot' dropping toward '$2 a foot' for longer terms, and the two hosts then debate live on air whether that rate is monthly or one-time, concluding it's probably monthly without confirming it. Their own worked example contains an arithmetic slip (a 900ft × 100ft lot is described as 1,000 linear feet of perimeter). Nothing is disclosed about the panel inventory purchased, its cost, the crew size, storage, insurance, or collection terms. The regulatory claim that construction sites must be fenced within a set number of days is Koerner speculating ('That's probably the rule'), not a verified requirement — check your own jurisdiction before relying on it.
The order of operations is the lesson. Sell the job, then buy the panels.
The compounding here is mechanical rather than viral. The equipment pays for itself in something like one to six rentals, and after that the same panels keep earning rent with no maintenance, no consumables and nothing to clean, so every completed job throws off cash that buys the next batch of fencing.
This business has an unusual version of the problem, because the quiet stretch is the profitable part and it is what ended the company. After two days of install, a job sends no signals at all for eight months or more.
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