Right up there with starting a paper route and opening a lemonade stand, starting a lawn mowing business is a good ole American display of ingenuity usually reserved for the neighborhood kids. The funny thing is, I’ve heard stories through the years of people making a really good living off lawn care. Obviously the companies handling the vast corporate lawns adjacent to our highways are bringing in some $$. But with the right marketing plan and a willingness to get off your ass and work, it’s a commendable project for any entrepreneur. Read about successful lawns in St. Louis here.

You can laugh all you want about it, wonder how serious I am really being when I say this, but consider some of the upsides of having a lawn care company. First of all, it’s a service that just about everyone needs/wants, and they do so on a weekly basis here in St. Louis. The American Dream didn’t come with a turf lawn or a paved one (That would be cool though). Old people are obsessed with their lawns and their plants and their gardens. Take their money.

Doing lawn care work is also generally low-skill. You don’t have to interview potential employees based on their college degree or GPA. You just need people that will work hard and work fast. The business is also hyper-local, and you can bring in some serious cash inside a very small area. Sell to the area you know best. You live in it. That’s an advantage for sure.

It’s also something you can put an ample amount of time into and still have a regular full-time job. Cut, aerate and fertilize on the weekends. Or perhaps in the early morning or early evenings on weekdays. And for another kicker, you can typically get paid in cash. I hear that can be beneficial when you logon to Turbo Tax each year.

So while I’m generally an internet entrepreneur-type, I’d be more than happy to be running a lawn care biz any time. My boy Tim is even using the lawn care SERPs to supplant his business and it’s working well. Maybe there’s a chance to cash in for ranking #1 for ’st. louis lemonade stand’ after all.

I think the most important takeaway is to consider that a lot of budding entrepreneurs out there spend too much time worrying about finding an innovative idea to make them rich. Re-inventing the wheel is all good, but you don’t have to do that to become rich. You don’t have to do that to do something commendable. Maybe you’ve got a new twist or a slick marketing angle, but most successful businesses are still at their core something very traditional. Lawn care, financial services, retail items. It might not make headlines, but headlines don’t buy beach condos or early retirement. Cash does.