Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Six months ago, Hannah quit her corporate job because she was completely burned out. She just wanted more autonomy and something that felt meaningful.

So she started small.

First, a tiny farmers market in her front yard.
Then an $11/month snail mail club.

Fast forward and she now has 4,100 subscribers and nearly $50K/month in recurring revenue, with around $25K in profit.

No paid ads.
No complicated funnel.
Just telling her story online and sending real letters in the mail.

In this episode, we break down how it grew so fast, why people are craving physical products again, how she keeps churn low, and how this exact model could work for photographers, writers, hobbyists, or anyone with a niche.

18 hours ago | [YT] | 7

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Most people think you need trucks, tools, and a full crew to start a local service business.

Not true.

In this episode, I sit down with Jeff. He has a W2 job, a wife, two kids… and he started a concrete leveling business on the side. He doesn’t own the equipment. He doesn’t have employees. He just finds the jobs, subcontracts the work, and keeps the margin.

He’s already done nearly $20K in revenue, averages around $2,500 per job, and even had a $10K revenue week from just three jobs. We break down the exact math, how he gets leads, and what it would actually take to scale this to $10K/month in profit without quitting your job.

19 hours ago | [YT] | 15

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Kids like this today will be billionaires in a few decades.

It's a privilege to work with them on a regular basis!

The hard part is having to say no to 99% of them due to time constraints.

2 days ago | [YT] | 245

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

70% of US jobs are exposed to AI and the next 5 years are going to be wild.

Look, I’m not here to sell you "doom and gloom" but we have to look at the numbers.

Right now, about 25% of jobs could be fully performed by AI, and in sectors like healthcare, retail, and professional services, the disruption is already happening. If you are working in these industries, you don't just need to be aware, you need to be ready to pivot.

If you are curious about specific business ideas and practical ways to adapt, I break them down in more detail in the video attached below.

2 days ago | [YT] | 16

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

90% of niche franchises are fads. For every Chicken Salad Chick there’s 10 other concepts that failed.

Spoke to a guy last week that wanted to buy into an acai bowl franchise and I said NO!

Here’s exactly how I evaluate franchises in 4 tactical steps:

1. Google “Wisconsin franchise search” and search for the franchise in question.

Read the FDD (franchise disclosure document). Item 19 specifically. How much do these make and what’s the failure rate? Have ChatGPT look for red flags.

This is early early stage research. Lawyers come later. Don’t waste your time on a sales call to learn this stuff.

Do franchisors simply absorb or transfer failing units between owners to mask that true number? Happens all the time. You can’t know for sure unless you talk to a bunch of other owners.

2. Look up the Google search trends for the franchise concept. Açaí bowls may have longevity in Hawaii. But New Jersey?

This one chart below should be enough to prevent this guy from buying into the concept.

3. Has the franchisor hit “escape velocity yet?”

Just because it sold hundreds of territories doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing. These brands sound familiar?

Blimpie
Beef O’Brady’s
Souper Salad
Juice it Up
Any cupcake brand
Froyo brands

Niche food brands are ESPECIALLY dangerous. A line out the door in month 1 is more likely to be correlated with a short lifespan.

Lindy effect in full effect.

Food brands often have a regional loyalty that you can’t copy/paste in a new area and culture.

4. Seek for saturation.

Some of the best brands are already done. Saturated. You have to know what questions to ask!

I had a call with smash my trash a couple years back. They were blowing up. Everything was sunshine and rainbows on the webinar. When I got the guy on the phone he dodged every hard question like Reggie bush in 2004.

If you aren’t making the guy sweat then you aren’t digging deep enough.

The only territories they had left were residential, but residential was 10% of their business. But it took an hour of probing to finally get to the bottom of that! All the money was in the industrial zip codes.

Once the word is out you are likely too late to the party. But it’s not gonna stop them from continuing to sell territories.

You gotta find the Goldilocks zone:
past escape velocity but before saturation.

If this was helpful I’d love a follow ‪@thekoerneroffice‬

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2 days ago | [YT] | 43

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Stop waiting for enough money. Start getting creative.

I get this question in my messages all the time: "Chris, I want to start a business or buy one, but I don't have any money". My answer?

Good.
Constraints = creativity

I am not here to give you generic advice about Kickstarter or basic seller financing. I am talking about being cheap, being tacky, and being creative enough to get what you want. I bought my first two houses while I was a broke college student waiting tables for $2.13 an hour plus tips. If I could do that in the middle of the 2008 financial crash, you can figure this out too because everything is figureoutable!

3 days ago | [YT] | 8

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

A 16 year old wants a car, but he has no money.

He watches a YouTube side hustle video that causes him to buy 115 new overstock rugs for $13 each.

He slangs them on FB Marketplace for $35 each.

Only in America can you just make it happen like this.

Link below.

4 days ago | [YT] | 180

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

You could stack this croissant up against any $6 NYC croissant and they’d taste the same.

Yet at Costco you get 12 for that price!

I bought these for the price, but they taste amazing, too.

Croissants are HARD to make, but capitalism is undefeated.

Long live Costco.

6 days ago | [YT] | 111

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

I’ve been sitting on a ridiculous list of business ideas and finally narrowed it down to my favorite 11.

All approachable, cheap to start, and realistic for beginners.

Stuff I’ve seen work.
No fluff.
Just ideas you could actually go try.

1 week ago | [YT] | 44

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Every successful person has 2 stories: The media story & the real story.

The real story usually involves a growth hack or gaming an algorithm.

Mr. Beast's 1st viral hit was him counting to 100,000.

Was it Oscar-worthy entertainment? No. He simply learned that the YT algorithm optimized for:

1. The hook
2. Watch time duration

AKA, get their interest in the first 5 seconds and keep them on YT for as long as possible. It's hard to do that with brilliant acting. It's easy to do that when counting to 100,000.

This first viral hit was a 24 hour long video. YT pushed it hard because it kept people on the site.

Brilliant. Yet so, so simple.

That's where the real money is made:

The constant execution of creative ideas. He faked it until he made it so hard that guess what?

He's actually an Oscar-worthy entertainer now.

Kudos to him.

1 week ago | [YT] | 93