Profitable Business in Plain Sight

A great business idea is often right under your nose, waiting to be discovered. The frugal nature of one entrepreneur led to his new corporation.

His automobile ran on biodiesel fuel. So he starting making this power source from vegetable oil he collected from restaurants. The byproduct of the refining process is glycerin. He decided to not let it go to waste.

Glycerin, of course, is the main ingredient in soap. This fact started the California entrepreneur to experiment with manufacturing soap he could sell back to the same restaurants that provided the vegetable oil.

He certainly didn’t need a big budget for advertising. The soap would not compete with brand names. After some experimentation, the entrepreneur obtained input from chemical experts. The result is a simple product containing a mixture of olive, bergamot, and grass.

The new company, Further Products, was soon a full-time business for the founder and his wife. Manufacturing of the soap is outsourced to a Los Angeles laboratory. Product labeling was created by the entrepreneurial couple.

The fact that the soap is a product of recycling is used as positive public relations by the restaurants that buy the soap. Signs in the restaurants tout the green industry nature of the soap in the dispensers. A few retail locations in major cities also carry the product.

Only after a year did the founding entrepreneur obtain outside capital. An angel investor now owns 30 percent of the company. These funds were used to acquire equipment to improve the transport of oil from the restaurants, glycerin to the lab, and the soap products back to the company’s bottling and shipping facility.

Further Products now produces 10,000 units per month and expects to significantly expand production this year. The company has no employees other than the founding couple. They earn enough money to support their family, which was their initial objective. But the future may yield even more success as the product is discovered by large retail chains.

Entrepreneurs start a new corporation in order to earn enough profit to attain financial freedom. Sometimes the business concept is in plain sight. Best of all, these simple companies can turn into something bigger than originally anticipated.