The Truth About These “Recession-Proof” Business Ideas
Matt watched a video claiming these three businesses will thrive in a 2025 recession: junk removal, digital marketing, and HVAC. Here’s his honest reaction. He breaks down the real challenges, hidden costs, and what it actually takes to succeed in each one. Spoiler: it’s not as easy as it sounds.
There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!
Video Transcript:
Business Advice Video:
Three recession-proof businesses that will flourish in 2025. I do think a lot of businesses are going to struggle this year, however, these three businesses would be smart for anyone to start. Number three, junk removal. Does fantastic in a good economy, and in a bad economy, you can be one cleaning out the foreclosures. Number two, digital marketing. Number one, HVAC. If you keep people’s homes warm in the wintertime and cold in the summertime. I don’t care what the economy is. You are going to have customers. That’s the whole focus of three businesses that I brought up here today is you want to have businesses that either businesses need to use them or just regular customers need to use them, regardless of if we’re in a recession, good economy, bad economy or not.
Matt’s Review:
So interesting range of businesses here. So, junk removal is about the easiest, no effort, no skill, no knowledge required business that you can start. You literally can start it with anything. You don’t even need a truck. You can put a trailer hitch on a Civic and pull a trailer and become a junk hauler. The downside of a business that is that easy and simple, and straightforward to start is that literally anyone can do it. And now you’re just kind of competing on price or who answers the phone first or who can generate customers, but it’s a business that requires nothing really to get started. And so you are going to face a lot of competition, and it’s going to be very difficult to kind of differentiate yourself and attract customers in any meaningful way. I don’t know if it’s really recession-proof. I mean, if you’ve got a bunch of junk and money’s tight, you’re probably not going to spend the money to remove it. He’s talking about foreclosure cleanouts. So somebody else is going to have to spend the money for you to haul the junk if things really go South. I guess there’s maybe some room for that. I don’t know. I think it’s it’s a tough business, not because it’s a hard business. It’s a tough business because it isn’t hard, and anyone can get into it. Digital marketing, I would say, if you can work on lead gen. If you can find a way to get somebody a lead for an amount that they can make money paying, and you can get it for less than that amount, there’s always gonna be work for that. That is not easy. It takes a lot of time and practice and skill, and technique to be able to do that. So it’s not something you can just pop up and open, but there is always going to be a market for people to get customers. You can get them customers at a price that makes sense for them. You’ll never not be able to sell that. It’s just getting it at a price where you can make money after you sell it to them. That is the hard part. And then lastly, HVAC, I mean that, yes, I agree that’s generally a good business. The challenge there is you have to have years of experience. You have to have a license. You have to know what you’re doing. You can’t just start an HVAC business. You can possibly buy an HVAC business. But then you need, I would say in most cases, six figures worth of cash to make a down payment and for working capital, and then you’re gonna have to fund the rest. And if you have zero experience in the HVAC business, you’re going to be competing with other buyers for that HVAC business you’re trying to buy who do have experience, and it’s just going to be tough. So while that might be a recession-resistant business, it’s gonna be much tougher than the other two to start. And lead Gen. is not particularly easy either. Junk hauling is easy, but tons of competition. So, like anything with any business, there are no easy paths to riches. There is no greener grass. Every business has its challenges. Every business has its pros and cons. So you really have to find something that fits for you and not just go from some guy’s list of businesses.
