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đź’¸ Cleaning Ponds, Cutting Fees, and Passing on Bad Deals
The Corporate Pivot
September 08, 2025
This week is all about spotting hidden opportunities (and hidden traps).
From a pond-cleaning business most landscapers ignore, to an AI tool that makes Wall Street research simple, to a $500k clinic that proves why trailing 3 years matter — you’ll see why the right opportunities stand out and the wrong ones are an easy pass.
If you haven’t already, go subscribe to this newsletter here!
1. Cool Business Idea of the Week
🌊 Pond Patrol – Turning Muck Into Money
Golf courses, HOAs, and parks spend big money every year just to keep their ponds from looking (and smelling) like swamp water. Algae, weeds, and sludge pile up fast, and regular grounds crews aren’t equipped to handle it.
That’s where Pond Patrol comes in — a specialized service that cleans and maintains ponds with eco-friendly treatments, muck removal, and even add-ons like aeration systems or fish stocking. Clients get beautiful water features, and you get recurring revenue.
đź’° Quick Snapshot
One-time clean: $2,000–$5,000 per pond
Monthly maintenance contracts: $500–$1,500 per site
10 clients = $30k/month recurring revenue
Startup costs: $20k–$30k (equipment, trailer, branding)
The kicker? Most landscapers ignore ponds, which means low competition and high margins. Plus, the same service can expand into corporate campuses, cemeteries, and municipalities.
I built out a full playbook in a PowerPoint slide deck using Gamma.app — costs, revenue scenarios, and even the upside potential.
⚠️ Spoiler alert, this business plan slide deck comes out insanely good. I fully expected an AI PowerPoint builder to stink, like a lot of tools do. Go look at how cool the result is and then use this for every presentation you have in the future!
👉 Get the Free Playbook Here (download on our Resources page)
2. AI Tool of the Week
📊 Perplexity Finance – AI That Does the Research For You
What’s Broken
Stock research is painful. SEC filings are dense, Yahoo Finance is ad-packed, and most options chain tools feel built for Wall Street pros, not everyday investors.
Meet the Fix
Perplexity’s Finance tab pulls everything into one clean view. It instantly shows:
Live stock quotes + competitor comparisons
Summaries of earnings reports and SEC filings (with citations)
Key financial ratios without the spreadsheet hunt
Options chains and implied volatility explained in plain English
What It Costs
Free – Access to stock data, ratios, and AI answers
Pro ($20/month) – Deeper summaries, advanced finance search, and early access to new tools (like real-time earnings call transcripts)
How You Can Use It
Type “Compare NVDA vs AMD options chains this week” → get strike prices, volumes, and clear AI breakdowns.
Ask “What’s in Apple’s last 10-Q?” → Perplexity summarizes the highlights, citing the SEC filing.
Build a quick M&A-style comp table (revenues, margins, valuation multiples) without hours of Excel work.
👉 Try Perplexity Finance and see how fast you can size up your next stock or options trade.
3. Pivot Update of the Week
📝 Sam’s Update (Aspiring Entrepreneur) – 6/100 Businesses Reviewed
🏥 $500k Price Tag… $0 Profit
This week I reviewed a healthcare clinic listed for around $500,000. On paper, the broker highlights a “strong rebound” in the most recent year, showing over $200k in owner earnings. Sounds great, right?
But when you zoom out and look at the trailing 3 years — the numbers tell a different story:
2022: Net loss
2023: Net loss again
2024: One profitable rebound year
That means if you average the last three years, you’re basically buying a break-even business.
Why This Matters
When evaluating any acquisition, I use two simple rules of thumb:
Profitable in the trailing 3 years
Growing revenue and profit in that time
This deal failed both. If a business can’t consistently show profit (or at least an upward trend), it doesn’t matter what the broker “adds back” or how good the most recent year looks.
Verdict
This was Business #6/100 reviewed in my search.
Result? ❌ Easy pass.
📝 Tyler’s Update (Seasoned Owner)
When you’re looking to buy a small business, the quality of your leads makes all the difference. A “good” lead isn’t just any listing — it’s one that’s been vetted, verified, and actually fits your goals.
The challenge is that strong leads are getting harder to come by. With more buyers entering the market, the noise level has gone up, and sifting through bad listings can waste valuable time and energy.
That’s why building relationships with brokers, networking with other owners, and doing your own due diligence are more important than ever. Think of it less like finding a needle in a haystack and more like figuring out which haystacks are even worth digging through.
In the end, good leads don’t just save time — they help you make smarter, safer investments.
4. Corporate Meme of the Week
Click below to play the video on our Instagram account!
People are talking saying you won’t do it… 👀
Hope you enjoyed this week’s ideas and updates. If something here sparked a thought, send it to a friend who’s building their own escape plan. Good ideas spread best through word of mouth.
P.S. Missed the free playbook or automation?
You can grab them here before they’re gone: corppivot.com
đź› USEFUL TOOLS đź›
If you made it this far then your attention span is better than most. If you want some useful tools, tips, and tricks you can find them all on the website here!
