Lazy Money Issue 26

Happy Sunday!

Worm shit in Coke bottles. $20 million valuation. I'll explain.

The Story

Princeton freshman builds a $20 million empire selling worm shit in used Coke bottles. I'm not making this up.

Tom Szaky started TerraCycle in his dorm room. The pitch was insane: feed cafeteria waste to worms, collect their poop, liquify it, package in garbage bottles. Home Depot bought it. Then Target. Then Walmart.

And it got even crazier from there.

He realized the real money wasn't in worm shit. It was in making companies PAY him to take their garbage.

Capri Sun had a problem - billions of used pouches deemed "unrecyclable" nightmares that cost a fortune to landfill legally. Szaky's solution: "We'll collect them for you." Capri Sun now PAYS him to take their trash, which he turns into tote bags, selling them for $20 each.

Kraft pays him to collect cheese wrappers. Gillette pays him for razors. Colgate for toothbrushes.

These companies are literally competing to pay him more because whoever partners with TerraCycle gets to slap "We're saving the planet!" on their packaging while their competitors look like Earth-murdering assholes.

Then - and this is the beautiful part - he sells their trash to manufacturers who need cheap materials. It's the only business where both ends pay you for the same garbage.

Made me realize…the gap between trash and cash is exactly one good idea. Here are three to choose from.

How To Profit

• The Waste Monopoly 

Register as a "sustainable disposal service." Every Starbucks tosses 50 pounds of grounds daily (cannabis growers pay $4/pound). Every restaurant dumps 200 gallons of oil monthly (biodiesel companies pay $3-4/gallon). Breweries dump tons of spent grain (pet food companies pay $200/ton).

Businesses currently PAY for waste removal - you do it FREE. One truck route hits 20 businesses: 5 coffee shops (250 lbs grounds = $1000), 5 restaurants (1000 gallons oil = $3500), 3 breweries (15 tons grain = $3000), 7 grocery stores (produce = $2000).

Weekly revenue = $9,500. Easy money.

• Social Media Graveyard

Thousands of Instagram accounts with 10K-100K followers go dormant when people lose interest in posting. Buy them for cheap from burnt-out influencers.

Revive with AI-generated content in the same niche, rebuild engagement over 2-3 months. Sell the refreshed accounts for $5K-10K to businesses wanting instant credibility or open your own social media brand agency with a roster of vetted accounts that ‘work’ for free.

• The Food Flip

Grocery stores throw out $50K monthly in perfectly good food - wonky vegetables, dented cans, near-date dairy. They can't sell it, can't cook it, just pay for disposal. Build an app that connects them with meal prep kitchens, restaurant commissaries, and ghost kitchens who need bulk ingredients cheap.

Whole Foods has 500 pounds of "ugly" tomatoes? Push notification to every ghost kitchen in 10 miles. They bid 30% of retail. Whole Foods makes $600 instead of paying disposal, ghost kitchen saves $1400 on ingredients, you take 10% for the connection.

It's B2B so no dealing with cheap consumers. Prep kitchens buy in bulk daily. Grocery stores avoid disposal costs AND bad PR about food waste. You're the marketplace making everyone money.

The Ace Toolkit

Ace always said, "The real money isn't in what people buy - it's in what they throw away. Both are usually garbage, but one's free."

Revolution in a bottle - The exact playbook for turning garbage into $20M.

Too Good To Go - App that already does food waste arbitrage, worth studying their model.

Honestly, if a college dropout can build $20 million from worm shit, what's your excuse?

Until next time,

Alex

Founder //LZY MNY CLB