Tree Farming as a Side Hustle can be extremely lucrative. Here are some Highlights:
•You can flip a tree in as little as three weeks for a 600+ percent profit
•Get started with less than $1,500
•You can start with a small back yard
•No prior experience or license required
•You can quickly scale the business and replace your income
Tree Farming as a Side Hustle can be extremely lucrative. Here are some Highlights:
•You can flip a tree in as little as three weeks for a 600+ percent profit
•Get started with less than $1,500
•You can start with a small back yard
•No prior experience or license required
•You can quickly scale the business and replace your income
Welcome to the side hustle, pilot podcast, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, Fasten your seatbelts and get ready to take off and create the type of side hustle and lifestyle you've always dreamed of. We hope you enjoy the ride.
Speaker 2:This podcast isn't for your typical coffee, drinking gear, jerker it's for that hard charging button pushing. I've got the courage kind of pilot and remember fly airplanes because it's fun. Not because you have to now without any further delay, your host, Tito G
Speaker 3:hello, and welcome to the side hustle pilot podcast. In today's episode, we have Cody James at the age of three, he decided he wanted to be a professional bull rider. And at the age of 16, he joined the pro tour and started to go to school online and continued to travel as a professional bull rider. As a result of starting the pro tour early, he ended up with a couple of injuries. By the time he was 17, he decided to slow down and go back to normal school. After graduating, he went to college where he got a scholarship as a bull rider, and also continued as a professional rodeo bull rider. He remained on the professional tour for an additional eight years school. Wasn't always Cody's thing. And so while we're wrapping up his senior year, he was able to convince them to allow him to get his private pilot license as part of his, an independent study program. Later on towards the end of his bull riding career, he got his tailwind endorsement and it was at that point, he decided he was going to fulfill his dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot. So without any further delay, let's start
Speaker 4:Cody. I tell you what, before we get started, one of the things that has blown me away about your story is, I mean, I've never talked to somebody who is a professional bull rider who flies airplanes, who grows trees as a side hustle. First, before we get started, I've got to know about you're a professional bull ride in history. I mean, tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 5:Well, it was a, it was a good career for a long time. I'm completely done. Now. I got on my last bull in April of 2016. Uh, and I actually got on him in my pilot uniform because I knew I was going to become a pilot after that. So I kind of went from one career to the next there, but, uh, it was a good career for a long time. I went on the national Federation of professional bull riders to her at 16, and that didn't quite go as planned. So I kind of backed off the pro tour there for awhile. And then when I turned 18, I went onto the professional rodeo tour of the PRCA too. I did that full time along with college rodeo and, and stuff for about six more years after that. And when I was a retired with that, um, you know, I had my private pilot license and I, uh, knew I had to do something else. I couldn't just hang out for the rest of my life. So I, uh, I went down and got my tail wheel endorsement and started flying and I was like, yeah, I need, I need to do this, but 11. So that was kind of the transition. Um, but the, the rodeo was real good. The bull riding was real good. We went to about a hundred, 125 rodeos a year traveled about 130,000 miles on my cars every year. And, uh, it was a good time.
Speaker 4:What was the scariest bull ride you've ever had?
Speaker 5:I don't know. I I've gotten a couple of situations there where I wasn't a hundred percent sure I was going to make it out, but, uh, you know, uh, Sikeston Missouri for one instance comes to mind. I, uh, even if you know anything about the sport, like you get hung up, you have your hand, uh, stuck on the rope while you're still off. And I'd got twisted around all the way around. So my whole arm just rested and my shoulder was twisted and I was still on the outside of the bowl, swimming around on the end of that day. I came out of that pretty unfazed, luckily, but that was probably one of the scarier.
Speaker 4:So you were riding bulls, you had your private pilot license before that, and then those days kind of wrapped up and then you started flying airplanes, right?
Speaker 5:Yep. I started flying airplanes. I, uh, when I, after I got my tail wheel endorsement, I was done riding bulls. I decided to pursue an aviation career. Not really sure where that would leave. I kind of did a nontypical route. I went all part 61, got my stuff, kind of all different parts of the country. And, uh, then I went down and a flight instructor for about six months. I went to part one 35 and then I went to a bar, one tour and one carrier.
Speaker 4:So now you're currently at SkyWest. Yep.
Speaker 5:I'm a SkyWest airlines based in Minneapolis. I've been there for, I've been there for going on three years.
Speaker 4:Good deal. Awesome. And so how do you go from a riding bowls to find for the airlines and all of a sudden you've got a tree farm, right?
Speaker 5:Oh yeah. So the tree farms can have an interesting story. So that I started off, uh, with an idea because I had stock market investments, but I felt I was too heavily invested into the stock market. So I wanted to do something else. So I got to research in these, uh, trees for lumber. So black Walnut trees for lumber. So you buy these trees. And I think the first year I bought them, they cost me a dollar 25 cents a tree. They're about two feet tall. You know, they're little twigs, they're little sticks. And in a 30 to 40 years, this black Walnut lumber that you can sell for, you know, they average three to$5,000 a tree with the cheap ones being$1,500 a tree. And they've sold some black Walnut trees for$20,000 for the lumber. Cause it's kind of that exotic card with lumber. So I was like, I should do that. I should buy it. Didn't have any land, didn't have any plan. But I went out and bought 900 of these little trees, so about 900 trees. And then I didn't have any place to put them at the point at this point in time. So I bought a, like a garden pot, like a nursery pot, and just stuck that in there with black dirt. And, um, these trees started growing like crazy. And I knew I was going to have to get them in the ground at some point. But in the meantime, somebody came by the, uh, came by the little nursery I had on everything I do is pretty much on, less than eighth of an acre or somebody could do it in the backyard of their house. And a guy came by and offered me a 20 bucks a tree for some of these trees that I just paid a dollar 25 cents for and put them in a pot for a, you know, 42 cent pot and 17 cents a dirt. And so I had less than$2 into it. And I was like, well, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to turn down that margin. So I sold them some, I kept, um, and, uh, the next year I found a little piece, probably about an acre of land and I put 550 black Walnut trees in there. So those are in the ground. Those are not really going to touch. I take care of them during the year to make sure they don't get overrun with weeds, fertilize, and things like that. But that's my longterm investment. But then my thought process got going back to the, um, God going back to the margins that I had made on those first black Walnut. So what I did was I went out and I bought, I think second year I bought 1400 trees and they all still fit my nursery. I put them all in pots and I bought a bunch of different kinds this time I bought, you know, pine trees, spooks, spruce trees, maple trees, things like that. And I've put them all in pots in a small nursery. We did, um, watered them, put fertilizer on them, took care of them. And then I started going and I sold them on Facebook marketplace. I sold them at, um, auctions, like online auctions around town, things like that. And I continued to get these incredible margins. I mean, I think last year I sold, uh, somewhere around a thousand trees with an average margin of almost 1200%.
Speaker 4:Whoa, wait a second. So what blows me away, first of all, is here. You literally bought all these trees and you didn't have anywhere to put it. And so you decided to fill your backyard up with trees that were in a pot, right?
Speaker 5:So I have a pictures of just, you know, pots just shoved together in the tightest area that they can be in less than eighth of an acre. And now we've, we've expanded, we've got a little different nursery and a better setup, but it's still only about an eighth of an acre where our nursery is that doesn't include the trees in the ground. But yeah, this was done on a very small area of land.
Speaker 4:When you buy a thousand trees, roughly how much money are you spending?
Speaker 5:It depends. So it depends on the, that's a, that's a tough question. Cause it depends on the size of the tree and where you're going. You can spend anywhere from a dollar 25 cents a tree to we've bought trees for$15 a tree. It depends on the kind you want, where you want to get them from how much it takes to ship them in things like that. But if you want him to start on like, you know, the smaller end, the shorter end, you can go and buy trees for a dollar 25 cents, a piece, dollar 30 cents a fee.
Speaker 4:Okay. So you've got a couple, you know, thousand or 1500 trees in your backyard. You buy them. And how long is the time period that you're talking about these type of margins? How long is it taking you now that you know what you're doing to flip a tree?
Speaker 5:So what I do is I put it in the pot. I fertilize it and I make sure the tree is growing. And you can start to tell they're growing by like the buds, or obviously if it's a maple or an Oak tree, it leaps out. And so to tobacco up to that one second, we, when we buy these trees, they're called what's bare root trees. They don't come in a pot, they don't come with their they're pulled out of the ground and you get the stick with the roots. And the roots are wrapped in like a, like a peat Moss, Sandy soil, that's moist. So the tree doesn't die. So you get these bundles, you know, your bundle of 25 trees is going to be, you know, I don't know, probably 10 pounds and 12 inches across, so you can get it shipped through the mail. So, um, we get those trees, we separate them. And then we put them into the pot. Once we know that that pot is alive, that tree becomes almost instantaneous, where we are close to Minneapolis. We have a lot of customer base, obviously in Minneapolis, that becomes about a$10 tree. The moment that it's in the pot and it's alive pretty much what it is, is being a middleman. You're going from taking these nurseries that grow tens of thousands of trees a year, putting them in a pot and becoming a middleman for somebody who wants to go plant them in the ground, in their yard.
Speaker 4:What's that time period for you
Speaker 5:about three weeks. Oh wow. I can feel comfortable selling them in about three weeks. Now I buy a lot every year. So every year they go and they are cure value per value because they're not$10 trees anymore. And year two, now there are two foot tall trees and now they're$15 trees. So over the time they go and they get better, which is why I'm okay with buying more inventory because all by a thousand trees, for example, I'll sell, you know, 500 of them this year pay for all of my trees. And then next year, the 500 that I didn't sell, they're worth$5 more. You know what I mean? So the margins grow year over year, but too, to answer your question, it's about three weeks from the time that I plant them from the nursery to when I establish their grow into, when I sell.
Speaker 4:The other question I had for you is where, I mean, you mentioned online, but where are you sourcing your product from?
Speaker 5:I get it from everywhere. I've got them from nurseries in Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan. And then I've got them right down the road here in Minnesota too. So I'm just always on the internet looking for, you know, you can get really good deals when you buy in bulk. Um, they do have farm shows around, like I was got a couple good farm shows that I try to go to in the, uh, in the off season and kind of get in touch with those nurseries there and do it that way.
Speaker 4:Okay. So how much of the success that you have is dependent upon the location where you're at? Is this something that could be anywhere in your opinion?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think it definitely can. I think that, you know, if you're in Arizona, you're going to have to change the type of tree you're going to have to do the research because the Pines and spruce trees that I sell up here are not going to sell well in Arizona. So, you know, I think that there's money to be made just about everywhere, but you have to do your research and make sure, you know, I know nothing about the Arizona market or the Georgia market, but I do know the Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan.
Speaker 4:Right. So, all right. You bought your first batch of trees, which was about 1,015 hundred, at what point? I mean, there was a risk in doing that cause you didn't know. I mean, did you know how well it was going to do starting off?
Speaker 5:No. I had no idea that these margins were going to be like that and continue like that. I thought maybe, you know, maybe I just kind of hit a, hit, struck a small gold mine, you know, for a year or something like that, but we're going on year four and I'm going to run out of trees in my nursery this year. I'm going to be completely out by the end of the year and have to start over next year because we didn't order too many in this year. Um, I was just, I was trying to kind of keep up with everything going on and now we're in, uh, I sold way more trees by June 1st. Then I thought I was going to, and I'm looking at, I was out there today and I was going, I'm going to be out by the end of August. And usually we sell through October.
Speaker 4:So this is pretty seasonal for you. Yep.
Speaker 5:Well, we run usually about the second week in April, we're planting and the last week in October, we're, winterizing our trees. Um, the winter, Isaac's not too much. We just lay the tree over and uh, you know, water it well. So it lasts through the Minnesota winter, but yeah, it's a, it's an April to October deal. Get to take the winter off, which has also gotten
Speaker 4:what gave you the idea that, you know, I'm going to take the money that I have and I'm going to go buy some trees. Like where, where did that come from?
Speaker 5:That came from the original idea of buying the black Walnut trees for the investment because I ran the numbers on 900 black walnuts, which was my first order that F you know, 10% of those trees grew to be that 30, 40 year old tree. And they brought even the low end of$3,000 a tree. You know, that's a, that's 90 trees at$3,000. That was a really good investment for my, you know, uh, 1500 bucks that I had to put into it. And I was trying to diversify because I had it, you know, I hadn't retired from the rodeo. I was flying. I had some extra time and I felt like I was too heavily invested in the stock market. So I started to look for other things. I'm not technologically advanced. I can't go, I can't make an app, but, uh, you know, I grew up on kind of a hobby farm, and that's what I knew. So that's kind of where, where I went with that is to back to what I know. So it all started with that initial longterm investment. I didn't plan this out to start selling these trees every year, but when the margins came in, uh, you can't, I couldn't afford not to do it, and I really enjoy it. That's the big thing.
Speaker 4:That's incredible. How much would you say that your first investment was to get into this
Speaker 5:a total for everything, the trees, the pots, um, 1500 bucks.
Speaker 4:How much did you make from those 1500 bucks?
Speaker 5:Well, it's, uh, it's hard to kind of say because those first trees went into the ground. So I haven't seen her in return really on those first 900. I sold, I did get my money back. I sold probably 400 trees at 20 bucks a piece. So for example, last year, I think our expenses, well, I can tell you this year, cause I know the numbers right off the top of my head this year, we've spent, um,$1,700 entries. This is starting April 1st and as of June 1st, we had sold$3,800 worth of trees. And that was 222 trees that we had sold by June 1st. And that was an initial investment this year of$1,800.
Speaker 4:If you want it to scale this business, now that you're not flying airplanes, have you thought about the scalability on how to, you know, exponentially make more money with what you're doing?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So there's a couple, there's a couple things that, uh, that we've run into that are limiting factors. As far as you know, with flying for a job you're gone for four days, you come back and the weeds have grown up in your pots and your trees and things like that. So just scale to go to a large scale, we've had to do a couple of experiments to get certain things in our control, like the watering, um, the weed factor in your pots, if your plant straight black dirt, you know, you can get a lot of weeds in there, but to scale it. Um, you know, I think that what you really need is room. You need a lot of room and you want to be able to spread these trees out where they're not going to shade each other in the sun, cause then they don't grow as well. And then you need to have a system to, uh, suppress the weeds in your trees. Because if those weeds grow up in your pods and your trees don't get sun because the weeds are blocking them, you know, that that lowers the value of your, so we do plan to scale. We do plan to expand. We're kind of doing it systematically. Um, as I said, we're gonna kind of run out of trees this year, but next year we have a plan to, you know, uh, hopefully end up with about 4,500 to 5,000 trees total by, uh, by the end of next year. Um, the nice thing about the tree farming industry is that, you know, it's not like I can, I can make a really good product here and Walmart or any company can't just go make a better product. You have to grow the tree and you have to put in the time. It's not, it's not something that somebody just because they're a bigger company or necessarily have more land, they can make more, but they can't necessarily make a better product like instantaneously because they have the money. It takes time. You can't, you can't just manufacture these
Speaker 4:as far as it being a passive source of income. How much work are you putting into growing these trees?
Speaker 5:Um, the first few years was quite a bit because I did a lot of trial and error, but now that we've got our system down, we've got an irrigation system on our, a little nursery. And I think it's going to be probably four or five days of hard planting in the spring, four or five days of hard winterization in the, um, in the fall. And then I would probably say about one to two full days a month. Now that doesn't mean you did it one to two full days, but added up the hours probably eight to 10 hour days in the month, just to maintain your trees, um, to, uh, you know, a presentable look to the public or your sellers. Now that we've kind of figured out how to suppress the weeds and things like that. But before it was a lot, I was spending all of my off days out there, but I met a lot of mistakes and now, now we kind of have that figured out. So I would say it's, it's pretty passive if you're willing to do the first couple, um, you know, days in the spring of hard planting and the last few days in the fall of hard winterization, those are full long days. But after that, they pretty much take care of themselves and water.
Speaker 4:Well, as far as finding the buyers, you know, you mentioned Facebook marketplace, you know, in different areas where you've been able to sell them. What's your strategy on that? And what would you tell somebody looking to do this in their local area, uh, how to do what you're doing?
Speaker 5:My suggestion is, is to, uh, once you have your, you know, your trees and you've done your research and figure out what, what people like there. Um, I would just go to a Facebook marketplace type and take really nice pictures of your, of your best looking trees and put them on there at a margin you're comfortable with. If you, if you have a$2 tree and put it on there for$4, go to Walmart and go to the home, Depot's go to the stores and see, like, I go to the stores and see that they're selling the exact same tree I have for$23. Well, I can go and sell it for$10 and I'm still making 800% margins. So I'm going to go and sell my tree for$10. And people feel better about, you know, going to a farm and, or a nursery or the side of the road and, and paying somebody for that. Then rather than going to a big box store and buying their trees where they don't know where they came from, they don't know how long they've been sitting there. They don't know how often, how much water they've been getting. So that, that would kind of be the marketing strategy I would take is a Facebook type of marketing strategy. And then, you know, just kind of getting in touch with people in your area and it grows like wildfire. They go home, they like their trees. All of a sudden you're getting three or four phone calls from their neighbors and say, Hey, my neighbors planting these trees, they look great. They said, you have a great price. You're, you know, it's, it's fun to come out and talk to you. Can I come out this week? You know, that's a, that's a big part of the business
Speaker 4:in that$10 tree. How long have you had that tree before you were able to sell it for that$10?
Speaker 5:Anywhere from three weeks to two years, but you know, I can, I'll sell them for$10 right after I've had them for three weeks after I know that they're alive.
Speaker 4:Okay. So if you've got, that's got$5,000 to invest, right? And a little bit of land in three weeks, they could flip that tree for a significant profit. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 5:That's correct. That's a hundred percent correct. Yet. You, you go out and buy the tree plant and make sure it's alive. So you're not selling, uh, you know, dead trees. And then as soon as you know, it's alive, uh, you don't put it on marketplace or, you know, uh, Craigslist or something along that, that effect, all I'm doing is being the middle man between the nurseries that don't want to take their time to sell one to three trees at a time. Cause they want to sell. They want to sell the me who buys 1500. And then I'm taking the time to plant the tree, get, make sure it's alive and established. And then I take the time to sell it to somebody who wants three or four trees for their yard.
Speaker 4:What is something that the average person would not know about this type of business that you've discovered in the process of building this business,
Speaker 5:I guess, and this might be a little bit, uh, localized upon where I am, but I think that one person doesn't know about the tree business is how many people want trees. It doesn't matter if you're, I mean, if you live in an apartment, that's a little different story, but you know, you always run into the people are at the store at the restaurants that are say, Oh, you're, you're a tree farmer. I've been looking to plan a maple tree for years. I've been looking to plant a pine tree for years. I've been amazed at how many people I was. I had no idea that this business was this big. You know what I mean? Um, and so I think that that's one thing that shocks me is how many people are willing to go out there and buy trees. You know, if you think about it, it's like, Oh, tree farmer there, you got Christmas trees and you got lumber. That's about it. But there's a whole nother market of people that buy houses have houses that want to plant small trees and watch them grow up with their family and with their kids. It's, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 4:You know, I would have never thought that there's, you know, people running around thinking, I want to buy trees, you know, but you're right. You know, people are building houses, there's construction, there's, you know, all different types of situations where people are looking into that. And now, as far as the Facebook marketing that you do, is that something that you had prior experience with or is that something you kind of stumbled into?
Speaker 5:No, yeah. That's something that I didn't have any experience with. I'd sold a few things on Craigslist, you know, when that was a win, that was a big thing. But the first thing I ever sold our marketplace was my trees and that game, uh, you know, that just kind of came from me trying to sell them. And I was like, well, I got too many and I'll, I'll put it on there and see how it goes. And I mean, it, it took off, I had to take the ad down because I was spending too much time on my phone, responding to people. So I would put it up, you know, when I had three or four days and then I'd have to take it down and get it because it's just, you know, uh, an influx of people that takes your time. It takes time to respond to those people and things like that. But that was my first ever experience. I'm not a marketing genius by any means. Um, but that seemed to work really well. And then I take some trees every other week. There's an online auction house, about 10 miles from my house. I take about 30 to 60 trees up there every other week
Speaker 4:for the online auction house. Are you having to do the shipping or do they ship that for you?
Speaker 5:They do everything. I just drop them off there. I fill out the paperwork, they do everything else. That's a really nice, you know, little stream of income there because all I have to do is run them up there. It takes 15 minutes, drop them off and they sell them for them.
Speaker 4:What about misconceptions? Are there, are there any misconceptions, do you think that people have about this business that you, you know, you've discovered?
Speaker 5:Yeah. I think, you know, one of the big misconceptions and I, and I brought it up a little bit is especially when I'm talking to people at work and in the cockpit and stuff, they're like, well, I'd like to do that. I don't have any land. And I started on Le like less than an eighth of an acre. If you, you know, uh, if you put these pots right together, you know, the pots are 12 inches across, you can get a lot of, you can get a lot of trees in a very small area in your backyard. Um, you know, if you have a, you know, a side lot on your house or things like that, it does not take much room to, to get these trees. So that's one of the big things I see is people like, Oh, I'd like to do that. But you know, I don't have 40 acres. You don't need 40 acres. You don't need mean, I live in town, you know what I mean? Now I've got some land and now out in the country, but that's not how it started.
Speaker 4:If somebody wanted to, for example, say, Hey, I've got a goal of making an extra$20,000 a year, or maybe it's$15,000 a year. What approach can they take? And what would that look like if they, if they had the money to invest, what would be the ideal way to do that?
Speaker 5:If you wanted to start off your first year making 15 to 20,000 extra dollars, it's going to be a little bit bigger investment, but you can go out. Like I said, those dollar 25 cent trees, they're about a foot tall to two feet tall, but you can go out and you can buy$3 and 25 centuries. And they're going to be, you know, two to three, sometimes even four feet tall, depending upon what species of tree. Well, you put that in a pot and where I am, if you put a, uh, black Hills spruce tree into a pot and it's established and growing, and it's three feet tall, it's going to bring 30 bucks. Well, if you sell, you know, uh, if you sell 500 trees at 30 bucks a piece, that's, I believe that's$15,000, you know, 500 trees at an investment of, even if you call it$5 a tree, by the time you get your pot and your dirt, you know, that's a, that's 2,500 bucks to turn it into 15,000. That's pretty good returns.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. And there's a business. It seems like that there's a business model just in that three week period. Right?
Speaker 5:Exactly. It's a very, very quick turnaround. If you're willing to, to be the middleman and take the tree from biomed at a wholesale, and then take that tree and sell it to the person that wants, you know, three to five of them, there, there is a, there's a very good market, there, a little niche that you can kind of get into and be that middle.
Speaker 4:Now, do you have to have any special license or do you have to have a business permit to buy from the, uh, the individuals that are selling the trees to you? Or, I mean, can you just go straight to the, uh, tree farmers and by this, you know, by the trees that you're going to sell,
Speaker 5:you don't have to be licensed. You don't have to, um, you know, be insured or anything like that. As far as the, to go buy from these, uh, big nurseries, um, you know, for all, they know you own 1200 acres and you just want trees on your land and they don't care if you're putting them in a pot and selling them either. There's no, uh, you know, real business license to operate as far as that, because you know, all you have is a shovel and some dirt in a pot.
Speaker 4:Are you connected with individuals within your business that mentor you, or that you're connected with to kind of help you with this process? Or are you just kind of doing this by yourself?
Speaker 5:I am definitely connected now, especially, you know, the tree farming community gets to be pretty small. It's a little bit like aviation, a couple of years in it, and everybody knows everybody. So there's some guys that, you know, uh, have really kind of stepped up landscapers, especially that are kinda stepped up and helped me out or given me advice, I call them when I say, Hey, this is what I'm thinking, what are you, what are you thinking? They're like, no, that's a bad idea. Don't do that. I won't do that. But, you know, uh, so yeah, there's definitely people around, it's a small community, you know, when you start going to these farm, uh, these farm expos and you start researching and going to these nurseries and talking to the growers and things like that. So there's a lot of people, a lot of resources that you can reach out to. And most people I've absolutely loved to talk about truth.
Speaker 4:What about the trees themselves? Are there different species that are more desirable and more expensive and more profitable? How does that work?
Speaker 5:It's a, it's kind of a moving target, which is, um, which makes it, you know, kind of interesting sometimes a little bit difficult, but for where I live in central Minnesota right now, they're really hot. Trees are black Hills spruce trees and white pine trees. So we buy those every year, but we also buy a fair amount of other types of trees, such as maple trees, Balsam fir trees, which is your standard Christmas tree, um, Norway spruce trees, because it's always a moving target. So next year people could really want the Norway spruces instead of the white Pines. So if that becomes the case, then, you know, if you haven't bought any Norway spruces for the last year, you know, you don't have enough to really fulfill that, that market. So if I was going to tell somebody that wanted to start this up in their backyard, and let's just say with a hundred trees, I would buy four different kinds of 25 trees. You don't want to just only have one kind of tree, because that helps protect against, you know, if, um, if a disease comes through them or there's not a market for them, cause there will be a market for them. Eventually it's just a matter of when. And, and when that cycle is going to come around to that tree. So if you hold that tree for two or three years, when the market comes around to that species, it's going to be, it might be worth$25 now instead of$10, because it's three feet tall.
Speaker 4:If you're holding it for two or three years, are they still in pots or have you transferred them over? What does that look like?
Speaker 5:Nope. So they're still in pot. So what I did, what I do now is I plant them in a big enough pot that they can grow for about five years in this pot that I have on then after that you would need to really do something with them. But I don't, I don't end up with any trees over five years. I usually the longest I'll hold the tree right now is about two years before I sell it. But I do print them in a big enough pot that they could grow for up to five years. If I needed them to, you can plant them in smaller pods. It's a little bit, a little bit cheaper and get, you know, two years out of it.
Speaker 4:What about losses? Are there any losses that you've incurred or, you know, any type of negative aspects of this business that you wish you would have known about?
Speaker 5:I don't, I wouldn't say negative aspects of the business. I really enjoy it. I think it's one thing that you have to enjoy doing, you know, you have to enjoy going out and planting your trees and taking care of your trees and watering your trees. Um, but yeah, as far as the losses go, uh, the first year I winterized my trees, I didn't under really understand how to do it. And so I lost probably 20% in the winter. Um, and now that we've kind of got that figured out, we've got our winter lost down to about 2% and then, you know, you always have the environmental factors in Minnesota, you know, hail storms, tornadoes, things like that. That's always something that you have to consider. Um, as a risk in the business, we've been pretty fortunate. We did have a hailstorm come through, uh, two years ago and it knocked out all of our Maples. It didn't kill them, but it shredded the leaves enough to where we couldn't sell them because they don't look good. But the, the tree itself was still alive. So we just grew those. And then we sold them the year after, what do you do to winterize the tree? So now what we do is you want to water them really, really heavy. And then we just lay the pot. Cause they're all in pots, we just lay the pot over on its side. There's a few different things you can do. We've tried, you know, covering them with straw, covering them with tarps. But honestly the best growth rate we've got is making sure they're well-watered and lay them over.
Speaker 4:Now, as far as your competition goes, who are you competing against? When it really comes to your type of business?
Speaker 5:We do compete against like the box stores, like home Depot, Walmart that's tractor supply up here that sell those types of trees. We're a far enough price underneath the bum that that's usually not too big of an issue for us. We don't usually have a problem selling out. Um, there are some landscapers and roadside nurseries up here that are technically our competition, but, um, with the tree market that I've found up here is everybody helps everybody out because it all seems like by the end of the year, we're completely out of trees and I've had nurseries call me and say, Hey, do you have any of this kind of tree? Cause I'm out. And I've called other people and say, Hey, I've got a guy here that wants 25 more white Pines and I don't have any, do you have? And they say, yeah. And I'll say, okay. And I'll send them over that way because you know, you want to keep that good relationship. Like I said, it's a small community, but there seems to be enough demand. That competition is a thing, but everybody helps everybody out. I've had people come from the nurseries down the road to my place because they've sent them and I've sent people to other, uh, other nurseries as well.
Speaker 4:Now that the airlines are, I mean, pretty uncertain. Is this something that you're strategically going to, you know, work on so that it can replace your income or it could be something that you predominantly just focus on?
Speaker 5:Yes. To answer your question. Now we've taken the money that we've made and expanded our tree farm quite a bit. So now we've got some trees in the ground and things like that, but I would like to get to the spot. My goal for myself is to get to the spot where I can sell, um, about a thousand trees a year for an average of, you know,$50. So that means I'm going to sell some trees that I've put in the ground and have been there for awhile for a hundred bucks. I'm going to sell some trees in pots for 25, and I'm going to sell some trees in pots for 10. But if I can get to that six figure, a hundred thousand dollar range by, you know, working a few hard days in the fall, maintaining my trees throughout the year and a few hard days, winterization, that's kinda my goal. Not fully going to replace my, uh, you know, airline income. I probably wouldn't ever stop flying to be a full time tree farmer. But somewhere in that six figure range is, is my goal. And I think I'm laying it out. As far as my business plan goes about five years is what that's gonna take.
Speaker 4:What are the factors that are kind of either limiting right now, as far as getting you there? Or what are the things that you need to do in order to get there?
Speaker 5:I think one of the things that I needed I needed to do was to learn how to get the, um, the weeds and the pots under control. Because I brought that up a couple of times because that took so much of my time. The first couple of years was out there, hand weeding every pot and you can't have them. You can't have 15,000 trees on your farm if you have to hand weed every pot. So that was one of the big limiting things. Now I think we have that under control. So I can now scale this to a larger factor and then inventory, right? So I've found a very good niche market on the one to two foot trees that people want to plant, but there's always people that are asking me, Hey, do you have three foot truths? Do you have four for trees? Well, I haven't been in a spot yet to be able to grow that inventory. Like I said, it's not something you can just make, you have to grow that tree, go by that tree or find that tree. So that's why I say five years because that's my limiting factor is I want to get an inventory of trees everywhere from 10 feet tall to one foot tall. So no matter who comes out or who contacts me on Facebook marketplace, I can, um, I can have what they're looking for.
Speaker 4:What type of land do you need in order to have that type of operation?
Speaker 5:The university of Minnesota did a study, depends on how you're going to grow them, but you can go pull this study on how to plant your, uh, you know, your Grove of trees, essentially per what and what kind of tree you are. But the average, uh, trees, if you're going to leave them in the ground for about five years, you plants probably a thousand trees, an acre would work.
Speaker 4:Now, are there any other ancillary type businesses or sub niches that you could consider or have considered maybe selling stuff online or even selling as a middleman, the smaller trees that you're getting directly from the warehouses or tree farmers or any consideration for that?
Speaker 5:You know, I have thought about that. And I do think that there is a, there is probably a business for, you know, if you buy 1500 trees and then split them down into, um, you know, bundles of a hundred and sell them that way, I think that you could probably make some really good margins, but with the, I like being out there with a shovel and putting dirt in a pot and putting the tree in there. And when you get, you know, the margins that we're getting, I have not explored any other paths like that because I enjoy what I'm doing and the return is so good. You know, if it's not, if it's not broke, don't fix it. So I do think that if other people want to explore that opportunity, there is probably a lot of money to be made there. Just not something I've done yet.
Speaker 4:Cody, before we wrap this up, is there any final thoughts, uh, you know, that you would offer, uh, specifically for pilots that are considering this type of business?
Speaker 5:You know, I think one of the things that I would just say is the only way I did it was I just got in and did it. Now I did a lot of research about it, but when I made the decision to go into the tree department business, that's what I did. I, you know, I had put in a lot of energy and a lot of time and I went and bought the tree. And like I said, I bought 900 trees with nowhere to, with nowhere to put them to kind of force myself into. Now I've got to do this, I've got to work at this because that's the only, uh, that's the only way that this is going to work. So as far as the tree farm thing goes, I, uh, do your research on where you live. You're part of the country, what your customer base is. And, um, as far as the business said in general, if, if you have that, uh, you know, desire to have a side hustle, make the jump make, uh, you know, I probably wouldn't put life savings into it, but, but set aside an amount of investment that, you know, hold off your stock investments for a few months and put that into something and make the leap and dry it out. That's the only way that this happened is I, I just jumped in head first and made it work.
Speaker 4:That's pretty awesome, man. It seems like$1,500 as a initial investments, pretty low when it comes to risk. Seeing the type of returns that you are making is incredible. Cody, man, I, I appreciate your time. Thanks for sharing your side, hustle, your story and good luck, man. We look forward to see, uh, your business grow and, and checking in to see how things are going.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you've enjoyed the flight and remember fly airplanes because it's fun.
Speaker 4:Not because you have
Speaker 6:[inaudible].