3 Business Ideas To Die For
January 25, 2008
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Death is big business. It’s never going to go out of fashion. And demand isn’t affected by recession. So, if you can stomach it, death is a profitable business to be in. And there are quite a few opportunities out there, including these ones:
Crime Scene Clean Ups: If there’s a lot of murders in your area, you’ve got it made. But, you don’t need to rely on killers to bring you a fair bit of trade. This Atlanta based business provides many additional services including suicide clean up, urine and faeces clean up and unattended death clean up.
Pros: Fairly low set up costs which would include specialist chemicals, protective clothing and a van. Little competition - plus in many cases, the costs of the clean up would be covered by insurers; so no need to worry about the customer not being around to cough up.
Cons: You may have trouble retaining staff. I wanted to add this service in my last business, but my staff were dead against the idea.
After Funeral Gatherings: In some places funeral parties seem to be getting as big as weddings. This company here arranges extravagent after funeral parties, providing catering, limos, bagpipes and even chocolate fountains.
Pros: Low start up costs - you just co-ordinate everything and outsource the catering, limos etc. You could even provide additional services such as weddings. Just make sure you keep things dignified and have a seperate landing page on your website for the funerals, unlike the company above.
Cons: You will be relying on other businesses to be available at short notice. This may be difficult, as such events aren’t planned too far in advance.
Funeral Keepsakes: These are a bit like wedding favours, only you give them out to funeral goers.
Pros: You could tie this business in with one of the others - for example the after funeral parties. And you should have no problem finding suppliers, as most wedding favour wholesalers are likely to have something that could be used for funerals too.
Cons: Again, you will be relying on suppliers. And because these orders will need to be sent out quickly, you’ll need to find a reputable supplier who can dropship; unless you are able to invest in quite a bit of stock yourself.
Do any of these businesses appeal to you. Can you think of other potential services that would cater to the dead?
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17 Responses to “3 Business Ideas To Die For”
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One that is VERY lucrative is Hairdressing the dead.
Families want the deceased to look good and they will have hair cut etc. It can pay 4-5x a regular appointment. This goes for makeup as well. (My mom used to own a salon and made outside calls)
RacerX’s last blog post..Personal Finance QuickTake: Tax Rebates in May
You certainly know how to build the most unusual pictures in the minds of your readers!
I absolutely love the dual funeral/weddings idea.
I’m hoping I was supposed to, but I laughed out loud. How would you brand yourself on the home page?
Can you double up using a hearse as a wedding car? Perhaps you could throw a table cloth over the coffin in the back of the limo to create a coffee table?
Slogan? “Till death us do part - an end-to-end service”
I’m obviously in the wrong business.
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Struggling Or Going Bust? Traffic Lights To Turnaround And Success
Oh Catherine,
And you said you’re not creative when you’re ill. This is hilarious. Like Ian, I too, am laughing out load.
I’m not sure, but there may also be a market for designer coffins/urns…if there isn’t already. Do you think Giorgio Armani is interested?
How about a professional funeral photographer. As morbid as this sounds, I have seen my share of photos of relatives who have passed, in their coffin. Fortunately, they never got framed.
The tombstone business is big too. Someone could do a new spin on that….maybe a tombstone with a digital photo frame inserted into it, showing photos of the person during their life…………hey, that actually sounds like a great idea. After all, even when one dies, it’s very therapeutic to celebrate the time we had with them, in life.
As much as it’s not funny to laugh about making money on people dying (and Lord knows, I’ve lost many loved ones), you really are onto something here. There is money to be made in this deadly business, and it’s not only recession proof, but with the money you could make, it’s also depression proof (both literally and figuratively).
But funeral favors? I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that one.
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Ian - I would rather make people laugh than cry. And I love that slogan. I actually know a guy who tried to do this. He’d had a successful wedding co-ordination business for years.
But, when he opened a shop in an other area, it didn’t take off, so he switched to funerals. He’s now switched back tho - he’s a bit too funny and outspoken, and I think he offended a few people.
When he first launched he told me he was hoping for another Lockerbie disaster to get him off to a good start, so I can see why people got upset.
Barbara - it was really just an overlap of ideas. I was writing about a woman who had a fatal heart attack whilst washing the dishes. And I was wondering who would come out to clean the mess up when they found her two weeks later, so decided to do a bit of research.
I love the digital photoframe idea - I think it would be popular. And your photo idea has solved the wedding favors dilemma. You could do a funeral photography package - you know how they do in places like Disney, where they offer you the keyrings with pictures in too. Then everyone would have a little “body in the coffin” keyring to take home.
I have a friend who actually used to do dead peoples’ hair. As a kid!!!! Her dad was a mortician and would let her give it a go first, but would change it if he didn’t like the look. She said it was a lot of fun—me, I’m not sure I could do it.
Crime scene/suicide cleanup would be such a useful line of work. At the same time, I don’t know if my stomach could take it. I can clean public restrooms, but there are lines…
Cath,
Your guy needs to set up a branch close to Anfield, Liverpool.
He may kick things off really quickly with a couple of funerals for two wealthy Americans very soon.
He should also build referral partnerships with tarot readers. If they share their database of clients who drew a certain card, that information could be gold-dust.
Maybe they could become affilliates?
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Struggling Or Going Bust? Traffic Lights To Turnaround And Success
Cath;
I stumbled upon your page from a link at bloggingexperiment.
I have spent the last 20 mins flipping through your blog. I enjoy it immensely and I will be subscribing to your feed 
Cheers!
scott
Scott Sweeney’s last blog post..The Single Best Way to Increase Your Profits
Hey Ian - what is going on there? Stuart was v pro these American guys but now he thinks the bloke from Dubai is the best thing since sliced bread. But as you know - he thinks anything connected to the bloody club is ace.
I’m usually quite naive in these affairs, but I’m smelling a rat. Did those two plan to sell do the dubai guy all along?
Hi Scott - thank you very much for your kind words and welcome to the community.
Catherine Lawson’s last blog post..3 Business Ideas To Die For
Having formerly owned a catering business, I can tell you that doing funeral after parties on short notice was not much of a problem. Most other related service providers are equally capable of doing short notice work.
What was a problem was the portion out of our control. Often we would get a call from one family member requesting one thing, only to get a second call later from another family member later making lots of changes. And then the one actually paying would call even later and change it further or cancel altogether.
Finding the one person to deal with who can make final decisions and controls the spending during these “family in crisis” times was very difficult. I didn’t keep records, but I would guess that around a third of all plans fell through altogether because of these types of internal family squabbles. And there isn’t anything you can much do about it.
I currently own a home cleaning business, and while we have gotten the occasional call requesting a cleaning after a death at home (not even a crime scene) my employees have made it abundantly clear that I would be the one going, alone, on that type of job. Oh well- can’t clean ‘em all.
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Hi Catherine,
Its Stu from Green View!!
I just stumbled across your blog and thought I would drop a note to say ‘hi’ and well done for such a thought provoking blog!
In the old days there was a ritual of creating a “death mask”. I think these were created by moulding the deceased face in wax and using the mould to create a 3D relief of the persons face. A modern version could be a lucrative service as there will always be a need (for some people) to capture a loved ones body / face cast for later (such as a sculpture as in http://www.artmolds.com/ali/death_masks.pdf ).
I would be willing to invest in such a business, heck I may even look into it some more….
Your Low Hesket neighbour!
Love the new layout!
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Want A Better Business? Build A Better Mousetrap
Hi Matt - That sounds like a huge headache. Funerals always seem to bring out the worst in families.
I don’t blame your staff for not doing the after death cleans. We did 2 attempted suicides and that was bad enough - blood on carpets. And they were both in the same hotel!
Hi Stu - Thank you. Nobody from Low Hesket has ever commented before, so it’s nice to know that at least one of my neighbours knows I exist.
Those death masks look pretty good. I suppose you could put them on the wall instead of a portrait. Or the kids could use them to scare the rest of the family at halloween.
Ian - I have a confession - this is my old theme. I accidentally deleted the categories section and I was too lazy to fix it.
Catherine Lawson’s last blog post..3 Business Ideas To Die For
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I worked in the medical field, and I know that one other con for the crime scene clean up is the air borne pathogens from blood, depending on how gruesome the crime was. Specially after cadaver recovery, you will have more than blood on the scene. Crime scene clean up is very profitable. Ca-shing!!
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Hi Elaine - That is a good point. I can imagine it being a gruesome job. Even when someone dies naturally things can become yukky pretty quickly, due to natural leakages can’t they?