#128 – Gardening & Procrastination

Good morning everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week!

Let’s jump in.

read online on my website 

read time 3 minutes 

#128 at a Glance:

• Quote: The antithesis of tyranny.

• Podcast: Sweat Capital October Recap.

• Deep Dive: Content-driven service businesses.

• Hack: How to beat 90% of procrastination.

• Tweet: Frustration tolerance.

Quote I’ve been thinking about:

Podcast I listened to:

Sweat Capital #110 – October Recap: New York Trip & IMARC 2025

It’s been one month since I announced my partnership with Charlie and Will as we rebranded the show to Sweat Capital.

After a full-throttle October, I sat down with the guys to speak about:

• The whirlwind launch and rebrand of the show

• Charlie and Will's trip to New York to interview world-class investors like Matthew McLennan

• Lessons we've taken from conversations about value investing, career ambition, and not sweating the small stuff

• BTS from the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) 2025

• What makes Aussies stand out globally

• What's in store for November

We’re planning on releasing these internal bonus episodes once a month as a cool way to build the show alongside the growing audience.

Hope you enjoy!

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

[Duration: 39 minutes]

P.S if you haven’t followed Sweat Capital on Instagram, LinkedIn, X and TikTok… go!

Beyond grateful for your support!

Means the world.

Deep Dive:

Content-Driven Service Businesses 

One of the YouTube rabbit holes that I seem to have fallen into is the realm of satisfying gardening videos.

You probably know the type.

The videos typically start with a landscaper speaking to the owner of a property, offering to landscape the entire garden for free, with the proviso that they are able to record the whole thing for their YouTube channel.

A dishevelled, neglected, and wildly overgrown front yard then receives the makeover that the whole neighbourhood was yearning for, with the entire process captured in an utterly satisfying, 10-minute time lapse for us all to enjoy in 4K.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here are a few examples:

What is remarkable is that the online engagement is insane, with videos consistently racking up millions of views and generating new subscribers in droves.

The same sort of popularity exists for similar channels that document the pressure-washing of driveways, the detailing of dirty cars, the painting of houses, and the cleaning of windows.

I began to reflect on this business model and the more I think about it, the more I realise how brilliant it truly is.

With the sorts of numbers that these videos are pulling in, the creators themselves would undoubtedly be receiving some fairly handsome income from the view counts and advertisements on YouTube alone.

To illustrate this using a highly simplified example, ChatGPT estimates that a YouTube channel with 5 million subscribers and an average of 250k views per video would be generating the following revenue:

• $200k-$2M per year from YouTube Ad monetisation

• $500k-$5M per year potentially from other monetisation (brand deals, affiliate agreements, merch, courses/digital products, paid content, etc)

This type of business model is one I like to categorise as a content-driven service business.

Most gardening/landscaping businesses have historically followed the same simple revenue model:

1. Provide a service for a client

2. Receive a one-off service fee

3. Start again with Step 1

Under this system, the revenue per client is capped at the dollar amount one can charge for any single service, which, is inevitably a race to the bottom.

It’s a race to the bottom because gardening services exist in a perfectly competitive market with demand that is highly sensitive to price. This is particularly the case given it is a low-skilled and highly discretionary service which most people are willing to do themselves, especially in a high-cost-of-living environment.

In an attempt to circumvent this, some gardening companies have previously innovated with a subscription-based model, which has proven successful as a means of generating reliable cash flow but does little-to-nothing for their profit margins.

Enter: the content-driven service business.

Here’s how it works, keeping with the gardening/landscaping example:

1. Locate overgrown and unkept properties

2. Speak to the owner/resident and offer to landscape the property for free

3. Video the entire process

4. Edit as a time lapse and upload to YouTube and other social media platforms

So, what’s changed?

The entrepreneur now has leverage.

This shifts the business model entirely from a one-off fee-based service to unlimited earnings potential via online mediums.

What was previously only a 1-to-1 service now becomes 1-to-many, with uncapped revenue.

Another brilliant aspect of this business is that you have effectively priced traditional gardeners out of the market (it’s pretty hard to compete with a service fee of $0).

In time, you would imagine that those traditional operators would inevitably have to switch their model to replicate that of the innovators who are capitalising on this trend for satisfying videos.

So, I guess the game will eventually become who can consistently and reliably source the most unkept gardens in need of some TLC, as well as those who can upload the highest-quality and most engaging videos. Noting that content itself is not necessarily a zero-sum game but that’s where the competition will likely recalibrate.

In the meantime though, there’s plenty of opportunity for early adopters of this new business model to capitalise.

If anyone has spare time to mow some lawns, hit me up. Would seriously love to experiment with this.

Hack I came across:

How To Beat 90% of Procrastination

“90% of procrastination is due to one of two issues.

First “I don’t know what to do”.

^ Break the big project into smaller chunks and define the next physical action.

Second “I know what to do but I don’t know how to do it.”

^ ChatGPT, go to your boss, Google search, ask colleagues.”

(h/t – Chris Williamson)

Tweet I liked:

Frustration Tolerance

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

And if everyone did it, it wouldn’t be worth it.

Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡

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See you in the next one,

Dimi

(P.S. the best ways to get in touch with me are via email or LinkedIn).