A couple weekends ago, I went to Balboa Island for a luncheon with some friends. While I was there, I realized that a very smart person has established a ferry service that lets people and vehicles to cross the island for a couple bucks per trip. Although there are other ways to get on the island, this was convenient for many people so business is good for this owner.

A closer look at the price board and the traffic shows that this is not only a very profitable business but a relatively stress free business.

As you can see in the photo, each car and driver needs to pay $2.00 and passengers on the car also pays $1.00.

Look at that line up! I was there on Sunday but I walked by that place 4-5 times and there was always a huge line up to get on.

When I was on the ferry, there were 48 people (36 adults, 12 children) on the same boat including passengers in the cars. Additionally, there were 3 bicycles and 3 cars and the total trip time was 7 minutes and 23 seconds.

Total Revenue (Calculated Per Trip)

Item	Unit Cost	Price
3 cars	$2.00	$6.00
36 adults	$1.00	$36.00
12 children	$0.50	$6.00
3 bicycles (all adults)	$1.25	$3.75
Total	-	$51.75

The service had 3 of these carriers (boats) that went back and forth so there was always someone docking and leaving, fully utilizing this. For simplicity and conservative estimation, the time used per trip was 10 minutes.

Total Revenue (Calculated in Time)

Time	Explanation of Calculation	Revenue
Per 10 minutes	3 carriers x $50.00 (round off $51.75)	$150
Per hour	6 x “per 10 minutes)	$900
Per day	15 x “per hour”	$13,500
Per week	7 x “per day”.  I will divide this by 3 to account for Sunday being a peak day	$31,500
Per Year	52 x “per week”	$1,638,000

Wow!

The number might actually be conservative since I divided the traffic by 3 to account for peak and non-peak days. The people who work there also told me that at times there are many more passengers than the one I counted for this calculation.

Business ideas are everywhere and often very simple. The owner of this service has found one of the easiest businesses to manage since this service involves much less people and equipment than typical ventures. I wonder if the owner reports all the revenue and profit accurately since everything is done in cash.

I will report more interesting business ideas as I encounter them. If there is a particular one you want me to cover, do not hesitate to email me about it at david [at] moneyning [dot.] com so I can check it out!