I Make $15,000/month - 3 Hours of Work Per Day

[Celestia]

I'm new to the forum but I thought I'd share what I've been doing for the past decade. This is more of a side hustle because it's not really scalable past what I'm doing, but I've been able to become quite wealthy doing this. Now I've gotten into investment properties and I don't need to do this anymore so I thought I'd share what I did to make this kind of money. So what did I do to make $15,000/month working 3 hours per day? I flipped MacBooks. I sold 3-5 MacBooks per day making an average of $150 profit per MacBook. It was quite easy. First I had to find a source to acquire cheap MacBooks. Where did I find that source? Well I can't tell you, but if you're willing to do the leg work you can find sources for everything. What I liked about MacBooks was that they're basically all the same and easy to work on. Apple has a standardized hardware test that you can run on them to make sure they're not going to crap out on somebody the day after you sell them.

Once I secured my sources (I had many), I could buy as many MacBooks as I wanted. Selling as many as 150 MacBooks per month is pretty easy once you get a system set up. So why is this not scalable? Because I only sold on Craigslist. See, the best selling MacBooks are under $500, and for that price they're going to be old (7+ years). If you sell these things online, you're going to have way too many headaches. At only $150 profit each, you'll be in trouble if you get more than a small percentage of people that have problems. Remember, I didn't get into this to work 12 hour days. I don't want to mess with problems. If the thing dies a few weeks later, I don't want to hear about it. It's a used MacBook that's 10 years old. What did you expect? I made sure to sell every MacBook in public and I always made sure to tell people that I didn't warranty them. Despite this, I did hand out a couple of business cards to everyone I sold to. It simply said "XXXXXX - The Mac Guy" with my phone #. This helped bring in referrals and helped me get up to the 3-5 sales per day.

Yes, there were problems. Yes, there were pissed off people. But all in all it was a fun side hustle. I'm still doing it, but have ramped down quite a bit. I don't list on Craigslist anymore and am surviving off my referrals and new business from new cards I hand out to the people that buy stuff from me.

My favorite part of this was when people would bring me their old MacBooks. They'd either just go ahead and give them to me or ask if I'd take $50 off or whatever. I took these in and if they didn't pass the hardware test I'd list them on eBay for parts with the results of the hardware test. I usually didn't fix them (too time-consuming).

I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living nowadays because FaceBook Marketplace has taken a lot of people away from Craigslist. I can't stand FaceBook Marketplace. So many dumbasses on there and people that don't respond or jerk you around. With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not. Now with FaceBook you have to spend 20 minutes going back and forth with said dipshit while 20 other dipshits send you the same mind-numbing message: "is it still available?" to which you respond "Yes, when would you like to look at it?" and 90% of the time you get no response. Who the F*ck thought this was better than just calling someone and setting up a time to meet?

Anyway, rant over. If you can find a good source of a product that is in demand and buy/sell it repeatedly, you've got yourself a good system. Simply grow that system and keep attacking your niche and you'll be making bank in no time. I'm doing the same thing with my investment properties. I have one niche and one type of tenant that I target (I'm careful not to discriminate, but you start to see trends of what types of people go after what types of houses when you get into this business and you learn what to avoid and what to jump on). If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try to answer them.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Celestia]

Great post. You figured out the market and capitalised on it. Makes it sound so easy!!

Did you source and purchase the MacBooks before you found a buyer? Or did you have a buyer interested before you purchased one from your source?

Well done, great stuff

I paid an average of $425 per MacBook and started with $5,000. At first I only bought 10 of them but they sold in about a week so I went back and purchased more. When I started I didn't have very good sources (I was going through a middleman) so I was averaging $30 to $50 per sale. Your first goal should be to build up capital, so find a reliable source to get them for a little less than they're worth, build up some capital, then start trying to find your own sources. When I started buying direct without a middleman, I had to front $25,000 and I went in with a buddy that put in $13,000 (so $38,000 in total). I made about $100 in profit per computer with that deal. This is how it went.

When I first started my average buying price was $425 and my average selling price was $465 - so $40 profit per unit. I sold an average of 1.35 units per day, so I made a total of $1,620/month. I also started taking in other people's MacBooks and flipped them under a different name/phone # just in case there was a problem. I made about $2,500 per month doing that. It took me about 6 months to save up $25,000.

Then when I went direct and started making $100 per computer, I was making about $4,000/month plus the $2,500 from before. Then I started handing out business cards and was able to gradually bump the average number of units sold up to 2.1 per day. That was about a year in.

By this time I had some reliable sources, but I started to squeeze them a little bit and was able to make an average of $120 per unit. At 2.1 units per day and $120 in profit per unit, I was pulling in a cool $7,560/month profit.

Over the years I've built up many more sources and I can be more picky as to how much I pay. Now I won't touch a MacBook unless it has at least $120 in profit if it's a cheap one, and $250 in profit if it's a more expensive one. The reason for this is imagine if you see a MacBook for $1,100. It's not too unreasonable to expect that you can talk them down to $1,000. If I was only making $150 per unit and I give them $100 off, I invested $1,000 to make $50. Not a great return.

My favorites are the older MacBooks (white unibody or 2009 aluminum). I can pick up the white unibody models for $30 a pop and sell them for $150 all day long. I usually pay $80 to $100 for 2009 aluminium models and sell for $250 to $300. They sell like hotcakes. You should see my house...dozens of MacBooks on commercial/industrial shelving in my dining room (because, who the F*ck uses a dining room anymore, am I right?).

I have more sources than I need, but there are other people in this game too so I have to stay vigilant. One advantage I have after all this time is I can pick up a $100,000 order whereas most people can't. I've thought about getting into the middleman business (selling them in bulk for $30 to $50 less than what they go for on eBay), but nobody wants to work anymore and everyone expects to buy them for a huge discount (even below my cost). It's just more trouble than it's worth. Sorry, but you're not going to be able to buy a $400 MacBook for $100. Not even I can do that. I was willing to do that and hustle flipping them for $30 to $50 a pop, but that takes work, and very few people are interested in working nowadays.

 

[Dan_Cardone]

My 0.02 cents about FB Marketplace...

It sucks!

My father is retired and flips cars as a side hustle and he is now refusing to list cars on there.

He calculated that for every 16 people who would message him asking if the car was still available, ONE would respond back after he told them yes. He also complained that no one would every talk on the phone and just wanted to chat in messenger (which he hates to do).

Now he ONLY uses craigslist and LetGo because, in his own words, "People there do business like adults."

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Celestia]

Do you mean for example, if Celestia has a lot of money to buy products and has a good product then he/she has a winner?

Money is only part of it. It's so easy to p*ss away money, and having capital to invest is no guarantee of success. You're going to run into hard limits. I can only sell so many MacBooks. I can't sell much more than I'm doing right now because my local market won't support it, and for reasons I outlined in an earlier post, I can't afford to sell them online. Let's go through some math here:

I can buy a MacBook for $250 and sell it for $400. Easy $150 profit right there if I sell locally. BUT, let's say I decided to sell them on eBay. eBay/PayPal would take 13% of the $400, so now I'm making $98. Then it's going to cost $35 to ship them safely, so now I'm down to $63. Then after taxes I'm down to like $45 if I'm lucky. I'd have to sell 10x per day to make the same profit I'm making selling 3 of them locally. Then I've also got 10x potential "problem" customers (oh, I bought this by mistake - it won't turn on anymore - I thought it would play this game but it can't so I want my money back - oh it has a scratch on it!). F*ck that shit.

If I hired a few employees and really scaled the operation I could probably make it work, but it would be a F*ck ton more work for very little reward. I *MIGHT* be able to make $1,000/day, but I would have to sell at least 30x every single day and have to constantly deal with dipshits. Then all of a sudden my $15,000/month easy 3 hour a day job turns into a nightmare of employees, payroll, taxes, shipping, and dealing with scammers and dipshit F*ckwads on eBay for 12 hours a day. No thanks. Even if I was able to clear $1,000/day and turn it into a $30,000/month business, if I'm working 12 hours a day instead of 3 I'd be working for 1/2 as much $$$ per hour:

3 hours per day = 90 hours per month / $15,000 = $166/hour
12 hours per day = 360 hours per month / $30,000 = $83/hour

Even though I'd be making more money, I'd be devaluing my time by 50%. That's a bad deal. I'd rather do something else with my time or just live more frugally. A penny saved is a penny earned.

 

[GoodluckChuck]

Sounds like there's a real need for a Facebook marketplace bot that will autorespond for you and give you alerts only on 2nd responses.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

I never would have thought of this. Thank you for sharing. This is a cool concept.

Posts like these are a great reminder of how many ways you can make money.

 

[minivanman]

I'm completely guessing and it has been a few days since I read the post but as I understood it, he/she was selling the working ones and scrapping the non working ones and selling the parts. Parts selling is a big business with lots of things.

Speaking of scrapping.... the next time you see these people with all the 'junk' in the back of their pickup heading to the scrap yard..... just think of their options to make WAY more money. They could sell some of the items and they could sell the parts on ebay. Then take the left over metal to the scrap yard. But they choose to drive around for 5 hours wasting gas, get $42 for their load of 'junk' at the scrap yard, put $30 back in the gas tank because they wasted that much driving around looking for the stuff and then go to Burger King to spend their WHOPPING (<<< YES pun intended ) $12 on food or maybe stop by the gas station and buy a pack of cigs. I bet babies momma would ebay it for him and gladly split the profit.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[chabs]

that was a good business,

Personally I enjoyed Facebook marketplace a lot when I hustled last year, re-selling used Nintendo’s. Marketplace had such massive volume compared to other similar local classifieds style apps.

And because it was visual and had a lot of people listing items as well.. I made most of my purchases through it too

Yes the “is this still available” is annoying.. but generally speaking most people were reasonable.

Made $38k in profit over 4.5 months before quitting cold turkey, due to my main line of work becoming busy again. The hours “worked” were generally between 5pm to 11pm. Probably average 2-3 hours a day and 4-5 hours weekend of “work”. Work involves taking photos , making listings, shipping orders, and picking up deals. Tho throughout the day I’d send messages and occasionally refresh the feed to see if any deals popped up (you had to jump on a good deal very fast).

It was such an awesome experience.. but not scalable. If your ego allows it.. reselling used items can be very fun!

And last year was a special case where simultaneously you had a lot of demand for old Nintendo’s because so many people were at home, AND you had a lot of supply from people clearing out their old junk because they wanted something to do at home.

The rising demand meant that you could ask for ever increasing prices on some product lines, Pokémon games have risen the most.. and mario games kept value like you wouldn’t believ.

Every time I sold Mario games to parents buying for their kids, they didn’t question the price .

This often meant that I could sell a good 15-20% higher than EBAY prices, and I didn’t pay fees!!!

Also once you have a lot of reviews, people were bank transferring me without PayPal, and I would ship out to them.

At the start it was the n64 that made bank. However the incredible volumes of wii products, combined with the fact that it was easy to buy a bundle with console, controllers, and 10+ games for under $150 meant that the Wii quickly overtook it in terms of overall profit.

Switch related products sold the fastest, especially because of the shortages of switches throughout last year. There were so many times I’d pickup a switch and have it sold by the time I got back home..

You could also get bonus margin capture, for example if you lucked out on any of the following, it was over a few $00’s extra per week in cash:

• Original switches were hackable and could be resold as tablet only, at a premium. Then I would seperately sell the dock, Joycons, and other peripherals, making $550-$750 on a switch that cost me $300-$400, and switches only averaged 1-3 days in inventory
• Old Nintendo bundles sometimes weren’t photographed very nicely by the people selling them . So you see a bundle with console, controllers 6 n64 games and you value it at $400 individually, whilst seller is asking $250. You pick it up, and find out they also had games not photographed! If you were lucky, it was a mario party or equivalent high value game… those would go for over $100 a pop!
• Nearly everyone has owned a wii at some point in their lives. And for some reason it gelt like the average Wii bundle included 10+ Games… so the chances of getting high value games (such as Mario games) in a Wii bundle were massive! The best part was that you would recover the cost of your Wii bundle purchase in under 3 days on average. Example: you buy a bundle for $150, and you sold Mario kart, new super Mario bros, and 2 controllers within 2 days. That’s already $180 made, and you still have the rest of the bundle to sell!
• You could change your location in marketplace for purchases, I would buy from people in other states. When I bought it was ALWAYS PayPal, only got scammed once.. and that was ironically on the generic style classifieds equivalent in my local market.
• When I sold it was mostly bank transfer if I was shipping it out, if someone picked up it was mostly cash. I always racked on a 4% PayPal surcharge.
• I focused on providing a good customer experience, making sure to reply fast and shop fast with tracking numbers. This meant building up 5 star reviews came super fast.
• I made money selling “customised bundles”. For example someone could order a specific 4 games from me, sometimes those games came from 4 different purchases! So I was buying bundles at a discount (unwanted bundles) and then selling bundles at a premium (wanted bundles). It was prettt cool , because a person would choose to buy from me because they could get 3+ games they wanted. Shipping was always free for 3+ games and sometimes I’d slip in a freebie $10 game or so.

All in all, an amazing experience, and super fun. Making treasure from someone else’s trash. Unfortunately it’s not scalable.

It’s also not healthy to be constantly refreshing your marketplace/Craigslist feed every few minutes, waiting to jump on a deal..

Currently I’m producing products with bulk orders and selling them. Focusing on brand. It’s much more profitable and you can dump upwards of $100k in a single purchase rather than many small purchases of $100-$500.

However it does come with other headaches.. mostly the time required and the increased overheads.. is it really a great business if you’re involved in it every day and don’t have much of a life outside of it?

There’s something about the little excitement of things like an unexpected $100 because the seller is like “oh I forgot to include this in the listing, but I don’t need it, you can have it”.

You just can’t recreate that excitement with a generic business

Also, the other exciting thing was that it was just me and at my own leisure… no managing people or relying on others.

Maybe I should write up a thread sharing a bit more about the Nintendo reselling story, if people would like to learn or be inspired? I funded this fun side hustle with a total of $750, seriously! It was honestly a special time where I just felt so much thrill and excitement, because it was so much more fun than most other businesses.

 

[amp0193]

I did the same thing, but with phones, back in the iphone 4 and 4s days. Made lots of money on the side. Paid a big chunk out of my student loans.

The hustle was buying on craigslist, but selling on Amazon. Yes there were some headaches, but not too many. Was profiting $60-80 a phone. Phones were almost guaranteed to sell within 24-48 hours. So I'd check craigslist a few times a day and go snag the deals.

The whole thing crashed and burned, when I tried to scale and buy in bulk from a "source". Turns out the source didn't actually exist, and a year's worth of hustle money was gone in an instant.

 

[jack1342]

What was your main source of Macbooks?

 

[Scot]

What was your main source of Macbooks?

Where did I find that source? Well I can't tell you, but if you're willing to do the leg work you can find sources for everything.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Upgrade to NOTABLE, thank you for sharing your hustle.

I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living nowadays because FaceBook Marketplace has taken a lot of people away from Craigslist. I can't stand FaceBook Marketplace. So many dumbasses on there and people that don't respond or jerk you around. With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not.

Have you tried OfferUp? I've had some great success on there cleaning out a garage with a lot of old stuff.

 

[Celestia]

So in the future have someone click The Apple Logo at top left hand side of screen and select
''About this Mac'' Find the model name and serial number of your Mac
and read the Serial number.

Then call Apple
Tell them you are about to buy this device and want to make sure it's not locked.

I'm about to buy a Mac and just want to make sure I don't get scammed
If I provide you the serial number can you tell me if it's locked? I've had them read it to me and have it in front of me.

Read serial number: wait a few seconds while it's checked.
This can save you the hassle of getting there, then finding out it's locked.

That serves no purpose. You'd know if it were locked because you couldn't get into it and the person you're buying it from will tell you they don't know the password. What you have to do is make sure they can't lock it AFTER you've bought it. That's why you have to clear Find My Mac.

There are two different types of passwords; account passwords and firmware passwords

Account passwords are the normal everyday passwords that you enter in when the computer starts up. It will have an account name and picture and a box underneath where you enter your password in order to get into the computer. These can easily be cleared by simply wiping the hard drive on the computer.

Firmware passwords actually lock the entire logic board. Even if you wipe the hard drive, these passwords persist and are tied to the actual hardware on the computer. If you buy a computer that's firmware locked, you're pretty screwed. It requires a very expensive specialized tool in order to unlock and requires removal of the logic board (a difficult and dangerous procedure for a regular user) in order to clear.

If Find My Mac is enabled, the original owner can remotely apply a firmware password to the device. Even if you erase the hard drive, they can still do this. That's why you have to clear the PRAM when you erase the hard drive, otherwise you're essentially using a computer with a killswitch that a stranger can flip at any time (even after you've flipped it).

Buying Apple devices (MacBooks, iPads, iPhones, etc.) is extremely risky because of this. Apple has so many security features and safeguards that you have to make sure are disabled, otherwise the original owner can turn your expensive device into a brick.

You don't know where stuff is coming from. When I first started doing this a long time ago, I bought a MacBook and it got firmware locked after I flipped it. It turns out that it belonged to the girlfriend of the guy that originally sold it to me and he had taken it when they broke up. It was registered in her name, but purchased with his money so he thought it belonged to him and she thought it belonged to her. The police got involved and I had to meet with the guy, his girlfriend, two police officers, and the guy I sold it to. Not fun. Now I just wipe everything I get and disable Find My Mac. It's much simpler. I won't knowingly buy something stolen, but I don't want to be in the middle of a dispute over ownership ever again.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Grinder20]

I'm new to the forum but I thought I'd share what I've been doing for the past decade. This is more of a side hustle because it's not really scalable past what I'm doing, but I've been able to become quite wealthy doing this. Now I've gotten into investment properties and I don't need to do this anymore so I thought I'd share what I did to make this kind of money. So what did I do to make $15,000/month working 3 hours per day? I flipped MacBooks. I sold 3-5 MacBooks per day making an average of $150 profit per MacBook. It was quite easy. First I had to find a source to acquire cheap MacBooks. Where did I find that source? Well I can't tell you, but if you're willing to do the leg work you can find sources for everything. What I liked about MacBooks was that they're basically all the same and easy to work on. Apple has a standardized hardware test that you can run on them to make sure they're not going to crap out on somebody the day after you sell them.

Once I secured my sources (I had many), I could buy as many MacBooks as I wanted. Selling as many as 150 MacBooks per month is pretty easy once you get a system set up. So why is this not scalable? Because I only sold on Craigslist. See, the best selling MacBooks are under $500, and for that price they're going to be old (7+ years). If you sell these things online, you're going to have way too many headaches. At only $150 profit each, you'll be in trouble if you get more than a small percentage of people that have problems. Remember, I didn't get into this to work 12 hour days. I don't want to mess with problems. If the thing dies a few weeks later, I don't want to hear about it. It's a used MacBook that's 10 years old. What did you expect? I made sure to sell every MacBook in public and I always made sure to tell people that I didn't warranty them. Despite this, I did hand out a couple of business cards to everyone I sold to. It simply said "XXXXXX - The Mac Guy" with my phone #. This helped bring in referrals and helped me get up to the 3-5 sales per day.

Yes, there were problems. Yes, there were pissed off people. But all in all it was a fun side hustle. I'm still doing it, but have ramped down quite a bit. I don't list on Craigslist anymore and am surviving off my referrals and new business from new cards I hand out to the people that buy stuff from me.

My favorite part of this was when people would bring me their old MacBooks. They'd either just go ahead and give them to me or ask if I'd take $50 off or whatever. I took these in and if they didn't pass the hardware test I'd list them on eBay for parts with the results of the hardware test. I usually didn't fix them (too time-consuming).

I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living nowadays because FaceBook Marketplace has taken a lot of people away from Craigslist. I can't stand FaceBook Marketplace. So many dumbasses on there and people that don't respond or jerk you around. With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not. Now with FaceBook you have to spend 20 minutes going back and forth with said dipshit while 20 other dipshits send you the same mind-numbing message: "is it still available?" to which you respond "Yes, when would you like to look at it?" and 90% of the time you get no response. Who the F*ck thought this was better than just calling someone and setting up a time to meet?

Anyway, rant over. If you can find a good source of a product that is in demand and buy/sell it repeatedly, you've got yourself a good system. Simply grow that system and keep attacking your niche and you'll be making bank in no time. I'm doing the same thing with my investment properties. I have one niche and one type of tenant that I target (I'm careful not to discriminate, but you start to see trends of what types of people go after what types of houses when you get into this business and you learn what to avoid and what to jump on). If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try to answer them.

@Celestia, great idea! Got to love an all cash business! Your comments about FB Marketplace are right on, lol!

 

[Ocean Man]

I've quoted some of what you said as I feel like they're important and people can learn from them. And sort of added my own opinions/thoughts to them.

you can find sources for everything.

This is true, in the early days of the company I work for... I remember our goals of sourcing oem parts/products. If we couldn't find them, we made sure we found the next best or even better.

Once I secured my sources (I had many)

This is really important. Have multiple sources, especially if you're a business owner who sells their own products. If I remember correctly, @B.Cole has some experience with this (at least saw the reasons why it's important to have multiple backups). If one manufacturer suddenly goes dark on you or quality isn't good, you always want to have alternatives and backups. Never place your eggs all in one manufacturer.

Selling as many as 150 MacBooks per month is pretty easy once you get a system set up.

Self-explanatory bold. Once you figure out the tasks that you need to be done, if you can automate that and set up a system, things will be much easier. P.S Before focusing on growth, focus on making the foundations for your company so that they can handle the growth.

I did hand out a couple of business cards to everyone I sold to. It simply said "XXXXXX - The Mac Guy" with my phone #. This helped bring in referrals and helped me get up to the 3-5 sales per day.

This is simply a reminder to have some way for your clients to refer someone to you.

Yes, there were problems. Yes, there were pissed off people. But all in all it was a fun side hustle.

I think a lot of people forget that business should be FUN! Enjoy the process! Although it's a daily grind, you should enjoy working on what you're working on. Otherwise, what's the point? Life is too short. Right now it seems long, but in 30 years, you'll look back and think, "Woah, time flew by fast!".

if they didn't pass the hardware test I'd list them on eBay for parts with the results of the hardware test.

I wanted to quote this because people forget that they can find other businesses in their current business. If you have a computer that doesn't startup. Are you going to throw away the entire computer? What if it was just the cable that wasn't working? Or only a few pieces of the puzzle were missing. Sell the rest of the pieces! Don't just throw them out. Find the other businesses in your current business; how can you provide more value?

you start to see trends of what types of people go after what types of houses when you get into this business and you learn what to avoid and what to jump on

When I was younger I would wake up early and go to thrift stores like good wills, ROSS, etc... and see what I can flip. I didn't do it too long and I never really made any money. But it's because I didn't know what people actually wanted. Invest some time in the thing you want to do. Figure out what people want or need and provide them that. You're not going to figure out in a day or two, things take time.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Celestia]

Notice: the poster of this marketplace post will not reply to this post.
This poster does not have Facebook messenger and will not respond to messages.
The item will remain listed until it is sold. Sold meaning item swapped for cash.

This poster will not debate on prices. Listed price is already listed below MSRP, item is considered highly discounted.

If you are interested in this item call or text (burner phone) to purchase at (listed price)
Again, FB messages or comments on this post will not be read.


^-- that's the template I've used in the past for Marketplace listings.
Then disable notifications.

Hope that helps you in the future!
-

Does that really work? Seeing how few people on eBay actually read the listing before buying it, I can't imagine people actually reading that whole thing and actually calling you.

I've gotta ask. How did you deal with Icloud Lock?

I have a tool that I can use to clear any firmware locked Macs. If you're asking how I check if Find My Mac is enabled before I buy a computer, all you have to do is use a terminal command:

nvram -p | grep fmm

If it lists the person's information, Find My Mac is enabled and they can lock it at any time. To fix this, boot into a Mac OS installer via USB. Then run the following terminal command:

nvram -c

Wipe out the hard drive / SSD, then when it restarts do a hard PRAM reset by holding down Command + Option + P + R until it resets. Once Mac OS is installed, DO NOT connect to the internet. Instead, run the nvram -p | grep fmm command again and make sure it doesn't list the person's information.

If the person enables Find My Mac and you erase the drive, they can still lock it because the Find My Mac info is stored in the PRAM (separate from the hard drive). As soon as you wipe the computer and reinstall Mac OS, Find My Mac will be turned back on by the information stored in the PRAM and you'll be screwed.

I generally don't buy firmware locked Macs because they're usually stolen. I bought one the other day from a guy that claimed it belonged to his father who recently passed away. He seemed legit and could name a few files that were stored on the computer so I went ahead and bought it from him. It was a 2017 MacBook Pro touchbar. Paid $200 for it, sold it for $1,800 the next day. Took roughly 10 minutes to clear the firmware password and another 30 minutes to reinstall Mac OS. In total I invested a little more than an hour into it (including meeting the guy, getting it ready to go, listing it, and meeting with the buyer) and made $1,600. I can't complain.

 

[Bourbons]

Don't want to burst your bubble, or anything, but explaining all that unlocking jargon has probably helped a lot of thieves looking at this forum. You have just given them the key to the bank vault. Be careful and mindful of what information you post, because you don't know who's watching or reading.

I don't think this forum is full of macbook thieves

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Taz]

With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not. Now with FaceBook you have to spend 20 minutes going back and forth with said dipshit while 20 other dipshits send you the same mind-numbing message: "is it still available?" to which you respond "Yes, when would you like to look at it?" and 90% of the time you get no response.

Probably the funniest thing I've seen all day

But good job and keep at it. You really can make money in so many different ways.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ecommercewolf]

I did the same thing, but with phones, back in the iphone 4 and 4s days. Made lots of money on the side. Paid a big chunk out of my student loans.

The hustle was buying on craigslist, but selling on Amazon. Yes there were some headaches, but not too many. Was profiting $60-80 a phone. Phones were almost guaranteed to sell within 24-48 hours. So I'd check craigslist a few times a day and go snag the deals.

The whole thing crashed and burned, when I tried to scale and buy in bulk from a "source". Turns out the source didn't actually exist, and a year's worth of hustle money was gone in an instant.

This reminded me of my days working at one of those cell phone kiosks for a 3rd party retailer inside of the mall. Customers are constantly upgrading their iPhones so of course they don't know what they want to do with their old phone.

What me and one other person would do is punch in the model, color and other specs of their iphone into the computer system... of course the credit they would receive on the screen would always be something OUTRAGEOUSLY low like $30 or $40 for a previous generation iPhone. The company has to profit when they resell it obviously.

That's where I come in and tell them that I can buy it off of them for $75-$80 hard cash, I just have to meet them at off store premises (in the food court of the same mall) so technically its not illegal. I'm sure they knew what was going on but it was a win-win situation. The customer got more money cash for a phone that was gonna collect dust anyways, while I was able to profit anywhere from $80-120 per phone.

 

[Celestia]

How big is the city you're selling in.

I could see this working for a med to large city, but prob not small rural areas.

Congratulations. I guess the demand for it in your city must be quite high for you to reach such impressive numbers

I live in a smaller suburb (70k population) but within 20 minutes of a large city with a population of 700k. Probably have around 1M within a 20 mile radius of my house.

I meet at a fast food restaurant less than 2 blocks from my house. It's so quick and easy, I can make $150 for 20 minutes of work and less than $1 in gas.

 

[JByers210]

Yes. There's a guy on here who recently did a thread about flipping couches...

This kind of tactic can still make money

We refurbish couches... reupholster, clean, fix the frames... and it's always been consistent and profitable. Not a fastlane CENTS business but this and hustles like it are 10000x better than working for someone while working on new ventures.

 

[Chip01]

Great post. You figured out the market and capitalised on it. Makes it sound so easy!!

Did you source and purchase the MacBooks before you found a buyer? Or did you have a buyer interested before you purchased one from your source?

Well done, great stuff

 

[Devampre]

First off, awesome results! I flipped stuff before, but never found consistent products that I went all in on. (I took a general approach and thus my results were all over the place.)

What I really like about your story is that you did it with Macbooks. I see a lot of people online that struggle choosing "the right product" and turn down product ideas like "laptops" because they hear it's "saturated" or something. And then they try selling something very obscure with a low profit margin wondering why it's so hard to get ahead.

So thanks for the inspiration/motivation.

Also...

Would people like help selling product via facebook marketplace and reducing the amount of "tire kickers"?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[minivanman]

@Primeperiwinkle

That's why I love Facebook Marketplace. It runs everyone else off. I could see if I was strapped for cash and not wanting to go through a lot of crap to make a sale.

Doing this is exactly what I've been talking about. This is what I did with washers and dryers.

 

[Celestia]

Sounds like there's a real need for a Facebook marketplace bot that will autorespond for you and give you alerts only on 2nd responses.

You wouldn't happen to know of any, would you?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Blu H]

What was your main source of Macbooks?

Now C'mon Man! Like he'll give away the keys to his Biz? If you want to do it... go out there & find out.

 

[Celestia]

Wondering the same thing. I have 0 knowledge on repairing computers, lol!

I can fix them, but I usually don't bother. The computers I get from my sources are 100% working and ready to sell. Any MacBooks with serious problems I just sell as-is to people that fix and flip them.

1. How to know if they are a middleman or real source?

Price. A middleman can't offer you very good prices and still make anything for himself.

2. How to know if it's legit-- this is a biggie

I only deal cash and in-person for my deals - both buying from my sources and selling to people.

3. Since it's used - how do I verify the right wholesale price and retail that I can potentially sell on CL or Letgo, etc.

eBay - condition:used - sort byrice - highest to lowest

If it's a significant discount from comparable computers on eBay then it's a good price. If they're asking retail or close to retail, it's a bad price. You're not going to get a computer worth $400+ for $100 even if you're buying them by the 1,000's, but if you can get them for $100 to $200 less then there's a good margin there.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Equilibrium]

Notice: the poster of this marketplace post will not reply to this post.
This poster does not have Facebook messenger and will not respond to messages.
The item will remain listed until it is sold. Sold meaning item swapped for cash.

This poster will not debate on prices. Listed price is already listed below MSRP, item is considered highly discounted.

If you are interested in this item call or text (burner phone) to purchase at (listed price)
Again, FB messages or comments on this post will not be read.


^-- that's the template I've used in the past for Marketplace listings.
Then disable notifications.

Hope that helps you in the future!
-

I've gotta ask. How did you deal with Icloud Lock?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[fastlane_dad]

Great thread, literally how I and many entrepreneurs I personally know started off (some are still doing it at scale).

I was doing this for a while with baseball cards. And at another times with cutco cutlery out of all things (buy on CL sell on eBay).

What made you target MacBooks and how could you tell which products were hot to sell?

You can honestly do this flipping gig with any product. Obviously needs to be closer in price between $100-500 to make sure there could be enough profit built in to make this worth the effort, yet semi quick to sell.

I have known others to do this with bicycles, i-phones (all versions of phones), pc's, clothes, etc.

There will never be a shortage of marketplaces to buy and marketplaces to sell - just requires an open eye and mind to find the opportunities and act on them quick.

Good luck!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[PrestijeLLC]

I'm new to the forum but I thought I'd share what I've been doing for the past decade. This is more of a side hustle because it's not really scalable past what I'm doing, but I've been able to become quite wealthy doing this. Now I've gotten into investment properties and I don't need to do this anymore so I thought I'd share what I did to make this kind of money. So what did I do to make $15,000/month working 3 hours per day? I flipped MacBooks. I sold 3-5 MacBooks per day making an average of $150 profit per MacBook. It was quite easy. First I had to find a source to acquire cheap MacBooks. Where did I find that source? Well I can't tell you, but if you're willing to do the leg work you can find sources for everything. What I liked about MacBooks was that they're basically all the same and easy to work on. Apple has a standardized hardware test that you can run on them to make sure they're not going to crap out on somebody the day after you sell them.

Once I secured my sources (I had many), I could buy as many MacBooks as I wanted. Selling as many as 150 MacBooks per month is pretty easy once you get a system set up. So why is this not scalable? Because I only sold on Craigslist. See, the best selling MacBooks are under $500, and for that price they're going to be old (7+ years). If you sell these things online, you're going to have way too many headaches. At only $150 profit each, you'll be in trouble if you get more than a small percentage of people that have problems. Remember, I didn't get into this to work 12 hour days. I don't want to mess with problems. If the thing dies a few weeks later, I don't want to hear about it. It's a used MacBook that's 10 years old. What did you expect? I made sure to sell every MacBook in public and I always made sure to tell people that I didn't warranty them. Despite this, I did hand out a couple of business cards to everyone I sold to. It simply said "XXXXXX - The Mac Guy" with my phone #. This helped bring in referrals and helped me get up to the 3-5 sales per day.

Yes, there were problems. Yes, there were pissed off people. But all in all it was a fun side hustle. I'm still doing it, but have ramped down quite a bit. I don't list on Craigslist anymore and am surviving off my referrals and new business from new cards I hand out to the people that buy stuff from me.

My favorite part of this was when people would bring me their old MacBooks. They'd either just go ahead and give them to me or ask if I'd take $50 off or whatever. I took these in and if they didn't pass the hardware test I'd list them on eBay for parts with the results of the hardware test. I usually didn't fix them (too time-consuming).

I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living nowadays because FaceBook Marketplace has taken a lot of people away from Craigslist. I can't stand FaceBook Marketplace. So many dumbasses on there and people that don't respond or jerk you around. With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not. Now with FaceBook you have to spend 20 minutes going back and forth with said dipshit while 20 other dipshits send you the same mind-numbing message: "is it still available?" to which you respond "Yes, when would you like to look at it?" and 90% of the time you get no response. Who the F*ck thought this was better than just calling someone and setting up a time to meet?

Anyway, rant over. If you can find a good source of a product that is in demand and buy/sell it repeatedly, you've got yourself a good system. Simply grow that system and keep attacking your niche and you'll be making bank in no time. I'm doing the same thing with my investment properties. I have one niche and one type of tenant that I target (I'm careful not to discriminate, but you start to see trends of what types of people go after what types of houses when you get into this business and you learn what to avoid and what to jump on). If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try to answer them.

I was flipping appliances on FB marketplace and I a had a virtual assistant from Pakistan talking to all customers and posting the listings. All I had to do was send him photos and I would just get an "order" message and make the delivery

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.