🎃+EV Pumpkins? The Seasonal Side Hustle That Prints Money

🎃Porch Pumpkins: The Seasonal Side Hustle That Prints Money

TL;DR

A Dallas mom turned front-porch décor into a million-dollar seasonal business.
Customers pay up front, profit margins hover around 50%, and it all happens in eight weeks.

Let’s break down how Porch Pumpkins became the fall franchise you can copy/paste in your own town.

🎬 The Origin Story

Heather wasn’t trying to start a company. She just loved decorating her own porch.

In 2020, she decided to take on 30 paying clients.
Four days later, she’d booked all 30—and kept going.

By Halloween, she’d decorated 250 homes and made $100,000 in sales, pocketing about $50,000.

Two months. One Yukon. No investors.

Heather started with one Yukon full of pumpkins and a dream.

💰 The Business Model

Porch Pumpkins runs on three genius levers:

Pre-payment. Customers pay before she buys a single pumpkin. Zero risk, instant cash flow.
Packages. Instead of custom quotes, she sells four pre-set “Porch Packages” ranging from $325–$1,350.
- Package 3 ($525 + $75 design fee) is the best-seller.
Design Fees. 95% of customers pay extra for design.
- It’s not about pumpkins—it’s about taste.

Her average order lands around $600–$700 with a 50% profit margin.

🚛 The Logistics

This is where most people would quit. Heather turned chaos into systems.

Buy in Bulk: She orders direct from Texas pumpkin farms each August.
Route Smart: Six deliveries per trailer = $3,600 revenue in ~3 hours.
Hire Small Teams: One driver, one designer. Pay hourly or per job.
Recycle the Waste: End of season, pumpkins get hauled to pig farms. (Sustainable and adorable.)

That’s not marketing fluff—that’s operations porn.

📈 The Growth

Year 1: $100k
Year 2: $250k
Then $450k → $650k → $800k → $1.2M

Now she’s running Dallas, Houston, and Austin, doing half a million in profit per season.

And she’s franchising the model for 2026.
Protected territories. Training. Brand name. Built-in virality.

You don’t need a million followers to make $500k Profit in 2 months

📱 The Marketing Flywheel

Forget billboards. Her secret weapon is Instagram momentum.

Pumpkin displays photograph beautifully.
Neighbors tag her. Friends ask who did theirs.
And her phone goes ding, ding, ding.

Heather’s system:

Post carousels + time-lapse Reels (they always outperform stills)
Reply to every comment for 30 minutes post-upload
Follow up on every DM—twice

She doesn’t treat likes as leads. She treats comments as customers.

Each porch becomes its own ad.

🔑 Takeaways

✅ Sell packages, not custom jobs
✅ Collect money up front
✅ Make it visual so customers market for you
✅ Keep margins simple: 50% or bust
✅ Use forgotten copy (About pages, confirmation emails, even unsubscribe screens) to add personality and brand

⚙️ How You Can Start This Business Tomorrow

Step 1: Pick your city.
Start local. Anywhere with nice porches and HOA moms works.
Launch in late September, deliver through Thanksgiving.

Step 2: Create 3 packages.
Use easy-to-remember tiers: $350, $600, $1,200.
Include pumpkins, hay bales, and design as an add-on ($75–$100).

Step 3: Source your pumpkins.
Start with local nurseries or farm stands your first year.
Once you have volume, buy direct from growers in August for half the price.

Step 4: Get the look right.
Take 5–10 killer example photos. Borrow a friend’s porch.
Post them on Instagram with your city in the bio:
🟠 “Now booking 2025 Fall Displays in [Your City].”

Step 5: Collect pre-orders.
Use Square, Shopify, or Venmo Business.
Customers pay 100% up front to reserve their slot.

Step 6: Deliver, post, repeat.
Every finished porch is content.
Tag the homeowner, post a before-and-after, and let the algorithm do the rest.

Two-month goal: 25 houses × $600 average = $15,000 profit.
Long-term goal: Systematize → hire help → double every year.

Bonus Bucks = Offer pick up between Thanksgiving and Dec 1st for an extra $50-$150

Porch Pumpkins isn’t about pumpkins.
It’s about designing a business that sells itself before you even start it.

What’s next:
Hit reply and tell me what seasonal niche you launched between now and Christmas.

That’s all for this week
—Art
🧠 Rounders to Founders
The gambling mind — rewired for business.