A grimy entrepreneur… the first thing that may come to mind is a mobster involved with rotten business deals. No, I’m talking about that kind of grime. I mean grime as in smelly, rotten, nasty and downright disgusting business ventures that are quite lucrative.

I love Dirty Jobs, hosted by Mike Rowe on the Discovery Channel. It has the appeal of NBC’s Fear Factor, but I can actually watch it without throwing up or turning away . . . well, most of the time.

The show has featured everything you could possibly think of, and anything you couldn’t, that constitutes as a job most of us would refuse or be extremely unhappy to do.

Some examples of dirty jobs that have been featured on the show:

• Skulls International, a company in Oklahoma that cleans all types of skeletons, from chipmunk to human to giraffe.
• Bio Oregon, a fish recycling plant.
• A dairy farm where the owner makes biodegradable/plantable flower pots out of cow patties.
• Coyote Texas Turkey Farm, home of the liquid compost turkey pile.
• San Francisco Waste Treatment Center (enough said).
• Ohio State Department of Transportation, Road Kill Recovery Division – ewwwww!

We all have our ideas of dirty, disgusting jobs that we would never do. Let’s face it, none of us longed to scoop dog poo out of people’s yards for a living or be a trash collector when we grew up. I knew a guy who was a trash collector… and I also know how much money he made and, if I were desperate, I might consider it… despite the fact that I’m a female!

The point is, somebody’s got to do the ugly work. Could you imagine how life would be if no one picked up the roadkill or the trash or worked in the waste treatment centers? I don’t even want to think about how disgusting our existence would be.

And, since so few people jump at the chance to do the nasty jobs, most of them pay pretty nicely. Skulls International charges $7,500 to clean a human skeleton (less for animals, because they don’t smell as bad), and expects to reach over $2 million in sales this year.

Clearly, they are in high demand, as are most other entrepreneurs who venture down that dark, grimy alley of the not-so glamorous business. They see that the public is in need of a specific service and that no one else is doing it because of the muck involved, and just dive right in (so to speak). Hey, have at the slime between your toes!

Related Readings:
• Entrepreneur.com: Filthy Rich Businesses