Personal Business For Life (PB4L): Everything old is new again!
Here is the story of Mandy Kerlann who makes luxury textiles for elite clients the world over. This is a small ($400,000 per year) business that qualifies as a PB4L-she owns it, she started it, it has some pixie dust (design and quality), she bootstrapped it, it has a niche market, it is hard to knock over (i.e., either through a competitor taking her clients away or because she has over leveraged it and the Bank or finance company can do the same…), it has a brand, she can find clients inexpensively (i.e., her marketing costs are small).
(BTW, I have written elsewhere that maybe the best place today to find a PB4L for yourself is to bring back an old craft from the Encyclopedia Britannica circa the 1920s or the 1930s or maybe even earlier.)