Thread: Low barrier investments

I love hearing stories like this, rep++!

Here is how I got started:


Content site publishing.

Costs:

- Web hosting, $10 a month
- Domain names, $8 each, may be 4 or 5 starting out.

Challenges:

- I had to develop my own content. I spent a whole summer making profiles of computer games.

Resources:

- I already knew all of the basics: HTML, graphics editing, uploading the site with FTP.
- I was a modestly capable writer

Profit from the first 365 days: $0
I learned a lot, the first few years were a real bootcamp. At some point I made enough money I quick my part time job in college and was able to re-invest all my work time in to the business. That meant buying 30 packs of hotdogs and shopping at the dollar store.

I think you may be right about them all being low barrier with expertise and knowledge.
However, here are a few of my own experiences:

Investing in Stocks
The stock market can be a fairly low barrier investment, you can get started with as little as $500. The problem with small amounts of money is that making a profit that exceeds the commissions can be difficult. To solve this problem, I recommend dabbling in penny stocks, if anything, with this little amount of money. And, yes, someone actually just recommended investing in penny stocks
Though, with penny stocks, it's usually more trading than investing.

Investing in/with Options
For options, you only need about $1,000 to start, and open an account. These, much like penny stocks, can be highly volatile, however they are much more...interesting. Because of the ability to control risk/reward ratios, the time frame, and other things, these can be quite complicated, and profitable.
I think there are many people on these forums who would agree with me in saying options are a lot of fun

Online Affiliate Marketing
Considering you can get a domain name for as little as $0.99, and hosting for like $6 a month, this one has a very low cost of entry. Once you find a product on a site such as Clickbank.com, or cj.com, you can make a simple (or complicated) website about it, and advertise using PPC methods of advertising, start making money your first day.
Granted, it's usually better to be the person that owns the product and has affiliates, this is still a very easy business to get started in. But, it's very saturated because of the simplicity, and so it has mostly turned into a bidding war for keywords and the like, so it can be difficult to profit from now.

Those are my experiences, feel free to ask for clarity, or anything else that may come to mind

I think affiliate marketing is one of the best "low barrier" investments/businesses you can make. Jonleehacker's video at BP was a great example how to make $$ in that venue.

1) Find an affiliate program that pays well and has an optimized landing page. (These ads here on the RIGHT side are affiliate offers that have AWESOME LANDING PAGES -- these are great examples on how to build landing pages)

2) Advertise the offer (Google Adwords/Craigslist/SocialNet)

3) Test Results / Change.

Your cost:

1) The web page (if need be)
2) Your ad costs.

Pretty low barrier.

Here is a guy who did $3900 in one day with an affiliate program.

Neverblue - $3,939.30 In One Day

I'm not a big fan of affiliate programs because they are PASSENGER relationships -- I'd rather OFFER affiliate programs, not join them.

HOWEVER, and its a big however, they are great for making extra money, monetization of traffic (like the ads I have here) low barrier, and some guys can make a full-time living doing it.

Nothing wrong with that and it affords a great opportunity for people to expose themselves to the world of internet marketing.