20k cash. What business would you start?

[Draven Grey]

I have several business that could benefit. At the moment, I already decided to take my knowledge and find investors for a specific type of live production. It already tested extremely well, but will take more than $20K for the next set of shows. There's another dealing with a specific aspect of live productions/concerts (and consequently our own productions) that would be significantly sped up with $20K, rather than the shoestring budget we're working with now. There's also another part of what we're doing (the film side of it) that could be started with $20K, but would quickly need either funding to follow. That much would at least get the testing done for it. I have yet another well-planned out business in band management that has tested very well, but I kind of got burned out after coaching bands for too long.

So, there are many choices to answer the original question, prioritized in the order I mentioned them.

 

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

[Ev1]

Invest in myself or get a small automotive/marine detailing gig going. Something that you can hire/train/scale the business as needed.

A cleaning or junk removal business works well too.

 

[Guest14692]

You have to start over.
You have:
- Your knowledge
- 20k cash.

Everything is possible except an internet company.

What business would you start...?

I agree with Vig and everyone else.

The internet is the ONLY vehicle that makes risking your $20k towards a business worthwhile vs. simply investing it in a little peace of mind (keeping it in a savings)... IMO. Keeping that in mind, if you were to push the strictly offline contingency aside, I'm very interested in this thread as I have $20k that I am willing to try and start something with... I have some ideas so far.

I would do a book buyback.

That shit is a gold mine.

You set up shop on a campus at the end of a semester and offer the students $1 more than the book store for their books.

You then flip it on amazon for 2-3 times what you paid for it.

Is this something you do ? I live by DOZENS of campuses and am definitely interested in hearing more information about this.

 

[lowtek]

I agree with Vig and everyone else.

The internet is the ONLY vehicle that makes risking your $20k towards a business worthwhile vs. simply investing it in a little peace of mind (keeping it in a savings)... IMO. Keeping that in mind, if you were to push the strictly offline contingency aside, I'm very interested in this thread as I have $20k that I am willing to try and start something with... I have some ideas so far.



Is this something you do ? I live by DOZENS of campuses and am definitely interested in hearing more information about this.

I don't do it personally, but a close friend of mine does.

You need access to either a smart phone app or a scanner that you use to scan the book ISBN and it will tell you what it goes for on Amazon. You make a cash offer at 1/2 to 1/3rd of the money you can get on amazon.


If you have the scanner or the app, you can literally just walk into a campus and knock on professors doors and pitch them. Faculty get free books to review all the time, which they generally don't even read. Oh, but do please note that this is technically trespassing. My buddy has been doing it for years and has had the cops called once - he didn't go to jail or anything, but it was a hassle. Usually if a faculty is pissy they'll just ask you to leave. You exit the building and go to a different one, no big deal. Be respectful and dress well, you shouldn't have too many issues.

the campus buybacks are more involved. You have to get a permit from the school to operate on their grounds, and you'll need a truck / trailer, a metric crap ton of cash (20k is a good amount) and some form of security. They can be quite lucrative, but are higher risk.

 

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

[Deleted35442]

@Cyriex You gettin' tagged by noobs you don't even know.

I don't even know this clown @Raoul Duke and he wasn't even around when this thread was. Maybe he thinks this is how you become relevant around here sarcastically referencing something he wasn't even here for. Guess he doesn't know that you, Alex, and others loved the idea and that it was always less about the million but the progress and growth people got out of it even if they didn't hit that number. Leave him with his super kewt bro memes and he'll fade into non-entity status.

 

[ZeroTo100]

Start by spending $15 bucks on TMF . Then read the entire book cover to cover! I am literally half way through it in 2 days.

I agree with Vig and everyone else.

The internet is the ONLY vehicle that makes risking your $20k towards a business worthwhile vs. simply investing it in a little peace of mind (keeping it in a savings)... IMO. Keeping that in mind, if you were to push the strictly offline contingency aside, I'm very interested in this thread as I have $20k that I am willing to try and start something with... I have some ideas so far.



Is this something you do ? I live by DOZENS of campuses and am definitely interested in hearing more information about this.

 

[Daytraderz]

Down payment + closing + renovations to a simple 4 bedroom home in a popular area in my city. Rent out the other 3 rooms to live for free, and use the passive income from there to grow real estate portfolio and launch other less predictable businesses.

I'm about to start doing this now with one of my friends who already has a house with equity in it, I think we're going to start looking at foreclosures.

 

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

[GIlman]

Go to a third world SE Asian country, rent an office, and build out a kick a$$ dev team to build your own software and then hire out excess labor capacity.

With the revenues you can continue to develop your own projects indefinitely with all your costs covered by the side work you do. Upfront investment of $12,810 which includes 3 months of rent deposit. Your monthly costs total for 3 employees will run u right at 4K, so you've got a solid 2 month runway to ramp up.

Blam, there u go. And that's not a hypothetical example, real numbers from a very real project.

Get out of the box and you'll find lots of opportunity.

 

[Newpollz]

Go to a third world SE Asian country, rent an office, and build out a kick a$$ dev team to build your own software and then hire out excess labor capacity.

With the revenues you can continue to develop your own projects indefinitely with all your costs covered by the side work you do. Upfront investment of $12,810 which includes 3 months of rent deposit. Your monthly costs total for 3 employees will run u right at 4K, so you've got a solid 2 month runway to ramp up.

Blam, there u go. And that's not a hypothetical example, real numbers from a very real project.

Get out of the box and you'll find lots of opportunity.

This right here is the kind of shit that I am looking for. A sincere post that did not have a vague "you must create value", "you must work your a$$ off" or "You have 0$ rep bank so you don't know shit" in it.

Thanks

 

[Newpollz]

As I'm sure you all do too, I understand how forum culture works, so I'll not belabor this further than this last reply simply because I noticed a few things in various posters comments that I'd like to address.



I understand that looking at my post count is a simple way to discredit me - the post history on here however is public information, and I spent quite a bit of time reading through the post history before deciding to start posting on my own. I'm simply commenting on the theme I observed:

1. Someone posts a "I have $XX,XXX, how do I spend it?" thread.
   
2. People call for it to be moved to the landfill in various (often abrupt & rude) ways.
3. Circlejerk ensues.

Yes, these posts more often than not are fear-based, but assuming that they are all like that is short-sighted. An alternate solution (similar to one I proposed earlier) makes sense here given the apparent demand.

Further, assuming that all of these posts are fear-based (this one certainly didn't sound like it) and should be moved to the landfill is negligent to new members (like myself) who are interested in hearing what others would do in situations like these. Often, you need an outside perspective to center the discussion and dissemble the bias that a positive feedback loop offers.



I'm all for learning from what others' have done before me, that's why I made an account here. Though this statement confuses me: in this specific instance, listening to those that have had more experience from me teaches me nothing in the realm of business. Those that are "experiences" are asking the post to be moved to the landfill, not participating in the actual thought exercise. That would be more valuable to the forum, and that's something I'd listen to.



Nobody is saying that only novices post on comments like these. Then again, it's worthwhile to have input from less experienced entrepreneurs as they may have some unique insights that veterans would normally overlook. The point I'm making is that there is value in some of these posts, looking past the narrative of "asking how to spend money? must be a scared wantrepreneur...LANDFILL!" is what I would expect from the type of person on this forum - it's strange that this is not the case.



I'm listening to successful entrepreneurs, and fortunately some of them have given legitimate answers on the thread, but asking me to listen when someone is calling for censorship of an interesting discussion simply because they are more experienced is short-sighted.

Finally, this statement presumes that there's no value in "hypothetical and untested paths". Really? You surely must see the issue here.



I'm not superseding anything, I'm simply arguing a point. Superceding would imply that I've replaced their knowledge, I'm not: rather I'm contesting their assumptions and throwing alternatives in the ring.

Others are free to believe what they wish, and that's okay!



As I mentioned earlier, I've read all the relevant posts on this forum. I'll concede that it was not really the best use of my time, but it was incredibly-valuable nonetheless.

The underlying concern here seems to be that you're defacto defaulting to the opinions of individuals who are more successful that I am (which in and of itself is a fallacy of argument from authority), but more importantly, it forces us to think in a vacuum without actually examining the reality of the situation - it's a dangerous place to be.

The reality is that hypothesizing does have value to it. It promotes creativity and opens up neural pathways to alternative methods of wealth creation. As long as the exercises don't replace any action, there is no problem.

Switching gears...



Yea, it was. I tried to think of ways to phrase that in a more tactful way, but I dropped the ball. Sorry if I offended anyone, I figured you all would appreciate it given the context that this is a forum centered around cutting away BS and getting to the point (a primary pillar of TMF ).



You took the definition of parroting and typed it out instead of using the word itself.

Either way, the initial point I was trying to make was that if anyone had looked at OP's post, they would immediately realize that this had value to it. The sudden surge for "LANDFILL!!!" is what I'm referring to as "parroting". It's the neglect of a deeper analysis that bothered me, defaulting to the narrative because the post title fit the format.



Yea, I wouldn't be surprised TBH. An affinity towards action tends to lead to financial success (check out most of the success threads on /r/entrepreneur). I would be willing to bet that they don't disregard these kinds of creative exercises though: they'd understand the value of balance.



First, they're not repeating MJ, it's more complicated than that. It's the culture that a forum format promotes that leads to this behavior.



This is where I disagree. If thousands of people came to the same conclusion without one of them suggesting an alternative (like I suggested earlier re: the separate section of the forum), it would be a statistical feat. People are by nature social creatures (as I'm sure you're aware), and we naturally default to social narratives when presented with excess information. It's a very effective survival mechanism. But again, I'm preaching to the choir here so hopefully the idea is clear.



Well, that's exactly what I did.

=========

Anyway, I've said what I wanted to say and made my point very clear. Any further discussion would be frankly a waste of time better spent building dat fastlane. I'm un-following the thread, though before I go I'd like to extend my apologies to anyone I offended! I should have chosen my initial words in a more tactful manner, but hopefully I was able to convey my message regardless.

Have fun out there in the business world guys!

I'm very surprised nobody else "liked" your post. You made a thorough analysis and responded clearly and respectfully to everyone who attacked you all while standing your ground.

The underlying concern here seems to be that you're defacto defaulting to the opinions of individuals who are more successful that I am (which in and of itself is a fallacy of argument from authority), but more importantly, it forces us to think in a vacuum without actually examining the reality of the situation - it's a dangerous place to be.

It is a dangerous place to be, especially for an anti-guru community that opposes any form of dogma (after all, isn't this why politics and religion aren't debated here?)

 

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

[csalvato]

Yea, it was. I tried to think of ways to phrase that in a more tactful way, but I dropped the ball. Sorry if I offended anyone, I figured you all would appreciate it given the context that this is a forum centered around cutting away BS and getting to the point (a primary pillar of TMF ).

Cutting the BS is very different from being aggressive. This took me a long time to learn personally, and maybe your experiences differ. But I found that you can cut the BS without being aggressive, and then it's easier for both parties to learn. For example, a lot of people are coming at you, attacking you, your person and your ideas while being very rude. How much have you learned from them? Not a lot, I reckon, because this kind of approach usually makes you just stick your heels in more.

I try to cut the rudeness, when possible, and see the perspective and if I can learn from it. That's just me. I don't expect everyone to be the same.

You took the definition of parroting and typed it out instead of using the word itself.

Actually, the concept I am referring to is called "convergence".

This is where multiple people independently come to the same conclusion. Parroting would be mindlessly repeating what someone else has said, without examination. Yes, there is some parroting/bandwagoning, but there is a significant amount of convergence as well.

Either way, the initial point I was trying to make was that if anyone had looked at OP's post, they would immediately realize that this had value to it. The sudden surge for "LANDFILL!!!" is what I'm referring to as "parroting". It's the neglect of a deeper analysis that bothered me, defaulting to the narrative because the post title fit the format.

I agree that there's too many people who jump to the "LANDFILL" bandwagon. That probably needs to stop, and more respect needs to be thrown to our newcomers. I agree there.

While this wasn't really handled well by the community, this is also probably the 25th or 26th post I have seen with this exact title since joining nearly 3 years ago. At first blush, I was like you and thought these posts were useful. It's an interesting thought exercise when you have never done it before, and you can learn some cool things from it.

The problem is where the question comes from most time. I actually made a post just like this 3 years ago. And my mindset was that I had money, and money was all it took to make money, so I just needed someone to tell me what to do and I would get rich. Looking for that step-by-step – that recipe, that action plan – is not a quality in a true entrepreneur.

There's a great analogy right now about entrepreneurs being like chefs – people who create recipes. These people are not yet chefs, and looking for a recipe book to wealth like a cook. If you're interested, there's a great article on WaitButWhy that examines this really well.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html

Sure if we want to mentally masturbate, we could brainstorm thousands of things to do with $20K. We could make a whole mental masturbation forum, like you suggest. But that's not where these questions come from. They tend to come from people wanting a recipe.

 

[Georgy]

I definitely agree with the consensus here; $20k is not a brick and motor path. Well it could be depending on what resources you already have in place, but you'd probably have a lemonade booth at the corner of your street with the government taxing you half your earnings LOL. $20k gets you further digitally than in the real world. But in this day of age it's hard because you either take the AM route (learn the in's and out's), establish the necessary connections and go from there. Or you look long and wide for a coach who can push you in the right direction (they'll cut out most of the bad for you). But even that's not guaranteed as the due diligence is ridiculous when you're trying to find a coach. A lot of successful digital entrepreneurs and affiliate marketers paid a lot for training and coaches to be where they're at. A lot of training's will be bullsh*t, and others will build the foundation. That's what I would do with no job, no experience and $20k sitting in my pocket .

 

[ZMan26]

I wouldn't start a non-internet business with $20k of seed money. I need the scale element and passive element the internet provides overnight.

Awesome, what Internet business would you start with 20K ?

 

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