How I turned $20 into $8,500+ in 2 months

[Pete799p]

I'm talking commercial not residential. No bed bugs in commercial furniture from what I've seen.

I just didn't want people to see some gold in that nice leather coach they found in an abandoned apartment and bring home a costly problem. I have seen some really nice furniture that has been left in units that were infested with bed bugs.

I definitely second commercial as well I was working with a local developer when one of his tnts abandoned their unit. It was a warehouse for a furniture store and they left everything. Some of it was in bad shape but there was tons of good stuff

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Let me tell you the open opportunity here. Plenty of property management companies deal with the issue of furniture, most of the time they have to pay to have furniture removed if a tenant leaves it. There is a huge opportunity to just talk to the companies and tell them you will haul it away for free. Most of the time they have companies come look at it and say that they can't sell it right away so they charge to pick it up. But that doesnt account for anyone that wants to refurb the furniture and then sell it.

Office furniture is a huge boring market, there are a few people making a killing on it.

In the late 1990's I was managing a mortgage company. I believe it was in 1999 that we were looking for 4 office desks as we were hiring more loan officers. We went to an on-site auction that was selling a huge warehouse full of office furniture. It was the kind of auction where the auctioneer walks thru the building selling items as he goes with the bidders following him. I remember that there were so many people there that we were tripping over each other.

We arrived during the pre-auction inspection time. We walked the part of the warehouse that held all of the desks. There were literally hundreds of desks. Somewhere around 400 (my best guess). Now, we picked out about a dozen or so desks that we would bid on hoping we could snag 4 of them.

Just so happens that the desks were the last items up for bid. We were there for about 5 hours before they got to these blasted desks, lol.

Imagine our disgust when they announced they were selling them in lots of 50, not individually! - "Are you frackin' kidding me?"

Let me shorten this story a bit. We ended up buying 2 lots! Yes, 100 desks. Now, these were not the run of the mill, cheap desks. These were large executive desks made out of walnut or cherry with leather inlay desk tops.

I'll save the story of moving all these beasts for another time. So, we got our 4 desks and over the next couple years we sold the remaining desks for anywhere from $100 - $500 (depending on condition). Oh, by the way, we only paid $400 for all of them (plus the cost of a huge UHaul truck).

 

[AllenCrawley]

It's 1 time deal and not a business because you cannot repeat it again, again and again. OK, I was lucky to pick up a lot of 14 old postcards per 5 bucks a month ago. I've sold 2 of them for 940 bucks. The other 12 ones are junk. I call it the good luck.

Luck favors the prepared.

 

[stranger]

Luck favors the prepared.

Haha. Maybe we should start a business together.

 

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[CEBenz]

In the late 1990's I was managing a mortgage company. I believe it was in 1999 that we were looking for 4 office desks as we were hiring more loan officers. We went to an on-site auction that was selling a huge warehouse full of office furniture. It was the kind of auction where the auctioneer walks thru the building selling items as he goes with the bidders following him. I remember that there were so many people there that we were tripping over each other.

We arrived during the pre-auction inspection time. We walked the part of the warehouse that held all of the desks. There were literally hundreds of desks. Somewhere around 400 (my best guess). Now, we picked out about a dozen or so desks that we would bid on hoping we could snag 4 of them.

Just so happens that the desks were the last items up for bid. We were there for about 5 hours before they got to these blasted desks, lol.

Imagine our disgust when they announced they were selling them in lots of 50, not individually! - "Are you frackin' kidding me?"

Let me shorten this story a bit. We ended up buying 2 lots! Yes, 100 desks. Now, these were not the run of the mill, cheap desks. These were large executive desks made out of walnut or cherry with leather inlay desk tops.

I'll save the story of moving all these beasts for another time. So, we got our 4 desks and over the next couple years we sold the remaining desks for anywhere from $100 - $500 (depending on condition). Oh, by the way, we only paid $400 for all of them (plus the cost of a huge UHaul truck).

Allen, I'm curious where you found the auction lol

 

[AllenCrawley]

Allen, I'm curious where you found the auction lol

I believe this one was advertised in the local paper as an office furnishings liquidation.

 

[CEBenz]

I believe this one was advertised in the local paper as an office furnishings liquidation.

I see. We have a couple auction houses up here but my brother and I haven't seen stuff go for much below market. But we also haven't seen one that was exclusively office furniture either. Mostly it's bar and restaurant stuff. Equipment auctions are usually way out of my price range but I can see doing exactly what you did. How did you sell the desks? Local paper? Craigslist?

 

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[AllenCrawley]

How did you sell the desks? Local paper? Craigslist?

This was back in '99 so it was local paper. No craigslist. If we had craigslist we probably would have sold them a lot sooner.

 

[cautiouscapy]

Chance favors the prepared mind...

I was at a local garbage dump the other week - in the UK now most of these have an area where they resell stuff for a few pennies to a few pounds to offset costs - great place to look for things to resell!

I spotted some graphic novels in a box, some still bagged in plastic from the shop and I took a pile of about 8 home for $1.50, found out that one is advertised on Amazon at £75 secondhand, another £46.

I'm not even a fan of graphic novels, but I realized they have smaller print runs than your mass-market paperbacks, and importantly, a fanatical audience.

Mind you, they have to SELL to make that money, and the Amazon cut is huge!

Tiny win, but it made me feel good for the rest of the weekend.

 

[Pete799p]

I see. We have a couple auction houses up here but my brother and I haven't seen stuff go for much below market. But we also haven't seen one that was exclusively office furniture either. Mostly it's bar and restaurant stuff. Equipment auctions are usually way out of my price range but I can see doing exactly what you did. How did you sell the desks? Local paper? Craigslist?

There is big money to be made in equipment auctions if you have the cash and you know what to do with it. I watched a video not too long ago about a UK entrepreneur who was able to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth a manufacturing equipment for 10's of thousands which he moved to china to open up his own cabinet manufacturer. The deal was really ridiculous when you add it up.

 

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[CEBenz]

There is big money to be made in equipment auctions if you have the cash and you know what to do with it. I watched a video not too long ago about a UK entrepreneur who was able to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth a manufacturing equipment for 10's of thousands which he moved to china to open up his own cabinet manufacturer. The deal was really ridiculous when you add it up.

Oh I know there could be. Just takes more capital than I have. I do remember missing a day of school as a kid, to attend an auction. The auction significance? The auction was made up entirely of the equipment used in the Exxon Valdez clean up. Too bad I was too young at the time (10?) to realize the potential.

 

[Ivan]

you are simply changing the point-of-sale from a limited market (a neighborhood store) to unlimited. (global/ebay).

I think this is the best fastlane gold nugget in this thread. This is why flipping works. Anytime you make a product available to a bigger pool of buyers, you win. A few such models that have worked for me:

Craigslist -> eBay
Garage sale -> Craigslist (for big stuff)
Garage sale -> eBay
Small Obscure Auction -> big public auction (like eBay)

But that's not the fastlane part. You're still working a job at that point (sometimes for peanuts). When you build a scalable system that commoditizes a certain industry, you cut the middlemen (flippers) out of the equation and collect a portion of what they would have made. I think that's what's going to happen with these local auctions. Already seen it happen for storage auctions.

That's my goal for my car auction site as well.

 

[CEBenz]

I think this is the best fastlane gold nugget in this thread. This is why flipping works. Anytime you make a product available to a bigger pool of buyers, you win. A few such models that have worked for me:

Craigslist -> eBay
Garage sale -> Craigslist (for big stuff)
Garage sale -> eBay
Small Obscure Auction -> big public auction (like eBay)

But that's not the fastlane part. You're still working a job at that point (sometimes for peanuts). When you build a scalable system that commoditizes a certain industry, you cut the middlemen (flippers) out of the equation and collect a portion of what they would have made. I think that's what's going to happen with these local auctions. Already seen it happen for storage auctions.

That's my goal for my car auction site as well.

While its not Fastlane, it is hustle! And that can be a godsend while bootstrapping!

 

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[AllenCrawley]

While its not Fastlane, it is hustle! And that can be a godsend while bootstrapping!

Yes, a lot of people comment or think, "this isn't fastlane". However, if buying from local auctions and reselling on ebay would make you an additional $10,000, $20,000 or $50,000 over the next year or so, would it help you fund your fastlane business? You bet!

 

[CEBenz]

Yes, a lot of people comment or think, "this isn't fastlane". However, if buying from local auctions and reselling on ebay would make you an additional $10,000, $20,000 or $50,000 over the next year or so, would it help you fund your fastlane business? You bet!

It would beat a job.

 

[andviv]

I met a guy whose business was to go buying all the kitchen equipment from restaurants that went out of business. He then would take amazing pictures of them and store them, while posting the classified ads on craigslist.

I had no clue how expensive the exhaust hoods were!

He told me that more than once he had bought the equipment from the liquidation and sale and then resell it to the people opening a new restaurant in the exact same spot.

 

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[CEBenz]

Andviv, it's a similar story with the stainless 3 compartment sinks. Expensive to buy new and, at least here, every bar and/or restaurant is required to have one.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Yupp I'm bumping my own thread a year after the last post, lol. Someone looking for ways to generate bootstrapping money messaged me looking for it so here it is.

 

[Red]

Ha ha, I remember reading this last year, not really knowing you. Now it's even better! My dad taught me to keep an eye out for deals, but mostly in relation to cars/motorcycles. My last bike I bought for cash, put 18k miles on it & sold it for a grand more than I paid. Not exactly the spread you pulled, but still evidence that, if your eyes are open, you'll find something. Opportunity is everywhere, even if it's a few bucks & some fun.

 

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[Yankee427]

One example that I found recently was the NHL had an outdoor series of games played here in the US called the Stadium Series. There was one in LA, one in NY and one in Chicago. They made custom knit hats for all the teams that were limited edition hats that the players wore during the pregrame warmups.

Dick's Sporting Goods had the hats selling for $24, and the hats sold out quickly. I realized there was a huge market for the hats after I saw on ebay NJ Devils Stadium Series knit hats selling on ebay for $100. I purchased 10 Pittsburgh Penguins knit hats and tried to buy more than 1 Chicago Blackhawks hat, but they only had one available. I bought it for $24 and resold the hat for $80.

I have an ebay auction going on currently selling my 10 Pittsburgh Penguins Knit Hats for $50 each after paying $24 for each one originally. Not a bad markup for doing nothing besides shipping them back out.

 

[Robbypz]

I fell into a few deals like this several years ago. I had a movie theater maintenance company at the time and did a call on a small chain of theaters here locally, I got the account and went out to their warehouse to pick up a bunch of projectors that needed serviced, while I was in the room I noticed an old popcorn popper that I thought would be cool in my home theater, asked the guy if he wanted to sell it and he said you can just have it, matter of fact, I would like to clear this whole place out, take it all. Right away I was on the phone with Uhaul, got a large truck and loaded it all up. Before I got home he was calling me telling me that he had another large storage facility in Oklahoma that he wanted cleared. I jumped in my car and went down there, it was like walking in a gold mine. The place was packed floor to ceiling with vintage speakers and tube amps, couldn't believe that they wanted to throw it all away. After parting out all of the speaker cabinets and racks full of amplifiers I made over $55k just on that Oklahoma trip.
I ended up going to 5 different locations they had and picking up stuff that year, well worth the effort.


Oh, I got their service contract for all of their theaters as well.

 

[Hassassin]

Wow. This stuff is addictive to read.

I say there should be a thread called "The hustlers chronicles" where everyone should post any recent or noteworthy hustles/bootstrapping operations so everyone can be inspired and educated!


What ya'll think !?

 

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[D11FYY]

Love threads like this opportunity is always around the corner

 

[AllenCrawley]

Love threads like this opportunity is always around the corner

Indeed there are.

Find one or two auction houses to visit the next week. Look up on their website what will be auctioned. Do some price research on the items your interested or seem promising. Determine your max bids. Have fun. You might make some money in the process.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Yesterday I went to a local thrift store to look for a couple items that will help me in the production of my product. Would you believe I see two Steelcase Leap Chairs for sale there? For $10 each! These sell on ebay used for $250 - $600.

As I'm looking at the chairs, one of the employees strikes a conversation. She says a business upgraded their office chairs and brought in all the old chairs. I ask, How many? She answers, "A lot". "Sold all but these two?", I ask. She says, "No, these are the first two we've brought out. We can't bring anymore out until these two sell."

At this point I don't know the resell value of these chairs but know that profit is there to be made. I look over the two chairs thoroughly and bought one of them as the other has some damage.

I get home. Clean up the chair. Looks near new. Look up resell values on ebay's completed auctions for the Leap Chair. Determine that if I reupholsters the seat and back (minor stains) I could sell for about $450 easily.

Also, I notice that the chair pistons alone are selling for up to $50 on ebay. So I could buy the damaged chair for $10 and resell the piston for $40-$45. Going back this morning to pick up that chair if still available and then ask management if I could look thru the others in the back. See if a deal could be made.

 

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[randomnumber314]

You have some mysterious sense that leads you to office chairs.

 

[LightHouse]

Yesterday I went to a local thrift store to look for a couple items that will help me in the production of my product. Would you believe I see two Steelcase Leap Chairs for sale there? For $10 each! These sell on ebay used for $250 - $600.

As I'm looking at the chairs, one of the employees strikes a conversation. She says a business upgraded their office chairs and brought in all the old chairs. I ask, How many? She answers, "A lot". "Sold all but these two?", I ask. She says, "No, these are the first two we've brought out. We can't bring anymore out until these two sell."

At this point I don't know the resell value of these chairs but know that profit is there to be made. I look over the two chairs thoroughly and bought one of them as the other has some damage.

I get home. Clean up the chair. Looks near new. Look up resell values on ebay's completed auctions for the Leap Chair. Determine that if I reupholsters the seat and back (minor stains) I could sell for about $450 easily.

Also, I notice that the chair pistons alone are selling for up to $50 on ebay. So I could buy the damaged chair for $10 and resell the piston for $40-$45. Going back this morning to pick up that chair if still available and then ask management if I could look thru the others in the back. See if a deal could be made.

Nice find, I have an older, slightly more expensive version of this chair and an aeron chair that i use. They are really nice chairs, I would have bought the lot in a second, you could sell them all to a reseller without touching a thing.

 

[RHL]

You have some mysterious sense that leads you to office chairs.

People need to realize this is just a product of seeing the "nail" once you've become a hammer. Once you know an area, you're on the lookout for it. A normal person would never see an office chair at a thrift store and smell money, but Allen knows better. I bet @RichKid had a "sense" about video games that could be gotten on the cheap too. The "sense" is even more powerful when the item isn't commonly associated with turning a profit. Thrift store sifters are always after Armani jackets and vintage baseball cards. I bet not one in 500 is looking at furniture (due to size, lack of glamour, etc.), so if you're the one, you're going to have big opportunities.

Ex. With about 2 hours of work (mostly driving and typing) last week, I made $580 reselling a very isoteric part for a car. It was for sale on craiglist with a poor add with bad pictures, and was a niche product that very few of the people browsing his keywords would want, I bought it and moved it to a sales area with lots of buyers interested in it and took DSLR photos with a comprehensive description. Sold in one afternoon, seller hadn't even deposited my check before my payout was back in my bank account. I see opportunities like this all the time, it's only the aggravation of driving that stops me from capitalizing on them constantly.

Oh, and obligatory:

 

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[vinylawesome]

About 10 years ago. At an auction that sold surplus goods. I had just started buying and selling things on ebay. There was a full pallet of kids jeans stacked 6 feet high. There were Levi Strauss, Lee, Wrangler, etc.

The auctioneer started the bidding at $200 ... $150 ...... $100 ... $50....

"$20 is the lowest will go or will pulling the lot."

I bid the $20 and won.

Had no idea what these were worth but figured it was worth a lot more than $20. After I got them home I realized that many had small scuffs in the knees. These were surplus kids jeans after all.

However, I figured what Mom wouldn't want "play clothes" for their kids. So I set out and sorted the jeans by quality, brand, and size.

About, 10 percent were in great condition. Sold these in smaller batches for about $4 dollars a pair.

80 percent were great for play clothes. Sold in lots of 10-25. Averaged about $1 per pair.

10 percent were rough. Sold them as rags / Rough play clothes. Some were thrown away. Averaged 50 cents a pair.

All in sold a little over 1,500 pair of jeans and made a little over $1500 net, after ebay fees, shipping, etc.

I was in high school and that was my biggest deal at the time.

Showed me that this entrepreneurship thing...

Was real..

 

[MitchC]

On the subject of things that are not glamorous to hustle.

I went to a wreckers and noticed a 1992 Toyota had a very rare factory option air purifier. I pulled it out and the lady at the counter had no idea what it was, she charged me $10 and I sold it the next day on a car forum for $200. You can do the same with certain car intakes etc if you know what to look for

Pandora bracelets are also a huge goldmine but there's plenty of people who have realized that, you buy a bracelet with charms on it from someone then sell them separately.