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What business would you pursue if you have 100K to invest?

biophase

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What will be your choice of business if you have 100K.

1) It should generate good enough returns with some learning.
2) Risk should not be huge - but some level of risk is acceptable.

- It may not be stocks/mutual funds though..

Please share your thoughts!!

I'd start 3-5 ecommerce stores. Most don't require $100k to start. I'd say $10k-$30k is sufficient to start each one. I'd pick niches that I deem easy to compete in on Amazon to start and then branch off into my own store.
 
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Duane

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Nothing will generate good returns without having risk. Especially if you have to go through a learning process.

Why not do some research and invest a smaller amount of your 100k at first, maybe 5k. Then as you learn and things are flowing smoothly, increase your investment as you see fit(or re-invest the profits and grow it from that 5k).

If you mess up, it's only 5k no big deal you can just try again. Much easier to recover from over messing up on your 100k and losing it all.
 

Get Right

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I'd leverage it with an SBA loan to get up to $1M. I'd then buy a plumbing company (mix new install and service) with 50% owner back end financing. That gets you up to $2M which should be kicking off $500k/year pretty easy. Promote the top guy to operations manager and license holder.

I swing for fences. Results may vary and this isn't investment advice. Simply what I would do.
 

Andy Black

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What will be your choice of business if you have 100K.

1) It should generate good enough returns with some learning.
2) Risk should not be huge - but some level of risk is acceptable.

- It may not be stocks/mutual funds though..

Please share your thoughts!!
I wouldn’t invest it all in one go. I’d put the money into a bank account to offset a mortgage on a rental property (thus paying less mortgage interest), then I’d invest a certain amount each month to build monthly recurring revenue (MRR) streams that bring positive ROI.

Specifically:

1) Grow my lead gen business

I’d invest $100/day generating leads for local service businesses, and use the leads to signup clients. I’d aim to get profitable on that $3k/mth spend. Signing up one client a week, even at $250/mth, should be more than enough (if they stay for a year).

I’m looking to create a repeatable client acquisition process that runs without me, and that is scalable.

Ha. Maybe we could get to spending $100k/mth on ad spend? I’ve worked in businesses spending over $100k/day on ad spend.


2) Grow sales of my course

I’d also get a website / landing page built to sell my course, update the videos for the new Google Ads interface, and then build funnels to get people to signup then purchase.

Last year I had sales trickling in and good feedback. It was earning me about $1k/mth with no promotion. I’ve left it on the back burner while I focus on other things.

The courses space is huge and only going to grow.


3) Build and rent online properties

I’d build lead gen sites/directories and eCommerce stores (plus the ad campaigns) and rent them out.
 
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ZCP

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rental property
vending routes
online / amazon businesses
hard money lending / po financing

depends on your experience running businesses. if none, look for a partner or company to invest in. start small and fail fast.
 

MTF

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For $100k you can buy an existing online business generating about $3-5k a month. If there's potential for growth, you can quickly recoup your investment and keep scaling. It would be less risky that starting something from scratch as you're buying a proven, working business.
 

Thomas Baptiste

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To answer this question honestly, probably something like a super-market or a mini-mart. Really, super-markets /mini-marts can be real fast-lane opportunities just like real estate:
  1. It's yours and you can do whatever you want with it once it follows legal policies when dealing with food stuff. (control)
  2. Not everybody has 100k to buy this kind of business. (entry)
  3. Everyone buys food or at least ingredients to prepare food. (need)
  4. You don't have to supervise it 24/7, just like you don't have to set up a camera or be physically present in an apartment/condo being rented out. Minimal day to day running. (time)
  5. Buy one, open another with the profits from the first. (scale)
Locally, super-markets are the most successful businesses outside of telecommunications companies. If I could own one, it's safe to say I've made it here.
 

IceCreamKid

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I’m looking to create a repeatable client acquisition process that runs without me, and that is scalable.
Andy, can you expand a bit more on this? I was always under the impression that this service required 1-on 1-consultation before acquiring clients. Curious minds need to know =P
 
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Kak

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I’d start a business with OPM. Your money is your money. Yes, I would deploy here and there on my own ventures to shape them up for raising money... but the LIONS share of all my future business funding will come from investors.

Sharing opportunity creates exponential wealth.

That said, I would invest my extra savings. Stocks, bonds, futures, real estate, crypto, whatever your cup of tea is. Just make sure you understand what you’re doing.
 
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biophase

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Understood.

You're right, it is a long and hard road. That's the opportunity right there. If I'm buying a business, the last thing I'm thinking about is ease, and the first thing I'm thinking about is to maximize value. I personally don't mind making the effort. I'm looking at it from a franchising point of view (this is all in the context of my local market).

This is called buying a job. If the OP has $100k, I don't think it's wise to spend all of it on a job that you need to work that for. What does a grocery store make in profits per year there assuming the owner is paid nothing?
 

Andy Black

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Thomas Baptiste

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Hey are you talking from experience or just theory?
Theory mostly.

Same question here- is retail store that good? What about managing employees, inventory etc. ?
The point of human resource is to separate your time from it all. That's why stores have managers to do all of these things and report back to you. It's nnot a matter of completely separating yourself from it, it's just minimizing your day to day running so the time you spend is minimal.
 

100ToOne

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Theory mostly.


The point of human resource is to separate your time from it all. That's why stores have managers to do all of these things and report back to you. It's nnot a matter of completely separating yourself from it, it's just minimizing your day to day running so the time you spend is minimal.



Hey the reason why I said that is because I have a store and it's a really bad idea to start with. There are many reasons but a store will turn basically into your life. And your life will be your store. To separate them from each other you will need to go through a very long and hard road.

My advice would be if you could source a product, test the market and give it to marketing fulfillment companies that will pump your product to the huge wholesalers in your market.

Therefore you can leverage the marketing companies to be your sales force which will do 90% of the business for you.
 

Andy Black

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ZeroTo100

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I like threads like this because it fun topic of discussion and reminds me of myself a little bit. I get bored super easy and where I seem to go wrong is making money in ventures, being satisfied with it, and than jumping ship when I probably could have made so much more if I stayed within that market. But, there’s plenty of problems in the world to solve I guess right?

Some people might ask, well how did you make that money to begin with? My answer is, my interest got me to the problem and my skills found me the solution.

I’m in this boat right now actually. Just bought a new place (beautiful house, built in pool, etc) in one of the wealthier areas in NJ after I sold a luxury townhouse back in August (Thanks @biophase). I put around 45k into it.

Taking care of your priorities first is important.

So I have the house, I’m starting an offline venture that is similar to how I made my money in the first place but targeting a different market. However, this business is more about me executing on because I know it is a tremendous opportunity, not because I have interest or passion. My partner and I think this business will do 2M by year 2 and we will invest about $75k.

BUT I still have a lot of soldiers in my account just hanging out waiting to be deployed into the jungle. I’ve always been protective of my army though, and won’t just jump into anything blind.

I did this once, and would never let it happen again. Take some risk, learn, execute but don’t be stupid with your army.

My wife and I are looking at an opportunity to build a web property also and buy a rental property.

There’s a lot of things you can do but when you make irrational decisions on impulse, that’s when you f*ck up.

Remember, it’s a marathon not a sprint.
 

luniac

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become a brutal loan shark.
 

Andy777E

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What will be your choice of business if you have 100K.

1) It should generate good enough returns with some learning.
2) Risk should not be huge - but some level of risk is acceptable.

- It may not be stocks/mutual funds though..

Please share your thoughts!!
 
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100ToOne

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To answer this question honestly, probably something like a super-market or a mini-mart. Really, super-markets /mini-marts can be real fast-lane opportunities just like real estate:
  1. It's yours and you can do whatever you want with it once it follows legal policies when dealing with food stuff. (control)
  2. Not everybody has 100k to buy this kind of business. (entry)
  3. Everyone buys food or at least ingredients to prepare food. (need)
  4. You don't have to supervise it 24/7, just like you don't have to set up a camera or be physically present in an apartment/condo being rented out. Minimal day to day running. (time)
  5. Buy one, open another with the profits from the first. (scale)
Locally, super-markets are the most successful businesses outside of telecommunications companies. If I could own one, it's safe to say I've made it here.


Hey are you talking from experience or just theory?
 

Andy777E

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I'd start 3-5 ecommerce stores. Most don't require $100k to start. I'd say $10k-$30k is sufficient to start each one. I'd pick niches that I deem easy to compete in on Amazon to start and then branch off into my own store.
Thank you!! Any sources - where to look for? I am sorry , I have never explored E commerce stores
 

Thomas Baptiste

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Hey the reason why I said that is because I have a store and it's a really bad idea to start with. There are many reasons but a store will turn basically into your life. And your life will be your store. To separate them from each other you will need to go through a very long and hard road.

My advice would be if you could source a product, test the market and give it to marketing fulfillment companies that will pump your product to the huge wholesalers in your market.

Therefore you can leverage the marketing companies to be your sales force which will do 90% of the business for you.

Understood.

You're right, it is a long and hard road. That's the opportunity right there. If I'm buying a business, the last thing I'm thinking about is ease, and the first thing I'm thinking about is to maximize value. I personally don't mind making the effort. I'm looking at it from a franchising point of view (this is all in the context of my local market).
 
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Thomas Baptiste

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This is called buying a job. If the OP has $100k, I don't think it's wise to spend all of it on a job that you need to work that for. What does a grocery store make in profits per year there assuming the owner is paid nothing?

I get your point, and I don't have the statistics or the logistics to be certain about this. It's just an observation really. I would assume they make enough to be self-sustained, and then some. If not then I would go into something with a higher ROI.
 

TedM

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Since I'm knee deep in the Options threads and goin' deeper.... Wouldn't that be the way to go? Take a few months to learn thoroughly, moving through paper to small account and then scale?
 

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