What type of business should I start?

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
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Bostrom
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What type of business should I start?

Post by Bostrom »

I'm thinking of starting a part time business. I want to be able to withdraw about 10-15.000 $/year. The amount of money I want to invest from the start is 0-30.000$. If it's possible to work from home, I prefer that but it's not mandatory. About 10 years ago I was trading Magic: the Gathering cards for a living. Today though, the arbitrage seems to have vanished a lot. I also know a lot about ERE(obviously) but I don't know if I can do any money on that since people prefer to visit a bank for financial advice. :lol: If I can choose my own schedule and my own rules, that's a big plus. Basic craft that I can sell online would also be interesting to try, although I'm not aware of any craft skills that I can make money on at the moment. Making 15.000$/year with an initial investment of 0-30.000$ cannot be too difficult. So, what type of business would you prefer with these conditions?

jacob
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by jacob »


7Wannabe5
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I would start a business by placing myself in a waste and/or renewable resource flow(s) for inputs and design it to output into several different markets, at least one of which would be local.

Fetch -> Transform -> Market

iopsi
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by iopsi »

Hmm depends on what skills you have that you can offer in the market. Also connections can be very valuable, think about your "network" of relatives, friends and acquaintances that could help you find (or be) clients, or in some other aspect of the business you intend to do.

Try to be as efficient as possible in managing the monetary and time costs, i.e apply the ERE consumption method to your business. That's what i did (and try to do by optimizing even more) with my bookkeeping business (i make 11k a year working part time or even less, start up costs were very small).

So, marketable skills + connections + efficiency and you should be able to pull it off without even using much of the 30k.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Nov 18, 2018 9:25 am
I would start a business by placing myself in a waste and/or renewable resource flow(s) for inputs and design it to output into several different markets, at least one of which would be local.

Fetch -> Transform -> Market
I've been thinking about big time vermiculture using restaurant waste and selling worm castings/compost, like Growing Power in Milwaukee.

7Wannabe5
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Kriegsspiel:

That would be cool. I like the concept of vertically integrating until you close the loop. Gazillion different possibilities, but maybe something like:

Restaurant Waste -> Vermiculture -> Urban Soil Renewal -> Organic Heirloom Hops Micro-farm-> Micro-Brewery-> Restaurant Market

or you could combine two or more waste streams into one business

Restaurant Waste -> Vermiculture -------------------------------------------->\
Packaging Waste -> Recycled Packaging--------------------------------------> >Fresh Worm Vending for Fishing Market
Commercial Auction -> Used Vending Machine Repair/Refurbishment-->/

So, it would be really easy and more fun to come up with 15 different micro-businesses that could each net $1000/year.

sky
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by sky »

If you live in an urban area with a lot of people interested in healthy food you can grow microgreens. You should be able to make minimum wage at an entry level with little risk, and more if you are good at marketing.

Sometimes teaching others how to do something can be more profitable, such as the dude at microgreenfarmer dot com, who says he has sold 1000 of his training courses at just under $500 each. Meanwhile I am teaching people how to grow microgreens on youtube for free.

It is less profitable to be altruistic and want to help people. I often think other people are as cheap as I am so I discount businesses. That will never work, because no one will pay that much. In reality, people are much more free with spending money than I am.

I am also looking for a business idea, but have quite a few constraints, such as I don't want to risk much money, spend too much time on it, and it has to work in a rural area.

Bostrom
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by Bostrom »

What do you think about making jewelry out of junk metals? It's easy to do from home with some tools, you don't need much space and it's easy to package. I don't think the demand for fresh worms is big enough to make it worthwile.

EdithKeeler
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by EdithKeeler »

I’d do the “Junkman’s Daughter” thing. Buy stuff at estate sales and repackage/resell. I go to a lot of estate sales and often snap up surprising things that I have resold for amazing profit. (I don’t do this for a living, just sort of a hobby occasionally). I’m always surprised when I sell something for so much more than I paid. A recent example: I bought 10 really vintage (probably from 1965-70?) embroidery kits that were still in the package. It was funny because they wanted to sell them to me for $5 each, but I pointed out the original price tags were $1.25. So they sold them to me for a buck each.

Sold all 10 to the same buyer on eBay for $15 each.

I would not want to count on stuff like that for my regular income, but I do earn a bit and could get more if I was more intentional about it.

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Lillailler
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by Lillailler »

Bostrom wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 8:01 pm
I'm thinking of starting a part time business.
I would suggest starting with a different question: "What are the possible ways I can I commercialise this specific knowledge / skill / passion / hobby / obsession of mine?" That will focus your search for ideas towards things you will be able to make work for you.

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jennypenny
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by jennypenny »

This time of year, I always think someone could make a killing putting up people's christmas lights for them, more if they delivered and set up a live christmas tree for clients at the same time. My in-laws always complain that they are too old to put up all their stuff and with the elderly population exploding, that market will only get bigger. I can think of lots of things like that ... delivering pots with flowers in the spring and pumpkins in the fall, setting up and taking down christmas decorations, putting out and packing away outdoor furniture and grills for the summer, setting up a small vegetable garden in their yard (the set up is the exhausting part), etc. I think that's the niche I'd serve if I were doing a local business ... doing things for the elderly that are homey or enjoyable. I'd like it better too.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Bostrom wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 8:01 pm
Making 15.000$/year with an initial investment of 0-30.000$ cannot be too difficult.
I'd be inclined to start finding customers before you spend any money.

EdithKeeler
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by EdithKeeler »

DBF is in from out of town this week, and I’ve been shopping more than usual. Was in a small shop yesterday that sells a lot of local artwork, including a lot of Memphis themed stuff (paintings of Memphis, 901 keyrings, etc). They seemed to be selling a lot of them, and while they are “original,” they are sort of mass-produced, if you know what I mean. And they were flying out the door with the tourists. Also, I saw these little canvas zippered pouches that had been painted “artistically” (think three different colors of paint “no two alike!”) and they were selling for $20 each. Lady ahead of me bought 5 “for stocking stuffers.”

Made me realize I could seriously step up my entrepreneurial game.

Jin+Guice
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Re: What type of business should I start?

Post by Jin+Guice »

Lillailler wrote:
Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:23 am
I would suggest starting with a different question: "What are the possible ways I can I commercialise this specific knowledge / skill / passion / hobby / obsession of mine?" That will focus your search for ideas towards things you will be able to make work for you.
This + why do you want to start a business? Most people I've known who "want to be entrepreneurs" don't do very well/ just don't want to do their job anymore/ this is cool now for some reason.

All of the small business owners I've known to have some success either 1) Figured out how to make a business out of something they were already doing or 2) exploited an event they didn't control which gave them a momentary advantage/ opportunity they exploited. Actually, all of them did 1, but having access to 2 took successful businesses and put them into the $1,000,000 + a year in revenue category.

I don't think any of my friends who have wanted to be entrepreneurs have succeeded, all of my friends I've seen start successful businesses/ organizations told me about how excited they were for the idea first before they even realized they were starting a business. One of them still claims he's a communist.

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