Post: #1

Say I have roughly 100k in cash, could be double or triple that if I got some friends involved, but I would really appreciate any input as to what kind of business can be started with that amount of capital. Keep in mind it would not be something I could dedicate ALL of my time to, as I have a dayjob. Online businesses are of special interest as I could work on them at my dayjob as well. Thanks in advance for any genuine advice guys!

A little about my background if it helps:
- In my mid 20s with a degree in finance
- Live in the New York area
- Passionate about music, travel, learning languages[/font][/font][/font]

To show my appreciation, please enjoy the pic from the Miss BumBum Brasil contest 2012

Post: #2

Hydroponics, PET recycling.

Post: #3

Real Estate

-Commercial: - multi family. buy and collect rent.

or buy, rehab, rent OR buy, rehab, sell

Post: #4

4th from the right is unreal.

Post: #5

$100,000 worth of lottery tickets.

Post: #6

Mutual funds, stocks, real estate

Post: #7

Options Classes and seminars...then invest. Covered calls and naked puts... I would only do this with a certain portion and use the rest for International Trade, while opening a couple brick and mortar places for presence, but the bulk of sales would be done online.

Post: #8

Give it to me, and I'll tell you what to do with it afterwards.

Post: #9

Nice first post but if you're actually looking for anything useful with this thread, you're not gonna get it. The answers you're looking for starts with the right question and this isn't it but I would look to buy an existing site, fix it up and increase that site's income.

Post: #10

Internet Marketing. Take 4,000 dollars of the 100,000 and dedicate a year to learning about IM and find a profitable area that you do well. You should have a profitable model by the end of the year, and you can use some of the 96k left to scale it up.

Post: #11

At the risk of sounding repetitive, I'd say come to China, say in either Guangzhou or Shenzen and with that amount, you can have a ball for 3-4 years like MEGA BALLA living a much better and funner lifestyle than anything you can even imagine in your wildest dreams in the US at least for that amount without being an actual multi-millioniare, and take 20-30k$ to build a killer e-commerce biz (while building an ever increasing asset in value) that you can run from anywhere in the world, thus living the much sought after location independent lifestyle that we all are after.

And if you think NYC is the shit, then wait till you get to Hong Kong which will blow your mind like no other place. And it does blow NYC out of the water any day of the week and thrice on sundays in every aspect. And best of all, HK is literally next door to both Shenzen and Guangzhou...

Post: #12

^ Enjoy your polluted, one-party, dictatorship. China sucks. Horrible advice.

OP, google "buy a business" and check out businesses for sale. You can easily achieve 50%+ returns by buying an online business, bar, restaurant etc. Run it, build it up, then sell it for even more money.

Post: #13

As another poster alluded to, I think from the get go you have the wrong mindset (Asking the wrong question). I'm not trying to be mean, but what I hear is "doo-da-doo, I have a hundred grand, lets go shopping for businesses. Hmm a restaurant. That might be fun" Typically anyone who made it big didn't go in with that mindset, more they were passionate about something, worked 20 hour days, literally poured their heart and soul into it. Sam Walton took on as much debt as they would give him to expand Wal-Mart and had millions in debt until the company went public. He had his passion and put everything he could get his hands on into it. You seem to be putting the cart before the horse.

From your current mindset and 100k burning a hole in your pocket, I wouldn't recommend any business, because anything you could do part time on a small scale basis doesn't need 100k. You could get started in something small for 5% of that. You're looking for ideas on an internet forum, so presumably once you mine the great idea here, then you need to learn all about whatever muse strikes you as a winner. I'm curious about what sort of people you know who would invest 100k in "well 3 weeks ago I found this great idea on the net, and since then I bet I've read 50 hours about it". The other issue is that any idea you get here will be a stale idea. Loads of other people already doing it, already established, and whom can give more to it than just on a part time basis.

Honestly what I would recommend is get involved in investing. I'm sitting on a few times that, and that's why I do. Basically I leave the money making to people who know more about it that me, and with not-so-risky, proven ideas. Yes the research, reading number crunching and all that still makes it an interesting hobby. Plus if you get busy and have solid companies, you can generally leave it alone for months at a time without the world falling apart. I still work, but long term goal would be to have the passive income that I don't need to.

Post: #14

Use a small portion of it for living expenses and start a business with zero to little initial investment - keep that money safe from business risk and just use it to create a little freedom while you invest all your time and sweat equity into building something. $100K is not that much money and if you have no prior business experience, learning with dollars is a hard, painful way to learn.

Also, read this book, which emphasizes the lifestyle benefits of starting a business with no money invested, never taking on employees or partners, etc: http://www.amazon.com/Work-From-Home-Any...0976387239

Post: #15

(12-12-2012 03:56 AM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  And if you think NYC is the shit, then wait till you get to Hong Kong which will blow your mind like no other place. And it does blow NYC out of the water any day of the week and thrice on sundays in every aspect. And best of all, HK is literally next door to both Shenzen and Guangzhou...

I've lived in both HK and NYC, and I can cosign this 200%.

But as far as the money, I have pretty much the same question!

Post: #16

Not sure if OP is trolling with this post, but he's definitely trolling you guys with that pic. I'm 99.9% sure those are dudes.

Post: #17

(12-12-2012 06:30 AM)Seadog Wrote:  As another poster alluded to, I think from the get go you have the wrong mindset (Asking the wrong question). I'm not trying to be mean, but what I hear is "doo-da-doo, I have a hundred grand, lets go shopping for businesses. Hmm a restaurant. That might be fun" Typically anyone who made it big didn't go in with that mindset, more they were passionate about something, worked 20 hour days, literally poured their heart and soul into it. Sam Walton took on as much debt as they would give him to expand Wal-Mart and had millions in debt until the company went public. He had his passion and put everything he could get his hands on into it. You seem to be putting the cart before the horse.

From your current mindset and 100k burning a hole in your pocket, I wouldn't recommend any business, because anything you could do part time on a small scale basis doesn't need 100k. You could get started in something small for 5% of that. You're looking for ideas on an internet forum, so presumably once you mine the great idea here, then you need to learn all about whatever muse strikes you as a winner. I'm curious about what sort of people you know who would invest 100k in "well 3 weeks ago I found this great idea on the net, and since then I bet I've read 50 hours about it". The other issue is that any idea you get here will be a stale idea. Loads of other people already doing it, already established, and whom can give more to it than just on a part time basis.

Honestly what I would recommend is get involved in investing. I'm sitting on a few times that, and that's why I do. Basically I leave the money making to people who know more about it that me, and with not-so-risky, proven ideas. Yes the research, reading number crunching and all that still makes it an interesting hobby. Plus if you get busy and have solid companies, you can generally leave it alone for months at a time without the world falling apart. I still work, but long term goal would be to have the passive income that I don't need to.

I appreciate your comments, obviously I am not going to literally take an idea I get from a forum and stick all my money into it. I guess what I was looking for was more of a brainstorming session. I am curious to see what experiences people have had, or if they knew of an opportunity out there but just didn't have the capital required for it. I work financial services and so I am experienced with typical investments (stocks, bonds, options etc...) but what I am really interested in is finding something that I could work on part time for now that could eventually lead to a location independent lifestyle as so many of us have read about. I was thinking that one of the easier ways to do this would be to buy an existing business that has already been profitable and would not require a ton of time to get going. The problem is I am not really a tech specialiast nor am I an internet marketing guy, therefore I thought maybe I would appeal to the board to point me in the right direction if possible.

Post: #18

Wait. you have a degree in finance yet are asking a bunch of random pussy chasers on the internet what to do with $100k? I'd say give it to samseau or take $50k to learn and make mistakes investing and $50k to buy in as a partner in a couple of seed/small/startup businesses to learn entrepreneurship. You may lose it all but by the time you hit 30, if you don't get married or have kids, you will be able to tell all of us what to do with $100k.

Post: #19

Invest invest invest. Go for swing trading with an idea of 10-25% return per year. OR take much larger risks and go for option trading or day trading...where if you succeed you can double that in less than a year easily.

Post: #20

Rocket - I sent you a PM. Check it out!

Post: #21

(12-12-2012 09:44 AM)wiscanada Wrote:  Wait. you have a degree in finance yet are asking a bunch of random pussy chasers on the internet what to do with $100k? I'd say give it to samseau or take $50k to learn and make mistakes investing and $50k to buy in as a partner in a couple of seed/small/startup businesses to learn entrepreneurship. You may lose it all but by the time you hit 30, if you don't get married or have kids, you will be able to tell all of us what to do with $100k.

Problem with finance classes, at least for me, is that they stress the theory, which basically espouses the efficient market hypothesis, CAPM, etc that as we all know aren't too applicable to the real world. It created a huge mental block for me believing I could out trade hedge funda and prop traders who are way more knowledgeable.

I would almost say a finance degree is a hindrance.

Post: #22

(12-12-2012 09:46 AM)presidentcarter Wrote:  Invest invest invest. Go for swing trading with an idea of 10-25% return per year.

I won't adivce swing trading since it's going to be so risky, even when you have a solid experience in finance.

I'll say that he should invest in municipal or state bonds (better if denominated in dollars).
He can easily find a net 5% return, without having to worry about the market trends.
If he want more he can buy Greek or Portogouise bonds they give high return and I'm sure that the UE will not let these countries fall.

Post: #23

(12-12-2012 11:37 AM)Way Cool Jr Wrote:  

(12-12-2012 09:46 AM)presidentcarter Wrote:  Invest invest invest. Go for swing trading with an idea of 10-25% return per year.

I won't adivce swing trading since it's going to be so risky, even when you have a solid experience in finance.

I'll say that he should invest in municipal or state bonds (better if denominated in dollars).
He can easily find a net 5% return, without having to worry about the market trends.
If he want more he can buy Greek or Portogouise bonds they give high return and I'm sure that the UE will not let these countries fall.

With interest rates where they are, I am not the biggest fan of any type of fixed income investments.

Post: #24

@WestCoast might be able to provide more advice on this. From memory he's on the 'street

Post: #25

(12-12-2012 11:30 AM)nmmoooreland20 Wrote:  

(12-12-2012 09:44 AM)wiscanada Wrote:  Wait. you have a degree in finance yet are asking a bunch of random pussy chasers on the internet what to do with $100k? I'd say give it to samseau or take $50k to learn and make mistakes investing and $50k to buy in as a partner in a couple of seed/small/startup businesses to learn entrepreneurship. You may lose it all but by the time you hit 30, if you don't get married or have kids, you will be able to tell all of us what to do with $100k.

Problem with finance classes, at least for me, is that they stress the theory, which basically espouses the efficient market hypothesis, CAPM, etc that as we all know aren't too applicable to the real world. It created a huge mental block for me believing I could out trade hedge funda and prop traders who are way more knowledgeable.

I would almost say a finance degree is a hindrance.

Damn that college education! College does stress research over action though. Imagine if the whole degree was "start a fake million dollar portfolio, report back on your earnings in 4 years, you get a grade based on your returns" Students would be experts in investing, accounting, tax fraud, and auditing.