What would be the best way to invest $6000 for internet startup cash.

[Superior Content Creation]

I'm just going to get to the point by telling my story. No, I'm not selling anything, and yes this is true.

Due to an unfortunate and ridiculous chain of events which honestly just amounted to bad luck, I had a run-in with one of the most notorious gangs in America, and my life was being threatened. These were not the type of people I associated with, and I did nothing to deserve this; it was really just bad luck. I decided to make the most of my misfortune by finally pursuing my dream to see the world, so I disassembled my landscaping business, left my university, and now I've been traveling the world for almost a year.

Times have been tough, but by having my brother sell off my belongings and collecting (slowly lol) old debts, I have somehow managed to stay afloat. Currently, I am in Thailand trying to figure out a way to keep the dream alive. I've been dabbling in IM a little trying to get a lay of the land, but I have a lot to learn. I'm confident I can wrap my mind around anything I want as I am pretty successful with anything I do.

Anyhow, I may be coming into about six thousand dollars soon when I sell the rest of my belongings off, and I am trying to figure out the best way to put it to use in order to keep traveling or at least stay in Thailand and work on my sites until I've created income. I'm certainly not any kind of expert at IM, but I have been casually looking over the oppurtunities it presents for a couple years now. I started a few blogs just recently, but they are still very new and I have no way to be cetain what will happen with them. I am a natural writer, so great content comes easily to me, and I have always had a knack for collecting the right people to do work for me in my offline entreprenurial ventures, so I really get outsourcing.

Is it a big mistake for a newbie to look for ways to use this money in internet marketing if it is all they really have in the world, especially when there are so many people out there setting up income for free? I mean, all I need to be comfortable where I am at right now is about one thousand a month, so I don't need much. I could just allocate the money to continue paying monthly living expenses and hammer away for another eight months at the computer (my calculations already figured two off the top even if choose to invest so either way I'm good for two months).

Another option would be to go finish a scuba certification which would allow me to find work I can get almost anywhere in the world, but that isn't really an idea with much room for growth and as a world traveler online business appeals to me more than anything else. I could also fly to Australia or somewhere similar and start bartending or waiting tables again, but the same story. I've been staying in touch with family and reading newspapers, and the men who were threatening my life were sent to prison for murdering someone else and the last one of them was shot in his house. So, going home IS an option, but at this point it is not really an option I ever plan to entertain.

So--any advice? I know this is a heavy story for this forum, but I just wanted responders to understand the severity of my situation, and unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) somewhere along the way my life began to resemble a movie script. I'm not here trolling, I'm not expecting an answer on a silver platter, and if someone thinks I'm an easy mark looking for somewhere to throw away the last of my money they are way off the mark, so don't bother.

Thanks in advance for your opinions. :-) This forum has truly been a wealth of knowledge so far.

Cheers

[mmickey]

I think you should do step by step, 6k is enough for some start up

but you'll only likely not to lose it if you know how to spend it right

is there any niche you're particularly good in?

[NicheProdigy]

What are your current monthly expenses? That makes a difference as to what you should invest it in.

How long are you covered for if you invest this amount completely?

[edhan]

What you need to do is read more information and decide which direction you want to take.

It can be investing on existing website that is currently generating income. Or you can start building your own niche slowly.

Whatever you have decided, you must stay FOCUS and take ACTION. Once you decide and get started, don't lose your FOCUS and remember to continue taking Action. Alot of people fail because they have to high expectation that it will make money instantly and after a month or two, they gave up. Online IM is not overnight success as it requires some hard work and staying focus with the niche.

You will need to decide carefully on the niche you want to take and that will be the beginning of your journey with IM.

Wish you all the success!

[wbakhos]

You don't need much money to start a great business online. There is a post i start on here yesterday which is called "need money to make money"..

plenty of people have contributed to the post and it may have some valuable information for you. Check it out and do your research before you go and spent anything online.

Cheers
Will

[ikontent]

My 2 cents

Keep aside your money for ongoing expenses; you could allocate a small part ($500 - 1K max) to pay for the online activities. You will need some reliable hosting, one or more domains, and maybe some small services (installation / customization / promotion).

Start with ONE activity; most people don't make money because they dabble in all different ways. Yes, there are millions of opportunities to make money online; but if you're chasing all of them, you get none.

Since you're looking to ensure a monthly inflow for expenses, pick on opportunities that can sustain you; reasonable payout per transaction. Affiliate marketing is probably the simplest since you don't need to figure out product creation / delivery etc. If that's the way you're going, look up Bum Marketing and the Conduit Method here on the forum; then TAKE ACTION.

Best wishes.

[Daniel Molano]

After coaching serveral individuals, I can honestly say:

Those who "need" the money, as opposed to those who "want" the money (two completely different things), succeed extremely fast online.

I think you will be fine.

I suggest you gather some information, learn about internet marketing, gather some methods and then proceed to stick to one religiously.

Then you can invest it. And by investing, I do NOT mean buying every single system/e-book on how to make money online out there.

I mean investing it on the things that will actually leverage your business or at least the things you are focusing on... such as outsourcing the hard parts of the method you have decided to work on.

Best of luck,

- Dan

[mark@1to101]

I'd recommend holding on to the cash for now and building up your IM experience. As you, and others, have stated, you can build income streams online from almost nothing and that's what I'd advise you to do first.

Blogging or niche websites are the best places to start and once one or more of those projects starts to take off (and note not all of them will) then use some of your saved up cash to invest in that. You'll be much safer in investing in something that is already up, running and proven to make some money.

I'm actually also in Thailand and give you some specific advice on that. You might want to consider getting a teaching job whilst you're still building your IM experience as you'll be getting a steady income stream (hence not digging into your saved up cash) and will still have lots of free time to dedicate to your online projects. That is what I'm doing; I teach 15 hours a week, which gives me enough to live on, and spend the rest of my time working online. Let me know if you want more info on this and I'll help you out

[USHwy129]

Originally Posted by mark@1to101

I'd recommend holding on to the cash for now and building up your IM experience. As you, and others, have stated, you can build income streams online from almost nothing and that's what I'd advise you to do first.

Agreed. Don't spend your money on the learning process. You can learn what works for free. Then once you have it down, dump in capital and really get the fire going.

[jensrsa]

As others have said; you don't have to spend much on IM.

You say you can write, so use freelance sites like elance, guru, etc. to find freelance writing jobs.

Find a way to build residual income online - membership site, write plr articles or ebooks - travel, landscaping, gardening, etc.

Jens

[willye]

Also if you are good at writing do some articles. Since you travel the obvious choice would be articles about where you are. Do some detailed reports about Hotels and traveling To Thailand or where else you have been. Create a guide on how to Live Cheap in where ever you have been. You have a great opportunity.

[Superior Content Creation]

JustinK, I like the quote, and it certainly has been true for me in the past--in a good way...lol

[Superior Content Creation]

Originally Posted by Cyrus

I would suggest you to study some website selling Course, i know few very good ones if you are interested. And Buy a High Traffic website.. Monetize it & Sell it after 6-12 Months.. you will make nice profit.

I like this idea--monetizing a site would not that hard as long as the traffic was qualified, and anything I didn't know I'm sure I could figure out by research, outsourcing, or finding friends who could help me. This is a longer term plan for my needs right now though, so I would have to find a good deal--do you have any suggestions on digging up high traffic sites that are likely up for purchase?

I'd recommend holding on to the cash for now and building up your IM experience. As you, and others, have stated, you can build income streams online from almost nothing and that's what I'd advise you to do first.

Blogging or niche websites are the best places to start and once one or more of those projects starts to take off (and note not all of them will) then use some of your saved up cash to invest in that. You'll be much safer in investing in something that is already up, running and proven to make some money.

I'm actually also in Thailand and give you some specific advice on that. You might want to consider getting a teaching job whilst you're still building your IM experience as you'll be getting a steady income stream (hence not digging into your saved up cash) and will still have lots of free time to dedicate to your online projects. That is what I'm doing; I teach 15 hours a week, which gives me enough to live on, and spend the rest of my time working online. Let me know if you want more info on this and I'll help you out

I think you're right, and that is what I'm going to do. And as far as the teaching goes, I'll drop you an IM. Thanks for your input.

Also if you are good at writing do some articles. Since you travel the obvious choice would be articles about where you are. Do some detailed reports about Hotels and traveling To Thailand or where else you have been. Create a guide on how to Live Cheap in where ever you have been. You have a great opportunity.

That is pretty much what my main blog is focused on, and I've already got a list of about a hundred post titles I plan to add. Many are focused on good keyword strings and others are just to add valuable content. Some I plan alter and submit to article directories in order to drive more traffic to the site--and I am going to rewrite some of the articles with various keyword strings in order to make the most of them.

Send me all your money and I will sell you my get-me-rich-quick scheme.

Your check is in the mail. ;-)

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I wasn't really sure how people were going to react to this post. Anyhow, for all of you who suggested allocating the money for living expenses and trying to get into IM as cheap as possible, that is the route I'm going to take for now.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement! :-)

[Marhelper]

I would strongly suggest saving the money or invest in a secure short term investment. As far as IM, make sure you diligently look through this site as it is a wealth of knowledge. I would also suggest you stay focused on go for it.

[Intrepreneur]

Investing in stock to sell on Ebay would be a very good investment of $6k.

[Sam Rodrigo]

My suggestion is to invest $60.00 in advertising for your best ROI setup/product/affiliate product. When you prove those ads work, put more into it. Keep doing that with little amounts. When you prove one of the setups returns well, put more into it.

In reality you will be able to move forward and grow your business with about $600.00. The rest --Save it.

Success,
Sam

[Tyrus Antas]

Success in internet marketing is rarely a function of the capital you have available. Sure, you can get things up and running faster(specially through PPC) if you have the money.

The problem is that all the other structures/foundations of your business won't be strong enough to support this investment: you'd probably be buying traffic and sending it to non-optimized squeeze pages and then to a crappy newsletter without a lot of though behind it and finally to a poorly though out product that wouldn't sell at all(let's not forget the salespage).

I suggest you start by investing exactly 0 beyond your domain, hosting and newsletter service. After you start winning some money and optimizing your business processes, then that 6k can become usefull.

Best of luck,
Tyrus

[julesbrad]

Going a bit off topic of IM...
If you like writing and you have gone through these "unfortunate and ridiculous chain of events which honestly just amounted to bad luck", how about writing about what has happened to you (in a loosly based way) to create a fictional book.
John Grisham or another writer may even be interested in using your story as the basis for their next book or film script.

[Superior Content Creation]

Originally Posted by julesbrad

Going a bit off topic of IM...
If you like writing and you have gone through these "unfortunate and ridiculous chain of events which honestly just amounted to bad luck", how about writing about what has happened to you (in a loosly based way) to create a fictional book.
John Grisham or another writer may even be interested in using your story as the basis for their next book or film script.

Actually, I am aspiring to my lifelong dream of being an author, and I have even finished a novel since I came to Thailand. Also, I've written over two hundred pages on a memoir about the events mentioned in my OP and my childhood (my mothers alcoholism, my father spending ten years in prison only to get out and overdose on heroin, and conquering extreme anger issues). The thing is, I feel the memoir will be way more marketable when I can show I turned the situation around and secured the income to live my dreams, so that is where my energy lies.

As far as the novel, I have a previous post where I discussed options for marketing it online (i.e. giving the first half away free and charging for the second half) but my research did not reveal anything too promising. I'm going to pursue this anyways, but right now that project is on the back burner.

Thanks for the suggestion! :-)

[jetlady]

Buy some good domains and build minisites to monetize them. You can PM me if you need some names.