What Would You Do With $30,000 in Start-Up Capital?

First of all, I would pick a niche market. If you are in the Internet marketing or Make Money online market then you are going to find that PPC is pretty expensive, and often times has a slow and steep learning curve. From what I have heard, a lot of people actually lose money up front with PPC, and make the money on the backend (upsells).

I think there are many more cost effective ways to drive traffic, and to make sure that you get the most out of the traffic that you generate.

One of the first investments that I would make would be to either create a product, or purchase one with master rights. This is the product that you will give away for free in order to build a list, and get people into your sales funnel.

After that, I would sign up for an aweber account (email marketing), and create a simple one-page squeeze page. This is where you will collect the name and address of each person who wants to access your free offer.

You can then use an OTO (one time offer) to recoup some of your advertising expenses, but I typically don't do this. I have gone back and forth on this issue, and I am not sure what the best course of action is for me.

Remember, the bulk of your income is going to be made from marketing products and services to your list. Since it looks like you want to start with affiliate marketing and then transition into product creation, I would say choose a popular niche with a lot of potential JV partners.

Purchasing Solo ads or conducting an Adswap with another market is a great way to build a list fast.

Once you have your customers in place, you need to create a sales funnel that converts, and there is a lot of info out there about this process from people that are more qualified than I am.

Having a big, responsive email list that listens to you and respects you is a great way to build a long term business online.

If I have $30,000, I will not think of starting an online business. I will simply set up a Public Cyber Cafe, where people can come and surf the internet.

Well, I'm speaking as a Nigerian that lives in a place where many people are looking for where to do internet browsing.

Sorry for taking you to an offline business.

PPC is not expensive. You just have to have a high content quality campaign and you will pay $0.10 for clicks others pay $1 for.

I would not put 30k into a single business, I would invest only 10% of what I am willing to lose/risk. Then again I put 300k into something last year and lost it. So don't listen to me on that front.

I'm looking into creating my own product and promoting it in an attempt to attract super affiliates. GREAT

there's no guarantee that that product will be successful [/b] You've already failed[/b]

You have doubts, therefore you will only do as much as someone with doubts would do.

You have to believe in yourself, arm yourself with timely accurate information.

You will succeed. Regardless of what you hear, are told etc.

I know someone who made $1 million AUD in 6 months,he was just on the news. He is not a guru, but he is 27 and has retired, he is now very bored. But he applied information in a timely manner, simplified a process and did what all successful people do, either help people do something faster or cheaper.

Depends if you have experience or not. You seem like you don't.

If you're not experienced, investing 30k feels like a really high risk/low reward investment. You're better off starting small.. ie as was said by mlord, pick a niche, and use maybe 1-2k to have it built for you.

If you had a lot of experience, I would personally buy a website that's already making money but that I feel could be significantly improved. Since few people are in line to buy 20k+ websites, there is usually fairly low competition so it's a buyer's market.

Just imho.

Just like Robert says, I would buy a very good website that brings between 1k-10k/month profit! Or you can build an online casino and make some great offers, or you can pay a company to make a browser game, like blizzard has! Are many things you can do it!

I would lock $27,000 away in a high interest account and then start my business with the other $3,000. Then when you have learn't the ropes and have successful business model I would use the rest of the money to scale things up and diversify

The first regarding product:

People can tell you what they would do, and it's good to ask for opinions. But
really it's important for you to promote something you're interested in for whatever
personal reason.

You sound like you're new to marketing. Your situation can be a dangerous one
if you're not careful only because you don't know a lot about online marketing, I'm
assuming, and you have some money to spend. 30K is a good chunk of cash, but
you can burn through that very easily and quickly in many ways.

First, I would encourage you to exercise a great deal of caution and patience.

You'll make more creating your own products. You may already realize that.

If you want to do that, then research niches that have enough of an audience
and they spend money in it. Some markets spend more than others that have
a lot of people in it.

See what kinds of products are selling in a market you've chosen, or ideally a
number of markets you're researching.

You can select a product that possibly you can improve upon in a real way, and
then create your product. There are lots of approaches with product creation.

Or... with the product you're currently promoting with high CPC, you can find
other PPC platforms to use that will not be as costly as where you've been
promoting it. Possibly Adwords is what you've been using?

There are also other ways of marketing that same product that are not PPC. You
can try video marketing, article marketing, social media such as Facebook using
fanpages, etc - build a list and promote.

Some marketing methods may be a bit advanced if you're really lacking in
experience.

Since you're involved with a product already, perhaps it may be easier to find
a less costly marketing method and do that. You know it converts well, so you
need to find a traffic source where you can find targeted traffic. Not all
traffic sources convert the same based on many factors.

So you need to test. Always test small, make any necessary adjustments. If it
is profitable with an acceptable ROI, then scale it up.

Spend that money very wisely. Do not... do not allow yourself to get in the
habit of buying courses, etc.

The question of affiliate marketing or product creation is up to you.

You can learn a lot here in this forum for free. Use the search function,
select advanced search, and look for info and learn. You'll save a lot of
money doing that.

Lastly, do not make the mistake of getting involved with too many projects
or products until you have a winning campaign going and the basic processes
for it are in place and cruising along. Then, move on to something new.

Focus on making money with one thing whether it's affiliate or your own
product. Since you're new and have the one product you've been promoting,
maybe stick with that and find a good place to market it.

There's a helluva lot more out there than just PPC.

Good luck.

Ken

If I was starting a new business with $30k, I would:

(1) buy a large c-class unique IP hosting package;
(2) buy up PR4+ domains;
(3) sell links on said pages;
(4) profit.

If I had $30,000 to start a business. Well as for me I would investigate all my options on what it was I was promoting. Because of the way I am probably about 2 months, that's just me. Then I would map out the type of ROI I am looking for. But most of all I would make sure that I set a budget so that I didn't spend myself out of business before I got started good.

As for the product I would look at several things.
What's going on in the industry on and offline?
What do people really want and need?

I'm sure there's tons more, but that's where I would start.

Joshua

Marc, with that kind of money- you should start your LLC and start building on corporate credit as soon as possible. Then work off the corporate credit for you internet endeavors and not with your own money. Biz credit does not effect you personally ever. Should you want to know more you can pm me.

Hey Marc,

The short of it is that I would buy a site that's already somewhat established.

You could pick up a top class affiliate site generating ~$3,000+ a month for $30k, and you'll immediately have a starting point to make money :-)

That's what I'd do

Hi Marc,
Five here.. I was in the same position you were in a few months ago. I came into a good sum of money from doing a freelance job. I can tell you the exact mind map that I created for myself. Now, I did not start in CPA or PPC since I didn't feel confident in this route but the way I did go was the way of creating my own products and then creating an empire around it.

You say that you are unsure in whether your products would be successful or not. Well, I was in the same mind frame but I quickly diminished that thought process because I listened and read some very interesting posts. Keep creating until you hit success, you may set up 10 products before you hit the "big" one. One thing that refrains people from creating their own products is their idea of not making any money is unrealistic. They think it has to surpass a certain quota before its considered successful.

So, back to my mind mapping and the step by step guide of creating a product. First invest in a business structure. Protect yourself from the weird world out there. Then invest in a website explaining who you are. I did this as well, I created a business. My business is business consultation online/offline (very broad terms but enables me to do what I want to do) One of my business models is buying existing websites that generalize around a certain niche, I buy the site.. I turn a few tweaks and do a few adjustments and then turn around and target the offline aspect of the niche. So for example, I take nyfriedchicken dot com (which may have been a review site or a turnkey site or whatever) I do everything needed and turn around and sell it to the offline business owner who is looking to expand his business to a wider genre. I invest about $10-15,000 just in buying sites online.

Whatever I generate from that turns right into my other aspect of my business which is creating products in various niches. I have created 30 + products and none of them have been super $$$ money makers that will get me on the retirement pedestal but it's fun, I learn something new everyday and I am bringing something to users that are looking for answers and what not. This particular angle of my business I invest about $12-18,000 dollars depending on how extensive I am going. Example: A product launch for me is the actual product, whether it's software, training material, reading material or an interface. It pays my contracts and it pays for everything in between such as advertising, set up and the maintenance in between.

At the end of the day, you are going to choose your own destiny and figure your own way regardless of what people say/advise you to do. The only thing I bring to you is how I have experienced. Many are going to tell you what they would do because well that's people for you.

A guy who took time to help me with things told me to follow the tri B plan. You don't have to and it may not apply to you. Yet, here it is.

Be wise
Be adventurous
Be mindful of what you have versus what you need.

To your success in business!
FiveMe

I would absolutely nail my niche before spending a cent. As soon as I saw profits coming in then I would start investing in PPC and SEO to really push that baby up.

Thank you for all your feedback.