$10,000. What would you do?

by gmil88
20 replies
If you had $10,000 to start a business, what kind would you start and what would you do? This has to be a long-term business and something where you can make A LOT of money from.

A good example would be to start an ecommerce store in a specific niche. All ideas are welcome and I appreciate all of your input.
#$10
  • I'd say do a bit of market research and start something that is closely related to one of your passions. I'd spend a portion of that 10k just investing in a course or mentoring or some kind of education on whatever that passion is.

    To be honest, there's a ton of businesses you can start without even half that money. What will determine your success in the venture is really yourself.

    I'm sorry if the answer wasn't as clear and precise but out of the hundreds of opportunities out there, it's really hard to pick one without a certain level of clarity.
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    • Profile picture of the author gmil88
      Originally Posted by Michaelangelo Flores View Post

      I'd say do a bit of market research and start something that is closely related to one of your passions. I'd spend a portion of that 10k just investing in a course or mentoring or some kind of education on whatever that passion is.

      To be honest, there's a ton of businesses you can start without even half that money. What will determine your success in the venture is really yourself.

      I'm sorry if the answer wasn't as clear and precise but out of the hundreds of opportunities out there, it's really hard to pick one without a certain level of clarity.

      You are spot on, thank you for the tips and you're absolutely right when you say that it is all up to me. Thanks again.
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    • Profile picture of the author gmil88
      Originally Posted by x3xsolxdierx3x View Post

      We can all learn a little something from THESE women:

      Successful Women, Inspiring Stories on Influential Business Owners - InfoBarrel

      Some started out with much less than $10,000, btw....
      Great thanks for sharing. Truly inspiring to see what they started off with and what they have gotten to.
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      • Profile picture of the author Nightengale
        It really depends on so much. What are your skills and interests? What assets (other than cash) do you already have? Do you know what kind of business you want to start?

        Since you're on the Warrior Forum, it's a safe bet you want to start an Internet-based business. What a lot of Warriors forget is that the Internet is a medium, not a type of business or industry. For example, when the fax machine came out, you didn't hear people go around saying "I want to start a fax business."

        So what type of business do you want to start? What are your skills and interests? Hopefully, you have some idea of this.

        In IM, it's very easy to get overwhelmed and distracted by Bright Shiny Objects. So here is my VERY BEST advice to newbies and veterans alike who are still reaching for success in IM:

        IM is actually pretty simple: you can sell only one of two things:

        1. Products
        2. Services

        That's it!

        And selling products or services online happens in the same basic way for everyone, no matter what they're selling:

        Traffic > Opt-in page > Autoresponder series (or e-zine) > Sales page

        That's it! It's just that simple. (We IMers tend to overcomplicate things.)

        But no matter what your niche is, or whether you're selling a product or a service, do you know what your business model is?

        A business model is the framework or skeleton of your business. Essentially there are three types of online business models:

        1. Membership-based model

        A membership-based business model allows you to build a community of people (your members) who are as passionate about your subject as you are. Your membership fees can be monthly or annual, but either way, you're building recurring, passive income.

        There are a lot of resources and information out there to help you build a membership-based business if you're interested in doing this.

        2. Product-based model

        Selling products allows you to maximize your time and effort by selling items over and over again. This can be hard goods or it can be information products. Information marketing is it's own business model under the product-based model. Information marketing allows you to take your brain to the bank by creating a product ONCE based on what you know and selling it over and over again.

        I see someone has already recommended affiliate marketing. You can choose to market either products or services as an affiliate.

        3. Service-based model

        Selling services can be great for 1) generating quick cash (as in the case of article writing or video producing) and 2) establishing your expertise and getting testimonials.

        However, in the long run, your goal should be to offer services at a PREMIUM. The biggest advantage of IM is LEVERAGE. You're able to leverage your time, money and expertise exponentially online. We all have just 24 hours each day. Time to get ruthless about what you expect for those hours you spend in IM each day. Expect more of yourself and more from your business friends, clients, partners, etc.

        What results are you getting for those hours you spend online each day? Ultimately, your services should be at the bottom of your funnel and cost the most since they involve your time and personal attention. (We all have a limited amount of time each day.)

        The fun (and confusion) comes in with all of the endless mix-and-match possibilities of the above models. If you're just starting or still struggling to make money, keep it simple:

        Pick just ONE!

        1. Pick ONE niche. (Something you're interested in and know something about.)

        2. Pick ONE target market for your product or service. (Who will buy what you're offering? The more specific you are, the more you narrow it down, the more successful you'll be.)

        3. Pick ONE business model.

        And don't spend any money until you know these three things. Building a business takes money. But you can do research (a lot of it) for free. Once you know these three things, THEN you can spend your $10K building that business.

        Now that you're clear about what business you're in, FOCUS!

        F -- Follow
        O -- One
        C -- Course
        U -- Until
        S -- Successful

        Build a list of ideal prospective clients/customers for your product/service, build a relationship with them (through regular, consistent contact) and then make an offer.

        I can't overemphasize this enough: build a list, Build a List, BUILD A LIST!

        In IM, it's easy to put the cart before the horse. Take a deep breath, step back and consider what type of business you're REALLY want. Don't worry about getting traffic or buying that expensive traffic product until you know 1) what your business model is, 2) what niche you're in and 3) WHO your target market is!

        Successful business people will tell you that MARKETING is more than half the effort that's needed for success anyway. So pick a niche, target market and business model. Then spend most of your time and effort marketing it.

        If you DON'T have a solid plan or system, THAT'S when it's hard. A good system will shave YEARS (and save you big $$$) off of your learning curve

        That's why I STRONGLY recommend investing in at least one good, comprehensive IM course (or mentor who will give you such a system) instead of jumping from one $37 e-book to the next. A lot of people here complain about not being able to make any money. But neither are they willing to invest in their business. (Buying a random bunch of $37 e-books doesn't count.)

        The best thing I ever did was invest in a comprehensive IM course aimed at REAL business owners, not just other IM wannabes. Yes it was $1500. (Now it's only $997. :p) But it was truly some of the best A-Z IM info I ever bought. Everything else I've learned (from the $37 e-books) since has simply been plugged into this system.

        Get a solid plan or system and then work the plan!

        Hope this helps!

        Michelle
        Signature
        "You can't market here. This is a marketing discussion forum!"
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        • Profile picture of the author gmil88
          Originally Posted by Nightengale View Post

          It really depends on so much. What are your skills and interests? What assets (other than cash) do you already have? Do you know what kind of business you want to start?

          Since you're on the Warrior Forum, it's a safe bet you want to start an Internet-based business. What a lot of Warriors forget is that the Internet is a medium, not a type of business or industry. For example, when the fax machine came out, you didn't hear people go around saying "I want to start a fax business."

          So what type of business do you want to start? What are your skills and interests? Hopefully, you have some idea of this.

          In IM, it's very easy to get overwhelmed and distracted by Bright Shiny Objects. So here is my VERY BEST advice to newbies and veterans alike who are still reaching for success in IM:

          IM is actually pretty simple: you can sell only one of two things:

          1. Products
          2. Services

          That's it!

          And selling products or services online happens in the same basic way for everyone, no matter what they're selling:

          Traffic > Opt-in page > Autoresponder series (or e-zine) > Sales page

          That's it! It's just that simple. (We IMers tend to overcomplicate things.)

          But no matter what your niche is, or whether you're selling a product or a service, do you know what your business model is?

          A business model is the framework or skeleton of your business. Essentially there are three types of online business models:

          1. Membership-based model

          A membership-based business model allows you to build a community of people (your members) who are as passionate about your subject as you are. Your membership fees can be monthly or annual, but either way, you're building recurring, passive income.

          There are a lot of resources and information out there to help you build a membership-based business if you're interested in doing this.

          2. Product-based model

          Selling products allows you to maximize your time and effort by selling items over and over again. This can be hard goods or it can be information products. Information marketing is it's own business model under the product-based model. Information marketing allows you to take your brain to the bank by creating a product ONCE based on what you know and selling it over and over again.

          I see someone has already recommended affiliate marketing. You can choose to market either products or services as an affiliate.

          3. Service-based model

          Selling services can be great for 1) generating quick cash (as in the case of article writing or video producing) and 2) establishing your expertise and getting testimonials.

          However, in the long run, your goal should be to offer services at a PREMIUM. The biggest advantage of IM is LEVERAGE. You're able to leverage your time, money and expertise exponentially online. We all have just 24 hours each day. Time to get ruthless about what you expect for those hours you spend in IM each day. Expect more of yourself and more from your business friends, clients, partners, etc.

          What results are you getting for those hours you spend online each day? Ultimately, your services should be at the bottom of your funnel and cost the most since they involve your time and personal attention. (We all have a limited amount of time each day.)

          The fun (and confusion) comes in with all of the endless mix-and-match possibilities of the above models. If you're just starting or still struggling to make money, keep it simple:

          Pick just ONE!

          1. Pick ONE niche. (Something you're interested in and know something about.)

          2. Pick ONE target market for your product or service. (Who will buy what you're offering? The more specific you are, the more you narrow it down, the more successful you'll be.)

          3. Pick ONE business model.

          And don't spend any money until you know these three things. Building a business takes money. But you can do research (a lot of it) for free. Once you know these three things, THEN you can spend your $10K building that business.

          Now that you're clear about what business you're in, FOCUS!

          F -- Follow
          O -- One
          C -- Course
          U -- Until
          S -- Successful

          Build a list of ideal prospective clients/customers for your product/service, build a relationship with them (through regular, consistent contact) and then make an offer.

          I can't overemphasize this enough: build a list, Build a List, BUILD A LIST!

          In IM, it's easy to put the cart before the horse. Take a deep breath, step back and consider what type of business you're REALLY want. Don't worry about getting traffic or buying that expensive traffic product until you know 1) what your business model is, 2) what niche you're in and 3) WHO your target market is!

          Successful business people will tell you that MARKETING is more than half the effort that's needed for success anyway. So pick a niche, target market and business model. Then spend most of your time and effort marketing it.

          If you DON'T have a solid plan or system, THAT'S when it's hard. A good system will shave YEARS (and save you big $$$) off of your learning curve

          That's why I STRONGLY recommend investing in at least one good, comprehensive IM course (or mentor who will give you such a system) instead of jumping from one $37 e-book to the next. A lot of people here complain about not being able to make any money. But neither are they willing to invest in their business. (Buying a random bunch of $37 e-books doesn't count.)

          The best thing I ever did was invest in a comprehensive IM course aimed at REAL business owners, not just other IM wannabes. Yes it was $1500. (Now it's only $997. :p) But it was truly some of the best A-Z IM info I ever bought. Everything else I've learned (from the $37 e-books) since has simply been plugged into this system.

          Get a solid plan or system and then work the plan!

          Hope this helps!

          Michelle
          Thank you so much for that detailed post! It really did provide a ton of information for me. I completely agree with you about just picking 1 niche and focusing on that 1 niche completely. That's what most people have problems with. Thanks again.
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  • Profile picture of the author Eddie Titan
    Originally Posted by gmil88 View Post

    If you had $10,000 to start a business, what kind would you start and what would you do? This has to be a long-term business and something where you can make A LOT of money from.

    A good example would be to start an ecommerce store in a specific niche. All ideas are welcome and I appreciate all of your input.
    You can do a lot of things with $10,000.

    One idea, one I hope to implement soon , is to start a membership website in a health related niche that aims to solve a specific problem.

    This membership website will charge something like $77 (or) $97 per month. It would contain educational videos, a guide (backing the videos), a forum, weekly webinars, and eventually a few web based tool that help members in some way.

    The money would go into the development of the entire website (including the content explained above) and the first month's marketing campaign.

    If you get 100 members the first month you will get your money back.
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  • Profile picture of the author JeremiahSay
    Join a online network marketing business, and start driving traffics to it

    why?

    1) Online Network Marketing business are dirt cheap to join
    2) It's online so you don't have to do the cold-callings
    3) It produces residual income = Long term passive incomes
    4) Do and forget method

    Sign-up with an online network company for less than $50/= per month. The rest of the money you can hire Article-writers to write for you.. all the articles will be promoting your new online network business. Articles will be in the directories for many years to come, so it's simply set and forget.

    You can hire a article-writers for prolly $5 - $10 per article. with $9950 you can prolly get about 1330 articles for $7.5 per article. My experience, each article will bring you an average of 10 visitors (unique). 10 x 1330 = 13300 unique visitors to your affiliate links.

    1% buyers = 133 sales.

    Let's say the company you join pays you an affiliate commission of $35/= per month.

    $35x133 sales = $4655 per month (about to break even in 2 months)

    Losing money? No not yet, don't forget this is a network marketing business, the power of leverage, now you have 133 affiliates working for you. Meaning to say that your income per month will always be going up.



    Hope you like the idea of leverage and networking

    God Bless,
    Jeremiah
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    • Yeah one of the biggest advantages of Network Marketing is that they have very low start-up costs. Combining the principles of IM and the leverage of multi-tiered affiliates (or downlines) can be very powerful.

      But just like in almost any IM venture, your main focus is really to brand yourself as a leader and build a targeted list which goes way beyond your direct opportunity.
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      • Profile picture of the author Nightengale
        GMil88,

        I'm facing a similar situation of what to do with some unexpected money. It's a large amount and a very happy surprise. But now, what to do with it???

        I already have a business model, niche and target market. The business is ready to go and the websites are done, but I haven't launched yet, which is what I'm doing in early 2012.

        It's SO nice to have some capital to work with now since my day job barely covers my living expenses and nothing else.

        But my job is new and I'm just coming off of unemployment and trying to get my feet under me financially. That means I shouldn't put ALL of the money towards my business. I need to keep some in reserve for emergencies since my emergency savings were depleted during my unemployment.

        If the $10K you're talking about is just money you can spend on a business, fine. But if it's the sum total of your "extra" (to cover both personal and business expenses), then it's probably not wise to spend it all on your business. Save some for personal emergencies.

        Beyond that, everything else I wrote above applies. Good luck!

        Michelle
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        "You can't market here. This is a marketing discussion forum!"
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        • Profile picture of the author adamteow
          Hi,

          $10,000 is simply a matter of finding one strategy and repeating it many times. If you look at the history of many successful internet marketers, there are some common things about them.

          1. They focus on only one strategy at a time. They don't try to do everything. If it is blogging for them, they focus on blogging.

          2. They ignore all the noise out there e.g. new products that promise to make you money. They focus on one strategy and keep doing it till they do it well.

          The important thing, get started and build your own information products. All millionaire internet marketers do this.

          all the best!

          Cheers,
          Adam Teow
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Ditfort
    Save it, you don't need 10 thousand dollars to start a business. If you invested the whole lot you might end up loosing it all.

    But If you know what your doing you can go along way but you wouldn't need ten thousand dollars. Get a product outsourced, a mini site squeeze page outsources. Set up auto responder out source. Buy targeted traffic to build a list and start promoting related offers to it once it gets big enough. But you wouldn't need ten thousand.

    Maybe 1000 or 2000 if you get it all out sourced, if you do it yourself it can cost you $30 for domain hosting and auto responder.

    I wouldn't waste ten thousand dollars trying to start up a business, but that's just my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheTruth2011
    Right now, don't do anything with it until you can use it to play into your strengths. I wouldn't rush into creating a business if it does not excite you. Maybe collaborate with some people who have similar interests and perhaps diversify it into more than one area.
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  • Profile picture of the author candoit2
    Originally Posted by gmil88 View Post

    If you had $10,000 to start a business, what kind would you start and what would you do? This has to be a long-term business and something where you can make A LOT of money from.

    A good example would be to start an ecommerce store in a specific niche. All ideas are welcome and I appreciate all of your input.
    Find something that interests you. Start small, and when it is proving worth your time, you then have the money to quickly scale.

    Aaron
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    • Profile picture of the author Arsjaad
      It depends on your objectives.

      If you have ambitions to make your $10.000 dollars into millions.

      Start investing time in your education.

      - Learn how to give value to your customers.
      - Learn how to join venture with other likeminded entrepreneurs.
      - Learn how to condition your mind properly.
      - Learn how to be a leader which is an attractive person.
      - Find out who you really are, what really makes you happy and how you can make others happy.
      - Find out how entrepreneurs succeed.
      - Learn the necessary skills to become a big entrepreneur.

      You have to be an all-round performer. It will bring you lots of joy, happiness, abundacy and succes.

      I wish you luck and succes in your journeys,
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  • Profile picture of the author webmazter
    Geez I would just go on another cruise

    Here I am in my picture in the Bahamas on a cruise ship climbing a rock wall in the middle of nowhere......... look to the left

    what is $10,000 if your a successful entrepreneur nothing but a drop in the bucket!
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    If you build it they will come! The LSI Specialist
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Stephens
    I was in a similar position.

    I had this type of money spare, and I invested in the talents of an ESTABLISHED Internet Marketer and have never looked back.

    I agree with the posts above and there's some GREAT advice.

    Pick something you either like or have a passion for, then use that as a basis.

    If your interested in the course I did, you can PM me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lee Murray
    This is a loose answer, as I haven't pondered it exhaustively...

    But what I would probably do is:

    Invest it in many websites (on flippa or elsewhere) that were already generating organic traffic and had a pre-existing income that I could feel good about.

    I'd then create (or have created) short info products with which I could entice my visitors into signing up to my mailing list. Of course, I would have also pre-populated my autoresponders with years' worth of great weekly content, which I would have outsourced (or used top-notch plr).

    From here, there are many directions in which a person could go. Product creation, affiliate marketing, building JV partnerships, or whatever business model fits each website's core niche.

    Flipping some of these sites for a handsome profit is also a possibility.

    Again, this is a very loose response. But I'm sure that the bulk of my 10 g's would go into something that at least smelled like all that stuff I just said! :rolleyes:
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    • Profile picture of the author Shefiu
      There is no specific answer to the question. What I can say is to invest in a business you will enjoy. And if it's an area you are knowledgeable in, the better. Because as they say, if you really enjoy what you do, you have a much better chance of success.

      Personally, I will invest in running more online projects and outsourcing a lot of my work. So I can have more freedom to do other things that are also important to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author gmil88
    Thanks everyone for all your contributions to this thread! I really appreciate all your feedback. It was also great hearing everyone's ideas.

    I understand that I don't need to use the entire $10,000 but I was just throwing that number out there because it is the amount available currently.

    I still really like the idea of building an ecommerce store in a specific niche but it seems all the niches which I enjoy or have some sort of passion for are all pretty competitive ex; watches, gifts for men, electronics.

    I also liked the flippa idea, I've actually thought about doing this for some time now but most of the sites on flippa don't really seem to be of quality and honestly i'm just scared of getting ripped off on there.
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