Turn €1 into €2....

pedronomix

probably still does

RedXIV

Dean0088 wrote: »

OP - what area do you have have experience in?

I work in IT but am very much a jack of all trades and master of none, I can read code, write a bit but not an expert, similarly with web stuff and hardware.

Taught Martial arts for a few years, would be out of shape now though

Dean0088 wrote: »

Are you thinking of setting up an online presence or would you prefer a 'real world' operation?

Do you have any applicable skills? Even those at amateur level. Basic design and web hosting knowledge can go a long way in the early stages.

Would you prefer to be an eBay seller, run your own site or open an actual bricks and mortar store?

I was thinking online would be best because of the time constraints? With small kids, something I can do for a few hours after bedtime (8pm) is what I'm looking for.

This what i was hoping for really from this thread, outlining my constraints and having you guys help point me away from unrealistic options and towards more workable business models

pedronomix wrote: »

probably still does

that'd be some amount of tickets

DoYouEvenLift

Do many startups or even established businesses have similar referral competitions for stock options like the one from the article posted a page or two back?

_Tombstone_

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Do many startups or even established businesses have similar referral competitions for stock options like the one from the article posted a page or two back?

Jaysus, someone read it!

DoYouEvenLift

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Jaysus, someone read it!

Was a good article, I like reading about risks like that paying off. I'm interested in competitions like that because a friend of mine has a massive online following and I think he could basically run away with competitions similar to that, and for a lot less than that guy paid for his advertising as well I'm sure. Surprised people like and bigger than him don't do things like that.

pedronomix

After 5 days, 7 pages and nearly 100 posts it would be great to hear where the OP is now with their quest.

pedronomix

pedronomix wrote: »

The first proper entrepreneur I met was an Irish chap working in a huge engineering factory in Birmingham circa 1971. Each week he sold 150 tickets at a quid each in a raffle for his pay packet of £100, he went home with an extra £50 in his pocket every week, you had to be quick to get one!

he went on to win a huge indusrial accident claim and decamped to Spain.

jimmii

pedronomix wrote: »

After 5 days, 7 pages and nearly 100 posts it would be great to hear where the OP is now with their quest.

Fingers crossed they have found that euro to get the ball rolling at the very least or else this has all been for nothing! If not then I guess they could pop round to mum and dads house and pinch a few tea bags to get started!

pedronomix

I for one learned a huge amount from this thread.
We are all the unwashed.
Ageism is ok but any form of irony, satire, mirth, etc is not allowed. ( A low quota of Honours English past students?)
Only Mods are allowed use the term Pet!
Everybodys opinion and piece of advice is worthy of the same esteem, irrespective of quality or veracity.
With the perverted and indeed inverted Politically Corectness ethos of minding the "most vulnerable in society" it is a surprise that Ruth Coppinger, Calre Daly or that plank Sean Healy are not regular contributors

pedronomix

pedronomix wrote: »

I for one learned a huge amount from this thread.
We are all the unwashed.
Ageism is ok but any form of irony, satire, mirth, etc is not allowed. ( A low quota of Honours English past students?)
Only Mods are allowed use the term Pet!
Everybodys opinion and piece of advice is worthy of the same esteem, irrespective of quality or veracity.
With the perverted and indeed inverted Politically Corectness ethos of minding the "most vulnerable in society" it is a surprise that Ruth Coppinger, Calre Daly or that plank Sean Healy are not regular contributors

You must of missed the decision a few weeks ago to scrap the forum and make it a Facebook page!

pedronomix

Deleted User wrote: »

You must of missed the decision a few weeks ago to scrap the forum and make it a Facebook page!

AAAAAHh leever out!

RedXIV

pedronomix wrote: »

After 5 days, 7 pages and nearly 100 posts it would be great to hear where the OP is now with their quest.

I've a meeting tomorrow with a friend about publishing an app, meeting local library next week to discuss setting up classes, couple of hours sank into trying to identify strengths/weaknesses and addressing those with online courses AND I found a 2 euro coin down the back of the sofa. Progress!

jimmii

RedXIV wrote: »

I've a meeting tomorrow with a friend about publishing an app, meeting local library next week to discuss setting up classes, couple of hours sank into trying to identify strengths/weaknesses and addressing those with online courses AND I found a 2 euro coin down the back of the sofa. Progress!

Starting the week with a win. Nice.

4068ac1elhodqr

RedXIV wrote: »

I've a meeting tomorrow with a friend about publishing an app, meeting local library next week to discuss setting up classes, couple of hours sank into trying to identify strengths/weaknesses and addressing those with online courses AND I found a 2 euro coin down the back of the sofa. Progress!

Actually publishing or classes on teaching how to publish apps?

Appstore is one of the best examples of reoccurring wealth opportunities about 70% profit on sales. Requires certain skills/knowledge. But has become somewhat saturated in recent years. See also Tim Ferris's book 'The 4hr work-week' focuses on royalty, reoccurring and outsourcing income generation.

If you have no skills, talent or specialist knowledge, and don't fancy any risks. Stick with offering low risk personal services based activities, or flipping alibaba products on ebay. Hard graft such as washing windows is character building also.

This weeks tip: take a photo of a dress in a bright backlight (copyright the photo), but then ask everyone what colour they think it is

RedXIV

Javion Big Switch wrote: »

Actually publishing or classes on teaching how to publish apps?

I'm meeting my friend about building an app idea (and some other ideas) but I'm thinking of setting up computer classes, at a more intermediate level as the library has "computers for beginners", and I know enough to teach the basics of programming etc, I'd have similar experience with my local Coderdojo:)

Javion Big Switch wrote: »

Appstore is one of the best examples of reoccurring wealth opportunities about 70% profit on sales. Requires certain skills/knowledge. But has become somewhat saturated in recent years. See also Tim Ferris's book 'The 4hr work-week' focuses on royalty, reoccurring and outsourcing income generation.

I read this book! I actually found it very interesting!

Javion Big Switch wrote: »

If you have no skills, talent or specialist knowledge, and don't fancy any risks. Stick with offering low risk personal services based activities, or flipping alibaba products on ebay. Hard graft such as washing windows is character building also.

This weeks tip: take a photo of a dress in a bright backlight (copyright the photo), but then ask everyone what colour they think it is

I thought I was on to something when I found http://www.taskrabbit.com but turns out that's only in the states. One of my other ideas is to look into bringing something like that here

jimmii

That looks good. Like fiverr just for non-online stuff. I'd use it.

4068ac1elhodqr

i) If you have experience/quals. already then Freelance Trainer is best plan for a fancy phr rate. esp. something obscure like flex/rails.
ii) Great book, not for everyone though, ideal if you have something created once and just receive royalties thereafter per use.
iii) Lots of admin/costs behind this, already a few like ratedpeople.com(^uk) tradeadvisor.com and plenty of other review sites.
SWOT Analysis S:None in Ire? W:Ads & C'Support Costs O:Good T:Other ^Franchises & 'tarmacers'.

Fukuyama

RedXIV wrote: »

I'm meeting my friend about building an app idea (and some other ideas) but I'm thinking of setting up computer classes, at a more intermediate level as the library has "computers for beginners", and I know enough to teach the basics of programming etc, I'd have similar experience with my local Coderdojo:)




I read this book! I actually found it very interesting!



I thought I was on to something when I found http://www.taskrabbit.com but turns out that's only in the states. One of my other ideas is to look into bringing something like that here

I'd be thinking smaller for now. Setting up classes or indeed an entire outsourcing marketplace as described above sounds like a fulltime start-up commitment with high risk, high stress and a high workload - not something a working dad could do for an hour or two in the evenings.

I think you need a digital product you can create over the next couple of months and then sell online an infinite number of times. Ebooks have been popular in the past but in my opinion they're reaching saturation point. Everyone sells ebooks online.

If I were you I'd find a niche of people such as a single profession or industry and create an IT Instructional video series. Maybe you could show teachers how to teach code in a way designed for young minds (becoming VERY popular in the states).

If your market's big, charge a low price to drum up a lot of sales. If its a tiny, niche market you can go more in depth with your videos and charge a premium.

Avoid YouTube. You'll make nothing on there unless you're part of the lucky 0.0001%.

I recently did some work for a US startup who are targeting one very specific industry. PM me if you'd like a link to their site to get a better idea for what I mean.

Nsmyth

so far this year would be electric smokes (vaporizers) of just people who buy custom ones to do tricks such as ghosts and blowing rings ,bit silly if you ask me but it makes a killing and yes would be part time. Does anybody else buy in bulk from china and like to share what they had or still are making a killing on ?

Buttercake

Nsmyth wrote: »

so far this year would be electric smokes (vaporizers) of just people who buy custom ones to do tricks such as ghosts and blowing rings ,bit silly if you ask me but it makes a killing and yes would be part time. Does anybody else buy in bulk from china and like to share what they had or still are making a killing on ?

If someone was making a killing on importing and selling something why would they share it?!

Fukuyama

Nsmyth wrote: »

so far this year would be electric smokes (vaporizers) of just people who buy custom ones to do tricks such as ghosts and blowing rings ,bit silly if you ask me but it makes a killing and yes would be part time. Does anybody else buy in bulk from china and like to share what they had or still are making a killing on ?

I think this is more of the kind of stuff we need to discourage on this forum.

Re-reg accounts made for the sole purpose of requesting somone's supplier info so that they too can "make a killing".

E-cigs are a fad anyways. At least in their current form. Legislation is going to flip the market right over this time next year. The pop-up shops selling the cheap Chinese knock-offs will all vanish I reckon.

BuckleyX7

I just have a quick question so I thought I'd post it in here rather than making a new thread.

I am looking at the prospect of buying and selling goods for a bit of extra money. I have been doing some research and I have found a suitable product with a good margin. I would be importing the goods from China and there is a decent market for them here, although I'll be starting small due to lack of capital and also the risk will be minimal. If it's successful, I'll know that there's definitely a market for it and I'll be able to increase my order quantity by using my profit.

Anyway, my question is what is the best way to enter the market and actually start selling? I don't think setting up my own website is a good idea as I'm only going to be selling one or two products and in small quantities, initially anyway. Obviously eBay is an option (and what I'm planning on doing really) but is the fact that I would be a seller with no feedback going to be a big issue? Do I just hope for the best that people take the risk and build my feedback slowly, even though I'll be competing with eBay shops selling the same product with 10,000+ feedback?

Just looking for a bit of advice.

DoYouEvenLift

BuckleyX7 wrote: »

I just have a quick question so I thought I'd post it in here rather than making a new thread.

I am looking at the prospect of buying and selling goods for a bit of extra money. I have been doing some research and I have found a suitable product with a good margin. I would be importing the goods from China and there is a decent market for them here, although I'll be starting small due to lack of capital and also the risk will be minimal. If it's successful, I'll know that there's definitely a market for it and I'll be able to increase my order quantity by using my profit.

Anyway, my question is what is the best way to enter the market and actually start selling? I don't think setting up my own website is a good idea as I'm only going to be selling one or two products and in small quantities, initially anyway. Obviously eBay is an option (and what I'm planning on doing really) but is the fact that I would be a seller with no feedback going to be a big issue? Do I just hope for the best that people take the risk and build my feedback slowly, even though I'll be competing with eBay shops selling the same product with 10,000+ feedback?

Just looking for a bit of advice.

Although you'll only be selling one product, you should still have something that helps people find and purchase it easier. You can think about all that at a later stage anyway, for the time being just focus on making your first few sales as a base to go from. You should put a lot of effort into the small things like packaging and presentation when starting out to help influence the chance of positive reviews as much as possible. Even send a short note of appreciation with the actual package if you'd like. Be prepared to possibly take a loss from some buyers/scammers who could try to take advantage of your lack of feedback (unfortunately eBay are tend to side with the buyer even when dealing with very trustworthy sellers) and just deal with them as well as you can.


Just be sure to always be on point with postage. Nothing's more likely to result in negative feedback than being told your purchase will arrive in e.g. 3 days only to end up waiting a full week. To expand on this point; it would reduce your profit, possibly even result in you making a loss, but if you wanted to go the extra mile to not only ensure it gets to them on time but actually arrives faster than expected you could pay for the better postage options. Once you've made 10 sales/received 10 positive reviews (or however many you want/need) you can stop paying for the better post and increase your profit by using the cheapest one/whichever they paid for. Then, again, once you've received enough positive reviews and you're happy with how things are going, cut back the costs and effort with packaging as much as possible to increase profits more. At this point, if things are going well, you could look for and order packaging in bulk (find the cheapest supplier of the lightest packaging that still keeps your product safe and secure).


Also, try to make your listings as clear and well presented as possible. Only other thing I can say is, if it comes to it, if you make a substantial amount of profit don't pay yourself much, put as much of it back into the business as possible and always be looking to improve and expand.

Fukuyama

BuckleyX7 wrote:

Anyway, my question is what is the best way to enter the market and actually start selling? I don't think setting up my own website is a good idea as I'm only going to be selling one or two products and in small quantities, initially anyway. Obviously eBay is an option (and what I'm planning on doing really) but is the fact that I would be a seller with no feedback going to be a big issue? Do I just hope for the best that people take the risk and build my feedback slowly, even though I'll be competing with eBay shops selling the same product with 10,000+ feedback?

What's the market? (even wide net could help).

I'd we wary, as an Irish seller of posting on eBay. UK sellers are often way cheaper and many Irish people buy from them as postage is only a little dearer.

Would it be something you could supply to small Irish retailers? Even on a basis whereby you only invoice them for what they sell (initially)?

Also, what's the margin and is it enough to make it worthwhile? Even a 100% margin can be more effort than it's worth if its a low cost product. A good exercise is to do the maths on 100 sales per week. How much time and effort would it take to source, import, process, package and despatch them. Add in basic admin duties, customer care, marketing and emails. Now calculate your wage (Net Profit after tax / Hours Worked).