£100 to £100k

imared

Is it possible? Of course it is, How? That's where it gets difficult.

I've recently lost my job that I have had for five years. I'm 25 now so that was really my first main job after all the bit part jobs I had in my teens.

I've always had ambitions to have my own business, Now following the experiences I have suffered in the last five years I am now totally put off by the idea of starting a fresh at new company and opening myself up for the treatment I received before.

Every day in that job I felt as if I was wasting a day of my life. Every day I am just waiting for an idea to go ping in my head. I know i would be good at running my own business but with no capital or qualifications and know how it just seems a dream at the moment.

Ideas developing in my head at the moment is take my £100 capital and head to a few pound shops and invest in stock that sells for a pound but is worth more say £2. Some pound shops do deals for 2 for a pound. I hear some people do this method and sell on eBay but that's not a route I wanna take. Would rather have a stall or something.

My thinking is buy £100 worth of stuff sell for £200 keep back say £50 for myself then reinvest £150 on further stock and then keep repeating that process.

So theres the idea. And that's what it just is. What to do with the idea is where I always get stuck.

Any advice or any further suggestions would be welcome.

Would be interested if anyone else is considering such a thing or interested in a challenge.

Many thanks

sharpy2010

To being with, reinvest ALL the money, don't keep any for yourself. You have to be focussed on this, not just a part timer!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

in theory it works :rotfl:

but not everything will sell, what about your overheads for selling them?

lvm

I must admit I think you're going to have to think a bit "bigger" than this idea.

Have you thought of stall fees or costs for where you sell your product(s)? And depending on how much you're planning on making, tax on the profits? How long do you think it will take to sell 100 items? Is that time worth £100 profit to you?

Personally I'd work on how to raise more money for capital (are you against all forms of non-self employment? Would you take a part time job in a shop just to raise a bit of cash?)

Prepare a business plan with all costs included. You need a target profit to reach.

Do you have any hobbies you could use to make money? Are you an techy who could buy PCs for cheap and sell parts on for a profit? Or maybe cars? Or something else....

P.s I too would love to find a way of investing £100 to make £100k. Currently I'm doing this on betting sites but there's only so much of that you can do :-(

oliviarosejackson

Can you sell things in your local paper, Gumtree and Netmum's are all ways to advertise things for sale for free. You need to figure out what sells though. I would just buy a couple of items and see how they sell first, before you invest a large sum of money on things that you cannot get rid of.

Do you have a skill, ie buying, doing up selling cars? Are you good with computers?

My OH is an artist and he has started up a sketch business. This is very thin on the ground at the moment. We have advertised on Netmums and he is getting drawing from people at work and by word of mouth. He has also set up a facebook page so that people can see his work.

lincroft1710

imared wrote: »

My thinking is buy £100 worth of stuff sell for £200.

This is what most retailers do. But they are left with a lot less than £100 in their pocket at the end of the day.

If you think working for somebody else is hard, working for yourself is twice, if not 3 times as hard.

InsideInsurance

The concept is obviously sound, as already pointed out every single retailer does this already but they have gotten the slightly smarter idea of realising that if they buy in bulk they will get a discount.

Your idea is over simplistic though as you have not included all your costs such as hiring the stall, wasteage from items that get damaged or are stolen or become faulty and are returned, taxs (if applicable), insurance (if applicable) etc.

The challenge is always identifying which products will sell quickly and at the margin you want to acheive. How are you going to go about working this out? Stores (inc Poundshops) end up selling stock for a loss if not actually throwing/ giving away at times but they can take some "risk" on this because they stock 300 different lines of product and these balance themselves out. What happens if you decide clear umbrellas are the "in thing" and spend your £100 on those but we then have a 2 month heatwave/ drought?

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hi,

It's great that you are thinking entrepreneurially Imared and I certainly don't want to burst your bubble. So I'm going to suggest you tweak your idea slightly for higher profits and an easier life.

This idea is all about the "WHAT". What sells, at what margin.

If you're selling face to face then you're trading your time for this profit and this doesn't scale to £100k really.

For example you invest your £100, sell it for £200 and keep £50 and reinvest. Say it takes a whole day to sell all that - would you be happy working for £50 a day before tax??? i.e £211.60 a week after tax and no savings. If you saved this £50 a day instead, it would take 38 years to have £100k saved!!!!:eek: This is a best case scenario, in practise you would have stuff that just doesn't sell.

Personally, I've set up 4 businesses (all of which are still up and running and due to pay out nice dividends at the end of the tax year) only one of those is face to face and that is by far the most time consuming and frustrating and I certainly wouldn't do it if I didn't have my other businesses to back me up.

My suggestion is to a) develop your own product (this is simpler than it sounds) because when buying from a wholesaler others are selling the exact same item as you and are willing to undercut you. If you design your own product - it's yours exclusively. b)Do it online. Orders can come in while you sleep AND you can be out working a p/t job so you have guaranteed income for you to pay bills etc.

List the industries you have worked in, even if it was only a summer job. List your hobbies and interests. What could you spend everyday working on happily?

How much money would you need to earn each month to cover your outgoings? If it's low, you can pick a more fun idea, if it's high then you'll have to pick something less risky but lower profits.

I'm sure we can develop a sound idea for you to start.

Keep us updated!

podperson

I think it's great that you are thinking of working for yourself but not sure if you're thinking through your business plan properly. I used to have a market stall quite a few years ago - I had a similar plan to yourself I would buy items from pound shops or from ebay and then sell them on for a small profit. I did this for around 2 years in total - some weeks I made a profit, some weeks I didn't. The average rent a day for the stall for £15 - so think around £20 now with inflation. Just over those 2 years I saw a drastic dip in the amount of business I was doing and the number of customer coming through. I ended up calling it a day as the non-profit days were starting to strongly outweigh the profit days - and I wasn't the only one as unfortunately markets seem to be dying out these days. I ended up with a large amount of left-over stock, most of which I ended up letting go for a loss as I needed the space back!
I would say if you are wanting to sell things then a better plan would be to look for a niche in the market. Or do you have any specific skills that you could make a profit from - are you good with diy. computers, book-keeping etc. Good luck with it.

nancy_31

I agree with some of the things shared here. You need to check if the product you choose to sell is easily dispose. You need to consider this things before investing. And for me, it is also a good idea that while you invest you money on something, look for job that will cover up your personal expenses. I believe that any investment will work if you will invest the whole amount of money. Let it grow, and just reap the fruits after.

System

Extremely, extremely, extremely difficult and long. good luck.