The £100 challenge – start a business

[bishbash]

I'd like to have a go at this, but haven't managed to pin down a decent enough idea yet, So far i've looked into, and dismissed :-

Looking for a half decent (local pickup) PC on ebay and seeing If I can sell the parts seperately for profit, I think this may be a goer if you can find the right pc locally, but I haven't found one yet.

Buying iphones or Androids with cracked screens on ebay and repairing them, but it looks like plenty of other people already do the same thing, as busted phones seem to fetch nearly as much as working ones, so whilst there could be a small profit there it seems like more hassle than its worth.

Also had a look at hotukdeals.com to see if there was any leads on retail products that might be saleable for profit on ebay, apparently sainsburys had some duracell chargers for £1 that were worth £5 on ebay, but my local storedidn't have any.

So back to drawing board for now.

[muppetdave]

jammy_basturd said:

I have access to a workshop, need a contractor?

£99 plus 25% commission on all sales and I'll sell you a design ;o)

[FactoryBacked]

Hoofy said:

FactoryBacked said:

I've started the ball rolling with my idea now. I registered some domain names a couple of weeks ago based on half an idea but this thread has given me some enthusiasm to develop it further.

I've included the domain names in my start-up costs. I now need to find some suitable software and either design a couple of logos myself or pay someone else to do it. I could be pushing the upper limits of the budget quite quickly with very little left in the pot for marketing.

I also don't know a great deal about websites or code so I predict a lot of Googling about how to do stuff seen as paying someone else to design / build the websites is out of the question.

I've not included things like the cost of my time or my laptop, hosting and broadband; all of which I already owned.

Try Wix.com or Wordpress.com. Not really tested either in much detail. Or google "free websites".

Cheers, I think I will go with Wordpress as I've built a couple of sites using Wordpress and free templates but this one will be a little more complex. I'm hoping I can find an off the shelf solution that I can tweak a little bit, which is where the Googling will come in handy.

Frimley111R said:

FactoryBacked said:

... and either design a couple of logos myself or pay someone else to do it..
fivesquids.com or fiverr.com are your friends.

Thanks for those links. I put an advert on Fiverr this morning and now I have an inbox full of requests for more information, demands for me to use their service and some general Fiverr spam. I am sure there will be a few decent offerings in there though, I just need to find them. I have a brief and a few 'mood board' cuttings prepared which should help a bit.

[slaveunit]

Are teams allowed in the rules? Would two people get £100 or £200 to start with?

[Chrisw666]

I've got a couple of buying and selling ideas that would work in this thread, but I tried las year and shelved my favourite one due to time constraints, I've got a good bit of stock, some domains registered, a lot of appropriate followers on twitter and a linked ebay account to dispose of surplus stuff. I just need time and or focus, my only other idea has huge profit margin potential but requires some manufacturing skill on my behalf...

[TotalControl]

slaveunit said:

Are teams allowed in the rules? Would two people get £100 or £200 to start with?

Still only £100. The business idea needs that much capital. I could easily get £1000 from ten individuals but that wouldn't be fair.

I have an idea. Need to find the rest of my brain first

[Hoofy]

I am going to try something stupid so I am in. Cost: £100 camera.

[jammy_basturd]

Hoofy said:

I am going to try something stupid so I am in. Cost: £100 camera.

[ArsE92]

jammy_basturd said:

Hoofy said:

I am going to try something stupid so I am in. Cost: £100 camera.

[extraT]

I'm in.

Privat English unterricht....or Private English lessons....here in Austria! i was planning on starting this properly after my Holiday anyway, and I already have most of the materials needed to successfully teach privately.

I'm qualified as a TEFL teacher, the only thing I havent got are the students...yet!

So my plan is this:

500 leaflets- free (I have a printing friend)
5weeks presence in the Local paper- £75
Selling to hotels- Luckily my FiL runs a hotel here and knows all the local hotelliers, so I will be taking a trip with him to see the owners. The idea here being we sell them a hotel-centric English package- free.

I return from Holiday next week, so I will keep you all updated with how I get on!

[Hoofy]

ArsE92 said:

jammy_basturd said:

Hoofy said:

I am going to try something stupid so I am in. Cost: £100 camera.

You know, after I posted that, I fired up BF3 and only thought someone would think that just after the game had loaded.

Unfortunately, due to my sensibilities, it won't be anything so racey. Or even vaguely racey. I'm going to create lots of mundane videos, stick them on YT and see if anyone bothers to click. I've got nowt to lose but time. Yes, it is a scatter gun approach but if I have 1 million videos and 1 person views each videos, that's 1 million hits and must be worth... something.

[Funk]

ArsE92 said:

jammy_basturd said:

Hoofy said:

I am going to try something stupid so I am in. Cost: £100 camera.

Indeed. Wry smile here too.

Then realising it's bad that I recognise that couch.

[cheddar]

I did this in 1992 and that £100 included a car.

I bought £50 of pot-pourri and a £50 Chevette. I got free hesian potato sacks from a farmer to use for for display, free wood shavings from the local timber mill, dyed them in my bath at home and collected cones and leaves from the forest to bulk up the flowers that I'd bought. Then I went market trading.

I turned over £112 pounds on my first day (Nutts Corner market, just outside Belfast) and the Chevette blew up on the way home. I bought an Escort estate for £90 and had to pay for some of that with pot-pourri. Worked 7 days a week, built up the business, owned a house by 1995 and bought a new Impreza Turbo 1998. I sold up the same year to a girl that worked for me.

Took 4 years off and then started another market trading business in 2002, built that up, turned over £300,000 last year and it's being sold this month for £80,000.

Next £100 challenge starts shortly and I'll be following the success/disasters/humor from other PH'ers on here.

Good luck everyone

[GEWAGON]

therealpigdog said:

OK, I’ve already started my £100 ‘business’, albeit that it wasn’t intended to be a business at the time.

I’m going to try to make some pocket money out of my hobby - keeping tropical fish. I’ve organised with my local pet shop that they will take some of my ‘stock’ off me and give me money off dog food - so I’m hoping I can treat that as earnings for the purposes of the challenge. In reality I didn’t have any start up costs, as I’m using stuff that I already had, but if I were to start from scratch, then it would be roughly as follows:

Small aquarium £20
Sponge filter £4
Heater £12
DIY hood and lighting (x2) £20
Plastic Tub £3
Marbles £10
Wool £2
Riccia (plant) £5
Java Moss (plant) £5
Netting £2
3x Rosy Barbs £10
3 x Shrimp £5
Total £98

I’ve actually already started the process as I spawned the rosy barbs last weekend, and about 30-50 fry have hatched. I reckon they should be worth between 50p-£1 each to the pet shop as they retail for about £3 each. The second part will be to ‘sell’ red cherry shrimp to the pet shop, so I will add three shrimp to the fry tank tonight (clearly I will cheat a little and pick two berried females). This will be my stock for the purpose of the challenge, and I won’t dip into my other tanks (I promise). Shrimp tend to sell on ebay for about £1.50, and in shops for £3 (yet I’ve always just given mine away or fed them to my fish).

I’ve also agreed that I’ll supply the pet shop with some plants - and so will transfer a small portion of riccia and java moss into a plastic tub in the garage and cultivate that, with the intention of planting it on netting mounted on bits of wood/cane/rocks. I’m always amazed that these sell for about a tenner or more in fish shops, and yet literally costs pence to make. The only downside being that they take time to grow.

I'll also look into selling on e-bay - new territory for me.

So my business is not very profitable (and then only just after considering that I’m not going to account for electricity costs of running the tank, my time, or the back-up of having some spare tanks in case anything goes hideously wrong). It’s not really an up-scalable business, but if I can cover the theoretical start-up costs then man-maths means that I have a suitable business plan to present to Mrs Therealpigdog when she questions why I am getting more tanks.

I could sell you 500 shrimps for £15 !! livefishfood.co.uk

[Rostfritt]

Fer said:

Hmm, £80 for juggling gear, a £20 top hat, some practice and I can go busking!

Sounds like a silly idea, but a friend of mine can make £70 an hour busking around Portobello Road in that London.

[New POD]

Bit of a nightmare with my £100 idea

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail...

I need to register my premises and record and pay duty. I'm not sure they'll want to register my 6 foot square spare room as a brewery.

[Laughingman21]

This sounds like a bit of fun. I'll have a think and have a go.

Is there any start and end date?

[TotalControl]

Like the first thread started ages ago, I think most decided on a particular date to start. Can't remember if there was an end date that was organised though.

[Hoofy]

TotalControl said:

Like the first thread started ages ago, I think most decided on a particular date to start. Can't remember if there was an end date that was organised though.

Was a 6 month period.

[jammy_basturd]

Shall we say 1st of October as a start date? Gives people a couple of weeks to sort themselves out, think of ideas, get necessary permission (New POD).