The £100 challenge – start a business

[poprock]

We turned £100 into £1,000 and had five great nights out. It’s not a business, but it’s a profitable hobby and makes us a little beer money. We’ll still be doing it next year.

[Hoofy]

Made about £20. Still, been interesting, not exactly hard work. Love the fact that I do nothing and money still trickles in.

Started making T-shirts as mentioned above; made maybe £3 so far.
http://www.redbubble.com/people/darrensurrey/shop

It's also motivated me to get off my virtual arse and sort out my business's website which was looking distinctly 1998.

Edited by Hoofy on Tuesday 2nd April 09:36

[spikeyhead]

I've put in way way more than £100, am often working 16 hour days and am "earning a living."

[mondeoman]

I got my original stake back, and should make a profit of sorts moving forward, ebay and paypal permitting.

[icetea]

pingu393 said:

I appreciate that the students have done very well and are to be congratulated, but how much did they make because they were able to use the "charity card" and how were genuine sales?

A cynical, but genuine, question.

On a similar theme, my little brothers (11 years old) had a school competition where they were all to set up a business idea and run it and see who could make the most money. All of the profits from the business (profits, not revenue) were going to a charity. A nice little exercise and an insight into the world of business, or so I thought.

Some of the kids walked dogs, and learned the value of their own time. Some kids made cakes to sell and learned to manage costs and profit margins. Others bought and sold things online and learned about hidden costs of processing transactions.

My little brothers (with my mums help) ran a raffle selling tickets to win a weeks accommodation in a property I own in portugal. I knew absolutely nothing about this till after the fact. I dont know why but their teacher encouraged them with this idea.

So my little brothers "won" this competition with income (and a so called of profit) of nearly £300. Yet I now have an unwanted booking in my property that will be worth £600-900, depending on when they take it. So the kids took stock for free, sold it at a third of its value and got an award and a pat on the back for that. What a joke.

I did write a snotty email to their teacher saying since it was for charity I'd lower the price, and who should I make the £500 invoice out to? Still waiting on a reply

I'm not such a scrooge I don't care about the money as such, I obviously won't send the invoice. I was just unbelievably pissed off that the teacher encouraged them with this idea. God knows what she thought it was teaching them. They'd have learned more borrowing £50, buying fruit from Tesco and selling £40 worth of fresh juice and making a loss.

So my brothers learned to take things you arent going to pay for, and sell them at a price legitimate suppliers can't compete with. Everyone else in their class learned that no matter how hard you work, someone with access to money and connections is still going to st all over you.

Edited by icetea on Wednesday 3rd April 00:11

[Hoofy]

[AyBee]

And again

[poprock]

I wouldn’t let the kids have the free booking. That at least would be a valuable lesson for them: having to organise refunds of all the raffle ticket money and apologise to everybody who took part. Also a lesson for all the people who bought tickets: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

But then, I’m very cynical.

[InertialTooth45]

So instead of the £700-900 that you could have given to charity it's been diluted to £300. Sounds like a typical corporate charity to me

Unless you take away the prize the only lesson that's been learnt is taking advantage of people is the way to succeeding!

[Hoofy]

PM me if you want to buy tickets with a chance to win icetea's Gallardo for a year.

[extraT]

I've been fairly successful- certainly enough to warrant me continuing.

Background:

I have moved to Austria, and my wife and I run a hotel along with her family.

The idea:

As an additional income, teach English.

Method:

Through word of mouth and local advertising, I have built up a successful stable of pupils. All of my pupils are VERY happy and have seen results. I teach all age ranges (from 3-67 years old), some are doing for fun, some are because they want to improve their "life skills", others because their parents force them!

Conclusion:

I am making £1,100Euros per month from my students. My goal is to get to £2,000Euros per month.

This is almost ALL pure profit. I have material already so I did not need to buy any more books, plus the internet is great for material.

I should add I have been very careful as to 'what type' of students I take on- I have purposely NOT targeted students studying for exams, this is to add 'stablility' to my income. Of course I do/have not turned them away, but I have not targeted them.

This thread has been a real motivation, so OP, thanks for posting!

[icetea]

poprock said:

I wouldn’t let the kids have the free booking. That at least would be a valuable lesson for them: having to organise refunds of all the raffle ticket money and apologise to everybody who took part. Also a lesson for all the people who bought tickets: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

But then, I’m very cynical.

I never knew about it till after the fact... by then it was too late. I don't think its fair to blame the contest winner - they entered in good faith and I think if you see someone running a competition on a commercial basis then its fair to assume they must have done their calculations that it will back out to a suitable return. And if they get it wrong, tough luck and your gain anyway. They were happy to take a profit from you if they got it right, so they can take a loss if they get it wrong.

InertialTooth45 said:

So instead of the £700-900 that you could have given to charity it's been diluted to £300. Sounds like a typical corporate charity to me

Unless you take away the prize the only lesson that's been learnt is taking advantage of people is the way to succeeding!

Yes but like above, who does taking the prize away punish? It punishes an innocent 3rd party.


I suggested to the teacher to donate the money to charity as the original plan, let the person take the holiday but mark my brothers entry down as 'bankrupt' as they clearly couldn't cover their costs. I never got a reply and she let them win anyway... the no reply was no doubt down to condescending comments spread through the email though. Not sure what I was expected when they let some 21 year old idiot who knows nothing about anything, teach kids about business. She's never even had a real job, she gets about 3 months a year off ffs

[extraT]

Ahhh, I remember this from the mid 90's. Pretty similar to your situation, Hoover offered a prize it then struggled to fulfil.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/hoover-set-to-lo...

Fulfil the deal, but then demand you will ONLY do this, if you meet the Teacher for an explaination, along with your Brother, how you will be reimbursed for the loss etc...

If the Teacher (or bro) refuse, demand to speak to the Headmaster. Make it very clear you are willing to let the flat be used as agreed, but ONLY after this meeting and suitable compensation (i.e charity donation etc...)

[Frimley111R]

extraT said:

This thread has been a real motivation, so OP, thanks for posting!

[icetea]

extraT said:

Fulfil the deal, but then demand you will ONLY do this, if you meet the Teacher for an explaination, along with your Brother, how you will be reimbursed for the loss etc...

If the Teacher (or bro) refuse, demand to speak to the Headmaster. Make it very clear you are willing to let the flat be used as agreed, but ONLY after this meeting and suitable compensation (i.e charity donation etc...)

I dont live in UK so meeting the UK based teacher won't be happening any time soon. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place as far as the prize goes. I dont want to rip off someone who won it in good faith, and I'm going to come across as a complete arse if I demand the school give me £900

To make matters worse the charity is for a cause I don't even agree with - I'd rather set fire to the money than let them have it. But someone paid £2 for a raffle ticket and won so they are entitled to their prize. I should just insist on them giving me the full revenue generated from that little raffle and give it to a charity of my own choosing though.

[Art0ir]

extraT said:

I've been fairly successful- certainly enough to warrant me continuing.

Background:

I have moved to Austria, and my wife and I run a hotel along with her family.

The idea:

As an additional income, teach English.

Method:

Through word of mouth and local advertising, I have built up a successful stable of pupils. All of my pupils are VERY happy and have seen results. I teach all age ranges (from 3-67 years old), some are doing for fun, some are because they want to improve their "life skills", others because their parents force them!

Conclusion:

I am making £1,100Euros per month from my students. My goal is to get to £2,000Euros per month.

This is almost ALL pure profit. I have material already so I did not need to buy any more books, plus the internet is great for material.

I should add I have been very careful as to 'what type' of students I take on- I have purposely NOT targeted students studying for exams, this is to add 'stablility' to my income. Of course I do/have not turned them away, but I have not targeted them.

This thread has been a real motivation, so OP, thanks for posting!

Fair play

One can assume you're fairly proficient in German then?

[icetea]

To consider it "all as almost pure profit" is making the classic mistake of valuing your own time at nothing.

[Lynch91]

icetea said:

I dont live in UK so meeting the UK based teacher won't be happening any time soon. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place as far as the prize goes. I dont want to rip off someone who won it in good faith, and I'm going to come across as a complete arse if I demand the school give me £900

To make matters worse the charity is for a cause I don't even agree with - I'd rather set fire to the money than let them have it. But someone paid £2 for a raffle ticket and won so they are entitled to their prize. I should just insist on them giving me the full revenue generated from that little raffle and give it to a charity of my own choosing though.

I definitely think you should tell them that it will be going to a charity of your choice, and you'll give them a date that they can use it on and if that's not good for them then unlucky.

[icetea]

Lynch91 said:

I definitely think you should tell them that it will be going to a charity of your choice, and you'll give them a date that they can use it on and if that's not good for them then unlucky.

If its unlucky for anyone, it'll be unlucky for me as I don't have the money, they do.

Kids/teacher ran the raffle, sold the tickets and the money went from there to a charity - absolutely no idea if its been donated yet or not.

The only leverage I would have is to simply refuse to give up the holiday unless they do what I request. But if they decided to stand firm and see who blinks first its going to be me as I can't rip the person off who won.

Either way its all a bloody disgrace... absolute best case is they give the £300 or whatever it is to a charity of my choice. The lesson all of the kids learned is still a farce, and I could have rented out the apartment and gave the money away myself if I wanted, and raised far more than £300 doing it. Someone write me an outraged email and I'll send it to the teacher When I'm at my other computer in the morning I'll try and find the first one I wrote and post it here.

[Teddye4687]

icetea said:

If its unlucky for anyone, it'll be unlucky for me as I don't have the money, they do.

Kids/teacher ran the raffle, sold the tickets and the money went from there to a charity - absolutely no idea if its been donated yet or not.

The only leverage I would have is to simply refuse to give up the holiday unless they do what I request. But if they decided to stand firm and see who blinks first its going to be me as I can't rip the person off who won.

Either way its all a bloody disgrace... absolute best case is they give the £300 or whatever it is to a charity of my choice. The lesson all of the kids learned is still a farce, and I could have rented out the apartment and gave the money away myself if I wanted, and raised far more than £300 doing it. Someone write me an outraged email and I'll send it to the teacher When I'm at my other computer in the morning I'll try and find the first one I wrote and post it here.

Can someone please remind me why this is the teachers fault, or why you're due any sort of compensation?

Your bro and mum offered your apartment as a prize. Why not ask them why they offered it without your consent?

If I was the school, I would tell you to FO when you ask for compensation, withdraw the prize and refund the £300 to those who bought tickets explaining the prize was withdrawn.

Seriously PH, wtf?

ETA, if I was the teacher I'd have actively encouraged it too! If a kid and his mum came to me saying 'we have a fantastic prize for a raffle', why wouldn't you push it? You know it'll generate interest and raise money for charity.

Edited by Teddye4687 on Wednesday 3rd April 22:13