Ask HN: What business you can start under $100? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What business you can start under $100?

#21

Post by zapperdapper » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 5:49 AM UTC

mattbgates wrote: post #11

zapperdapper wrote: post #9

Some simple starter ideas - sorry no space to go into details - email me if you want more info: 1) Create a website. Join some affiliate programs. Drive traffic to the website. I've done this. Didn't make too much money but it was a small income. I know a lot more now so probably could do a better job. 2) Create a course and sell it via Udemy. Not done this myself (yet). 3) Write an e-book and sell it through joint v…

Very nice advice, I couldn't have written it better myself! Just to comment on one of your points: On creating a website... probably less than $30 to get it started, or if you start on WordPress.com or something like that, you can start for free. But I'd say if you were looking to make money with a website, don't do it just for that. Most people try.. and fail because unless you have a passion for it, it's not going…

Couldn't agree more with everything you've said! I wanted to write more last night but partner came off a 12 hour shift and I needed to go!

Things I would do differently now:

1) I would do keyword search. This was back in 2003 and I didn't know what keyword research was back then!

2) I picked a lousy domain name. I thought it was cool, but I soon found out that my domain turned out to be the name of a Gary Numan song - and I thought my domain name was cleverly original!! Most of my organic traffic from Google was people looking for the song lyrics!! Doh!

3) I never did a podcast.

4) I never wrote many guest articles.

5) I should have done more Joint Ventures.

6) I should have had a mailing list and provided a free ebook to encourage sign up.

7) I focused mostly on content but should have been splitting time at least 50:50 with traffic generation - having great content only takes you so far - you have to let people know about it.

8) I did several interviews with retired expats - I should have done more.

The content was pretty good. I ran the site for I think eight years - it was more a labour of love than a business. I had people write me and say they moved to Thailand because of my site, or it helped them make the move. However, I regret I did not take it more seriously as a business - the market is now enormous, but hard to break into these days.

By the way I love your site!

Re: Ask HN: What business you can start under $100?

#22

Post by SirLJ » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 3:12 PM UTC

uptown wrote: post #14

SirLJ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War stories are usually not good... For starting here is my advice: get a small linux VPS or just install python on your laptop, get as much back data as possible, covering at least one market cycle (this will be your initial expense) and start back testing every trading strategy you can find on the net or in books (library) for free... Never pay for strategies, because they will all fail, but by testing them one by…

Curious which platform you're writing your Python to trade with.

I am using my discount broker's API, pretty much every one now offers an API

Re: Ask HN: What business you can start under $100?

#23

Post by SirLJ » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

muzani wrote: post #17

SirLJ wrote: post #5

Stock trading robots - you won’t make much, but you can dip a toe in the water... After/if you figure it out, you can scale easily pretty much up to millions and more...

Stock trading robots won't make much from $100 either.. maybe a trickle of $2/month.

Of course it won't make anything if you count $5-$10 round trip commission, the idea is to use the $100 to start looking into it...

You need money to make money in this world... But if you have an edge, raising money won't be a major problem...

Re: Ask HN: What business you can start under $100?

#24

Post by mattbgates » Fri, Dec 15, 2017, 12:29 AM UTC

zapperdapper wrote: post #21

mattbgates wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice advice, I couldn't have written it better myself! Just to comment on one of your points: On creating a website... probably less than $30 to get it started, or if you start on WordPress.com or something like that, you can start for free. But I'd say if you were looking to make money with a website, don't do it just for that. Most people try.. and fail because unless you have a passion for it, it's not going…

Couldn't agree more with everything you've said! I wanted to write more last night but partner came off a 12 hour shift and I needed to go! Things I would do differently now: 1) I would do keyword search. This was back in 2003 and I didn't know what keyword research was back then! 2) I picked a lousy domain name. I thought it was cool, but I soon found out that my domain turned out to be the name of a Gary Numan song…

Thank you Zapper! Very much appreciated!

No matter how much we read.. no matter how much we all take in.. there are ALWAYS things that we should've done and could've done.. or done them better. It is a learning experience. Honestly, I had no desire to build an email list at the time, as my whole focus was on writing quality content, but those people that have done so... and acquired something like 30,000+ subscribers have to market less, whereas I have to try and find those people with a subscriber list and either ask them to mention my products, or pay them to do it.

Or... as I'm doing now for marketing... I'm just writing about the topic and topics surrounding my products.