Gas station or self storage. It’s basically a land squat. A chain of coffee shacks would be viable too. Reselling shoes is viable but not good for getting more laborers.
A child care or tutoring facility would be a good choice too. But lots of work.
Otherwise maybe eth mining would be profitable even on gpu in a year.
Ideally you would buy some equipment that’s easy to move and retains value then sell it off after 2 years with minimal losses.
Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#12Lawnmowers in the suburbs. You will have to sink a lot into advertising. But if you have to hire 10 staff you can get them dropping flyers right away.
Getting geographically close customers is key to making it viable.
You don't need to pay high wages, the training is minimal , and managing it is straight forward.
It's not going to make loads of money but you should be able to get profitable quickly.
What ever you do 500k for 10 staff is scary.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#13Lawnmowers in the suburbs. You will have to sink a lot into advertising. But if you have to hire 10 staff you can get them dropping flyers right away. Getting geographically close customers is key to making it viable. You don't need to pay high wages, the training is minimal , and managing it is straight forward. It's not going to make loads of money but you should be able to get profitable quickly. What ever you do…
Yeah 500k basically pays wages for a year to 10staff and leaves Maybe 100k leftover at best. It will be a full time job managing and organizing the workers for minimal profit. You also won’t get good workers unless you recruit from your church or something. I’m not sure how you run the business and do your day job on the side. You basically have to have your spouse run it and even then idk how you both stay sane.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#14I’m no expert in the area but if I wanted something that was lower variance/expense than a software startup and that might be doable on just $500K, I’d do research on something like a pizza joint, a diner, or maybe a franchise food service place. (Looks like Subway is one of the cheaper franchise food service places to open.) In this case, I’m assuming your real prize is the green card, not the actual business, as I’…
I think if you could park it, earn zero interest and get your 500k back without a lot of assache that would already be a win. Even if you only got 300-400 back but had to do nothing but work your other tech job it would be a good trade.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#15Out of curiosity, what is your driver for going to the US? Depending where you go, you can go a lot further on $500k USD overseas than being stateside.
A green card opens you up to US tax liability on all of your investments globally.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#16Thinking about this some more I think your best bet is to start a medical practice with someone. Dentist, physical therapy, psychology, birthing center. Anywhere where you can provide a bunch of folks that are essentially self employed or can be self employed overhead services so they don’t have to deal with it. In many of these the fields are protected from non licensed folks being the main owner so you need to be a 49% partner and have a good contract setup.
You could do it in the trades but it’s harder to get reliable folks and steady work.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#17Thinking about this some more I think your best bet is to start a medical practice with someone. Dentist, physical therapy, psychology, birthing center. Anywhere where you can provide a bunch of folks that are essentially self employed or can be self employed overhead services so they don’t have to deal with it. In many of these the fields are protected from non licensed folks being the main owner so you need to be a…
What would the ten employees do? Medical staff can be pretty expensive.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#18Thinking about this some more I think your best bet is to start a medical practice with someone. Dentist, physical therapy, psychology, birthing center. Anywhere where you can provide a bunch of folks that are essentially self employed or can be self employed overhead services so they don’t have to deal with it. In many of these the fields are protected from non licensed folks being the main owner so you need to be a…
What would the ten employees do? Medical staff can be pretty expensive.
Idea from Japan: having 4 secretaries for a single MD.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#19Thinking about this some more I think your best bet is to start a medical practice with someone. Dentist, physical therapy, psychology, birthing center. Anywhere where you can provide a bunch of folks that are essentially self employed or can be self employed overhead services so they don’t have to deal with it. In many of these the fields are protected from non licensed folks being the main owner so you need to be a…
What would the ten employees do? Medical staff can be pretty expensive.
Handle billable work, ideally making a profit. There are quite a few new dentists graduating every year, $500k could buy an office in a decent location, plus another $100k to $300k to build out the space and gain momentum.
Figure 2 to 4 receptionists, 3 or 4 dental hygienists, the doctor themselves, OP, and whoever else they hire, and you can likely hit 10 employees.
Re: Ask HN: Have to invest 500K in a business – what can I do?
#20Setup a youtube troope and create content.