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If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

entrepreneur.venturebeat.com

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Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#81

Post by mechanical_fish »

thenduks wrote: post #50
nkurz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams' approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of char…

Thanks for the synopsis. I'm curious, though, what makes the solutions 'immoral' or dishonest? They seem perfectly legitimate to me.

From what I can see, their customers were happy, they made money, and it was all above-board, let alone legal. Clearly, something must be wrong!

I have to say, I'm even more amused by people's outrage at these winning tactics than by the tactics themselves. I begin to understand why it's necessary to have an entire class in entrepreneurship. Perhaps it is largely about training people not to be pinned, like hapless chess pieces, by the force of trivial preconceptions.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#82

Post by asimjalis »

idm wrote: post #29
ankeshk wrote: post #24

1. Trick 1: Forget about the $5. 2. Trick 2: Forget about providing the actual service within those 2 hours. Use the 2 hours just for doing the actual trade. 3. Then sell something before you buy it. If I was given just 2 hours, I would do quick brokerage. Hour 1: Find a group of people who wants to buy laptops* at a decent price. Get their configs down and get a commitment. Hour 2: Find a seller who will give the be…

... and you've just created an inductive proof for how the US financial system collapsed. Don't get me wrong: I think step 3 has a good chance of working. BUT if you, like your customers, assume that a commitment is equivalent to the actual asset (i.e. the laptop) then you are vulnerable to defaulting on YOUR commitment if and when you cannot deliver the asset. How might that happen? Imagine you commit to purchasing…

Interesting parallel. However, I think this would be like the financial system if you got the commitments, and then created a market for these commitments, where they were freely sold as liquid assets.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#83

Post by j_b_f »

seldo wrote: post #51
nkurz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams' approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of char…

See, the problem here is that she hands out two artificial constraints, and then praises the teams who ignore the constraints. 1. Used a device to measure the tire pressure and materials to build the booth and signs. Did they cost less than $5? Maybe. Did it take less than 2 hours to create the booth, the signs, and perform the services? Unlikely. 2. Well done on finding something you can acquire for free and then se…

In the real world there aren't any constraints, but there are plenty of artificial limiters like the $5.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#84

Post by varikin »

seldo wrote: post #80
mechanical_fish wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument seems to lean a bit too strongly on unsupported accusations of fraud: Did it take less than 2 hours to create the booth, the signs, and perform the services? Unlikely. What, you're saying that a team of college students, on a college campus , which presumably has a fully stocked stationery store within five minutes' walk, can't throw up some hand-scrawled signs in less than (say) 15 minutes for under fi…

You make valid points. My problem is less the specifics of the individual teams' solutions -- I don't dispute they were very clever and creative solutions -- but rather the impression that the greatest reward went to those who went furthest outside of the rules. Team 1 were arguably entirely within the rules and made $200, Team 2 went a little outside (unless they were handed the envelope at 6pm) and made a little mo…

If you watch the video, all teams were handed the envelop at the start of the week in class. They were allowed to think an form a business plan as long as they liked. They didn't know how much was in the envelop. Once they opened the envelop, they had 2 hours to make money.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#87

Post by dkarl »

thenduks wrote: post #50
nkurz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams' approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of char…

Thanks for the synopsis. I'm curious, though, what makes the solutions 'immoral' or dishonest? They seem perfectly legitimate to me.

Making and selling restaurant reservations doesn't strike you as dishonest? It's an honor system. What's to stop me from making reservations at ten different restaurants for my blind date tonight, and deciding at the last minute which one will make the best impression on my date? The system relies on honesty. It only works because few people are willing to abuse it, and those who do so only do it in a small way. This business would either be blackballed and frozen out by the restaurants, or the reservation system it depends on would be abandoned.

But let's say you could convince restaurant owners that selling reservations is a dandy idea. Sure, restaurants have long known (the idea isn't new) that they could, for a very minimal cost, sell reservations to the highest bidder. Sure, almost all have decided to go with a system that is perceived as free, fair, and egalitarian (with some discretion for doing favors for VIPs and accommodating glamorous people.) Suppose you can convince them. Why wouldn't they do it themselves? Restaurants manage their image very carefully and would certainly prefer to be in complete control. They could just do it in a notebook until (as the phenomenon caught on) their reservation software offered support for it.

The only plausible way I could see the business surviving is by charging lots of money (fewer customers limits your visibility) and kicking some of the money back to maitre d's as bribes.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#88

Post by Tichy »

seldo wrote: post #51
nkurz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams' approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of char…

See, the problem here is that she hands out two artificial constraints, and then praises the teams who ignore the constraints. 1. Used a device to measure the tire pressure and materials to build the booth and signs. Did they cost less than $5? Maybe. Did it take less than 2 hours to create the booth, the signs, and perform the services? Unlikely. 2. Well done on finding something you can acquire for free and then se…

"Total time used to make $650: a week"

You could use the "idle time" for other stuff.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#89

Post by Tichy »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #74
seldo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, the problem here is that she hands out two artificial constraints, and then praises the teams who ignore the constraints. 1. Used a device to measure the tire pressure and materials to build the booth and signs. Did they cost less than $5? Maybe. Did it take less than 2 hours to create the booth, the signs, and perform the services? Unlikely. 2. Well done on finding something you can acquire for free and then se…

Your argument seems to lean a bit too strongly on unsupported accusations of fraud: Did it take less than 2 hours to create the booth, the signs, and perform the services? Unlikely. What, you're saying that a team of college students, on a college campus , which presumably has a fully stocked stationery store within five minutes' walk, can't throw up some hand-scrawled signs in less than (say) 15 minutes for under fi…

"And I don't seem to recall anything in the "constraints" about not being allowed to beg or borrow anything, nor any rules about not being allowed to use stuff you already own."

What if "stuff you already own" includes a bank account with 2 million bucks in it? I also thought the solution was a bit dishonest, but then the whole thing should not be taken that serious from the start.

The reservations solution seems even worse, though I am not sure how exactly it works (would it piss off restaurants in the long run, or is it really a valuable service?).

Selling the presentation time seems to be the only valid solution.

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