Ask HN: What business would you start, given $100K? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What business would you start, given $100K?

#21

Post by phalgunr » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:38 PM UTC

Just to throw in my own (non-tech) idea, which originally led me to wonder what other people's capital-intensive ideas might be:

I would open up bookstores with a Netflix-like business model. You pay something like $5/month to use it, read any books you want without buying them and not feeling like a freeloader. There can be monthly family plans etc., and when someone does buy a book, their fee for that month can be waived.

Clearly, despite having an entire bookstore in their pockets, people want a physical place to socialize and read, and this offers them a way to do that in the 21st century.

Re: Ask HN: What business would you start, given $100K?

#22

Post by merrua » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:39 PM UTC

phalgunr wrote: post #21

Just to throw in my own (non-tech) idea, which originally led me to wonder what other people's capital-intensive ideas might be: I would open up bookstores with a Netflix-like business model. You pay something like $5/month to use it, read any books you want without buying them and not feeling like a freeloader. There can be monthly family plans etc., and when someone does buy a book, their fee for that month can be…

Are you making a joke about libraries?

Re: Ask HN: What business would you start, given $100K?

#23

Post by mrfusion » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:52 PM UTC

atsaloli wrote: post #14

Training in system administration. I've been doing it part-time for 5 yeas, would love to do it full-time.

Can you expand on that a bit more? Sounds interesting.

Re: Ask HN: What business would you start, given $100K?

#24

Post by phalgunr » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

merrua wrote: post #22

phalgunr wrote: post #21

Just to throw in my own (non-tech) idea, which originally led me to wonder what other people's capital-intensive ideas might be: I would open up bookstores with a Netflix-like business model. You pay something like $5/month to use it, read any books you want without buying them and not feeling like a freeloader. There can be monthly family plans etc., and when someone does buy a book, their fee for that month can be…

Are you making a joke about libraries?

No, I'm being serious! I thought about libraries being the same thing as Borders/Barnes & Noble chains (if you're in the U.S.), but there's something about the bookstore (being able to speak at a normal tone, having a coffee shop in there) that seems to attract people more.

This might be a crazy (the wrong type of crazy) idea, or coming from me being sad about the fall of Borders and the eventual demise of B&N.

But I do notice that people prefer to "hang out", stroll around, or spend an evening at a bookstore than a library.

Re: Ask HN: What business would you start, given $100K?

#25

Post by cdvonstinkpot » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

I would either buy an already-profitable app on Fliptopia & work on upgrading & maintaining it.

-or-

I'd invest in Real Estate- flipping houses with a builder I know.

If all goes well, I might be able to do both, depending on the Fliptopia market at the moment. I find many apps there seem overvalued.

Re: Ask HN: What business would you start, given $100K?

#26

Post by atsaloli » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:03 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #23

atsaloli wrote: post #14

Training in system administration. I've been doing it part-time for 5 yeas, would love to do it full-time.

Can you expand on that a bit more? Sounds interesting.

I've been a sysadmin for over 15 years. For the last five years, I've been organizing (and more often than not, delivering) trainings in public and private venues.

Example of a public venue -- I rent a hotel conference room for 3 days and people fly in to take a class. Or I teach at a conference, usually a half-day or a quarter-day course. Occasionally full-day.

Example of a private venue -- a company flies me in to teach their staff whom they also fly in so we are all in one room. :)

I've taught CFEngine, vi, and Time Management for System Administrators (based on Tom Limoncelli's book)

I'd do 2-6 trainings a year.

I was doing this on the side, while holding down a regular full-time job.

Here's the pitch deck I put together last October when I was exploring getting funding to do this full time: http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vsa.htm

However, I managed to fall into a 1 year CFEngine consulting project which keeps me almost too busy to train (plug -- I have a public CFEngine training coming up in Prague in October -- USD 5K for 6 days of training for one student -- https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfengine-3-course-and-policy-wr...)

I'd love to offer more training -- specifically I want to be able to take in a computer user and turn out a sysadmin ("infrastructure engineer" or whatever the modern term is) -- my first step toward this was working with LOPSA (Professional Content Committee) to create a sysadmin reading list (http://www.sabok.org/)

I really enjoy training, I find it quite gratifying when students light up with new-found understanding.

People often tell my training is the best they've ever had, e.g.:

"Thank you for such a great class. Been to lots of technical training and you are the best instructor I've had. Beyond standard lecture/lab your examples and willingness to help is unmatched." -- Thomas Nicholson

I've been a regular employee pretty much all my career so working on my own business full-time is new to me. I find it exciting, creative, exhilarating, exhausting. I asked the founder of Pythian (quite successful DBA/sysadmin consultancy) how he grew his company, and what was the key to his success, and he said, a RIDICULOUS amount of HARD WORK. I am finding this to be very true.