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Business ideas

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Anyone got a great idea that just might work? Minimal capital outlay and makes around a $1000 per week? Don't need to be a rocket scientist to start it up and it is not hard work?

How about this one then? $5000 buys a second hand van, $500 to signwrite it up in your chosen company name ("Lights R us" springs to mind) $500 for business cards and a letter drop in a suburb. BUY $2000 of every kind of light globe imaginable (from 20 watt to 100 watt bayonet and edison, small, large ALL of them) Now keep in mind that MOST people have a 60 watt GE bayonet light globe in just about all of their homes. Finally a small step ladder for $150 and a nice pair of overalls for another $150. Total spend $8,300.00

You then start at one end of the street in any given suburb and knock on the door and TELL them this;-

"I will change ALL of your light globes in your house for $10"

The home owner says "YES". You then bring in a box FULL of every kind of light globe and it looks marvellous! You take out their light globe and replace it with the shiny new one from the store. You then place their old one in the packet the original store one came in and place it back in the box.

Collect $10.

Go next door and repeat the same action. Now what happens is that Mrs Kafoops at home number 1 light globe ends up in Mr Smythes house next door and so on and so forth. ALL FOR $10 a throw.

You are not breaking any laws. You are not telling them they are new light globes. Read what I have written. You are only offering to change them. Not sell them a new one.

Yes there will be some lights that are genuinely broken so you will eventually have to buy more stock. The game goes on.

Now I figure you should be able to do about 30 homes a day once you get good at it. A nice little earner of $1500 per week on a lousy $8,300 outlay.

Anyone else got any GREAT ideas on how to make money?

P.S. Still working on a system whereby 1000 people give me $20 per week. You do the math !
 
Ok Trainspotter I could see this one making money but could you sleep an night?
You can fool some of the people some of the time......
 
Many like me would tell you to bugger off, if it sounds too good to be true, it is etc etc.

It sounds somewhat like the Storm Financial model actually.

gg
 
Please drop by my place spotter...

Pearling must be keeping that mind of yours very busy at the moment.
 
Happy to see you at my place. At the moment I have 4 blown globes + 1 for IXL tastic. $10 would be a bargain
 
Ok Trainspotter I could see this one making money but could you sleep an night?
You can fool some of the people some of the time......

Quite easily robusta. Think of buying 12 of these systems. 100k outlay and employ people to do the job. No risk. Would make a fantastic franchise model. ;)
 
Many like me would tell you to bugger off, if it sounds too good to be true, it is etc etc.

It sounds somewhat like the Storm Financial model actually.

gg

Thanks GG ..... it is too good to be true. It does work in real life. WHY has no one else thought of it?

Nothing like Storm Fin group BTW. We are talking about $10 per customer. Not taking your life savings off you. :confused:
 
Please drop by my place spotter...

Pearling must be keeping that mind of yours very busy at the moment.

Down time is a b1tch. Water is below 18 degrees so cannot go pearling ! Shop is going ORRFFFFFF .... Very happy my pieces are being worn by the sophisticated Hoi polloi.

Just looking at other business models for small seed capital start ups. :cool:
 
Happy to see you at my place. At the moment I have 4 blown globes + 1 for IXL tastic. $10 would be a bargain

LIGHT GLOBES robusta. Not IXL tastic heater globes. More than happy to replace 4 globes at a buck a piece. $10 minus $4 = $6 dollar profit.

Sooooooooooo ...... anyone else got any ideas on how to make money? :D
 
I think you are selling yourself short. There was an article in the paper a year or two ago with a guy doing exactly this. I think he was charging $44 an hour. Unfortunately I cant find the article anymore. I also wonder how the electrical board/ union would treat your proposition. Believe me they can be very anally retentive with anyone doing anything remotely infringing on their territory.

Most of these great little start up ideas are restricted to people with trades. The respective unions/ bodies tie up their trade pretty well so nobody can touch it. Example. I was in the process of doing a gas fitting traineeship and whilst I could touch the gas outlet on the hotwater system I needed a restricted plumbing license to touch the water. Go figure.

I can think of two great little businesses for the trades. Both not that difficult to do but they are bogged down in bullsh#t. One is a test and tag business and the other is servicing gas appliances in commercial kitchens. The 2nd idea here sounds difficult but it is not. Almost anyone with a prior trade can get their gas ticket. When I was in cairns there appeared to be a huge calling for this. I would be doing this myself if I didnt get tied up in retarded government bullsh#t (long story). Not the most pleasant of a jobs sometimes but the basics are easy to grasp and plenty of opportunity about.
 
The business I would like to start up is a hybrid photo gallery/ coffee shop/ print shop. Bit too high risk for me though. Reasonable start up cost but could burn a hole in your pocket if it didnt take off. Maybe one day when I have money to burn.
 
Another idea which would cost bugger all except a bucket load of motivation and enthusiasm would be a personal trainer/ sports buddy. I had this idea once to start a personal training business that also included a sport buddy type concept. You would basically play sports with people. ie. Your a mad keen cricketer and wanted some batting practice so you call up overit to send down some thunderbolts. Same with footy, tennis or whatever. You would also provide a traditional personal training service.
 
"I will change ALL of your light globes in your house for $10"

The home owner says "YES". You then bring in a box FULL of every kind of light globe and it looks marvellous! You take out their light globe and replace it with the shiny new one from the store. You then place their old one in the packet the original store one came in and place it back in the box.

Collect $10.

Go next door and repeat the same action. Now what happens is that Mrs Kafoops at home number 1 light globe ends up in Mr Smythes house next door and so on and so forth. ALL FOR $10 a throw.

You are not breaking any laws. You are not telling them they are new light globes. Read what I have written. You are only offering to change them. Not sell them a new one.

From my view a few problems with your idea.

1) I understand that incandescent lights are being phased out. So you need to replace incandescents with equivalent CFL

2) If you actually change all the light globes in a house it will take anything from 20 minutes to a veeeryy long time. And don't even think about what happens when you touch a very old old light fitting with a fused globe in it. (I did replace incandescents with CFLs for 8 months.)

3) Telling people you are changing their lights and then replacing them with used ones will quickly get you a star billing on A Current affair and Consumer protection. Cute but still a scam.

If you really wanted to do something along these lines consider a fix it service for older people. It is extremely hard to get small jobs done for older people without being ripped off. For example getting a heating system relit after a windy night will cost at least $70. But it's a 5 minute job. Changing dead lights, small fixes ect.

Cheers.
 
a normal 3 bedroom house has at minimum 3 globes per each bedroom, 1 kitchen, 1 bathroom thats 5 already.

Then you have reading lamps etc ... so on average u got about 8 - 10 globes per house.

You will spend at least 30 mins to 1 hour per house, so lets say $10 per hour. T

Then you are only getting the $10 ph if you get a client. Add expenses such as petrol etc you are working on far below minimum wage.

mmmm and don't forget that not every person is that easy to fool with some watching exactly what you do, asking why the packet looks open and others asking for their old light globes back! I know I would since they are still working why would I want to throw them out!

On top of that not to mention the 2k you spent on the initial light globes, thats 200 scams you need to pull off to break even.

Maybye running a letter drop business could be a good idea if you are going house to house



I think the whole idea of running a business is to have a bit higher margins and less risk
 
... hybrid photo gallery/ coffee shop/ print shop. Bit too high risk for me though. ...

Suppose rent would kill it.

Possibly can survive if emphasis is put on coffee shop and add on services can be tailored to demand.

Office Works provide printing services and from what I heard you can have there coffee or tea for free.
 
TS, nice idea but how many houses could you cover in an hour? 2-3? If you're maxing at $30 income in an hour I dare say it isn't really worth teh time.

The thought process behind it is brilliant though.
 
Suppose rent would kill it.

Possibly can survive if emphasis is put on coffee shop and add on services can be tailored to demand.

Office Works provide printing services and from what I heard you can have there coffee or tea for free.

If you have seen the old peter lik gallery in cairns you would see the sort of thing I have in mind. Just add lounge chairs and coffee. The printing would be only larger premium stuff. You would have the gear anyway so just a bonus. The idea would be that the coffee and printing pays the costs and the large limited edition prints would be the icing on the cake. Rents would be a killer as you would have to be in a premium position.
 
Why not go completely legit and offer to replace all incandescent light globes with equivalent CFLs at an attractive rate. You should be able to purchase the CFLs at a reasonable discount if buying in bulk. You can bring a laptop and calculate on the spot the amount they would save on electricity p.a. due to the change.

Perhaps start with a leaflet drop in an area to assess interest, to cut down on travel expenses and wasted time etc. You offer for free to calculate the savings to be made and if they are interested then you provide the replacement service on the spot.

I am sure there are many people who would like to be a bit "greener" than they are, but are unable due to age or other factors to undertake the task themselves.
 
bellenuit that actually sounds like a good idea and has some potential, I still am a bit skeptical about the margins tho.

For any similar service business, lets say lawn mowing you would easily be charging around $50 - $100 for a service which you would spend 1 - 2 hours on so I would be setting $40 - 50 as a minimum ph value if you want your business to go anywhere.

Then you have all your licensed services such as plumbers electricians etc which will easily charge you a $60 just for a call out regardless if any work is done.

So going from those rates back to 10 - 20 even 30 ph you don't put much value on yourself.

Once I ran into a interesting business, a guy was coming around to houses offering to repaint house numbers, those numbers that are painted on curbs on driveways. for $8 he would repaint your house number, a 5 - 10 min job but guess what nearly everybody in my street got it done since its something that you really benefit from. so in 1 hour in theory he could hit nearly $100, in practice he prob averaged 50 - 60. The machinery would set him back a few K back at most which is alot less then the 8K in the initial setup scenario.
 
A little something me and the cuzzybros knocked up a few years back when we were handsome lookin spunks..... worked until cottesloe council threatened us with some major fines for not having a permit :D

1 Quad
1 large esky
1 good looking dude with personality plus
1 beach stretching from swanbourne to scarborough

Good looking dude rides up beach nicenslow with watermelon,rockmelon, pineapple and various other fruit slices and platters made up FRESH on the spot.
Sell by the slice or the plate .....

make an absolute killing as serving people what they need without them having to move whilst getting that tan ;)
Always carry a pen and sunscreen for additional services :cool:

oh.... if doing it on a professional basis .......... get a permit:D
 
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