

Ask HN: You have 3 months and $1000. What would you do? - peacemaker

If you were in the situation that you had 3 months where all your regular expenses were taken care of and you didn't have to work AND you had $1000 to spend on your project/business, what would you do?
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ja27
I've kind of lived this for the past couple of months. I haven't spent the
time as well as I'd hoped due to some family and other issues. Picking
something to focus on was my hardest part. Lots of interesting startups,
technology, and stuff to read. I'm now doing what my gut told me originally -
building iOS apps for a niche I'm interested in.

So if it were me, I'd spend the $1000 on a Mac of some sort (if you don't
already have one), take the Stanford iOS Programming class on iTunes, and
maybe pick up a book or two on iOS programming / app business. Worst-case, at
the end of the 3 months you'll have a skill that's getting to be in more
demand every month and an app or two in the store as proof.

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TheFman
You could try starting a business, create new product or site. With the
limited time what I can suggest is try playing Options in stock market.

I have turned $600 into $21,000 in the last 2 months. With the European debt
crisis looming it is perfect time to play options as well. You can get 1000%
percent return in a day.

there is not much risk if you spend time understanding how it works. Also From
my learning, you don't need 50 stocks to make money. Just focus on Google and
apple options. They are most volatile and predictable.

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hansef
What did you read/study? Do you have a finance background? I've heard of
people getting pretty burnt in options trading as well. :)

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TheFman
I have a background in Analytics and Economics. No I don't have a finance
background but I do very well in options trading these days. I lost in options
trading for 4 straight years till I got a valuable advice from a seasoned
option trader. He turned 10k into few millions over few years. Then things
turned around.

The Mantra is "Discipline"

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helen842000
This is something that I would love to do. It would be awesome if I had the
time to do things with great focus.

I think I'd keep hold of as much of the $1k as I could and try to bootstrap a
couple of projects to make a small but regular income.

It's so much more satisfying and stress free when profit is made on sale #1
(even if it's just a small amount)

It would certainly still be 3 months of hard work & continuous learning.

I'd like to build something that teaches me better how APIs work. Perhaps with
Twitter Bootstrap.

Aside from business, in life in general I would clear so much junk out, it
feels so therapeutic!

I'd spend un-rushed, quality time with friends & family.

I'd probably spend some of that thou on a small break away and try to not
stick to an itinerary.

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euroclydon
Build something for small businesses in the creative arts industry. I haven't
seen a lot of innovation in online design tools for wedding and party
invitations, but if you can work the font problems out, the time is ripe to
use HTML, SVG and canvas to make a fun webapp for these customers.

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oscar-the-horse
learn a new skillset. sometime it can be hard to find the time in the bustle
of business.

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peacemaker
Do you think 3 months is long enough? I guess if you spent every day focussed
you could learn quite a bit

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oscar-the-horse
depends what you're learning. but like you said, if you focus you can learn
quite a bit.

i've done it a few times and it's been great.

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pkamb
Ship a simple product that earns a (small) paycheck every month.

~~~
peacemaker
I think this would be my choice too

