Ask HN: What business you can start under $100? - dillmac
======
zapperdapper
Some simple starter ideas - sorry no space to go into details - email me if
you want more info:

1) Create a website. Join some affiliate programs. Drive traffic to the
website. I've done this. Didn't make too much money but it was a small income.
I know a lot more now so probably could do a better job.

2) Create a course and sell it via Udemy. Not done this myself (yet).

3) Write an e-book and sell it through joint venture via someone else's
website. Done this (back in 2003/2004). Make a couple hundred a month from it.
I wrote a book on living in Thailand but you could do anything.

4) Start your own removals company using a rented van. (You only need some
insurance a strong back and a few local ads or word of mouth). Having done my
own removals a few times plus the same for friends can be a nice little
business. Be prepared to walk away from specialist jobs though (no grand
pianos)! Free workout with every job. ;)

5) Learn a trade. You an set yourself up as a painter and decorator for next
to nothing. This is a nice little side earner for me (and was for my Dad too -
he taught me, and his Dad taught him).

6) Set up a little consultancy showing small businesses how to use free
software. I've done this too after I got asked to install a free CRM system
for a little business (oil services) and they then asked me to work up a
training course for them. I then found myself doing various jobs for them like
setting up wikis, email, showing them how to use Google Docs etc etc

7) Sign up to UpWork and do odd jobs in an area you can handle.

Lots more ideas but partner home now so I need to go! Good luck!

~~~
mattbgates
Very nice advice, I couldn't have written it better myself!

Just to comment on one of your points:

On creating a website... probably less than $30 to get it started, or if you
start on WordPress.com or something like that, you can start for free.

But I'd say if you were looking to make money with a website, don't do it just
for that. Most people try.. and fail because unless you have a passion for it,
it's not going to be what you want.

I began Confessions of the Professions (
[http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com)
) and it is nearing 5 years old now, close to 1800 posts. I never thought it
would actually bring me any money, but it has brought me in nearly $3,000 -
$3,500 over the past 5 years. Not anything near where I could quit my day
job... but it is money I would have never made had it not been for me starting
a website... and keeping it going.

It takes patience and a little hustling, between sponsored posts, ads, text
ads, banner ads, etc. All from just blogging and accepting guest posts. Guests
posts are free submissions (with about a 2 week wait), but there is the
occasional person or company who wants to get it out within the week, so that
has been a great upsell for me there.

I'm sure I could have brought in a lot more... but it is a side hobby and I
work on other things as well.

But starting a website all began with a passion to get it started.. and even
more passion to keep it going. Luckily for me, I'm not the only one who has
the passion to keep it going... if it weren't for my contributors... I
probably wouldn't have the motivation, but it is that strong community support
that keeps me going on.

If I could change anything... I would've probably taken my email list more
seriously. I actually just have a very small email list and I don't really
advertise collecting of email addresses.

For many people out there... their businesses all started simply.. with a huge
email list.

~~~
zapperdapper
Couldn't agree more with everything you've said! I wanted to write more last
night but partner came off a 12 hour shift and I needed to go!

Things I would do differently now:

1) I would do keyword search. This was back in 2003 and I didn't know what
keyword research was back then!

2) I picked a lousy domain name. I thought it was cool, but I soon found out
that my domain turned out to be the name of a Gary Numan song - and I thought
my domain name was cleverly original!! Most of my organic traffic from Google
was people looking for the song lyrics!! Doh!

3) I never did a podcast.

4) I never wrote many guest articles.

5) I should have done more Joint Ventures.

6) I should have had a mailing list and provided a free ebook to encourage
sign up.

7) I focused mostly on content but should have been splitting time at least
50:50 with traffic generation - having great content only takes you so far -
you have to let people know about it.

8) I did several interviews with retired expats - I should have done more.

The content was pretty good. I ran the site for I think eight years - it was
more a labour of love than a business. I had people write me and say they
moved to Thailand because of my site, or it helped them make the move.
However, I regret I did not take it more seriously as a business - the market
is now enormous, but hard to break into these days.

By the way I love your site!

~~~
mattbgates
Thank you Zapper! Very much appreciated!

No matter how much we read.. no matter how much we all take in.. there are
ALWAYS things that we should've done and could've done.. or done them better.
It is a learning experience. Honestly, I had no desire to build an email list
at the time, as my whole focus was on writing quality content, but those
people that have done so... and acquired something like 30,000+ subscribers
have to market less, whereas I have to try and find those people with a
subscriber list and either ask them to mention my products, or pay them to do
it.

Or... as I'm doing now for marketing... I'm just writing about the topic and
topics surrounding my products.

------
muzani
I started an ecommerce company with less than $100.

 _.asia domain name:_ $5

 _Google Play account:_ $25

 _Logo:_ Free. Designer friend did one in exchange for me doing an app for
him. He decided not to do his app in the end, so it didn't even cost me man
hours.

 _Development:_ An incubator (Startup House) gave us 3 months to stay + food.

 _Marketing:_ ~$5 for domain name, $25 for copywriting. We did a fake blog.
Registered a domain name for it. Paid a blogger friend to write up something
along the lines of "If you follow the Atkins Diet, you MUST download this
app". We sneaked the link into an Atkins Diet Facebook group and got over
1,200 downloads in the first 24 hours.

 _Products:_ We made a recipe app and sold ingredients through it. Our
ingredient supplier partners packed and delivered them for us. We simply gave
them a list of who to send to and then paid them once every few weeks. We made
almost no profit from this, roughly 5%, not including payment gateway, but we
didn't have to have money on hand either. After verifying the business model,
we bought the products, stocked, and distributed them ourselves, for up to 30%
profit margin.

Later, we sold off the company, for more money than I've ever got in my years
working.

------
vinrob92
I started [http://www.manypixels.co](http://www.manypixels.co) with under
$100!

My goal was to launch a single digital offering / service or product and
launch it in less than 6 hours and make USD $10,000 in the first month.

1\. Find value proposition (Bootstrapped startups need quality design services
but don't want to pay agency prices) 2\. Find business model (fixed fee per
month for almost unlimited design service) 3\. Find how you can fit value prop
with business model & be profitable (flew to SE asia to meet designers there &
live there a few months) 4\. Make it scalable (set up quality control
processes & communication processes) 5\. Code (actually did not code much,
used Paywhirl for the payment / membership system) 6\. Launch

Here is the breakdown of my expenses:

1\. Namecheap .co domain name - $8.88 2\. OVH vps - $6/month ($72/year) 3\.
Themeforest template - ~12$

Total: $92.88

The project generated ~$3k in the first week of its operations (though most of
it is not actually profits - but I am already in the green :))

~~~
muzani
I love that you made good money with a MVP, for people building MVPs :P

Did you get on Product Hunt or something? I'm curious how you made $3k in the
first week.

~~~
vinrob92
I am not yet on ProductHunt - I am a bit afraid to post there yet, haha :) Do
you think the product is ready to be on PH? I grew the traffic mostly via
super niche Facebook groups actually (like SaaS entrepreneurs for example)

~~~
muzani
There's still a few bugs. Like clicking on the portfolio items doesn't show
the content. But if everything else is stable and scalable, why not?

------
GFischer
That's a broad question. Also depends on your age and qualifications.

Low tech: I can think of lawn mowing, fixing PCs for the elderly, etc.

Programming: find something that you can fix for people around you... is some
friend or family member having trouble with invoices? Tracking Christmas
packages is a pain? Handling returns/gift cards?

Quora thread answering same question:

[https://www.quora.com/What-business-can-I-start-
with-100](https://www.quora.com/What-business-can-I-start-with-100)

------
meric
Buy a flock of chickens to feed. Sell the eggs.

------
uptown
Arbitrage. Find two markets where there's a price disparity you can exploit.
Maybe it's CraigsList and Facebook or eBay and Amazon. Buy from one, and sell
on the other at a markup. Start small, and scale up from there.

~~~
muzani
I wouldn't recommend this with less than $100 though. The margins are really
tiny, so you might make a profit of maybe... $3 for your $100. Might as well
work minimum wage.

If you had $2000 or so to start with, that's a different story.

------
JSeymourATL
Dog Walking Service > [http://smallbusiness.chron.com/start-dog-walking-
business-41...](http://smallbusiness.chron.com/start-dog-walking-
business-41.html)

------
omar802
You can join Merch by Amazon. Design your own T-Shirts or pay someone on
upwork to design them for you. There are people making good money on this
platform. Go on youtube and watch videos on it.

------
SirLJ
Stock trading robots - you won’t make much, but you can dip a toe in the
water... After/if you figure it out, you can scale easily pretty much up to
millions and more...

~~~
jklein11
Can I buy you a coffee and pick your brain a little bit? I'm not looking for
your secret sauce, just looking to hear some of your war stories and learn
about how you got started. If you are interested, my email address is in my
profile.

~~~
SirLJ
War stories are usually not good...

For starting here is my advice: get a small linux VPS or just install python
on your laptop, get as much back data as possible, covering at least one
market cycle (this will be your initial expense) and start back testing every
trading strategy you can find on the net or in books (library) for free...

Never pay for strategies, because they will all fail, but by testing them one
by one you'll come up with your own ideas and one day hopefully you'll find
your edge...

It's not going to be easy or "get rich quick thingy", but it is well worth it
in the end...

~~~
uptown
Curious which platform you're writing your Python to trade with.

~~~
SirLJ
I am using my discount broker's API, pretty much every one now offers an API

