What business would you start if you had 1000 dollars?

[Honeyworth]

It can be an online or offline or a collaboration of both

[Curtis2011]

I assume you have a spare $1000?

[Karanime]

If I haven't already started it with my current $100, I doubt anything will change.

/<3

[LoneW0LF]

Originally Posted by Honeyworth

It can be an online or offline or a collaboration of both

I would collect all the replies from this thread and compile an ebook titled "How to start a business with $1000 dollars". Then make millions selling it and retire on a some tropical island sipping cocktails.

[Mounds]

If I was going to invest $1000, I would invest it directly into a course. Something that allows me to freelance, like accounting. As I make more money, I'd take a couple more courses, building my skill set. I see that as the best option.
If I wasn't interested in school (and depending on the annual weather), I would save most of my money and become a resident oddjob man. Want your yard cleaned? I'll do that. Windows washed? I'll do that too. Garage cleaned out? I'm your man. This would be more of a desperation job, lol.
Depending on what kind of a business you start, $1000 is going to be gone in a flash. I still think education is the best option, as that's an investment that will pay itself back quickly. In a year, you can build up $10,000 on the side and get a real start.

[ssandra]

With 1000 to invest.. I would invest in a Coco water thingy here nearby.

Coco Express

Although I'd need more then 1000 come to think of it....

With just 1000 dollars... I don't know.. my plans all involve a larger investment or very little investment...

[givejonadollar]

You can't do a whole lot with brick and mortar businesses on $1,000. It's not impossible, but very hard to do with that small of an outlay of cash.

However, it might go a long way if you invest it properly into a blog or website.

If you got a good eye for buying things and reselling them, you could immediately jump into the E-Bay business as well.

[Mounds]

You wouldn't even do that good on an eBay business. It would start veeeeery slowly. I still think your best bet is to build it through education. Heck, even buy a pile of books.

[Curtis2011]

Knowing what I know now, if I had to use $1000 to start a business, I would still choose to use it on starting an SBI website.

I would also budget it more frugally than I do with my websites now, if $1000 were the only amount of my own money that I could put into the business.

[ellie]

Originally Posted by givejonadollar

You can't do a whole lot with brick and mortar businesses on $1,000. It's not impossible, but very hard to do with that small of an outlay of cash.

However, it might go a long way if you invest it properly into a blog or website.

If you got a good eye for buying things and reselling them, you could immediately jump into the E-Bay business as well.

I disagree you can do a lot with a $1000, you just got to think creatively about it.

[Thatgirl1]

Vending Machines!

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by ellie

I disagree you can do a lot with a $1000, you just got to think creatively about it.

If you lived in a third-world country, $1000 would go a lot further.

I read somewhere about a very successful bank that gives out micro-loans of $20-50 to people in incredibly poor places around the world, mostly in African countries, to start businesses.

It gave an example of one new businessman who used a loan of like $30 to buy a cell phone. He then "rented" out phone time on the cell phone to everyone in his village for a few cents a minute, since his village literally had no telephones available in it. From what it said, apparently he was able to make a very good living from doing it (keep in mind the lower cost of living in 3rd world countries).

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by Thatgirl1

Vending Machines!

That's actually one heck of a good idea.

[gene2009]

1000 bucks isn't a good sum for starting any seriouse business.
Possible, create a site. Or better try selling something at ebay.
I buy one sort of goods per 20-30 cents per unit in my home town, and then resell them per 5-15 bucks per unit at ebay.

[WorkitSmart]

No matter how much or how little $, I would put it into an online business.

I've been an employee as well as run my own private investment/building business for twenty years, and in my view NOTHING compares with an online business. There are hassles, sure, but 'thank you Jesus' it's minimal compared to anything else I've done.

The only difference I'd do today as opposed to when I first started my online businesses:

1. Spend less money on the actual look of the site and more on SEO
2. Never again will I be at the mercy of a web master.. today I have total control over all my sites.

Sidenote: Even our 24 yr. old son is self-employed as an internet entrepreneur.

_________________________________

[SnerpGoodWord]

Any 'business' that you start for $1000 will be of the trade-your-labor-for-money variety. So the correct answer depends entirely on what skills you have.

Personally I wouldn't start a business with it as I don't particularly like trading time for money. Either I would combine it with a few hundred of its closest $1000 friends, and start something worthwhile, or not bother.

[iDreamCatcher]

Hire someone to develop enhancement for one of the modern ecommerce solutions.
I know for a fact that this area is booming and it will take ~$1K to create solution for it.
Then sell this solution for $150-$500 a piece.

[Futhark]

I would start a blog and make money from that, and then buy a nice bike

[Andreas]

Very interesting thoughts so far.

I'd like to drill down a bit. If you were to spend $1000 on a web business, how would you portion it out? What gets the most focus? What gets the least?

[givejonadollar]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Very interesting thoughts so far.

I'd like to drill down a bit. If you were to spend $1000 on a web business, how would you portion it out? What gets the most focus? What gets the least?

Your question is too general.

Really it depends on the website.

The goal of any business, online or offline, should be to provide some type of value to people. It can be information, it can be a product, a service, etc.

For instance, if you do a blog about gardens, and a gardening website with high traffic has a way to pay them for advertising, and they provide specs and results, that is just one example of many ways you could portion that $1,000.

[gamingaffiliatesguide]

Best would be to put $950 in the bank and spend $50 on a domain and hosting. You can probably get that for as low as $10 or $20. Start a website, use wordpress for the content management system and use a free template and just add water ... I mean just start writing.

If this business fails you still have all your money and you learned a lesson that didn't cost you so much. An online business is good because it's something you could consider selling in the future and it is open 24 hours a day even if you are sleeping.