Business Ideas that require capital but little effort

I have money in the bank that is earning 2% or less. I want to invest it somewhere to make more money. Real estate in my area, as a general rule, will only earn about 5% on a yearly basis. That's better than 2%, but in a few years won't be as attractive.

So, are their any business ideas that might require $100k+ to get started, but can earn a couple hundred dollars a day with little effort. Perhaps something like buying a crane for $100k and renting it out for $500/day. Little effort, just show up with the crane.

Ideas?

$200*365 = $73,000. It is 73% annual return!

I doubt any legal and little effort investment would give you such return.

Bizatch said:   So, are their any business ideas that might require $100k+ to get started, but can earn a couple hundred dollars a day with little effort. Perhaps something like buying a crane for $100k and renting it out for $500/day. Little effort, just show up with the crane.

Ideas?
You're talking about making a $100,000 safe investment that will generate about $200 * 250 = $50,000 profit per year? That comes to approximately 50% return per year. Let me know when you find it.

do you think someone is going to tell you if they discovered it?

rinse & repeat.

i wish money falls out of the sky without me having to do sh!t as well

soundtechie said:   The standard lazy-man's business recently is self-serve frozen yogurt. Cheap to start, can be run by 1 or 2 low level employees, easy to make a profit.


The trouble is, it's so easy to start one up that as soon as you start one in a good area, a dozen others will open up to compete with you. My advice is: start it up, show a stiff profit for 6 months, then sell before you hit the event horizon.

Seriously. There's probably a dozen within a 5 mile radius here.

I started one business that required little capital but lots of effort. Probably about to start a second and third too. Not much easy money out there.

start up a snow cone stand. Pay some tard to run it.. ezmoney from morons over the summer paying 3-4 bucks for some ice with koolaid on it.

RedCelicaGT said:   I was thinking about snowcones the other day. Believe it or not, in Vegas, I've only seen one snow cone stand. No joke, there was a 1.5H wait to get a freakin snowcone. I stood in line with a family member who really wanted one. The place probably grosses 3K a day. The trailer was probably 10K. Probably another 5K to outfit it. A few hundred bucks to rent a space in a parking lot. 2 people making close to minimum wage running it.

I know a guy who does it. He bought a full setup for 16k, and grossed around 1k a day, in a small town. You buy the flavoring for pennies per serving, and the setup came with a freezer to make the blocks of ice. So the only overhead would be paying someone to run it, and maybe some lot rent to some small store to setup in their parking lot.

Agape World.

daw4888 said:   RedCelicaGT said:   I was thinking about snowcones the other day. Believe it or not, in Vegas, I've only seen one snow cone stand. No joke, there was a 1.5H wait to get a freakin snowcone. I stood in line with a family member who really wanted one. The place probably grosses 3K a day. The trailer was probably 10K. Probably another 5K to outfit it. A few hundred bucks to rent a space in a parking lot. 2 people making close to minimum wage running it.

I know a guy who does it. He bought a full setup for 16k, and grossed around 1k a day, in a small town. You buy the flavoring for pennies per serving, and the setup came with a freezer to make the blocks of ice. So the only overhead would be paying someone to run it, and maybe some lot rent to some small store to setup in their parking lot.
Why operate it at all? Figure out how to equip it for $5K, sell it for $15K, charge them 18% interest. Provide a little training and where to buy supplies. Lather, rinse, repeat.

SigX said:   daw4888 said:   RedCelicaGT said:   I was thinking about snowcones the other day. Believe it or not, in Vegas, I've only seen one snow cone stand. No joke, there was a 1.5H wait to get a freakin snowcone. I stood in line with a family member who really wanted one. The place probably grosses 3K a day. The trailer was probably 10K. Probably another 5K to outfit it. A few hundred bucks to rent a space in a parking lot. 2 people making close to minimum wage running it.

I know a guy who does it. He bought a full setup for 16k, and grossed around 1k a day, in a small town. You buy the flavoring for pennies per serving, and the setup came with a freezer to make the blocks of ice. So the only overhead would be paying someone to run it, and maybe some lot rent to some small store to setup in their parking lot.
Why operate it at all? Figure out how to equip it for $5K, sell it for $15K, charge them 18% interest. Provide a little training and where to buy supplies. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Yes, and then you offer to give each person a percentage of the interest off the loan from anyone "downstream" who they recruit to buy and run an icecream stand. Those new recruits make money off of people they recruit....

I started three businesses with tons of capital once. Used low level employees. Expected amazing returns. Had minimal involvement/practically absentee. 6 years later my return was: -100%.

I don't know too many rich people that don't spend a monster amount of time growing their investments.

True story-

500$ a day?
An off/on lift here is 100$

Bizatch said:   Perhaps something like buying a crane for $100k and renting it out for $500/day. Little effort, just show up with the crane.

Ideas?
What if someone steals your crane? What if someone breaks it? Where are you going to store it? What about the insurance for its operation? How are you going to advertise it? You are going to have to form a LLC or corporation to protect you from the guy who rented it off Craiglist when he puts a hole in someone's roof.

For you to post an idea such as this shows that you are likely going to end up losing your money. I would strongly suggest you talk to a financial adviser about investment options rather than throwing $100,000 away on a prospective business.

The other problem the OP will have is that it is impossible to diversify his business risk on a single 100k investment. I'm assuming that the 100k is a non-trivial % of his overall net worth.

The no effort part is what makes your idea unlikely to work. Invest in the stock market. VTI = instant diversification with no effort.

"little effort" are the key words in this thread. I don't consider any kind of retail business to be one that only requires "little effort."

On the other hand, there are lots and lots of ways to get passive income with no intervention on your part needed other than the initial research. Just thinking off the top of my head, with $100,000 you could invest in...

NNN Leased properties
CRP farmland (money guaranteed by government for NOT farming, can't beat that!)
Forestland
Oil wells
Preferred stocks
Taxicab medallions
Alaska commercial fishing licenses
Licensed cathouse in Nevada (just kidding, way too much work for me)

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. A lot of these passive investments require significant research, which some serious internet research and a few personal meetings could easily accomplish. Frankly, most of these business are a lot more predicatable than some yogurt stand.

Angel/VC investing

What is the return on solar panels mounted on your roof? If living in a sunny state, you may be looking at something better than 5%, and you do not have to do much.

SuperLotto

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1227013/ should be under $8k start-up costs and if I run it myself I can make $20-40k/year or I can lease the cart and make $15k/year with almost no effort. This is at full utilization of course, which most likely won't happen. However there are going to be times where owning a second cart might be worth it.