An Entrepreneur’s Tale |
11 Comments |
You will read it in a number of places over and over again, but one of the best ways to make money is to start a business. It’s so much easier said than done. I had made about 3 or 4 attempts at a business before I either lost the passion for the idea or got too lazy. Ironically, acknowledging my laziness has helped me launch my most successful business - this blog. I don’t really think of it as a business, more of a hobby that generates a little income. However, it’s at the point where I could put a minimal effort in and make a good dollar for that effort. I’m not about to do that though, I want to expand this hobby and maybe add new ones that will generate me income all the time.
My fiancee has a friend that has a couple of similar ventures. One is a tried and true way to make money that I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about. This friend, we’ll call her Laura (not her real name), has a beach house on the New Jersey shore that she rents out all year. Twelve weeks of rent in the summer can now pay off a year’s worth of mortgage. She bought the property back in 2000 or so. I don’t know if she bought at the right time or just bought the right place, but either way it’s doing quite well for her. I’d like to duplicate this myself, but in running the numbers, I can never find a good deal. Maybe I should look in New Hampshire, north of where I used to live. It’s got good camping, skiing, and leaf peeping, making it a tourist attraction for much of the year.
It’s Laura’s other business that I find the most interesting though. She breeds purebreed dogs. It sounds so simple now that I think of it. The demand is there, the barrier to entry can’t be that high, and the profit margins seem like they’d be huge.  I have never looked into such a business, but I just might have to start.
Do you have any great business ideas like Laura?
This post deals with: ... and focuses on:Entrepreneurism
 Stumble
 Reddit
 Digg
 Del.icio.us
 Propeller11 Responses to “An Entrepreneur’s Tale”
Leave a Reply
Previous: Net Worth Update - April 2007Next: Get your Cotton Candy and Fried Dough, We’re at the Carnival…
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Eric, stick around and read, I do most of the things that you mention. However, I do not stick to a written budget. Instead, I ask myself before every purchase if I really need it. Most of the time it turns out that I don’t need it and don’t buy it. You’d be surprised how much this works with almost no work of budgeting.
It also helps to make a game of seeing how much you can save and how much you can grow your net worth each month.