What side project or side hustle are you working on?

Title says it all.

The best idea I read here recently was making Instagram bots to sell accounts to wannabe celebs. My entrepreneurial pursuits are much more long-term: an automated trading system and an AI-driven drone security system, among others.

So I'm curious: what other lucrative business ideas / get-rich-quick schemes do you monkeys have, if any?

 

No Limit Texas Holdem Poker is my side hustle

Get rich quick scheme? Hopefully invest $10k and make $8mm in 2 weeks one day at the WSOP Main event

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Kassad:
I see a lot of people who play but never make much. Where do you stand? I'm thoroughly in the "never make much" category simply because I don't know when to fold 'em.

I'm in the don't make much but don't lose much category. I play pretty tight but am aggressive as well. I don't chase or go for one outers just for kicks and have a developed way of playing in tournaments.

However, I play a lot. Probably 5-15 hrs per week after work. My main goals with poker are:

a) Don't lose money b) Make money

I probably will feel it is time to enter the WSOP Main event when I have increased my stack to well over $10k. I would rather not just buy in (in cash) to the event.

Its a pity though living in the US because I bet I could satellite in via Poker Stars with a few $500 satellites and save $8-$9K. But, its ok, I can 'indirectly' satellite and just play US online sites to ratchet up the funds to enter.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Kassad:
I see a lot of people who play but never make much. Where do you stand? I'm thoroughly in the "never make much" category simply because I don't know when to fold 'em.

For the record, I did play full time in 2015. 90% online as I didn't live near a casino. It threw off my circadian rhythm greatly. Was cool to make own hours but psychologically was similar to day trading in the fact that you could do well that day or poorly and had to be at peace with it either way.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

I have a really great idea for a side business that a couple b-school buddies of mine have said they would join if I launch it, but I am entirely too risk averse to start my own business. It's a shame since I'm pretty confident it would get snap funded and be a great business long-term, and these guys are legit operational wizards, but I'm scurred...

 
Kassad:
Are you going to tell us the idea? I have a bunch of ideas I don't talk about, they're under the "stoner talk" category in my notebook.

Yeah I probably won't share it because I'm worried it would get scooped. Let's just say it involves disrupting a market that is highly fragmented, with huge pricing inefficiencies, that provides a necessary service. It is definitely not sexy but could be tremendously profitable.

 
jankynoname:
Kassad:
Are you going to tell us the idea? I have a bunch of ideas I don't talk about, they're under the "stoner talk" category in my notebook.
Yeah I probably won't share it because I'm worried it would get scooped. Let's just say it involves disrupting a market that is highly fragmented, with huge pricing inefficiencies, that provides a necessary service. It is definitely not sexy but could be tremendously profitable.

Sometimes what seems like a pricing inefficiency is only a reflection of illiquidity or high transaction fees.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
jankynoname:
Kassad:
Are you going to tell us the idea? I have a bunch of ideas I don't talk about, they're under the "stoner talk" category in my notebook.
Yeah I probably won't share it because I'm worried it would get scooped. Let's just say it involves disrupting a market that is highly fragmented, with huge pricing inefficiencies, that provides a necessary service. It is definitely not sexy but could be tremendously profitable.

Waiting for @Angel Molester" to chime in on disrupting.

'I'm jacked... JACKED TO THE TITS!!'
 
jankynoname:
Kassad:
Are you going to tell us the idea? I have a bunch of ideas I don't talk about, they're under the "stoner talk" category in my notebook.

Yeah I probably won't share it because I'm worried it would get scooped. Let's just say it involves disrupting a market that is highly fragmented, with huge pricing inefficiencies, that provides a necessary service. It is definitely not sexy but could be tremendously profitable.

Oh yeah I've thought of that already

 

In the process of starting a business selling something a lot of my friends are into.

I also sell things on Ebay and Amazon. I order from China and then resell larger in-demand items, whose shipping don't cut much into my margins. I'm making pretty good money from it, and have about 500 things listed now, so things are selling all the time. The competition is just ridiculous, but if you're willing to spend hours and hours finding and researching a viable product where you can sell for less than competitors and still at least double your investment, then it's worth doing.

 
SmartThinker:
In the process of starting a business selling something a lot of my friends are into.

I also sell things on Ebay and Amazon. I order from China and then resell larger in-demand items, whose shipping don't cut much into my margins. I'm making pretty good money from it, and have about 500 things listed now, so things are selling all the time. The competition is just ridiculous, but if you're willing to spend hours and hours finding and researching a viable product where you can sell for less than competitors and still at least double your investment, then it's worth doing.

Wow, I thought that market was already totally saturated. Do you mind if I ask: are your warehouse/shipping operations outsourced? Or are you keeping piles of stuff in a garage somewhere? As an outsider, I'm curious how that works.

Get busy living
 

The market is very saturated, and it can be discouraging at times, but there's definitely still money to be made for those who are willing to really dig in and spend hours researching possible products. I had one of my friends, who has made a couple hundred thousand form the platform, show me the ropes, so I may have had an edge starting out. As of right now, I'm pretty much keeping piles of stuff in my garage and having my little brother ship things out.

I don't really want to say what product areas I've had success in, but there are still certain products where I can sell for about three times what I pay for them, or at least twice the amount I pay, and still be the lowest-price seller, and still get at least a sale a day. I've also lately had success with top-selling items that have huge demand because of celebrity influence.

 
metronorthdude:
painting and photography

Yeah I have dabbled in that as well.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Call me boring but I like to try and find and really thoroughly research 1-2 big public equity positions a year. I like to write my own detailed memo and send it to a few trusted friends I respect to rip it apart.

I have a secret desire to build enough of a track record that if I ever wanted to just say 'screw it' I could take my money + raise $5M - $10M in AUM do manage and grow via public, debt and private investments.

Will that ever happen - unlikely. But trying to hold myself to doing a thoroughly researched investment in my free time is hard and I like to try and force myself to do it.

"If you want to succeed in this life, you need to understand that duty comes before rights and that responsibility precedes opportunity."
 

I private labeled a batch of mixed products via cheap Chinese manufacturing. Chinese Manufacturer --> 3PL --> Consumer. Too many players in the space now, but a few years ago there was a lot of money to be made. I knew a few guys doing $1-10 mm in sales annually w/ 2-3 products & it was all passive income once you established your brand and commercialized a product.

 

Also, being a developer, I've come across so, so many b-school "idea" bros. Goes something like this:

"We have this kick-ass disruptive idea, there's nothing like it! We're talking with angel investors (i.e dad), and want to move quickly. Looking for a full-stack developer / CTO. Can't tell you much more than that. We'll give you 5% ! No salary yet tho, need to expand it"

I f'in loathe the "idea guys". No technical skills, maybe some family connections for money, no previous experience. And they always want like 40% of total equity. The startup field is littered with these types.

 

Ladies too, there's an increasing amount of "idea chicks" who I suppose are bff's with the "idea bros".

The "idea chicks and bros" are heavy on jargon, always talk about start up culture, and constantly manage to use the names of prominent tech companies even in trivial conversations about what to have for lunch. Also they're convinced of their brilliance, which is what makes them impossible to work with....getting basic points across is like trying to convince a political partisan of when the other side has a good idea, huge pain in the ass. If I hear one more moron tell me that block chain / Kanye Koin / jerkmeoffKoin is going to replace my bank by the end of the quarter, I'm going to have to choke them. Or wait, I can make an app to do that.

I'm waiting for tech bubble 2.0 to blow the f*** up already and knock some common sense back into people.

Get busy living
 

This, so much. Dude I joined this Facebook group called Austin Startups and left in about 5 minutes. No actual discussion about business plans, just bickering about male aggression (wtf?), people linking to their shitty Medium.com motivational blog posts, and occasionally you'd get a business idea but it's really of the lemonade stand variety, meaning a service that's cute but isn't an actual scalable business.

 

Not really a lucrative business idea or get rich quick scheme but when I was waiting to start my first FT job after college I wrote research for Wonder.com. I guess it's used by some reputable companies. If you do it like 10-20 hours a week you could probably pull in an extra $100-$300. Just depends on how quickly and efficiently you can write the reports.

 

My buddy started a cryptocurrency udemy course.

Followed it up with a cryptocurrency youtube channel and twitter.

Turned his initial 10k investment into 350k+, and now he gets paid by these new crypto coins to promote their ICOs and give presentations on the promise of their technology. His side gig is basically pulling in more money than his main gig now.

On the one hand, i think crypto is insane and frankly I dont understand it so I try not to have any part in it. On the other hand, a 3500% return in two years is legendary and im mad jelly.

 

My friend runs a website and lives in very expensive high rise in NYC. I took his idea and put it into a different niche. Second month in and it's harder than i thought but there's some progress. I can dream right? -- At least it's a legitimate shot.

My second idea is to freelance w/ a very high paying skill. I need to do a bit more work and solicit clients, but the outline is there. Plenty of people do this but I need to get on this more. No I won't tell you what it is.

However my career has been good to me so far and I don't think I would leave even if unless one of the above started to make real money.

 

Think of a way to monetize your hobbies. I know someone who was a career industrial mechanic. A real genius with tools. He now goes to garage sales and tool meets to find tools that are underpriced either because the seller doesn't know what it is/does (might have been leftover from a father who passed away), or because the tool has something wrong with it (this guy, as I said is a genius with tools and is able to quickly find out what's wrong with these things and fix them easily). Hugely profitable and amazingly high demand.

What are your hobbies? Do you like music - teach lessons or repair instruments. Do you like math - tutor kids or provide outsourced CFO services. Do you like sports - start a training bootcamp (do it outside in a public park - almost no costs). Like getting drunk - start a bar crawl. Lot of these ideas are just simply turning your hobby into a service.

 

Heres an interesting thread from a few years ago about a guy that bought a billboard/advertising company. I've tried messaging him in the past to see how it was going but to no avail. Billboard advertising is probably still relevant even if social media advertising is in the public spotlight just now, people are still driving and need to look at that shit whether they like it or not. Think I heard that one from Gary vaynerchuk.

https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/my-story-the-sequel-to-the-ownin…

 

What are your interests?

An uncle of mine was really in to cars and bikes, so he would go and find mangled bikes from accidents and take the parts and ship them to germany and make $$$ off of those. Hed also go to the midwest and buy old cars, fix them up and sell them off.

“...all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Schopenhauer
 

I think I have a great idea for website it's (A) very unique and (B) definitely useful to the population at large. It would also be very useful/valuable to the news/media industry. ....but its extremely intensive man-hour wise - maybe that's why it hasn't been done. (It requires a panel of people pouring over on average 60,000 pages of information throughout the year.)

 
imnottheonlyone:
I think I have a great idea for website it's (A) very unique and (B) definitely useful to the population at large. It would also be very useful/valuable to the news/media industry. ....but its extremely intensive man-hour wise - maybe that's why it hasn't been done. (It requires a panel of people pouring over on average 60,000 pages of information throughout the year.)

Was this meant to be a cliffhanger?

twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 

I have a small 1BR condo in the downtown core of my city, and rent it out on Airbnb. The difference in IRR versus a long-term rental is insane. Cap rates are so low to the point where it is nearly impossible to find a property and generate positive monthly cash flow (assuming you leverage it 70-80%). On the other hand, with Airbnb, you can easily be positive monthly cash flow in slow months, and come summer time, you can clear 2-3k per month in net cash flow on top of all expenses (mortgage, maintenance, taxes, wifi, cable, hydro, etc).

I would definitely consider it a possibility. Since you're working 50-60 hours a week, you'd likely have to outsource the management of the property (usually for 10-20% of your gross revenue).

 

This is solid input. I'm torn between going the Airbnb route vs long-term tenants. Airbnb so far appears quite a bit more attractive, but also significantly more time-consuming. I'm in a "secondary city" so COL isn't as high as it is in NY, SF, Boston, Chi, etc.

Has anyone juggled a 50-60hr/week job and had property rentals on the side? Any input would be appreciated.

 

Does your "business on the side" demonstrate anything that people in IB are looking for? If yes, then yes; if no, then no.

PS- your post was vague and lacked specifics.

"I'm not sure what the four 9's do, but the ace, I think, is pretty high."
 

Well, to be more specific, I worked for Fedex Kinko's 3 years and am now working part time at The Home Depot and doing an internship. I feel that this side business demonstrates entrepreneurial and communication skills. I am not looking to get into IB, but am looking to get into Asset Management/Equity Research.

 

Finance employers will look for lots of things: teamwork skills, communication skills, familiarity with computers, writing ability, time management, etc..

Virtually any previous job can be portrayed to exhibit these skills. (even if it didn't actually) I would suggest listing the above opportunities, but very briefly and to the point. Say you have 4-5 bullet points for the insurance internship, then have 1-2 for the kinkos and home depot

Focus the bullet points on your resumes on changes/improvements. For example, did you increase revenue at a department at Home Depot?

I know a kid who got a job at a top investment bank and his only prior work experience was being a high school baseball coach.

good luck

 

Enough experience to actually be able to meaningfully add to the course. At the BS level that shouldn't be too difficult. Everything post that level will require significantly more.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

Junior trader at a $15 b L/S equity fund. Two of our PM's (neither a partner) have outside business that I know of. One owns and rents out a handful of condo's in the NYC metro area and the other one owns a catering hall / restaurant a fairly far distance from NY. The LP's don't care as long as your P/L is in the green. After a few years of showing you're of value to the firm you get more leeway where they trust you to not do anything on the side that would interfere with your P/L.

 

Given the heated discussion above, I think I should expand a little bit on the logic I have seen applied at places where I have worked (not that many)...

The main reason why I have seen HFs explicitly forbid or, at the very least, frown upon PMs/partners running stuff on the side is the potential for complications down the line. Issues of compliance, intellectual property ownership, conflicts of interest may arise, in some particular circumstances. All these things are, naturally, low delta, but, in my experience, a lot of funds, especially the larger ones, prefer to err on the side of caution. Obviously, that said, when/if you're senior enough, everything can be negotiated.

 

Personally, if you think you can get a greater return outside of investing in your own fund, you shouldn't be running money (save for funds which are designed to be a part of someone else's portfolio, e.g., short only funds).

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

For PE funds, it's pretty standard for LPAs to include a time and attention clause where all partners and principal (ie. everyone who receives carry) is forced to dedicate themselves full-time to the fund. I'm less knowledgeable about HF, but I assume that at least for bigger funds, this must be pretty standard too (although it might only directly apply to partners since HF tend not to directly allocated carry to employees).

There also seem to be some confusion as to what running a business constitute. Generally speaking, I think that being involved as an investor is not going to cause any issues and it's common for people to manage their personal portfolio, own real estate and invest in businesses and startups. As long as involvement is limited to the board level (ie. no operational involvement although often the line does blur), it's normally fine. I think the issue would be if someone has an operational role (which is what i think running a business is all about) then as others mentioned, there's all kind of conflicts and distractions.

 

As somebody / some above have said, some funds explicitly forbid most types of side businesses. Would love to get involved in something though. You get the extra income (which is always nice!), you smooth out your earnings being all over the place from year to year and also (if the business takes off) you have that nice option of being able to say "that's it, I'm done".

 

Just get an easier job, even if it's for less money. You should treat your job as the side project, not your startup. Otherwise, it may never take off as you will always give it less attention.

 

Real talk:

This can and has been done by people from all walks of life. Only you can actually make it happen. If you really believe in what you are doing on the side, you'll work on it.

If someone came in and said "nah, no way man, just give up," would you have listened?

 

Probably not. While everyone says that "if there is a will, there is a way," there are some hard biological/physical factors to keep in mind (there's only 24 hours in a day, you actually DO need to sleep at least 7-8 hours per night, etc.).

Working 8-8 and building a start-up (assuming another 4-5 hours of work per evening), would give you about 5-6 hours of sleep per night + nothing else. You basically cannot do that.

 

Do you code or do business end? If business end, then it's very do-able.

What does a startup need from the business end?

+Gaining customers

+Gaining partnerships (maybe, depends on business)

+Gaining media publicity (which comes automatically with success from 1 or 2, so you don't even need to actively work on this). For example, my friend got this article on Techcrunch and his team didn't even advance to the finals! http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/12/txtroo-launches-a-yelp-for-the-feature…

What do you really need, seriously. A business plan? Projection of path to revenue? It's not incredibly time intensive, but network-intensive.

The dumb way to put time into your startup is to talk to random people and get them to use your product/service/website. The smart way is to convince influencers in your niche market to become evangelists. With consulting, you can take advantage of the flying and whatnot to set up meetings.

Go for it man. PM me if you (or anyone reading this) needs help. I'm here for you :)

 

i tried to do this a while ago selling web hosting services and its harder than you would think. How do you plan on market these products? Do you have a blog? are you a spammer?

 

Well the basic overview is you go:

SEO keyword (takes quite awhile) ---> Create Landing Page ---> Opt-in forms w/ free product usually a review that you can write 4-5 pages ----> Post every now and then some content on front end (landing page on back-end using WordPress) ----> Keep SEO keywords in posts ---> Use ezinearticles, backlink programs to increase google ranking

Pretty much that is it if you do not want to spend more money then setting up the landing page and mailing list

Of course getting into PPC and solo ads are better but it has to be targetted since you want to have relevant traffic, its not good to have 10,000 visitor's looking for cooking recipee's when your niche is dog training

 

hmmm, considering that you only have 1 year until your SA, I would suggest against starting this business. It takes a while to acquire a following for what you are doing. I feel that if you tried to do this, the benefits to running it will not outweigh the opportunity cost of networking for your high finance job. btw, don't waste money on ppc and solo ads because the big dogs with a lot of capital will always beat you in the bidding battles

 

Yeah the reason why I wanted to ask on here is to get an opinion, AM isn't something you can do on the side, you really have to treat it as a business. The paid crap is not really an option for a small guy and quite frankly I don't want to spare my capital in it especially since it is such a hit-or-miss thing and bigger dogs outbidding you...

That said I might still look to find a relatively untapped niche and see how it goes, it only costs like $20 to get it started up and I can limit myself to spending only an hour on it each day if I'm not seeing any progress I can try and at least sell the site or something... in any event it will be a different experience

 

Yea above posts are correct likely I will not do it, probably will instead make a blog about my investment banking pursuit or something like that and monetize it if it actually turns into something.. lol

But wordpress isn't that bad you can really use it to your advantage, learning how to code from the bottom-up is sort of tough but I do use lynda so I can make it slowly there

 

Thanks for your views everyone. I think the problem still is that some GPs may see this as being a distraction from my "main job" no matter what you say plus an exit route in the making (we associates here are meant to stay for the long term) but I will look at ways of positioning this adequately.

 
m2:
Thanks for your views everyone. I think the problem still is that some GPs may see this as being a distraction from my "main job" no matter what you say plus an exit route in the making (we associates here are meant to stay for the long term) but I will look at ways of positioning this adequately.
I think that is a strong possibility, but I assume that if you don't tell them, it could be a 'fireable' offense if they find out.
 

Will you be seeking out other VCs for funding the project? If so, this could be a potential conflict of interest. I would mention something about being involved with the project but since there is no compensation as of right now, I won't say anything about that.

I may not be on the Jedi Council, but I sure am great with the Force. See my WSO blog posts
 

Ok basically I haven't been allowed to do this b/c the promised compensation signalled to the partners here that I could end up spending A LOT of time on this. I'll probably still help out a bit here and there but not go "all-in" at this point.

 

it sounds like they're different lines of business, and that the # of hours would be manageable, nevertheless, I'd ask compliance. I know the adage "ask for forgiveness, not permission" sometimes applies, but not in finance. if you're series 7 registered, you could get royally fucked if you fail to disclose an outside business interest.

 

Having a second job is not illegal, you just need to report to the member firm if you are making any extra money on the side. If you have permission, its fine. Permission needs to be in writing. There are a few exceptions, such as being an absentee owner of a business or doing charity work. In regards to your question, I don't know anyone in IB that has a second job. Approval of FINRA, the SEC, and the NYSE are not required.

 

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