Starting or buying a business for 20k?

[chris424uk]

Good afternoon,

I have savings in the region of 20k and I wanna know how feasible it is for me to either start a business or buy a business with this capital.

My aim is to generate about 2000 a month at least with this capital. Is this realistic? Whether it be an online or offline business? any suggestions for which type of business? I have a few ideas so far, but nothing spectacular.

How about buying a business. Can I buy an online business for about 20k and generate that kind of income or will I need to continue investing and build it up gradually?

I'm just looking for opinions and advice on whether this 20k is gonna get me far or even get me a foothold in the business world. Any advice is greatly appreciated. PM me with any business proposals.

Best regards,
Chris

 

[estwig]

It's not about the money, £20k will easily disappear down a bottomless pit.

It's got a lot more to do with you, what are your skills, strong points, likes and dislikes??

The answers to these questions will help you decide, what line of business to invest your money in.

 

[S-Marketing]

Wouldn't be asking people to pm you with business proposals either if you aren't experienced in business. Thats just asking to get conned.

 

[chris424uk]

Valid point Stretchy. It was more aimed at people looking for partners or joint-ventures.

In terms of my experience, I've worked in sales and marketing for 8 years. Started my own ironing business which was successful, unfortunately the time and effort involved, and the profit generated wasn't substantial enough to justifying continuing.

I've studied web design, SEO and online marketing. So I think I'm capable of starting from scratch and investing money into advertising and generating traffic. However, I'm looking to gauge what 20k is worth, in terms of buying into an online business. I think that would be a good way of building a foundation. Just want to see how realistic 20k starting capital is or if I should save and generate more. To be honest, I just want to get my first steps on the business ladder (preferably online) and go from there.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Alex@Iansprint]

I've seen plenty of canvas printing businesses on eBay in the last few days. £20,000 could buy you 10 of them.

It's up to you whether you think you can make a go of it, whether you think you have the drive to do it, and ultimately whether you have the desire to succeed.

 

[Sustainable Marine]

I've studied web design, SEO and online marketing.

Sounds like the sort of experience that would fit in nicely with a web site development we have planned, I am sure that would be the case with other growing businesses too.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

A very nice lady in Thailand keeps writing to me.She needs £20k to build a school/hospital/monkey sanctuary (it varies depending when she writes)
Shall I let you have her email address?

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

I started my business with about £15, so it's possible to do anything. It just depends on your interests and what you can do in-terms of skills.

£20,000 could be a LOT of money if you spend it wisely. £10,000 of that could be 10,000-20,000+ highly targeted visitors in Adwords, or it could be a long-term SEO campaign. That still leaves you with £10,000 for start-up costs, and you shouldn't need to spend the majority of that unless you need to buy stock.

As stated though, it depends what you want to do.

 

[Astaroth]

To buy a business for £20k and get £24k a year profit is not a realistic expectation in the short term. Assuming a business has no tangible assets you are really looking at at least 4x earnings.

Likewise to set up a business on that sum and get a RoI of 10% of initial sum monthly is not likely to be achievable in the short term.

The only possible option is to look to invest in someone else but again, looking for a 10% return a month is only going to be a short term investment until your bought out.

 

[Urban Publications]

A very nice lady in Thailand keeps writing to me.She needs £20k to build a school/hospital/monkey sanctuary (it varies depending when she writes)
Shall I let you have her email address?

And if you bank with the HSBC then I have a link where you need to confirm your account details

As with your idea if you are going online then it again depends on the sector you enter

If you wanted to set up an Online Travel Agency and battle with the likes of 1st choice/last minute then it will cost you a small fortune.
In fact the 20k would be gone in minutes

But if you were selling Fuffu Valves to then the advertising will not dent your 20k anytime soon

I wouldnt even like to think what a PPC rate is on "Holidays" compared to "Fuffu Valves"

When you say you want £2k income does that mean if you invest 20k you want the new business to pay you back your original investment within the first 10mths of starting up?

 

[genuinegraphics]

Wow 20K...

In my opinion if I think you could start an online business with a professional website and get some SEO done all professionally which could cost you no more than approx. 3K ot maybe even 5K still leaving you with 15K to get your stock etc. I think I read earlier on that you can do that yoursself so your saving your cash there so you can buy more expensive stock and sell quality stuff.

As mentioned above canvas printing could be a good opportunity you could get in contact with local fun days etc and ask them if you could jin them and get pics of families and put them on canvas for them you could also go into your local town centre and start advertising yourself there with discount prints.

I think there are a lot of opportunities with 20K but doesn't mean you have to spend the whole 20K....

Best of luck with the new biz!

 

[ReaperGroup]

I think we need abit more information with you.

Do you have any particular hobbies/interests that you could invest into?

How soon would you want the 2k return? Will you have the time to put into the business if it doesnt return 2k/month?

Karl

 

[Jon236]

Until you know exactly what you want to do, it's all a bit pie in the sky. Once you find your chosen sector or niche, you then need to think about how much it'll cost you to start up in that field. It might be 20 quid for a bucket and sponge to be the best mobile car wash in your town, or it might be 200 grand to become an all singing, all dancing online presence, which you can put your 20k towards. Until you sit down and know what you want to be doing, you won't know.

PS - you should look at your projected costs of living for the next 6 to 12 months as you won't make money straight off the bat, perhaps a chunk of your 20 big ones could go towards that.

 

[S-Marketing]

IMO you want to set your heights a bit higher than a couple of grand a month. You can make that doing absolutely anything without having 20k to invest. Setting your sites so low will probably lead you to very basic self employment, that is not scalable in the longer term.

 

[Psl]

Have a look at the web site in my sig, £10k buys your own businnes and four sales generates £2000+.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I started in 2003 with £10,000 plus six months wages (not include, why pay tax an NI twice)
after six months company could afford to pay wages. £350 for a copy of Actinic, £50 ISP, £200 worldpay psp account, and the rest available for stock an cashflow

Never borrowed anything just expaned by organic growth, still going today and have 7 employees

Pick something you know about to sell and think small and selective to start with, you cannot afford to sell many cars if you have 20K, but you could be the largest supplier of spark plugs very easy or selling fly fishing lures or any other small product £15000 buys a lot of either

That way you get good SEO and if you can afford Adwords a small range is easier to get good results

 

[garyk]

You could generate 2k a month from that but you might just have to wait a while. Forget about 3-5k for just building a site that to me is ludicrous. I built my site (before Sage came knocking and asked me to change it) which was simply a blog, seo'd slowly but surely over and 18 months and generated a ton of free leads which resulted in work.

Depends how quick you need it to happen.