If you had $100K to invest in a business new or existing, what would it be? Say you didn’t need to worry about living expenses or retirement. You don’t have time pressure other than you need to make enough money to cover expenses before you run out. Other than that, the only constraints are you need to love 2/3 of your day so 1/3 of your day is spent on things you don’t enjoy but need to get done. With the 2/3 of the day you love, it needs to be something you jump out of bed and can’t wait to do
by mkl on 8/14/22, 1:12 PM
What's the goal? Making money? Having fun? Helping people? Helping the planet?
If you don't need to worry about living expenses or retirement, there needs to be a good reason to spend 1/3 of your day doing things you don't enjoy (seems a slightly strange goal to be honest).
This should definitely be an "Ask HN".
by sudden_dystopia on 8/14/22, 1:13 PM
Woodworking with the occasional bit of electronics mixed in to sell on Etsy and locally. Buy a bad ass CNC router, laser engraver, and 3d printer. And a bunch of Festool power tools. And a small shop. The YouTubers make it look easy, which I know it’s not. But I already enjoy doing this for personal projects. If I had better tools and more time, I am sure I could make professional quality items and would love doing it.
by jodrellblank on 8/14/22, 3:03 PM
I saw a comment on HN about how airships would be better if scaled up, and we should build a 1km long Hydrogen lift airship with carbon fibre and kevlar.
Building houses en-masse, in factories with efficiencies of scale, has the problem that they have to fit on a truck trailer and be driven carefully down fixed-width roads and over and under bridges. Having all the labour commute to the building site every day and move all the parts there, that seems inefficient.
So make a house factory, making houses bigger and nicer than trailer homes, airlifting the houses from the factory to the site. Then the work on-site is foundation and preparation, and connecting things up. Googling the weight of a house shows "A 2,500-square-foot house with one floor weighs about 500,000 lbs. or 250 tons." which was roughly the lift capacity of the Hindenburg, and 5-10x more than a heavy lift helicopter.
Probably stupid, but fun. Something to do with $300Bn even if it's a money loser, just for how cool it would be. Better than buying Twitter.
by game-of-throws on 8/14/22, 1:11 PM
This is an extremely personal question. The business that excites me would bore 99% of the world, and same goes for you. If you don't already have an idea what you're excited about, just put the money in VTSAX.
by gregsadetsky on 8/14/22, 12:49 PM
You might want to rename the title by adding “Ask HN:” at the beginning so that more people will see it.
by Overtonwindow on 8/14/22, 1:10 PM
I would invest in laundromats and a liquor store. Rather than try to create a new business, I would prefer to invest in an existing revenue stream of something integral to life and society.
by xboxnolifes on 8/14/22, 11:17 PM
I'd throw the 100k into investments and continue to work a normal software job. If I'm not yet financially independent, as the prompt suggests, I'm gonna take the low risk path forward.
> Other than that, the only constraints are you need to love 2/3 of your day so 1/3 of your day is spent on things you don’t enjoy but need to get done.
Assuming the 1/3 here is work, we don't get 2/3 of a day to enjoy. Sleep is 1/3, and after adding in "life stuff" like cooking, cleaning, showering, eating, commuting, etc, you're getting less than 1/3 of a day to enjoy, and it's going to be your most tired hours of the day (assuming you're working at the beginning of your day and not the end).
There isn't a profitable endeavor that exists that I could say I would enjoy over doing something else that is less profitable (to the point of not being sustainable).
by brightball on 8/14/22, 2:00 PM
If I didn’t need to worry about living expenses or retirement I could build almost anything from my notebook with just free time.
I’d use the money to hire sales and marketing people.
by dudul on 8/14/22, 12:56 PM
I'm not sure I understand how the question goes from how would you invest $100k to how you spend your day.
Are we talking investment here, or starting a business that you run?
by michaelmcmillan on 8/14/22, 1:26 PM
Real estate: Buy, repair, rent, refinance, repeat.
by cableshaft on 8/14/22, 1:16 PM
At this point I'd probably just put that money into blue chip (especially tech) stocks. They got beat up pretty bad the past year but are starting to recover (Apple stock is up 32% just since mid-June).
I'd probably get a larger return in a shorter time than investing in any random startup right now, with less risk.
by jotm on 8/14/22, 1:48 PM
Building PC cases and accessories. In fact, the hardest part is not even the money (which I don't have lol but I'm reasonably sure I can secure it even nowadays), but finding a work/business partner. I simply can't handle working alone anymore, not even on stuff I like.
by jzellis on 8/14/22, 4:25 PM
I would import box fans into the UK, because they don't have them here. Dead serious. I'm a coder, but that is the most immediately profitable and useful business I can think of that could be successful for $100K.
If I have to explain why, then you probably aren't my target investor. ;-)
by MerelyMortal on 8/14/22, 1:40 PM
Book store or game store / card shop.
It would be an investment in your enjoyment, because you will almost definitely not make money unless you're also selling food or beverages.
(I don't have experience with either of those two businesses, so take it with a grain of salt.)
by lampshades on 8/14/22, 1:10 PM
Spend the first 10k on finding a market and product people will buy. Spend the next 90k on building, iterating, and marketing whatever you built. I guess.
by upsidesinclude on 8/14/22, 1:13 PM
Great question.
Let me know what you find out, I'm ready
by gardenfelder on 8/14/22, 7:41 PM
Build open source tools to help humans solve the grand messes they are creating, and prevent future messes.
by nurettin on 8/14/22, 1:12 PM
That should be enough to start a hardware store. Maybe invest a little more to add a garage to tinker.
by sqwrell on 8/14/22, 2:35 PM
Soft Serve Ice Cream
by weaponizedlinux on 8/14/22, 1:17 PM
I'd start making porn.