What business would you start with $40,000?

I would create a funnel in a proven niche...

Make sure the FE converts well...

Then really focus on the back end.

From there, you'd have plenty of money to test on advertising...

And you can test and improve your funnel along the way

I would never use money on a new venture that I know, if I lost it all, I would have no money left.

I would do what I did .. buy a house for cash, rent it out for $600 a month and make 13% net interest on my money without changing my net worth at all.

Make sure you ignore any PM's coming your way, you're about to get a TON of people offering you the latest and greatest affiliate link or MLM scheme

Move to a state that recently legalized medicinal cannabis and build a dispensary. Play it as the owner and outsource the other positions to the locals. Let them handle that mess of shit while all you do is sign off legal papers saying you have the licenses necessary to make the operation legit.
Cash in on the sick people off a natural remedy and become a millionaire within 6-18 months.

I would buy out the fleet (or fleets) of (a) local Taxi company(ies).

All those "lease fees" that roll in every day, day in and day out, are one of the closest things to passive income as one can get in the "regular world".

It's like the "storage unit" business. It'd down and dirty old fashioned but it's also one of those things that is easy to scale (keep adding used police cars) and can build substantial wealth.

I know it's OT...... but you asked me what id do if I were you.

There's no need to use all. Just take out a few $k and invest in some small online business. Start small..

Thats a huge amount to be invested. Better take proper consultancy with professional financial advisor which will help you to invest the money in right and proper way which will maximize your returns.

Business of loan is good with that amount. You can earn good amount without loosing your net worth.

Well I would advise you to make a budget. Half of your savings, let's say $20,000. According to famous saying
"Don't lay all your eggs in one basket"
Invest in at least 3 different modules. Wait for the one that brings the highest return. Once you got a winner, Invest rest of the amount in it.

Take 2 grand create a solid funnel and buy some quality traffic and put the rest away for a rainy day.



- Robert Andrew

I would start a business advising people how to invest their money.

Personaly , I prefer To invest it Offline because it's more guaranteed and secure than online , I believe that If you invest it online you can lose the whole budget , I'm not negative but it's truth and every marketer Know that , There is No Guaranty online , so I Will Invest It Offline Better

Good luck

Funny! I posted an answer yesterday that did not appear!

I was saying thank you to everyone and also that I liked very precise idea like the Taxi one.

Of course, I am not going to take a decision based on only forum post. I just want opinion to see if there is something I am really missing

Also, I am not looking for financial advice. It was more intended that way: What business/way to make money would you start with $40K?

Thanks

Buy a Franchise! It provides a proven business model and training and support from corporate. There are over 600 brands available in many vertical markets including sales, consulting, senior care, tutoring and more. Feel free to PM me if you would like to explore further.

Alternative energy.

It really doesn't much matter which route you take, it all produces insane ROI.

Something that I had considered and started small with.

But why ask random units on a forum to dictate your future? as you said it is your last 40K.

Why not invest some in a company doing what you made the money doing in the first place? stick to what you know.

Have Sales Funnels in popular niches and use PPC to build lists and sales. I am sure you won't need all that money to start with but you can scale your success as you go along.

Just tossing this out...re: Investment Mindset.

Yes, all 40 into one thing with proven safe ROI, slow growth.
Or 25% in El

1) Products
2) Affiliates
3) Service business
4) Off line cash flow

You could acquire the rights to a product to distribute
You could find a high paying commission and hire sales people
You could buy out a service business
You could invest in an off line cash flow

Examples: You could easily get into PRIVATE LABEL products, like nutritional supplements and hire marketers/copywriters, expand from profits
Many inventors seeking investors.
Maybe broker loans at upper end or higher priced products, like boats.
Buy out a small cleaning company and expand it.

WHAT you choose to do should be part of a plan, on what you want your money to achieve...Think of a GRAPE
G goal what you want your money to do
R reason, what exact reason do you have, what will you do with the ROI?
AP Action Plan...what is the exact activity required, when analyzing opportunities and how much do you want to do and how much you want others to do.
E ENERGY, which is related to movement how much energy will it take to get the ball rolling.

You'll get many opinions, but only you know what you want the money to do, and then, only after having a clear goal and reason why...

can you take a look at the myriad of opportunity which presents itself to idle money.

Take 100 bux, buy a nice dinner and then don't touch the money until you have a very clear idea of what you want from it, then GATHER INFO, do due diligence, and don't touch a dime until all ideas are fully vetted.

You have lots of options, take your time and think it through.

El PASO and GRAPES

gjabiz

I would play to your strengths. You said you had experience in "Online/mobile advertising/gaming",if that's working for you do more of that.

I would start a Hot Dog Cart and pocket the extra 35k

al

Why not start a business picking up dog poop in your local area? Trust me,people will pay you to do stuff like that. Any kind of dirty work that people don't want to do is something you can make a business out of. How about a business picking up people's junk? Get creative.

I would start a blog on: How I invested $40k.

People will follow your day-to-day decisions and hopefully you win. Good luck

If i had so much money i would spend half on women, gambling, and partying. The other half I would waste it on a flippa website for sale.

You seem to have a good online background but probably don't have any marketing skills.

Any of those things you listed as your area of speciality can be easily turned into a goldmine.

Find out which of them have a good market that can be explored and build a site around it.

It's better to start small and test the waters before spending any huge amount on any project including like this one.

From my experience traffic is one of the main reason people fail online. If you can do your home work well, create a converting site, product and drive tons of targeted traffic to your site, you will do very well.

Here is a tip of iceberg, you can spy on your competitors and see what they are doing and sensibly replicate the method as well as move to carve your own niche.

If these look too tough you should consider hiring a mentor. It's worth it!

According to me, you should not invest your all money in a field. You should choose multiple way of earning. because if one sector fails to give you profit, another project will give you profit. Thanks.

Don't invest it all art once! Start with small numbers, see how things go. Then, if everything goes your way, start investing bigger amounts, but again, not everything you have.

I did have that sort of money at one time. I invested in a Subway Franchise. But the business didnt work because of the location and I expanding too quickly. There are risks with every business.

I would personally keep the money in the bank and use it to pay yourself a wage while building a long term sustainable IM business. Or as its been mentioned above buy a property or 2. Use the money as a deposit and buy 2 houses with a $500-$600 per month rental per property. Mortgage payments $250-$300 each giving you a nice $600 per month profit and your capital is as safe as it is in the bank.

Starting a new bussines is the same as an investment. you said it's the only money you got left.
Every investment has it's risks, so are you willing to lose some of the money?
First you'll need to see what investment suits you best.
Then you'll need to study the advantages and the disadvantages.
You'll also need to diversify your capital, I like to do this into three things:
Low risk (like banking account, some bonds etc)
Medium risk (My work as personal trainer)
and High risk (my investmens I did into stocks, real estate and as of late Forex).

If I was new and just starting out knowing what I know now, I would be starting the same exact business that I am in right now.

The only thing difference is that I would be going in with the knowledge:

1- That I would need to invest about 4 to 6 hours per day marketing (or more depending on how much time I want to collapse).

2- That success comes from learning and mastering skills along with a lot of work,

3- That I would also need lots of patience and that my results would take about 6 months of 'consistent' work before I start seeing anything juicy.

And then it never stops there.

4- I would always need to keep learning because this industry and what's working keeps changing.

Balance Daniel Son, Balance

If I was you, I wouldn't invest a large amount of money, without seing some result..

If I was you, I would just start building new lists in new niches..

It is easier to buy an existing business than to start a new one.

About 10 years ago, I paid $35,000 for a link selling business. Using techniques learnt from that business, I was to sell nearly 1 million dollars in links over the years and enabled me to go full-time.

Buy Apple stocks. And wait for money to quadruple.

Andy

Well I am telling you this from some thoroughly researched idea. Save 50% of your funds into your account.
Remaining 50% should be spent in this way.
1- Select at least 3 different modules or Online Investment portals (4 or 5 is even better)
2- Spend almost equal amounts among all of them
3- Within 8 to 10 weeks you will know what's working and what isn't
4- Spend more in the module that brings in more return with less cost and in less time frame.

I would take and build a list in a proven niche. Spend some money on solo ads and PPC marketing.

1. Buy evergreen traffic and monetize it over and over again. 20k
2. Hire an app developer and put in of FB, monetize it over and over again. 10k
3. Invest in Dividend paying stocks.10k

Don't spend all your money in one idea. i would recommend to invest in KDP (kindle publishing). I know

some people that make at least 5k a month and they have around 100 eBook.

I have started too and I started making some $$. It does not take a lot and it is fast comparing to other

ways to make money online. you just need to do some research to do it right.

i am passionate about stocks, i am a swing trader and lost money but took me a year to realize how the game is

played in Wall street but I would definitely NOT recommending taking that path unless you know somebody who

knows how.

nothing comes easy at first but hard work pays off!!! GOOD LUCK

I really like this thread because I can see that people are thinking a lot differently when it comes to invest money and that's a great thing!

It's a like a giant brainstorming!

Internet marketing is very risky. You can lose too much money too fast if you don't have a good coach.
Invest most of it offline in things like real estate, sales.
Use some for product creation and put it on clickbank for affiliates to labor and make you money. The entire product conception, creation and marketing process can outsourced.

Cheers

Invest in property or something you are good at. Can't go wrong that way. I would suggest property

I would make a killer product and sell it for high price

Does Someone know what is evergreen traffic? I am intrigued. The website is not that "self-explanatory"

First of all, you DO NOT start a business "with $40,000"

Instead, you want to start much smaller than that.

Decide on a market, hire someone to crate some good content around that market, hire someone on fiverr to create a landing page for you. Now use facebook and drive some traffic at your landing page and build a list.

Last but not least, sell to the list.

Start by spending VERY small. Maybe just $75 your first week on traffic to make sure your landing page will convert.

If it does, SCALE SLOWLY. After your first 6 weeks or so your income should pay for traffic and you can keep that 40k in your bank account.

If you are going to invest in something ... invest in a mentor. Because you seem to have plenty of readily available funds I would recommend Rich Schefren because he's really kind of the king on how to set up a business the right way with outsourcing of most every task.

It would be a wise decision to start one offline business and an online business with $40000 in your hand.

As far as online business is concerned, you are at advantage as you already have some knowledge about affiliate marketing and that's the best thing to start with. Moreover, you don't need much of the amount from what you have.

As far as offline business in concerned, trade is the wiser option as it has been time tested model since ages. You can start any kind of trading with what you are comfortable with like mobile, gaming, etc. Do not go along the way of production or manufacturing initially.

Yes you can produce digital products however in your online business if you possess expertise in some niche.

The second thing you have to do is to plan about how to invest and make a good use of those $40,000 you have.

You have to split those $40000 in four parts. $5000 for learning and training. $5000 as a buffer plan or emergency cash. And rest you can use for both of your businesses. These are just examples. Actual amounts may very.

It is good if both of your businesses run well. However, never ever make a mistake of transferring funds from one business to another if one of your businesses needs funds at any point of time. Try to bring that business in good condition on its own.

All the best.

invest in several things..50% forex trading and stocks and other %50 on gold and oil

Maybe you should first think about what it is you want to do, not what others think you should do. Only you know what you're good at or what you're willing to spend time on to learn!

You can also invest it in yourself such as learning a new skill. No one can take that away from you.

You need money to support yourself while you start a new venture. It should be minimum 6 months but usually a year would be recommended if you are going to give yourself the best chance to succeed.

If you are just going to set up a few affiliate banner sites then do it at the weekend and get a job.

If you have $40k then you don't have $40k to start a business - you have $40k - 6 months living expenses = startup capital.

I would suggest you to create your own product and sell it. If you need a personal coach, make sure to find a RELIABLE one since we can't predict others action even if they are BIG marketers. I've learned the hard way.

Buy a rental home outright.


Rent it out.


Use the profits from the rental to fund your online business.



Now you're playing with house money, and can afford to make mistakes.

That's actually a good one!

Not sure I want to do this but thank you for the idea!

Since you already have some affiliate knowledge I would suggest you spend $500 - $1000 on affiliate marketing to taste the waters instead of spending all $40,000.

Apple stock is nice idea

Spend some of that money on your business education, nothing better than improve yourself.

I'd make a downpayment on an already positively cash flowing duplex or triplex.

Buy some property and then rent it, at least it's quite good business in my country

If you want to invest in an online business, then a good way would be to hire a developer to produce a useful software in an area where it would be in high demand. People love to use software because it makes their life easier.

I would do what i'm trying to do now. Build a network of websites in a market, have them all squared away with rankings and social and sell ad's.

1. Write info product or hire someone
2. Clickfunnels account
3. Webinar Account
4. Facebook ads to webinar page

Here's why investing in yourself is a good idea.
As an example...
Get an education in iOS and/or Android programming. I don't think it will cost you 40K... Probably less.. Choose an institution where graduates get a job at once. Your salary in the first year would be 50-60K. ROI is less than a year. During the first few months you could develop and sell your own apps. Get some side projects in oDesk too.

Here is my opinion! Don't use all of the money on one business venture, diversify.
1. Try to go on freelance and get an expert to create a product to put on warrior plus, Clickbank or Jvzoo.
2. Come back on warrior forum and hire a warrior to drive quality traffic.

3 build a list in the process! !, sell solos from the list to double your returns ....

The list of things to do goes on...

However don't expect to make a million over 1 month..& also expect a loss too that's business.

If it's borrowed money? Please stay away from risking that money (advice)

To me, i'd start by thinking what business you can start with less money. Too often people are ready to throw in the money they have without strategizing fully.

If you have a background in mobile/online advertising, why not continue with that?

If I was to start all over again, I'd do what I do now, which is sell online advertising and traffic because that is the lifeblood of the internet and every business needs traffic and advertising. You're already interested in that field so I'd stay with that. My particular business model requires little time and investment (but the more investment, the better) and you can scale up as you see fit.

Nice ideas and great discussion, keep it going.

What a great thread!

I'd be tempted to invest in joining Dan Kennedy as Mastermind leader, or whatever he's calling his platinum members these days.

I have always had at least 3-5 different kinds of businesses going at once. Probably the best one was when I sold a car, took the $7800 and invested in a product I know inside and out and turned it into various streams of revenue that are still going. That is a tangible product, not IM. I tmultiplied because there were buyers out there hungry for the product, and for someone who could teach them about it.

There are many, many low-investment businesses you could do and make money with, depending on what strikes your heart. There are way more that you could invest in and lose some or all money or lose your shirt!

Within each business, try to make 'spokes' that come out from it. Example I had a black and white APHA stallion. At that time black-and-white was all the rage. Well, you can pour a lot of money into that horse, feeding, grooming, and showing him. You can stand him at stud and earn big $$. You can breed him to a select few mares yourself and not stand him for others (so that you control the bloodline) and the cost for the babies goes up, if he's high enough quality. I did both. Then I spoked it out by training other people's horses, and by raising the babies and training them for shows before selling. Then I sold him and 4 others for $50k each. Rinse, repeat. Did I mention, he cost $1,000 as a weanling? Diamond in the rough.

If you want a more IM related example, you could create a piece of software and an accompanying written product. Then market that, bundling it with a solid funnel. Do this every month or every quarter, and start a private group to JV -- they can sell it, you can concentrate more on the other end. Or keep it all for yourself by heavily marketing your one or two products. After a couple years, bored with that? OK then how about a consulting service on how to do what you have done.

Thing is, you want ideas but what you need is the ones that really resonate with you, down deep. Keep us posted.

Didn't see any answer to your evergreen traffic- its a method you do 1 time and it brings in traffic without any further work.

As far as your initial question of 40k. That is a large budget that you can see what works and then scale fast from there.

I personally have invested close to that in an internet business that I am very pleased with. It truly has the done for you stuff that many others say they do for 100's. But those others never do and usually are missing some key points.

Lost of great ideas but do not just throw all into 1 basket.

Mine personally is a franchise/licensee business with proven track record.

I would also recommend that you work with someone who will actually help you during the process. There are many links out there that you can join, invest money in and the person you got involved with won't even reach to welcome you or help guide you if needed.

It seems many (not everyone) just wants to make money without creating relationships. Relationships creates a steady business for years to come.

Out of this entire thread BUILD A QUALITY LIST!!! ...at the very least

Good Luck

What I would do? partnership marketing...

Take about 50% of the $40,000 and put it in a safe haven offshore bank account like in Singapore or Andorra.

Then travel the world and barter, deal and grow a location independent business with the skills and knowledge you have. You have a lot of value to offer. Don't sell yourself short.

Essentially it goes like this; You take your skills and assets and make strategic marketing partnerships with people that operate in markets that can cross promote with you.

You do what you do well for them and they do for you what they do well. Win win... You have different connections, lists, capital, products.

For example; I do travel booking. So I go out to event planners, meeting organizers and people that do retreat planning to offer them a deal for free travel if they recommend my services to their connections.

Example 2; I do local business seo/lead gen. So I make deals with businesses that need my service for what they do that I want.

And what do I want? Luxury accommodations, first class travel and the finest things life has to offer.

That's what I would do...
105

I would invest $40K in REIT stocks (like Realty Income Corporation (stock symbol O)), collect a monthly dividend in my account, and re-invest these dividends in more REIT stocks, so that I can create the snow ball effect to keep increasing the monthly dividends by purchasing more monthly REIT dividend stocks...

Start with something you can definitely do effortlessly. Don't spend all money in one idea.You can spend less on one and focus on its success. I would recommend the new emerging business idea that is in high demand because of simple business model and high earning opportunities.


You can start an online coupon or daily deal website like Groupon at just $499. The idea of giving deals to potential customers has been everywhere forever, and it works. Good deals always excite people and People who usually look for the best price on these deals always search for a daily deal site or search online. You will earn in the form, commission from each coupon and offer credited by users To create Groupon clone on a low budget, bitFATDeals offers clone script that helps you start a coupon website without any fuss or hassle.

Then you don't have $40,000.

1) Subtract your rent/mortgage for the next year. Let's say $800 a month in rent = $9,600
2) Food for the year. Let's say $500 a month = $6,000
3) Internet for the year. Let's say $50 a month = $600

Total for the year = $16,000 in expenses

Now you have ALL of your NECESSARY expenses paid FOR THE YEAR and you have $24,000 LEFT for your business.

You can spend all of your time building your brand new business into a super power because you have nothing to worry about. Rent is taken care of, Food is taken care of, Miscellaneous Expenses are taken care of.

With $24,000 you can purchase a business profiting in the $1,500 to $2,000 per month range.

That's how I would suggest to do it.

Gaining a business that profits $1,500 to $2k right off the bat and having a year of no distractions to scale it is ... priceless.

Split your money in at least 3 different chunks: 20,000, 10,000, 5000, 2500, 2500.

Online ventures usually don't need that much money upfront. It takes time to build a product, tweak it, get traffic, improve conversions until you make it break even. If you start throwing a lot of money on the window you won't last enough to get to break even. Find something that works and then invest the money.

You will need to spend some money to build a website ( if you don't know how to do it yourself ), drive test traffic, but that will be under $1000 for every site you test. When you find a good converting solution, invest more money, and more, until you make good profits.

I'm sure someone has already said this by now, but just in case...

Create a product/course/membership-site/etc. that shows step by step how you were able to raise $40000 to start a business, then pay someone a few hundred bucks to set up a sales funnel for you to capture leads and subscribers. Once you have a good following, create a new product that shows people how you were able to create a successful and profitable membership site. :-)

Create your own product

If you have no idea, you can outsource someone on Elance ( most recommended place to outsource any thing )

Your product may be digital ebook, kindle or piece of software that can help people to resolve their problems on whatever you choose.

If your product is so great and really provide quality and valuable tips and info. Then you can set back and see the ball roll on, since there will be more affiliates promoting your products and make you profits.

Thanks
Best Regards
Omar Saady

I would create a direct response business with $10,000.00 and I will use the $30,000.00 left over to take my wife and kids on holiday.

Look into Private Labeling...I heard once the research is done on the product, the ROI is tremendous...

There is so much you could do with $40,000. What worries me is your comment that after spending this amount you won't have anything left.

Since you say that you have experience doing affiliate marketing, I'd recommend you develop a squeeze page for the IM niche (which you should be able to do in your sleep) and then purchase some solo ads for not more than $1,000.

Continue building your email list with list swaps and reinvest money that you make from a combination of selling solos and promoting affiliate offers to your list into more solo ads.

Rinse and repeat.

Consider creating your own products and funnel which you can send your list to. Learn how to do Facebook advertising and use some of your profit to send traffic to your funnel.

Keep the $38,000+ in the bank or somewhere safe and don't even consider dipping into that for your business, at least not until you're consistently making $5,000+ a month with your internet marketing. At that point, you can consider using a couple more thousand to invest in more traffic, because by then you should be confident in your ability to get a positive return on investment on your ad spend.

Here are the options that i would suggest
1) Buy an existing business - Websites that are already making money online consistently
2) Do a Joint venture - Persons who are already making little profit, but they want to scale their business, but dont have money
3) List building

Any of the above would be the best way to invest your money.

Just read out this wonderful article How to Make Money Blogging - Guide for 2015 from Amy Andrews if you want to make money blogging...

You can even opt for what I am doing because the best part is it is free for life...make money by generating commissions on thousands of products or services...

Record some great videos of your baby, upload to Youtube, enable ads and share on video forums. Then keep your $40,000 or spend a tiny portion of it on Youtube advertising to kickstart your viral video. Or deposit about $200 with Oanda or Finfx and use their signal service to get started...

Build some sales funnels. See which one converts the best. Invest the rest of your money in that one.

Start from less - take time to learn and then re-invest.Only focus on things you know in start then start taking risk along your way.