£1 Business Competition

[Franakapan]

Today I managed to spend some time with one of my best friends, a guy called Jack, and were talking about the days events. One of the things we talked about was a couple of our friends having bought 33 energy drinks for £0.30 each from a local shop and were planning to sell them to students at our school for a profit.

As a result of our discussion we decided that we should have a competition - to generate the most profit possible using only £1 as capital and the innitial target being £10. The forefit for the loser would be to give the winner the money they had generated .

I have my own little idea of what I am going to do but I thought this whole idea would be an interesting point of discussion for us all. So, how would you generate profit using only £/$1?

Edit: Forgot to mention the competition would only last for one day.

[j.thiel]

if i had 1 pound....i would go to a 1 pound store, buy myself a set of batteries. with those i would exchange these for a book and then i would exchange this for a cd which i would then sell on to the next highest bidder or i would continue this exchange program till i found myself a worthy item, which i think i could make sufficient profit from. considering i only started with 1 pound.

[Franakapan]

Good idea, but what if you only had one day? Do you still think you could manage that?

[j.thiel]

I personally believe if you really want success, then yeah you can make one 'not too bad' profit from one days work. wake up at 10am, get the batteries....and go on the hunt.you'll feel pretty chuffed by the end of the day if youve got 20quid in your pocket rather than nada.
but yeah i see what you mean, in the long run...would be more progresseve~!


what would you do with 1 quid's worth capital?

[Franakapan]

I thinking about extrapolating the sucess that various people have had in reselling food and drink into a small 'food delivery' service. Basicly I go round the school advertising the fact that I will buy and deliver food to customers who are not normally allowed to leave the school premises during the school day..

In order to minimise risk I will provide a list of products that are available (will get a stock list from a local store) and take orders. The customers prepay, I charge a small fee, buy the product from the store and the customer gets their food/drink/whatever delivered.

The plan depends on my ability to gain orders before my friend (who is bound to do something similar) reaches protential customers and tries to sell them his products. In order to counteract this I will take orders during the morning break, buythe products during one of my free periods, and then deliver at the start of the lunch period.

I havn't bothered doin market research (far too much effort for the sake of a quid:P) so I am relying upon past experience and observation. I estimate that I will be able to reach a 50% profit margin.

[jasaunders]

I bet if I stood out on the street and begged for change all day, I could raise more than 10 pounds.

[Franakapan]

Well you know what? I wouldn't, not in my sh!tty little town fully stingy... And anyway, wheres the fun in begging?

[AstarothSolutions]

Some would say where was the fun in selling cans of drinks to students?

[commit]

Buy something for $1 you can divide into 2 and sell each for $1.
Now you have $2.
Buy 2 more and do the same.
Now you have $4
Buy 4 more and do the same.
Now you have $8 dollars
Buy 2 more and do the same now you have $10 dollars.

What can you buy for $1 and do this with.
Buy some cold food warm it and sell it? (outside an office building with a store that is close)
Buy some ice split it and sell it? (at the beach)

This will work, and most people would look for a faster more gratifying way and will probably lose their $1.

Good Luck.
Let me know what you choose to do, Im interested in hearing about both you and your friends results.

[Franakapan]

Some would say where was the fun in selling cans of drinks to students?

The fun is in winnning a competition against my friend!

Buy something for $1 you can divide into 2 and sell each for $1.
Now you have $2.
Buy 2 more and do the same.
Now you have $4
Buy 4 more and do the same.
Now you have $8 dollars
Buy 2 more and do the same now you have $10 dollars.

What can you buy for $1 and do this with.
Buy some cold food warm it and sell it? (outside an office building with a store that is close)
Buy some ice split it and sell it? (at the beach)

This will work, and most people would look for a faster more gratifying way and will probably lose their $1.

Good Luck.
Let me know what you choose to do, Im interested in hearing about both you and your friends results.

I'm still tempted by the security of my idea... Worth thinking bout tho. And I'll be sure to post the results.

[Cru_jo0]

ok try this, buy a pack of 100 drawing pins for 20p, buy 100 earing backings for 30p then buy some cool little smiley stickers, assemble them all togther and you have cool little badges, then sell them for 15p each and you make £15 and repeat on a bigger scale

(this is something i actauly do, i supply to the local shops and in the last month ive made £40 profit)

[AstarothSolutions]

The fun is in winnning a competition against my friend!

Then surely the same could be said about begging when you can proudly say you didnt even need the £1 investment to beat them?

[Mikey1205]

You could do a few things to guarantee a win over your friend.

- Buy some cheap cleaning utensils and offer to clean cars for like £5/10 .
- Similar for gardening but just offer to collect rubbish and do some weeding.
-Selling of stationary in your school , singular pencils/pens/rulers are cheap and if people need them in class you can offer like a 100% markup at least.
-Buy a classy domain name (.info for 99c) and sell it only for 100*its original price. (harder)

Let us know how this goes.

[skyjoe76]

Most of the ideas comes with a price tags on its own. Like selling cans of drink, how much can you sell them? $1 or $2. There is a limit on the price you can sell.

If you want to make more in a short time, why not sell ideas? There is no price tags to ideas. You set the price. Marketing ideas is the best.

This has been done before. Selling ideas on the street. An idea we charge $1000. You must be sure that your idea adds value to others.

[Mountstephen]

With $1 buy the cheapest bucket and squeegee possible. Now it is important that you realise that most people dont want their car windows washed because its just an inconviences to find change and whatnot because its all such a difficult process to be had at a set of red lights so here is what you do.

You walk around a shopping mall or buisness district near where are you going to set up you little window washing location. And go into stores like lawyers offices and privately owned buisnesses and offer them this.

"you will wear formal clothes, look respectable in a suit (this is interesting becuase you never see it and therefore brings more attention and brings on a look of professionalism and success.) And you propose that you will wear their companies advertising all over your suit (pinned on i would think) and on the traffic light have a big poster of their company. And instead of the drivers paying you money, you will do all the window washings for free and the company can pay you a rate of $200 or so for a full days work.

Now this will work becuase people always underestimate the cost of advertising, and i can garuntee you people will remember that buisnesses next time they need a similar service.

So there you go $200 for a days work and a $1 buisness.