Adventure Capital
July 24, 2012 9:07 AM   Subscribe

How to make money with £100 Five Guardian writers speculate to accumulate.
posted by mippy (29 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm going to run over to my bank right now and have my dollars changed into pounds so that I can try these ideas.
posted by koeselitz at 9:14 AM on July 24, 2012 [6 favorites]


My idea is to convince 10,000 people to send me £100 each. Address is in the profile, people.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:19 AM on July 24, 2012


Drat it all! I knew I should have gone for the poetry MFA rather than wasting my time with the MBA! I have wasted my life....
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:22 AM on July 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


$7 Poker Stars Sit & Gos are still the world's easiest money. If we could just teach Peruvian Miners how to Pushbot we could end world poverty within the year.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:24 AM on July 24, 2012


To be honest, they probably shouldn't have let the pro poker player earn via gambling. Online bingo - of which there must be about 340,000 different sites in the UK by now - might have been more interesting.
posted by mippy at 9:24 AM on July 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


If I had money to speculate with, I think the last people I'd ask would be Guardian writers...
posted by ominous_paws at 9:25 AM on July 24, 2012


Not surprised the only idea to loose money is investing.
posted by stbalbach at 9:28 AM on July 24, 2012


My idea is to convince 10,000 people to send me £100 each. Address is in the profile, people.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:19 AM on July 24 [+] [!]


That's an expensive town!
posted by chavenet at 9:30 AM on July 24, 2012


Seems like kind of a silly question. It's so heavily dependent on starting conditions and assets, the cost of which dwarfs $100, that the significance of the $100 is totally lost. I mean, can you assume you have a computer with internet access? Good clothes? A car? An education of some sort? Any of those things will totally change what you have the option to do.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:31 AM on July 24, 2012 [2 favorites]


My idea is to convince 10,000 people to send me £100 each. Address is in the profile, people.

Please send me your banking information and social security number, and I will deposit money forthwith!
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:33 AM on July 24, 2012 [7 favorites]


Mitrovarr: Indeed, look at all the kitchen resources pre-owned by the guy who started a "restaurant" or the social capital of being a Guardian reporter throwing a music event. All of these limit and/or enable what you can actually do with your money. The poet though... give that woman an honorary MBA, if she can convince people to buy chapbooks she's probably a genius.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM on July 24, 2012 [2 favorites]


See proles? What are you complaining about?!
posted by 2bucksplus at 9:42 AM on July 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


But I thought The Guardian was a communist rag? I'm pretty sure that's why it's blocked by certain state firewalls in my neck of the woods.

Most forms of speculation (including gambling) by definition only pay high returns over time to a small minority of participants in the game. So, you can't really count on gambling in any form to be a solution for most people.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:04 AM on July 24, 2012


But I thought The Guardian was a communist rag?

You know how the LAbour party became New Labour? That. But with newsprint.
posted by mippy at 10:15 AM on July 24, 2012 [4 favorites]


Or, as we call it these days, the interwebs.
posted by Grangousier at 10:19 AM on July 24, 2012


Mitrovarr: Indeed, look at all the kitchen resources pre-owned by the guy who started a "restaurant" or the social capital of being a Guardian reporter throwing a music event. All of these limit and/or enable what you can actually do with your money.

Event promotion isn't easy, but it isn't all that hard either. If you are willing to be persistent and ask around, it's actually one of the easiest forms of entrepeneurial activity to get into. There are lots of venues that need entertainment and there are lots of entertainers that need an audience, and audiences wanting to be entertained. Get together with a few like minded friends for moral and logistic support, and you might be pleasantly surprised. I've done a number of raves and a film festival over the years, we made a small but pleasant profit each time, and none of us had a clue what we were doing at the outset.
posted by anigbrowl at 10:47 AM on July 24, 2012


I'm going to run over to my bank right now and have my dollars changed into pounds so that I can try these ideas.

Advance warning: don't do this if you are planning on playing poker.

You know how the LAbour party became New Labour? That. But with newsprint.

The dear old Grauniad's still to the left of Labour though, surely? (Not difficult, admittedly)
posted by Infinite Jest at 11:29 AM on July 24, 2012


Knowing what little I do about the UK and living in London, but if your back garden is big enough to host a music festival, 100 quid is probably the daily coffee money, isn't it?

These were interesting, but I think send the wrong message. As mentioned above, these are ways for "rich" people to make even more money, not ways for poor people to do so.
posted by maxwelton at 12:03 PM on July 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


As mentioned above, these are ways for "rich" people to make even more money, not ways for poor people to do so.

Really? Here's my takeaway:

Two people used the money to gamble (one at poker, one on the market). One did well, one lost big.

Two people used the money to start up what was effectively a small business based on their own efforts. They made a very modest amount of money - certainly not enough to live on.

And one person used connections that most people would not have, and made a lot of money doing so.

That sound like a paean to the markets to you? Because it sounds like a critique to me.
posted by mightygodking at 12:09 PM on July 24, 2012 [11 favorites]


As mentioned above, these are ways for "rich" people to make even more money, not ways for poor people to do so.

There's always the idea put forth in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels:

You take out an advert in the back page of some gay mag, advertising the latest in arse-intruding dildos. You sell it with, I dunno, "does what no other dildo can do until now", "the latest and greatest in sexual technology", "guaranteed results or your money back", all that bollocks. Now, these dils cost twenty-five quid a pop. That's a snip for the amount of pleasure they're gonna give the recipients. But they send their cheques to the other company name – nothing offensive, er, "Bobbie's Bits" or something – for twenty-five quid. You take that twenty-five quid, you stick it in the bank until it clears. Now, this is the smart bit. You send back the cheque for twenty-five pound from the other company name, "Arse Tickler's Faggots Fan Club", saying we're sorry, we couldn't get the supplies from America because they ran out of stock. Now, you see how many people cash that cheque: not a single soul, because who wants their bank manager to know they tickle arse when they're not paying cheques?
posted by kisch mokusch at 12:51 PM on July 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


I find it thrilling that the poet actually made a profit.
posted by Wordwoman at 2:10 PM on July 24, 2012 [2 favorites]


You know, I wonder if the Eye Need ads in Private Eye ever work. I heard of a woman whose son sold 'dirty postcards' through those classifieds, which turned out to be blank cards dipped in muddy water.
posted by mippy at 2:20 PM on July 24, 2012


Two people used the money to start up what was effectively a small business based on their own efforts. They made a very modest amount of money - certainly not enough to live on.

Well, yeah - no business provides a full living from day one. I'm actually surprised the cook came out ahead only 37 servings; cooking is tremendously hard work for relatively little reward, and the restaurant business is very unforgiving which is one reason I would be reluctant to open my own place although I love to cook and have done it for a living before. But in a pop-up, he could charge more. I knew 3 chefs who rented a house and paid the rent with a bi-monthly food party. They bought a lof cushions for seats and made their own tables.

The poetry example is even better. An unknown poet made a profit in her first week of sales? That's outstanding. If she sells the rest of her print run (buy it here if you're in the UK) she'll make another £90, and if she printed and sold the same amount again she'll make $140. If her poetry is good then a few hundred sales a month at £2 profit a pop starts to add up.

A small business is work; you have to keep plugging away at it in order to grow. But it's an awful lot easier with the existence of the internet.

And one person used connections that most people would not have, and made a lot of money doing so.

She made about 800 quid, which is not that much - she got more in one chunk because that's how the money comes in for events, but on the other hand you can't pull that off every night of the week (at first). It's not that hard to get in touch with venues and bands even if you don't have special contacts. If you're willing to accept a modest share of the proceeds and pay attention to what other people need, you might be surprised at how willing people are to work with you. She got that money because she put together about 5 grand in ticket sales, generating a couple of thousand for the venue owner on an off-night and a few hundred for everyone in the bands.

If you live in a city, chances are you could get some sort of music night going for 50-100 people and break even on your first time out. Be more optimistic - you might be surprised at what you can achieve.
posted by anigbrowl at 3:26 PM on July 24, 2012


Unknown poet? What's that supposed to mean?
posted by dustyasymptotes at 3:45 PM on July 24, 2012


Well, she's not what I'd call famous. But 'up-and-coming poet' or 'emerging poet' if you prefer.
posted by anigbrowl at 3:49 PM on July 24, 2012


Everyone seems to be missing the part where all of these schemes really cost way more than 100GBP to start up. They require, variously, contacts with sought-after musical talent and venue-owners, a cultivated skill in and knowledge of the online poker environment, celebrity chef status, and access to free financial advice from educated and connected Wall Streeters (City-ers?). They all, with the exception of the poker player, benefit from social media followership cultivated by already high-status jobs as writers for a major newspaper.

This isn't "Europe for $10 a Day," it's "Europe for $10 a day (and Dad's Platinum Mastercard)."
posted by LiteOpera at 5:45 PM on July 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Jay Rayner is a restaurant critic, not a celebrity chef.
posted by mippy at 3:34 AM on July 25, 2012


You know, I wonder if the Eye Need ads in Private Eye ever work

Funnily enough, I wondered the same thing, so I went to AskMe to find out.

Fun, free idea for an infographic: plotting the amount of money asked for in the classified ads section over a period of years, compared with the recession / inflation. Wonder if it correlates.
posted by randomination at 11:28 AM on July 25, 2012


and access to free financial advice from educated and connected Wall Streeters (City-ers?)

No shortage of financial advice, I wouldn't suggest that was any barrier. Of course, he lost money!
posted by bystander at 2:12 AM on July 26, 2012


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