How can the average person become a multi-millionaire?

This is gonna sound dumb...but car washes. That's right, I said car washes. FUCKING GOLDMINE's. I've got a buddy who owns 3 of them and they are cash cow's. You're biggest problem is the EPA and all of the clean water filtration you have to install when building, that and keeping the cashiers from stealing, since it's almost all cash. You can own the land or lease it. Depending on location, owning it is probably a better way to go.

I had 3 partners going in on a new car wash build a couple of years ago, but one of the investors was going through a divorce and things got all fouled up. Probably good it didn't go through since the economy tanked right after. This was a fully automated wash with the tunnel. However, even the do-it-yourself car washes are big money makers.

So if I was going to try and become a millionare with a brick & mortar type business, a chain of car washes would be it. Or laundromats...another cash maker.


Car washes are certainly a gold mine - I also know a millionaire from Car Wash revenues. He owns several of the Wash/Detail centers that upsell you when you drive in - unbelievable how much he made. He even had a little cofee shop inside to feed you while you waited..... but what you are talking about is a lot of work - marketing and otherwise. I mean, a lot of cash up front, management, branding, marketing, EPA (as you stated), what you are talking about is a big league major endeavor. Though the self serve ones would be much cheaper - just find the Real Estate - of course if we are talking about cash cows..... Mini Storage!
 


...of course if we are talking about cash cows..... Mini Storage!

^^^ Ding ding ding. The best way to know what businesses are cash cows is to look and see what types of business are almost never for sale. I've been looking to buy a mini-storage for several years but none of them ever come on the market - what does that tell you?

This is also how you can tell what business to never get into (ie. tanning salons - always shit loads of them for sale).
 
^^^ Ding ding ding. The best way to know what businesses are cash cows is to look and see what types of business are almost never for sale. I've been looking to buy a mini-storage for several years but none of them ever come on the market - what does that tell you?

This is also how you can tell what business to never get into (ie. tanning salons - always shit loads of them for sale).

That's because storage units are practically recession-proof. In good times, people buy too much junk. In bad times, they're all getting kicked out of their homes.
 


Public Storage - the public company overpays to purchase existing facilities and has a low ROI demand from Wall Street. Hence they are no where near as profitable as if you build it yourself.

You would want to buy land, get it entitled, build it, get it rented out to capacity and then if for some crazy reason it is not cash flowing enough for you - sell it to Public Storage for some ridiculous cap rate like 6%.

There are a few failed build outs for sale right now but they are in areas like Yucca Valley etc - I had one I was looking into in Rancho Cucamonga, CA but it was ridiculously expensive.

The guys that pull off a good location - kudos to them. If I could find the right dirt I would do it in a heartbeat.
 
I bought and flipped a house once. Made a bunch of money. But honestly you can't beat marketing on the internet. I think it's much easier. Much simpler to learn and much less risky. Unfortunately people don't treat it like they do a real investment. So they don't get returns like a real investment.
 
Also, just had a random thought sparked by all the real estate convo here....

Why not think of Internet Marketing as Virtual Real Estate?

For example, you buy a shitty house for 40k on auction, spend 25k in rehabs, and rent it out for $1,200 a month. Assuming you paid up front for everything and didn't finance anything, add in maintenance/management costs and let's say you make your money back in 7-8 years, after that you make $1200 a month in profit every month ($14,400 a year). I know, it's an oversimplified example, but you get the idea....

Now lets say you build an EPN site, for example, and it costs you $200-$500 (in $ and time) to build, let's say it makes you $50 a month, you make back your money in 10 months, the rest is profit (maybe minor ongoing seo costs).

Now lets say you invest the same $65k you invested in property into 130 websites (at $500 each) and then make you an average of $50 a month each, you now make $6,500 a month, you make the month back in 10 months, and then you make $6,500 a month profit a month thereafter...

I know these are oversimplified examples, but i think they are both somewhat realistic on both sides. Buying cheap sites that can make $50 a month at $500-$1000 is very doable. And you can likely do WAY better than these numbers in IM if you know what you're doing.....
 
Once again. Were just talking about investing dollars earned online.

No mater were you make you're money, you still have to diversify and protect your assets. I cant image relying on rebills to support me when I'm old.

Found an interesting investment diversification plan.
1) US STOCKS [IWV, VTI, SPY]
2) FOREIGN STOCKS [VEU, EFA, CWI]
3) US BONDS [AGG, BIV, TIP]
4) FOREIGN BONDS [IGOV, WIP, PCY]
5) REAL ESTATE [IYR, ICF, RWX]
6) COMMODITIES [GSP, DBC, DJP]
7) FOREIGN CURRENCY [UDN, UUP, ICI]
8) OTHER (Small Business, Private Equity/Debt, Collectibles, Derivatives, Natural Resources, or a narrow subset of any of the other seven asset classes.)
* The V-8 is an eight-asset-class approach to investing. Above are seven important areas for all investors to invest in. The eighth spot can be anything that doesn't perform identically to the other seven. For each area, three exchange traded funds (ETF) are suggested as possible broad representatives of the class (by ticker symbol). Any one ETF will cover the asset, but they may be uses with others.
Valentine Ventures
 
Now lets say you build an EPN site, for example, and it costs you $200-$500 (in $ and time) to build, let's say it makes you $50 a month, you make back your money in 10 months, the rest is profit (maybe minor ongoing seo costs).

Now lets say you invest the same $65k you invested in property into 130 websites (at $500 each) and then make you an average of $50 a month each, you now make $6,500 a month, you make the month back in 10 months, and then you make $6,500 a month profit a month thereafter...

I know these are oversimplified examples, but i think they are both somewhat realistic on both sides. Buying cheap sites that can make $50 a month at $500-$1000 is very doable. And you can likely do WAY better than these numbers in IM if you know what you're doing.....

Questions I would have:

1. What's the shelf life of the websites? Given some ongoing SEO costs you mentioned (& I am inexperienced enough to not know specifically what you are referring to - maybe keeping up to date backlinks/bookmarking or something along that line?). How long can a website continue to produce money? Rental income Real Estate has a long term track record.

2. Where do you buy these websites - and how do you believe the earnings? I have seen things for sale over the years but never knew what to believe.

3. Back to question 1 above. All things equal - $65K in websites vs. Real Estate, The websites even with a shelf life much shorter than Real Estate is still an attractive idea. In Real Estate we assume 50% of rent for expenses (vacancy, prop taxes, insurance, repairs etc) that brings the $1,200, even after everything is paid free and clear, down to $600, so you can quickly see that even if the websites have a shelf life much shorter than the Real Estate they still make a great deal.


I would be interested to know where the websites that earn a little are sold - maybe to buy 1 or at least to study them to understand the approach. - OK I will bring that question to the Newbie Section - no dickrolls needed. But I have to admit I have zero patience for stupid people etc on some Real Estate forums so I understand completely why there is zero tolerance for dumb shits that do not stick to their section.
 
think-outside-the-box.jpg
 
Questions I would have:

1. What's the shelf life of the websites? Given some ongoing SEO costs you mentioned (& I am inexperienced enough to not know specifically what you are referring to - maybe keeping up to date backlinks/bookmarking or something along that line?). How long can a website continue to produce money? Rental income Real Estate has a long term track record.

2. Where do you buy these websites - and how do you believe the earnings? I have seen things for sale over the years but never knew what to believe.

3. Back to question 1 above. All things equal - $65K in websites vs. Real Estate, The websites even with a shelf life much shorter than Real Estate is still an attractive idea. In Real Estate we assume 50% of rent for expenses (vacancy, prop taxes, insurance, repairs etc) that brings the $1,200, even after everything is paid free and clear, down to $600, so you can quickly see that even if the websites have a shelf life much shorter than the Real Estate they still make a great deal.


I would be interested to know where the websites that earn a little are sold - maybe to buy 1 or at least to study them to understand the approach. - OK I will bring that question to the Newbie Section - no dickrolls needed. But I have to admit I have zero patience for stupid people etc on some Real Estate forums so I understand completely why there is zero tolerance for dumb shits that do not stick to their section.

As far as getting sites, you can buy them all over the place. But you can also make them from scratch. EPN sites are pretty easy to make with PHPbay or something like that. you can pay someone to do it for you also.

As far as longevity, i have a few adsense blogs and phpbay sites that are years old (2-5 years) and still make over $100 a month each and i have not touched them (any seo or anything) since i started them. Granted I've had a few sites that got de-indexed and stopped making money, but most haven't.

I have a freebie blog (it was my first site i ever started, back in 2005) that makes $300-$400 a month. I pay someone $100 a month to post a few freebies a day, so i make $200-$300 a month and i do absolutely nothing for it.

If i weren't so damn busy with bigger projects and so lazy about smaller projects i would make a lot more sites, but i have a few more important things on my plate that will make a lot more money. But as long term investment strategy, i plan on building out more sites like the ones i have (in addition to other things mentioned in this thread).
 
Also, just had a random thought sparked by all the real estate convo here....

Why not think of Internet Marketing as Virtual Real Estate?

For example, you buy a shitty house for 40k on auction, spend 25k in rehabs, and rent it out for $1,200 a month. Assuming you paid up front for everything and didn't finance anything, add in maintenance/management costs and let's say you make your money back in 7-8 years, after that you make $1200 a month in profit every month ($14,400 a year). I know, it's an oversimplified example, but you get the idea.......

I just finished one and rented it for $1,300 / month. Paid 45k cash spent 7k in rehab. I picked up another one last weekend for $13,000. Going to put prly 5k into it, will rent around $800/month.


Really depends on the neighborhood as I have a 145k one that rents for only $950.

College areas with large amounts of bedrooms are best.
 
As far as getting sites, you can buy them all over the place. But you can also make them from scratch. EPN sites are pretty easy to make with PHPbay or something like that. you can pay someone to do it for you also.

As far as longevity, i have a few adsense blogs and phpbay sites that are years old (2-5 years) and still make over $100 a month each and i have not touched them (any seo or anything) since i started them. Granted I've had a few sites that got de-indexed and stopped making money, but most haven't.

I have a freebie blog (it was my first site i ever started, back in 2005) that makes $300-$400 a month. I pay someone $100 a month to post a few freebies a day, so i make $200-$300 a month and i do absolutely nothing for it.

If i weren't so damn busy with bigger projects and so lazy about smaller projects i would make a lot more sites, but i have a few more important things on my plate that will make a lot more money. But as long term investment strategy, i plan on building out more sites like the ones i have (in addition to other things mentioned in this thread).


Thanks - that's a good reason for me to learn around here. I was thinking about a domain name I have with freebie in it from back in 2005 - and was thinking - what a hassle to update it etc - of course I am incredibly stupid and did not even think of having another keep it going.

It is amazing how much knowledge and skill there is on this forum - and unbelievable the value of that skill if leveraged into real world ROI #'s. I mean if the average person just bought a website every month instead of making a car payment then in theory, given the numbers we discussed, they could have 12 $50 month income streams by the end of the year - enough to make payments for them far into the future.

If you scaled it up then you could certainly have your $1,000,000 - well who needs $1MM - you really want the cash flow from the $1MM. - At 10%/year you need $100,000 or $8,334/month or 167 $50/month sites. So what you are saying if I buy 167 $50/month income sites @ $500 each it will cost me $83,500 to buy myself a $100,000/year income stream.


Wow.
 
The truth is, an average person can become a millionaire in pretty much any industry (unless it first requires years of education or large amounts of financial investment).

The trick is to:

1. Choose the business you're going to build.
2. Focus SOLELY on building that business (don't get sidetracked by all the other ways you can make money).
3. Don't give up... you WILL experience obstacles. The people who become millionaires don't let the obstacles stop them in their tracks.
4. Be patient... while a few people become millionaires overnight, it takes most people a few years to reach that goal.