Starting a business

[Amadeus9]

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

[dimots]

Amadeus9 said:

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

Lend your money to someone and ask for a few hundred quid a week back until it's paid off.

[Simpo Two]

Amadeus9 said:

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

Stick to what you're good at - the world is full of people reselling junk.

You're a musician - how about teaching music? It seems a huge market, not just children but adults too. You could be freelance or get a job with whoever runs schools in your area. It will cost far less than £8K to get started, so you can invest the rest

[Vincecj]

Amadeus9 said:

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

Buy my van and do man & van stuff.

[Amadeus9]

Simpo Two said:

Stick to what you're good at - the world is full of people reselling junk.

You're a musician - how about teaching music? It seems a huge market, not just children but adults too. You could be freelance or get a job with whoever runs schools in your area. It will cost far less than £8K to get started, so you can invest the rest

I have been teaching music for the last 23 years so I am trying to get out of it now. At the moment I am just tutoring part time online and want to start some business selling something.

[StevieBee]

Trouble is that there's so many variables and so many options, to ask such a broad question is to invite so many different replies that you'll be no better off.

What floats your boat? What are you good at apart from music? You say you want to sell something but are you any good at selling?

[Ham_and_Jam]

Amadeus9 said:

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

Go on Dragons Den with a couple of handbags.

[andyb28]

Amadeus9 said:

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

Wow, this is a bit lazy.
You are asking other people to come up with good money making business ideas for you.

Keep it simple ...

1. Do something you enjoy.
2. Work out how to monetize that.

Run the ideas via friends and go with it.

[Simpo Two]

Amadeus9 said:

I have been teaching music for the last 23 years so I am trying to get out of it now.

Ah, you didn't say actually that. 'Musician' suggests you get paid to play in orchestras/bands.

So, how good are you at marketing and sales?

[Doofus]

Could you put the £8k towards the hotel you're thinking of buying?

[Louis Balfour]

Amadeus9 said:

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

Busking.

I think some buskers do very well. Notably those that perform with others.

[singlecoil]

Have you thought of becoming a court composer? Vienna would be a good place to start.

[skwdenyer]

Amadeus9 said:

I have £8k saved up for a business. WHat business should I do? I would like to earn a few hundred quid a week from it to go along with my part time earnings. I am a musician and so selling musical instruments was one thing I thought about but there are big dealers online already doing that.
Perhaps an Ebay or Amazon business might be OK for what I need. It's just trying to work out what I could sell as most things have already been done if it's a good earner. Any ideas welcome.

What do you know? What do you enjoy?

Whatever you choose, to turn £8k into a decent income stream is going to require a lot of hard work, a lot of instinctive decision-making, a lot of "getting the big calls right."

DSLiverpool will tell you there are people making good money selling off-brand perfume on TikTok. Are you in your 20s? Are you a ballsy, brass-necked barrow boy type? (sorry DSL, massive stereotyping here). Can you build a social profile, a following, and milk them for all they're worth? If not then that's not a business for you.

Can you sell? Are you great in one-on-one deal-closing? Is that a key skill? If not, you need to eliminate anything that requires that skill.

Are you great at picking-out what others will buy, and - importantly - how much they're willing to pay for it (day in day out, not just a few items)? If you are, great, buy some "stuff" and sell it - simples

Can you repair instruments? Would your £8k buy some tools, materials, and advertising? Singlecoil on here is a guitar repairer (amongst other things), who thinks there's good money in that market.

Do you enjoy cooking? Writing articles? Teaching?

If you enjoy teaching, can you expand your teaching to include producing online content? Do you enjoy it? Videos, etc. Either subscription, or Patreon, or simply a tiered offering. If Little Johnny's parents can't afford in-person one-to-one teaching, would they pay a smaller amount for weekly group sessions online? Or even one-to-one online?

Running a business is conceptually easy: find a product or service that you can sell for more than it costs you to acquire / create, with sufficient left over after your wages to pay for all the costs like promotion, premises, and so on. Making that a reality is much harder - because carving-out that value-add is the tough bit.

But, as the French might say, you must "cherchez le creneau" - find the niche, the space in which what you do (or what you can do) will resonate with an audience who aren't already served by lots of other people driving the margins down.

In economically-uncertain times, think what people want to know about, and will pay for. I can imagine a low-cost energy improvement consultant might do well, for instance (assessing homes for low-cost high-gain improvements they can do on a budget / DIY) - "pay me £100 and I'll save you at least £100 a year" is the sort of pitch I'm thinking of. But do you want to learn to be an energy improvement consultant?

Tell us more about yourself and you might find some better suggestions. Also where you are. If you're in Blackpool (per your other thread post), maybe the best thing to do with your £8k would be to invest in moving to somewhere more prosperous with parents who'll pay more for music tuition?

[Truckosaurus]

As mentioned on the 'side hustles' thread recently, I know a chap who is a bass guitar player and as a sideline he keeps his eyes out on eBay, Gumtree, local papers etc for adverts for guitars where the seller has misdescribed it or doesn't know that it is a rare model or colour.

He just re-sells them with a proper description for an easy profit.

I'm sure you can also add value by tuning and cleaning instruments you buy cheaply from people who are bored of an attempt to learn an instrument.

(Also, opportunities for upselling instruments to your music pupils)

[singlecoil]

Truckosaurus said:

As mentioned on the 'side hustles' thread recently, I know a chap who is a bass guitar player and as a sideline he keeps his eyes out on eBay, Gumtree, local papers etc for adverts for guitars where the seller has misdescribed it or doesn't know that it is a rare model or colour.

He just re-sells them with a proper description for an easy profit.

I'm sure you can also add value by tuning and cleaning instruments you buy cheaply from people who are bored of an attempt to learn an instrument.

(Also, opportunities for upselling instruments to your music pupils)

I've spent months looking for such bargains, all I can find is people asking way more that the guitar is worth, rather than less. Still, if it works for him then good luck.

[DSLiverpool]

Look at anything you have an advantage or specialist skill in. Eg do you have a pal with a huge social media following etc

£8k is decent, we started Velstar with £9k

[cholo]

I think you're thinking about this the wrong way.

You need to decide;

1 What you enjoy
2.What you are good at
3. What there is a 'need' or shortage for. Ie whether people are prepared to pay for it regularly.

Only when you have found something that matches all 3 of these things, then you should consider starting a business in it.

Whther you need £0. £8k, or £80k should come as a secondary consideration, surely?