hey guys, have you ever thought about making an online business

im thinking of investing in making a porn site for monthly subscription. theres always demand for porn. any ideas?

>>1050080

Do you remember making a cool hundred million gp in Runescape 10 years ago? I do. Do what you did for that.

Don't remember? It was called 'Merchanting' and it's still the best thing to do. Buy low, sell high.

People on eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, etc. are constantly looking for things to buy and you can constantly be finding those things for significantly cheaper than they're willing to pay. The real $$$ comes once you find a few clients that are, by nature of their reason for purchasing, going to be repeat-customers so you get more into a schedule.

There are places on the internet to buy things in bulk (Alibaba, etc.) or you might just find a better deal on something on one of the competing websites. You get them for less and you sell them for more. It's easy in theory but it takes work to make money.

This is what I do. I'm currently posting from South Africa but I'm only visiting. I spend about a quarter of the year living in Canada (with my parents) but the rest of the time I'm abroad.

Are other people making more money than me with less effort / better strategies? Fuck yes they are. But I'm staying in my own lane while saving because this is what works for me right now.

I spend ~6 hours working per day but I usually work 7 days a week so it's not like I'm a master of passive income or anything like that either, OP. Just fair warning.

>>1050100
Do you source your own products or do you focus more on arbitrage?

>>1050100
how did you know i play runescape? yeah i remember when i was playing with the grand exchange for fun. i bought 50m gp then merchanted my way to 70m. it sounds like a real hassle to deal with real life items though. have to pay and wait for shipping, have to becareful not to buy deceiving products.. etc. working 6 hours a day for 7 days a week sounds pretty rough too.
how much do you earn?

>>1050106

With more expensive, single-unit/one-purchase products I drop-ship. It works for me but, again, I can happily admit that I'm not much of an expert and I'm lurking here for the same reasons as you guys, most likely. Just trying to hustle.

With smaller products that people buy in large quantities and have a more regular, consistent market I started getting into purchasing bulk and splitting things up / selling in smaller quantity some time last year and this has also been working well for me but it's a bit of a longer, less-active game.

With my strengths/weaknesses I find that a combination of both is good for me overall, taking into consideration things like revenue, expenses as well as intangibles like motivation and general happiness (not a total shark yet).

>>1050109
>how did you know i play runescape?

Kek. Glad to hear it, you've learned the basics.

I'll admit that it is a real hassle but that's also why it's feasible. If it was easy then everybody would be doing it and it wouldn't make financial sense (I suppose).

As stated above you can get around the "have to pay and wait for shipping" by drop-shipping to clients (ideally from places that offer a 'gift package' without receipts/logos).

6hrs/7 days isn't something I hope to keep up forever but I've got the time/energy for it now and I don't come from money so I put up with it.

In 2015 (the first year that I did the above full time for an entire calendar year) I took home ~$95k after all business/living expenses are accounted for.

I know this isn't the millions you're probably hoping for (trust me I'm gunning for it too) but it was a lot for me and I feel that I've learned quite a bit in that time.

I should mention that I was living for dirt cheap in shitty places for most of last year (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand) and I wasn't exactly living luxuriously either, but it was fun/worthwhile. Small, cheap, apartment. Cheap fast meals most of the time.

>>1050080

I've thought about it.

But there's drawbacks to 3rd world countries.

>>1050124

This is also something I should highlight more.

Visiting these places is worlds apart from living in them. In my experience the magic wears off in 3 weeks or so and then you're just living in a shitty country. It has its own fun for sure but for me it was just a way to get away from the distractions at home and live cheaply. You get what you pay for.

I've been looking into Eastern Europe and even cheap parts of the USA but I'm also a bit of a /pol/ack and so I don't know where I plan to settle in for 2016. I'll probably live at home in Canada for most of this year to be honest.

>>1050121
$95k? a little bit of exaggeration right?

man why didn't you live big while you were in those countries? i've been to china before and spending $2000 usd a month there would just be living like a king. i was eating the best food ever at high end restaurants like every other day, living in hotels every day, constantly traveling to different cities and going on tours, and occasionally buying hookers. it was the bomb. and i know other asian countries are cheaper than china too.

oh by the way i wanted to ask you, were you able to determine the price range of an item accurately? i mean aside from looking at what other sellers are selling for online, were there any other tools you relied on?

>>1050135
it becomes a really fun adventure though when you got a good friend there or have someone tagging along.

>>1050137

I was going to say no exaggeration at all until I remembered that I might have forgot to specify that I'm Canadian and always thinking in Canadian terms.

$95,000 CAD is only about $65,000 USD at the moment because our country is fucking falling apart. Feels bad as shit, man. So, if you thought I was talking USD then that's a huge exaggeration but no, my "straight to the bank" (before taxes) was $95,000 CAD.

I actually haven't been to China yet but my hometown (Vancouver) is almost majority Chinese now and I like what they bring there (unironically). I'd like to go at some point but I'd want to save up more before I do that.

Any tourist recs there? How were the hookers? kek

>aside from looking at what other sellers are selling for online, were there any other tools you relied on?

Often I was relying more on what people were offering / buying an item for (looking at Craigslist ads on a bunch of relevant cities). Sometimes I would just e-mail people if I learned that they were in a particular business and see if I could arrange a deal with them but this fizzled out or got no reply 90% of the time (if not more).

Most of the time, though, yeah - just looking at places online (this is where some work comes in - I was checking local buy/sell/trade facebook groups and all sorts of shit) and seeing what people were willing to pay for things and I would go from there.

>>1050143

>tfw

I went traveling with a friend for a month ~1.5 years ago and it was some of the most fun I've ever had in my life but I didn't really get around to doing anything like that this year. I'm pretty introverted so I didn't get to socializing much at all anywhere outside of the occasional bar night or casual fling.

The more I type to you guys the less I feel like I'm giving any useful advice and instead feel like I'm critically evaluating my enjoyable but fairly average lifestyle. This is good for me but apologies to anyone who was hoping for some secrets of the trade.

>>1050121
How long have you been doing this as a side hustle before deciding to go full time?

>>1050157
65k is still enough to live a pretty cozy life.

Did you face any major roadblocks building up to this point?

>>1050089

there's plenty of porn sites already

>>1050157
no no, $95000 CAD is still a massive income. the only jobs in canada that earn around 100k from upper management in business or master degree healthcare jobs. Its just kind of hard to believe that someone can make that amount just from merchanting on ebay or amazon. i mean im guessing you'd have to have some expert skills in this line of work. im actually canadian too. sucks about the dollar going to shit. it makes travelers and immigrants suffer a lot because we have to consider our assets in other currencies.

>>1050080
Problem I see is dropshipping margins are too thin but if its a made in america product (so from recent trends say a line of ejuice) you have to stay stateside to deal with sales (expos and things) or you wont be relevant

>>1050080
Know all those office jobs in the world? The ones where you sit at a computer all day? Get one of them which allows you to work from home. Home is anywhere.

Be me for the past 6 years.

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>>1050157
Honestly, China is amazing. it has a bad rep for a lot of things, but its honestly a very fun place to go. I'm pretty sure it has more tourist destinations than any country in the world. not only historical stuff, but lots of modern entertainment, and plenty of nature. my favorite places were some mountains and rivers that i visited with my friend there. food is amazing ofcourse. the hookers were great too. you can find them easily in hotels, karaoke, massage businesses, and obviously small districts at night. thats in order from most expensive to least expensive. id say massage places usually have the prettiest and most skillful girls though. plenty of supply. i'd say you can get more bang for buck buying hookers in china than in the US.

>>1050080
To do some passive income , I think you should learn from someone who made it. I really do not think very successful people lurk around 4chan. Therefore, you should look at this site:
http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/category/podcast/
for basic knowledge from a guy who made it. episode 192-193-194 are the shit. Do not expect some magic formula, manly basic principals in order to have a good start.

>>1050080

>low wage places eg. thailand, china

lol. I lived in China; in Chengdu, which is cheaper than the coast and it's still way too expensive for the lifestyle you get (you're paying over $3USD for a litre of not shit milk and not going to go more than 15mph in traffic. A latte is about $5 as well, even more at Starbucks and because the milk isn't that good it doesn't taste that good either). You *can* live cheaply there but I don't recommend that either.

Thailand, I have no experience with, but I know you can get a retirement visa, and you don't even need that much: http://www.thaiembassy.com/retire/retire.php
------------------------------------------------------------

Meeting the Financial Requirements for a Retirement Visa:

Financial Requirements are as follows:

Bank Account showing THB 800,000
Monthly income of at least THB 65,000
Combination (Bank Account + Income x 12 = THB 800,000)

--------------------------------------------------------

800,000THB is 22,035.23USD, or about one month's rent in San Francisco

>>1050190
dude i thought about that too. arent there incomming call jobs that you can do at home? but you can't go to another country to do it right? i mean it goes from domestic calling to international calls. im sure no company would want to hire you and pay for international calling fees. i think there are laws too in most other countries which state you cannot work without a work permit otherwise they will deport you and ban you from re-entering

>>1050159

Probably 1.5 years total as a side hustle, starting fairly small (think weekends only) but getting progressively more serious about it until I was confident that I could quit my soul-crushing day job.

>>1050174

I can't complain about much unless you include the usual depression, suicidal thoughts, etc. Anxiety about quitting my 'stable' job and a few deals gone bad / fuckers fighting for a refund. Part of the game?

>>1050180

I was working as a lawyer before this (I went kindergarten to JD) and making more money but it was somehow worse than I had expected. I quit before I got sucked too far into the lifestyle. Funnily enough one of my bosses was probably the most supportive of this decision. There's a lot of regret in the field and it was eye-opening. You wouldn't be incorrect to say that I have experience in what I do. Expertise not quite yet. Also keep in mind I don't get any benefits or bonuses at all that you'd get making $95k from an employer.

>>1050192

Glad to hear it m8. You go to those trippy colorful mountains that look like some sort of psychedelic fairytale? I'll find a pic for you if you don't know what I'm talking about.

You smoke any weed while you were there?

>>1050218
>part of the game?
Not yet but I plan to. I've been doing my research in my down time between classes. It's just a bit hard to find legit info and not the "guru" BS that's spammed all over the interwebs.
But I'm just about at the point where I'm going to dive in. I just can't decide on sourcing my own niche products or starting with arbitrage.

>>1050212
Incorrect. You would be working in your home country, be paid into your home country bank account, file home country taxes. How would anyone know you're working in a foreign country, let alone try and claim it's illegal. It's illegal to work in a foreign country if you don't have a work permit/visa etc. but you're not doing that, you're working remotely for your home country.

Be me for the past 6 years

>>1050210
i was actually very close to where you were. i stayed in Xian, Shaanxi province for 3 months and spent another 3 months traveling other places. you can easily find decent hotels for 150 to 250 yuan per day in most of china which comes out to 700 to 1100 usd per month. assume you eat at restaurants 3x a day and spend 20-30 yuan per meal which is for sure a good meal you'd only spend 400 usd a month on good food, spend about 2000 yuan a month on traveling fees, which is 300 usd, you still got a lot left for entertainment.

>>1050100
I've always considered doing this but i just don't know what products to sell and how to get customers.

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>>1050218
naw i don't smoke weed or do any other drugs. although im sure its not hard to find drugs in china.
it felt very much like a fairytale. when im not strolling through the crowded cities full of lights at night, im going on hikes and climbing mountains during the day. so relaxing and fun.

pic related. here my friend and i went to visit a popular mountain in a small county, then we decided to go right off the map and walk for a mile to enjoy the nature

>>1050238
where do you live and what is your home country?

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anyone familiar with youtube monetization?

providing that you make the same content, which is easier to get ad revenue? making a blog or a youtube channel?

i recently came across a youtube channel of a guy who travels around the world and make videos of him having fun. he has 1.6 million subscribers and probably funds his trips completely based on ad revenue from youtube. hes getting PAID to travel and enjoy himself

>>1050283
>providing that you make the same content, which is easier to get ad revenue? making a blog or a YouTube channel?
I believe that mainly depends on what niche you are planing to monetize and the type of audience you are trying to reach.

>>1050270
Currently in USA, work for Australia, have also 'lived' in Canada and Europe

>>1050080
create a clothing line and use other companies to print your clothes. design them yourself and find an up-and-coming rapper on soundcloud and offer to sponsor him, give him free clothing shipments every month if he reps it under whatever terms you see fit. basically just leaves you to designing and distributing and even that can be automated / sourced to employees

>>1050334
so what kind of work do you do? its rare for companies to allow you to work 100% at home.

i mean i understand that sometimes you get projects that you can work on by yourself without supervision, but at some point you still gotta go to the company in person for meetings and fetching documents

>>1050080
I just started an online satire site with the hopes that a few years down the line it could give me some decent income, incase I wanted to move overseas.

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>>1050218
You mean the ones in Guilin? I'm going there soon. China is an amazing place, amazing people. Unfortunately the shitty government (and some shitty citizens) ruin it.

>>1050283
Top 10 videos are the easiest shit ever if you want ad revenue. It'll take a while before it's good income, but it WILL grow if your content is decent quality.

>>1050080
Victor Pride of Bold & Determined did this for many years, but he's coming back to the US after realizing that 3rd world countries are cheap for a reason.