Business Opportunities, Entrepreneur Resources and Tools, Business Reviews

If somebody told you that you need a lot of money to enter the business and investment game, they’re wrong.

You and I can be an investor, that also is a bootstrapper. I called it Bootstrapper-Investor

You can invest in business, real estate, paper asset, and other investment vehicles with limited resources.

How to be a proper bootstrapper-investor

Here’s a tip or two on how to be a good bootstrapper-investor:

Do online business - enter make money online market

Today is a good time to make money online - the market is there and the demand is very much higher than supply, in my opinion.

You can learn about this from the real life make money online expert, such as Yaro Starak, John Chow, and Darren Rowse. Please notice, that all that I mentioned is bloggers.

Why? Because the bloggers I mentioned are business owner, and they are more accessible than any online business owners - thanks to the nature of the blogosphere.

Find info on ‘cheap’ real estates

Despite today’s recession, real estate is pretty much still accessible. The idea of real estate is by investing 20 to 30 per cent of the property price tag - some even offer no down payment - you can own the property.

Just make sure you don’t assume that the property will go up in value - most of the time, yes. But today, not really. Invest properties for cash flow. Or, at least on the future potential of the properties.

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I would like to announce the sales of one of my web properties - First Worlds Web Directory.

It’s a niche web directory that incorporates bidding system.

I design the directory myself, based on the original template by the script I use - PHP Link Bid. So, the design is pretty much unique.

The reason behind the sales is due to the much needed investment to boost my offline business through recession.

If you are interested, please visit my auction at SitePoint.com through this banner:

Thanks!

Ivan Widjaya
Web property investor

In your personal finance endeavour, you have to, of course, secure your hard earned money.

Securing your money doesn’t mean opening the most safest account possible. Securing your money means opening accounts and diversify to increase the speed of your money - or in other words, increasing your earning from the interests.

The main goal here is to beat inflation by as much as you can.

My choice of leverages

I have several favourite leverages to increase the speed of my money. The breakdown is as follow:

1. Forex

Not necessarily in forex market, I like to invest long-term in forex that is strong and stable, such as the Euro or British Pounds.

2. Money market

Money market is global financial market for short-term borrowing and lending. In my opinion, a money market account is similar to a mutual fund account, with different market focus.I particularly enjoy online investing - so online money market account, such as M&T Bank eMoney Market Account , is also my choice of flexible, low risk and good yield account.

3. Business

Investing in a business has always been interesting for me. Choosing the right business will likely to return your investment 40 per cent annually - but the figure varies greatly, depending on the type of business.

4. Real Estate

Despite the recession, real estate is still my choice of investment. I particularly enjoy investing in business premises, rather than homes.

5. Precious metal

The safest investment of all is not your saving accounts or deposit accounts - it’s gold. Classic, time-tested and a true asset investment.

What about mutual fund? Sorry - it’s simply not my type of investment. Too volatile, particularly in the place where I currently live.

Let’s say I’m weak at heart in mutual funds and stocks :)

What is your choice of leverages? Share yours by commenting to this post.

Ivan Widjaya
Leveraging money

Today’s recession causes hardships to almost all of us. Inspirations, let alone resources, are difficult to come by. Why? Because we all focus on the problems, not on the solutions.

Here is one to inspire you: the rags to riches, or Noveau Riche stories.

Noveau Riche

Nouveau riche - a French term for ‘new rich’ - is referring to the group of people that are THE wealthy people of their generations, usually rises from poverty.

Their success stories are inspiring to me, because most of them start with nothing and be something - or shall I say - own everything.

One example from this Noveau Riche article is the life of William Gates III, or well known as Bill Gates of Microsoft.

Bill Gates is a Harvard drop-out that, along with Paul Allen, founded Microsoft. Today, he is the third richest person in the world (The richest American) and a Non-Executive Chairman of Microsoft, as well as, along with his wife, the founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Do you want to be rich?

“Do you want to be rich?” I do - I want to use my money for greater purposes. I keen on what Bill and Melinda Gates did, and if I have the opportunity, I’d exactly do what they did with their foundation.

But some don’t want to be rich.

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I never been into politics, not even on today’s US election.

However, I interested in learning how the US election will actually help US small businesses, as well as global small businesses, in receiving perks that will be beneficial for all.

Countdown to US November election has never been more exciting today, especially in both consumer and business credit cards industry.

A nation of which people regarded by many as big spenders, US Credit Debt is overwhelming and disrupting lives. Many of its people are in deep credit debt due to mismanaged personal finance, as well as non-conducive law and regulation.

The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights is highly advocated and anticipated today, due to the political purposes attached to it by the US presidential candidates.

Once provisions of Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights come into effect, you can expect fairer credit card regulations for both consumer and business.

Perks for small business owner

What the proposed provisions of Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights means to small business owner?

Once the provisions take effect, small business owners will enjoy no interest rates increase while they pay their bills regularly on time. Moreover, there will be no new interest rates can be applied to the balances accumulated under the previously low interest rate.

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The best thing happening to entrepreneurs is unlimited options.

Being an entrepreneur makes you break traditional boundaries and go with the best options and opportunities offered on the deal table.

In business financing, as an entrepreneur, you are often offered (and doctrinised) by the common financing options - using bank loans, borrowing from friends and family, searching for venture capital, factoring, and using credit cards.

But what if your previous bankruptcy is haunting you? What if you don’t have collaterals to take bank loan because you are in bootstrapping mode? What if you are having a mediocre credit score?

Some would suggest you to take a job and get into the workforce again. Some would suggest you to stop trying to be an entrepreneur at all. Some would even suggest you to borrow from loan shark!

If you are in such position and bothered by those suggestion, then consider other, non traditional, financing options.

Personal short term loan

You might have heard about payday loan, cash advance and other alternative route to financing. If you are considering those options, please also consider personal short term loan.

Personal short term loans, in simple, are personal loans that don’t require paperwork and long approval process, like the traditional bank loans, and do have a lower APR than payday loan, along with a convenient payment options.

Short term loans, or installment loans, allow you to pay off your loan in installment fashion until your balance is paid off. This way, your loan payment and due date is predictable.

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Shocking, against the mainstream believes, but true.

It is a statement from Mike Myatt, the writer of The Problem with Best Practices, a knol I just stumbled on in Google Knol today.

In fact, I blogged about it on my new blog-magazine, Knol Today - and I think I want to share his and my view regarding the problem with best practices.

The following is what I found interesting with Mike’s insights on best practices.

Best practices are not always the best for your business

Mike state that best practices are only a collection of methodologies, processes, rules, concepts and theories that have previously achieved success. This previous success cannot be regarded as universal truth, which unfortunately, many business experts, consultants and coaches insist you the otherwise.

Many so-called experts develop a book, training or software products that ’solutionised’ the best practices in the form of methodologies, concepts, theories and all things above. I truly agree to what Mike explained, that once this best practices become productised, that when objectivity is removed from the equation.

I am not saying that those books, training or any products that focus and utilise on best practices are bad. Many of them are actually excellent products, that if implemented correctly will yield the expected results.

However, you must remember that business issues, although similar, is not the same from one business to another. Together with the fact that business world is ever-changing and dynamic, it would be wrong to take the best practices as they are.

Best practices make you change into ‘me-too’

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Small businesses have their own perks - nimble and easily embrace changes.

Most of the small business owners I know work for themselves, and some others run a two or three person company.

From them, I learn that being small, often by choice, they are able to build an adaptable and adept business.

Many of them even have the revenue that match their bigger competitors that have a large amount of investment.

In term of investment, small business owners I know are all bootstrappers. They start with almost nothing, and currently have a five, six, even seven digits annual sales.

Why small business has all it takes to be big business

By being small, they can close control their businesses, while keeping themselves ‘off the radar’ from possible lawsuits, tax problems, harsh competitions, etc. Not that small businesses don’t face those issues; It’s more to the genetic feature of the small businesses themselves - small and nimble.

Small business requires a relatively low investment. This enables you to own multiple small businesses - consider this a diversification and spreading-the-risk techniques.

But most important reason of all, by being small, you can closely control your business and avoid the bureaucracy of big companies.

How to be a big business by being small

There are actually two routes to have a big business by being small - own a single business or own a multiple small or micro business.

Own a single business

Starting a business and focus on it for a long time can make the business big. You can stay in your business to control your business closely.

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Although financing your business with credit cards is a two-edged sword - it may sounds like a good idea or a risky business financing - many people turn to credit cards to finance their business.

One major advantage why people use credit cards financing is due to the ‘right’ combination of moderately high interest rate and the amount of credit card limit with no-collateral attached.

Why people use credit cards to fund their business

No matter how risky credit cards-based business is, there are actually success stories of people using credit cards as their leverage.

Why people would use credit cards to fund the business? Most of the cases, they avoid bank loans, because they need collaterals and strict (and complex) credit application approvals.

Why people would not turn to their friend and family for borrowing money? Many says that borrowing from friends and family is more risky than using a credit cards, as it involves risking the relationship.

Real life case studies

My fellow businessman once told me that his friend start a business and seek for partnership to join the business, with a requirement that the partner should have credit cards - the higher limit, the better. Soon he formed an LLC, with 6 or 7 partners and a startup ‘investment’ value of $75,000 in credit cards fund. The last time I heard about him, his small business is doing great.

One more case - I have a relative who finance some of his businesses (Yes - he has multiple small businesses) with credit cards. Although his business involves high volume transactions with low profit margins, he insisted to use credit cards, mainly because of the point rewards - he said that, the reward itself is a ‘nice’ addition to the business’ profit.

The last case is very interesting to me - let’s dig deeper on my relative business plan.

The use of reward credit cards as your business cash flow account

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