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Let's share some interesting venture stories that you've done.
First and Last Hardware venture:
(This took place during grad school)
I was in the hardware manufacturing business for a few weeks selling a temperature sensor that I designed and manufactured. Materials cost was $5 per item and selling price was $30. Advertisement was via usenet newsgroups and I've built a prototype (wire wrap). The actual devices will be PCB (printed circuit board); but I've never made a PCB before).
The first order came, for 4 devices going to 3 different customers. So I go out and bought a drill and a bit. The salesman told me that skinny bits are dangerous as they may break (I appreciate the warning) and showed me how to use the drill. I figured that PCB, hey, making 1 should take the same amount of time as making 10 right? Mass production: etch multiple boards on a large board and then saw it into the individual boards.
I also bought a hack saw for this venture.
Ok, the etching wasn't a problem. It went as planned; I draw 4 duplicates and etch away. But as soon as I started drilling (it was a hand drill), I realized just how tough the PCB is; really hard stuff. Fortunately, I didn't have too many components on the each board.
Then it's cutting time. OMG, it must have taken me hours to hack saw thru the board. It's a simple 2-layered board (but thick as heck). I wanted to give up, but decided that people were committed and paid already. The time it took to make 4 is longer than 4 times the time it takes to make 1 due to the cutting.
Needless to say, after sending off the 4 devices; I shut the operation down immediately. There were a few more orders than came in, but no amount of orders will temp me from getting back in HW manufacturing.
First consulting venture:
(This took place during college and grad years)
I'm a geek and like to have the latest in personal computing. Parents told me buy it with my own money (they did buy a 286 PC for $1500 for me, but being smart, refused to believe that PCs need upgrading every few months).
Well, I do have jobs throughout college, but I had different use for that money. I wanted to pay for my PCs with extra money, and what better ways to make it than thru the PC itself.
Back then, Computer Shopper magazine was getting thicker with each month. It's the cheapest source of computer parts for most people. But not for me. I've been buying PC components for a long time and have established a few suppliers that cuts the CS prices.
So, I took to advertise on usenet newsgroup and resale components at a mark up from my suppliers. I don't keep any inventory and would issue receipts from my end while suppliers ship from their end and sending me the receipts. It was a pretty good business and paid for the latest PC technology in my PCs.
Things were good; then one day a supplier was shocked when I told him how much I've been selling his stuff (more like how little my mark up was) and that he's shipping them all over the country. He wanted to know how I'm not losing money.
I told him about usenet newgroups, but he had no idea. He offered to pay me some money to set him up. Well, at that time Internet access wasn't common, you can't just buy a modem and sign up with an ISP, there were none. Compuserve was their own little network; most BBSs were single node home machines somebody decided to publish their phone numbers.
So, I opened an account for him at one of the college computers and let him access usenet newgroups. Taught him how to dial in and post stuff, and he agreed to pay my a commission on each Internet sale.
That was great because he was able to sell a lot more than I was able to. So I called up a few other suppliers and see if they would be interested. Later, I contacted the CS vendors. I made "a lot" (it's really very small, but back then I thought it was a lot) of money consulting that year. Internet prices came down pretty fast. When I first sold stuff, my new stuff price was cheaper than people's used stuff prices, but after 2 years or so, the Internet prices were as good as CS.
As time goes on, my commissions were getting smaller (I think the vendors just didn't want to pay me or they just can't sell online due to the decreased prices). Finally, nobody uses they accounts anymore so I pulled the plug (it was easy as I controlled their accounts/online access), but that's also when AOL started to link their network with the Internet.
First Tax auction venture:
(2004/5)
You know those western movies where houses were auctioned off on the courthouse steps, then at that pivotal moment, the hero comes up with the cash to buy his house back?
Well, I've dabbed in tax auctions for a year and it's really like the movies except no owners ever showed up to yank the property away last minute. They'd pay up but it alwys happens before the auction (sometimes just a day before). But none the less, it is an interesting experience.
These are land/house that got taken by the government for back taxes. Some even have mortgage when the lander failed to notice the tax delinquency (these are usually bought by the lenders just prior to auction). As you can imagine, the prices are low, but one must be diligent in research to not end up losing money (you know, even fixer upper buyers can lose money).
At the time wife wasn't working and my job (as usual) offers flexible time, and both of us treated this as a fun thing to do (more fun than ,say, watching a movie). We've spend some time in the county offices and driving around. Got to know the county well.
Here's the priceless part: I also used this opportunity to convenience wife to get her conceal carry license (yeah, you know, when you are into guns and your spouse isn't, it can be an obstacle to buying guns). It's always good to be more prepared in the country side, that was my argument.
In our Travis county of 1m people, a surprisingly small the number of people attend the tax auctions. You get to know the regulars and become a regular within a few months. Jokes about certain properties at the auctions; usually on those that nobody ever bid on.
And new people, usually young couples, you just know they were there for that nice house/condo and see their disappointed faces when it's found out that the owner paid up and yanked from the auction. But this may be their blessing in disguise (there's a lot of got-chas unless you do proper research, like if you buy a primary residence, the owner can redeem it after 6 month? can't remmeber, it's been a while; and you better be prepared to protest property value assessments).
We normally don't pay too much attention to the nice hoses (or businesses) because they almost always get taken off, but we do put at bit of effort to come up with a price, just in case.
The bulk of our research goes into land, esp the empty lots holding specific potentials (like in specific zoning). During the year, we picked up just 2 pieces of land; we were very conservative. One of them sold for 10x the price and the other for 7x. One of the land we owner financed and it's been 10 some years, we are still getting his check.
We quit when wife decided to go back to work. Also towards the later 2005, we begin seeing a lot of California investors (via proxy bidders) driving up prices to ridiculously high levels. Properties that used to not fetch anything (i.e. nobody bids on) are now being sold.
But this experience opened us up to land investments and commercial real estate. And provides an interesting experience that keep friends entertained at parties.
First and Last Hardware venture:
(This took place during grad school)
I was in the hardware manufacturing business for a few weeks selling a temperature sensor that I designed and manufactured. Materials cost was $5 per item and selling price was $30. Advertisement was via usenet newsgroups and I've built a prototype (wire wrap). The actual devices will be PCB (printed circuit board); but I've never made a PCB before).
The first order came, for 4 devices going to 3 different customers. So I go out and bought a drill and a bit. The salesman told me that skinny bits are dangerous as they may break (I appreciate the warning) and showed me how to use the drill. I figured that PCB, hey, making 1 should take the same amount of time as making 10 right? Mass production: etch multiple boards on a large board and then saw it into the individual boards.
I also bought a hack saw for this venture.
Ok, the etching wasn't a problem. It went as planned; I draw 4 duplicates and etch away. But as soon as I started drilling (it was a hand drill), I realized just how tough the PCB is; really hard stuff. Fortunately, I didn't have too many components on the each board.
Then it's cutting time. OMG, it must have taken me hours to hack saw thru the board. It's a simple 2-layered board (but thick as heck). I wanted to give up, but decided that people were committed and paid already. The time it took to make 4 is longer than 4 times the time it takes to make 1 due to the cutting.
Needless to say, after sending off the 4 devices; I shut the operation down immediately. There were a few more orders than came in, but no amount of orders will temp me from getting back in HW manufacturing.
First consulting venture:
(This took place during college and grad years)
I'm a geek and like to have the latest in personal computing. Parents told me buy it with my own money (they did buy a 286 PC for $1500 for me, but being smart, refused to believe that PCs need upgrading every few months).
Well, I do have jobs throughout college, but I had different use for that money. I wanted to pay for my PCs with extra money, and what better ways to make it than thru the PC itself.
Back then, Computer Shopper magazine was getting thicker with each month. It's the cheapest source of computer parts for most people. But not for me. I've been buying PC components for a long time and have established a few suppliers that cuts the CS prices.
So, I took to advertise on usenet newsgroup and resale components at a mark up from my suppliers. I don't keep any inventory and would issue receipts from my end while suppliers ship from their end and sending me the receipts. It was a pretty good business and paid for the latest PC technology in my PCs.
Things were good; then one day a supplier was shocked when I told him how much I've been selling his stuff (more like how little my mark up was) and that he's shipping them all over the country. He wanted to know how I'm not losing money.
I told him about usenet newgroups, but he had no idea. He offered to pay me some money to set him up. Well, at that time Internet access wasn't common, you can't just buy a modem and sign up with an ISP, there were none. Compuserve was their own little network; most BBSs were single node home machines somebody decided to publish their phone numbers.
So, I opened an account for him at one of the college computers and let him access usenet newgroups. Taught him how to dial in and post stuff, and he agreed to pay my a commission on each Internet sale.
That was great because he was able to sell a lot more than I was able to. So I called up a few other suppliers and see if they would be interested. Later, I contacted the CS vendors. I made "a lot" (it's really very small, but back then I thought it was a lot) of money consulting that year. Internet prices came down pretty fast. When I first sold stuff, my new stuff price was cheaper than people's used stuff prices, but after 2 years or so, the Internet prices were as good as CS.
As time goes on, my commissions were getting smaller (I think the vendors just didn't want to pay me or they just can't sell online due to the decreased prices). Finally, nobody uses they accounts anymore so I pulled the plug (it was easy as I controlled their accounts/online access), but that's also when AOL started to link their network with the Internet.
First Tax auction venture:
(2004/5)
You know those western movies where houses were auctioned off on the courthouse steps, then at that pivotal moment, the hero comes up with the cash to buy his house back?
Well, I've dabbed in tax auctions for a year and it's really like the movies except no owners ever showed up to yank the property away last minute. They'd pay up but it alwys happens before the auction (sometimes just a day before). But none the less, it is an interesting experience.
These are land/house that got taken by the government for back taxes. Some even have mortgage when the lander failed to notice the tax delinquency (these are usually bought by the lenders just prior to auction). As you can imagine, the prices are low, but one must be diligent in research to not end up losing money (you know, even fixer upper buyers can lose money).
At the time wife wasn't working and my job (as usual) offers flexible time, and both of us treated this as a fun thing to do (more fun than ,say, watching a movie). We've spend some time in the county offices and driving around. Got to know the county well.
Here's the priceless part: I also used this opportunity to convenience wife to get her conceal carry license (yeah, you know, when you are into guns and your spouse isn't, it can be an obstacle to buying guns). It's always good to be more prepared in the country side, that was my argument.
In our Travis county of 1m people, a surprisingly small the number of people attend the tax auctions. You get to know the regulars and become a regular within a few months. Jokes about certain properties at the auctions; usually on those that nobody ever bid on.
And new people, usually young couples, you just know they were there for that nice house/condo and see their disappointed faces when it's found out that the owner paid up and yanked from the auction. But this may be their blessing in disguise (there's a lot of got-chas unless you do proper research, like if you buy a primary residence, the owner can redeem it after 6 month? can't remmeber, it's been a while; and you better be prepared to protest property value assessments).
We normally don't pay too much attention to the nice hoses (or businesses) because they almost always get taken off, but we do put at bit of effort to come up with a price, just in case.
The bulk of our research goes into land, esp the empty lots holding specific potentials (like in specific zoning). During the year, we picked up just 2 pieces of land; we were very conservative. One of them sold for 10x the price and the other for 7x. One of the land we owner financed and it's been 10 some years, we are still getting his check.
We quit when wife decided to go back to work. Also towards the later 2005, we begin seeing a lot of California investors (via proxy bidders) driving up prices to ridiculously high levels. Properties that used to not fetch anything (i.e. nobody bids on) are now being sold.
But this experience opened us up to land investments and commercial real estate. And provides an interesting experience that keep friends entertained at parties.
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