Have $370k liquid to my name. Work in car sales for the past 6 years making $150k a year.
I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, looking for business ideas and niche markets! What are some of your ideas?
28M , $370k liquid. What business would you go into?
byu/Booz7 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Booz7
27 Comments
I would start by learning, most likely taking your skills and turning them into an agency (example would be a sales agency)
Sell a course on selling cars lol
What’s the worst mistake in a lease ?
bro sell more cars
Do what you know. Why? Because you are on that track already.
Don’t get caught up trying to make an energy drink or some bs and totally underestimating it.
You clearly know what you’re doing in the car space..
Be the Theo and Harris of a niche of used cars (porsche 914s, or 1967-1969 camaros, or 1964-1971 VW beetles, or MR2s/Fieros/etc etc). T&H picked vintage rolex datejusts, repaired/renewed them, sold a story, etc. worth checking out – [https://theoandharris.com/](https://theoandharris.com/)
Start your own dealership. Product founder fit is a big deal.
Find problems in a niche of your choice.
Identify solutions.
Create products for that audience.
There are excellent digital tools to assist you.
Alternatively, look for unprofitable businesses who have 0 budget and offer to do the work in exchange for partnership.
You prob know the pain points for consumers/suppliers/dealerships build a business around solving some of those problems. You can leverage your existing knowledge.
Being an entrepreneur is a big step and it’s different for everyone. You put your heart into it in hopes it will succeed, so it has to be something you believe in. Something that excites you.
Can you turn a hobby into a business? How about taking a process you and your colleagues do religiously in your car sales business and make it better in a way that can scale nationally?
$370k is a nice pool of seed money, but it’s not even enough to buy into a McDonalds franchise – so you’re gonna have to build something that’s meaningful to you.
Whatever you did to make the first $370k.
See if you scale up the business you know, cars.
I say go with what you know: cars. Maybe a used car dealership or maybe car rental company. Both have lower start up costs than if you were to just start a business in high end car dealing.
150K a year in car sales? Can you explain this a little further. Are you just an incredible salesman, have a real passion for the automotive industry, or was this achieved just by having good work ethic?
With that kind of money your temptation might be to invest a lot of it up front which I would advise against unless you buy an existing business that is already generating income.
If you want to build something from scratch then set that money aside to support your lifestyle while you build and use a small portion of it to invest in some of the intial company setup things you will need.
E-commerce. I had someone set up an Amazon store for me and they do all the work. I keep what’s leftover each month. Im working on scaling it up to 6 figures of passive income.
Make videos and vlogs on how you sell my bro. I know people will want to see skills that pay the bills in action.
Step 1. Start a YouTube channel talking about cars.
Step 2. Start a “CarsAndBids” style used car auction website.
Buy multifamily property
I’m not going to be able to give you advice as you have a higher net than me but I’m 18 M $145k LIQUID and like the idea of getting into car sales. Never had a job only ever traded myself. Did you sell cars on behalf of a company or did you flip them yourself.
I would be interested to know a bit about your career if you don’t mind sharing as I am looking to diversify what I do.
Start a dealership where it doesn’t take 4 hrs to buy a car
“Wanting to be an entrepreneur” isn’t really a good reason to go into a business. Also, having $370K doesn’t really open up many more doors – a lot of people have this much money to use on a business.
Clearly selling cars is your thing. Sounds like that would be the business to start or some peripheral business to that like lending, insurance, selling warranties, etc
Do what you know, I also worked in cars for a long time.
To get a used car license in most states all you need is:
A commercial building with a sign
LLC
Small insurance policy
An office with a locking door and locking file cabinet
Go find a two bay shop for lease, do a 1 year. Hire a SMART mechanic to be your shop foreman and then one commission tech. Let the foreman write work and do commission work.
Charge 25% off your mechanic on all outbound customers, give the foreman a base of 5% on all work done. And then pay the other 70% to the tech that does the work.
Charge 35% of all work done on your cars.
The shop is there to make the rent.
Buy chesp auction cars under $5k, sell them yourself. Pay yourself only pack of $699 per car and put everything else into buying more cars.
Once you get to the point of doing 10 cash cars a month bring on one friend who is a shark. He sells cars, you give him half after unit cost, labor, and pack. Start relationship building with banks, CAC, Santander, exeter at first plus a credit union local. At the point that you can afford to sell $10k+ cars bring on a finance manager or make yourself a finance manager. Someone good, they will have to desk deals and sell products. It’ll be slow but you’re cutting a lot of middle men out.
Add two more salesmen after you’re pretty well established and are getting inbounds. 30% front end, $200 minis. 5% on all back end. Only hire sharks, no one new.
That’s a business that will quickly make you 15% of whatever you can turn. The sales floor will quickly start “losing” money to make sales faster for the minis and back end. But you’ll make money on volume at a $699 pack.
All the while the shop is still paying the rent and hopefully you understand fix ops enough to make your smart mechanic a service writer only and hire 3 techs for him to run
Lease commercial space. Install stacker storage lifts from China and cool lighting.
Sublet and subcontract to a detailer.
Sublet and subcontract to a mechanic.
Rent storage space and valet services (along with complimentary inspections, and paid oil changes) for folks with money. Install Gucci coffee maker and hire film students to organize social media and cars and coffee events.
Setup a dealership. Wholesale a niche line of vehicles, think classics of 25yo grey market imports.
And if that doesn’t work… just ask your customers what they want and do your best to listen.
But yeah, cars. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Just try to do it well.
Engineer your own car. You’re welcome.
How do you only have 370k while you make 150k per year. You were spending a lot
buy and sell cars