How would you spend your first $100K?
If you’ve ever thought about that, you’re already making the wrong question. There’s no right way to spend money because you lose it forever.
Spend $1 or spend $70,000. It doesn’t matter. You can only get limited value from your purchases.
That’s why the headline is “Where to invest $100K?” Where can you put these funds to make even more money?
You see, the saving mentality is about making the money last as long as possible (but you never have over $100K). But money is never stable. If you’re not making more, you’re losing it.
The investor’s mentality is to leverage that money as much as possible. For example, you get $5 back for every dollar spent after six months. And you can do it as many times as you want (almost).
Where To Invest 100K?
But where do we invest? There are so many options that are it’s hard to decide:
- ALL business models work. And for $100K you can pretty much fund any of them
- Every company claims to make you positive returns if you invest in them (look at Tesla!)
Here’s what doesn’t work: trying ten different ventures at $10K each. Sorry, but that doesn’t 10X your returns. It actually lowers them.
Millionaires have multiple streams of income, but they only build one at a time. You can’t invest 20% of your money and attention and expect to beat someone who puts 100%. Business is about attention, not money. You can start at $0, although money can speed things up.
That’s why you should choose one, not many. And because they all work, we need to differentiate them somehow.
Some business models do great for beginners while other entrepreneurs will see them as a waste of time. Others do great for people with $100K+ saved, but those who need capital won’t find them useful.
Here’s what to consider:
#1 Risk and Reward
How many profits can you make, and how likely are you to succeed?
Having more money means that you can afford to make mistakes, which is fine when you’re a beginner (but seriously, what kind of beginner walks with $100K?). So even if you fail, you can make more attempts until you win.
You could, for example, launch products on e-commerce. Let’s say it takes $5000 and 3 months to get started, 35% chance to succeed as a newbie. Let’s say you try four products for a year, and you spend $2,000 a month on living expenses.
If you fail the four, you lose $20,000 and $24,000 (cost of living). But the more you try, the luckier you get. On the fourth or fifth time, you could launch a product and make $10K per month on each.
How long would it take you to wipe out the losses? 5 months of passive income.
Take calculated risks, even if you can’t guarantee success. You will get better as you keep trying, but you’ll never make it if you switch business models after failing once.
#2 Speed
How long do you need to wait to see positive returns?
- Cashflow businesses require <$5K to start and profit within the first three months
- Tech companies may not make money for years. But with a couple of thousand dollars and time, most will go beyond eight figures
- Index funds or real estate is considered a safe investment vehicle. But you may need to wait years before doubling your money
Living off your money’s interest must be comfortable. But if you only have $100K, that’s not enough to generate big returns. You need a cashflow vehicle to reach a safer mark, like $6M, then you can officially retire.
If you don’t know how to spend $100K and don’t plan to use that money, it’s smart to put it on some low-risk investments. But if you expect to increase your expenses, be open to other models that aren’t that passive.
#3 Work
Investing is attractive because it makes you money while you do nothing. Instead of putting work, you earn it by making the right decisions, which is work in its own way.
In any case, investing in a company is trusting that the team will increase its valuation. That’s usually the CEO’s priority, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. You can still lose money, even on index funds.
Even if you profit, it may take a long time before it’s worth retiring the money.
Why don’t you create your own business instead? You know: real teams, products, branding, and customer bases. This way, you have direct control of the growth, and you can earn much more.
No matter what you sell, being a CEO is a lot of work, whether it’s managing teams or making large-scale decisions. But when you leverage $100K and your time, your $100K could turn into millions in less than three years.
Wouldn’t that be worth the work? It’s also a risk, but a risk that you take. Instead of trusting someone else, you’re responsible for your mistakes AND successes.
#4 Opportunity
With all the current trading hype, everybody is dreaming of 100X profits, whether it’s Tesla, Bitcoin, or gold. They think: “If only I got in earlier, I would be a millionaire already.”
But opportunities are everywhere, and they don’t have to be the most crowded ones. In fact, that popularity decreases your chances to make it.
So how do you find an opportunity for yourself only? There’s no better rule than CENTS:
- Control: Am I the only one responsible for the success of this business? There shouldn’t be 3rd parties involved (business platforms or services)
- Entry: How easy is it for a beginner to come in and copy my business? Your idea should be restricted enough to prevent saturation. Does it require technical education? Do you need certain skills? Do you need $100K to start? That’s what you want
- Need: Not to be confused with demand, need represents a solution to a big problem many people have and is hard to solve. Demand is what people want. Need is a product they would pay for, but they aren’t aware it exists or they don’t know they want
- Time: Can your opportunity make money without having to grind 24/7? Ideally, you want an income stream that only takes 4 hours to manage PER WEEK (via delegation or automation). That doesn’t mean you work that little. It means you don’t need to, but if you wanted, you could work 40h/week to earn more
- Scale: How many people on the planet can know and buy from you? Are you selling something they will buy more than once? How can you make them buy more often or increase the purchase volume? Scale is the difference between online brands and local businesses
#5 Money Leverage
Can you accelerate your success with money? Anything that gets you money or time is a good way to invest that $ 100 K:
- You can buy courses or hire consultants to save time or grow your business faster
- You can bring more traffic by paying for ad campaigns and influencers
- You can buy tools and hire sales professionals to optimize your sales funnel
- If your business has physical inventory, you can save money by ordering large quantities (and increase profit margins)
- Invest in software and teams so that you don’t have to work on the little things
You have money leverage when your money speeds up the process. For example:
- You invest in a fund with compound interest
- You spend money on adds to scale your business
- You buy new locations to expand your brand and sell more
You don’t have money leverage if:
- You get simple interest instead of compound
- Your business can’t work without you being there
- Your investment involves a high risk of losing money
The First Step to Investing $100K
However you choose to spend your money, it certainly won’t happen overnight. You want to give yourself time to think about it. And once you make the decision, you’ll probably save part of this amount.
The question is: how do you manage this money while you don’t use it?
Keep in mind that the financial game isn’t about the money, but YOU. You make that money, whether it’s working on a full-time job or winning a $100K lottery price.
Money itself doesn’t do anything. You have to use it:
- If you’re broke, you can use it to achieve financial stability
- If you have enough stability, you can seek financial comfort
- Once money isn’t a problem, you can pursue financial freedom and confidence
Can you skip steps and go straight to the big goals? Yes, but the risk and effort are bigger.
All this means: invest in what matters first and then think of investment opportunities. For example:
- If you owe money, you want to pay most of the amount you borrowed first
If you owe $100K and own $100K, you can pay $50,000 or less right now, as long as you aren’t late with monthly payments.
- If you don’t have an emergency fund, you create one. You dedicate a savings account for it
- If you only have one income stream, you invest in creating new sources of income. It could be a passive online business or a second career
- If you aren’t good with money in general, you spend a few thousand in learning about personal finance
- If you haven’t maxed out your retirement accounts this year, do it. If you don’t have any, get a Roth IRA or ask your employer for a traditional 401K. Both plans offer tax advantages to increase your retirement funds
Next, make sure you manage the money responsibly:
- Keep what you don’t use in a savings account
- Reserve an amount for monthly expenses, which you can withdraw from your checking account and debit card
With all that in mind, what do you do with the money?
There are limitless combinations among the five factors: risk-reward, speed, work, opportunity, and money leverage.
How to Turn $100K Into $1M Investing
The “easiest” and fastest way to turn $100K into $1 million is to do it yourself. But we know that most people expect some investment advice, some vehicle that offers 1000% ROI passively in a few years.
YES, it is possible, and it happens often. Almost every week, there’s some new project coming out that 10Xs in value. Even though they generally plummet later, you can time your money and make over a million dollars within a week.
Now, who of you idiots will put $100K in an untested, high-risk stock? Assuming that’s all your savings, you won’t do it. It’s too much risk.
If you want to 10X returns fast the passive way, you MUST involve more risk (and luck).
Is there a way to minimize risk for a high reward? There is! And it’s called DYOR (do your own research):
- You invest some money and time in improving your research skills
- You watch finance news every day, learning the technical side of the market
- You create a risk management strategy as you time the market and avoid the common biases
Got it? When you put more work into research, you get a higher CHANCE (not guaranteed) to get that return. But it requires a lot of accuracy.
Does that sound easier than starting a business? For me, it seems both take a lot of work. None of them is 100% passive (unless you want to try your luck by picking a random stock).
You can trade stocks or crypto if you think that will make you rich. But know that smart investing is just as hard as launching a successful business. The risk-reward is similar, so choose the one you enjoy the most.
How to Turn $100K Into $1M With a Business
Internet businesses work well because of five reasons:
- Communication. It’s easy to communicate with your audience and find out what they need. People express themselves all the time on social media. There are tons of sophisticated tracking tools as well
- Technology. Tech entrepreneurs have created new business tools for guys like you and me: Shopify, Salesforce, Slack, SalesFunnels, Swipe. It’s easier than ever to start a business, so you can do it, even if you have no experience
- Control. No matter where you are, you bring the business with you. You don’t need to be in an office or talk to customers in person. As long as you have a device with an Internet connection, you have full control of your company
- Automation. Today’s programs do much faster the tedious tasks we did years ago, and they do it flawlessly. They are working 99.9% of the time and have almost no maintenance costs (other than a monthly subscription). And if you can’t automate something, you can hire a freelancer to do it from anywhere in the world
- Income potential. Online businesses can access BILLIONS of potential customers, which can become habitual clients. If you have a local business, by contrast, you can only market to the people who walk on that street
Internet businesses are super-fast vehicles to 10X your $100K because of scalability. If you have a funnel system that turns $1 into $10 in a few months, you can do it as many times as you want. Spend $100K in your ad campaign, and six months later, you got $1M.
Any business model works as long as it’s on the Internet:
- Agencies: Find clients, recruit/train freelancers, and give them job opportunities. You work as a group, and every time they complete work, you get a commission
- Affiliate marketing: You sell someone else’s products (especially if you have a big following on social media) and link to their product. The seller pays you a commission for every referral
- E-commerce: You find high-demand products with low competition that sell below the average price. You take advantage of this inefficiency and sell your own upgraded version (private label). You use a platform like Amazon to find customers or create your own base with advertising
- Subscriptions: You sell others a content service or software. People have a few tiers to choose what features they want. In the case of info-products, the extra may be a private community and weekly calls for Q&As
- Content Marketing: You bring a lot of traffic to your website because it ranks well on Google and everybody trusts it. Other businesses will pay you to rent advertising space on your site
The Bottom Line
There are endless ways to invest $100K. But here are the take-aways:
- You have to decide quickly. Every dollar without a purpose is a dollar wasted today
- You have to know what you want. Otherwise, other people will tell you how to spend your money
- All of us have different preferences for risk, speed, or opportunity. Any strategy will cost money, time, and effort, so choose the one you prefer the most