It was a great week, I really had a lot of fun working on the project and spending a lot of good family time enjoying the summer. As far as progress goes, I think this week is going to be representative of a lot of upcoming weeks, especially here at the beginning of the project: I feel I made some good “behind-the scenes” progress, but didn’t really get the numbers to back it up quite yet. It’s bound to happen, especially as I’m exploring and trying new ideas and business ventures, many of my actions (maybe most of them) aren’t going to directly result in more money… but I think that’s ok. Investing my time and efforts vetting new and more profitable/scaleable ideas is how I’m going to get bigger and better than the buy/sell strategy.

So, what did I do this week? Well, to be honest I probably neglected the buy/sell effort too much, we had non-project things to do all weekend meaning I couldn’t get to an auction, and I wasn’t able to find time to push the remaining items I need to sell. Not a great week for that, but I think I should have more time in the upcoming week to keep this revenue stream going and try to make a couple bigger scores.

During the week, one of the future ideas I was working on involves importing a product that I feel is under –represented in the market. I spent some time in the evenings discussing the product idea with some suppliers through Alibaba.com. I was doing research on how the importation works, trying to establish a plan for shipping, getting quotes, and estimating costs/pricing, etc. I think that it’s a decent idea (probably a limited market, but an easy one to get into and a pretty niche item), and I think I need about $2000 to initiate the first buy of inventory/etc. I’m pretty excited about this idea, buy I obviously need some more cash to execute. I will elaborate a lot on this in the future, once I can get the wheels rolling!

I received the dimensions from her and drew up a quick design. I had to adjust a few things based on the limited material, and exposed a few issues with my tools (I need some new/sharp saw blades, my miter saw is about 3 degrees off and needs tuned, etc), but all-in-all I think it was a promising success. The table ended up being a little rough, but certainly functional and it looks decent. Natasha liked it, so it worked out great for both of us, and $40 went toward the project. I think with some design tweaks and tuning up my tools, I could build quite a few items and make some good profit on the wood I bought. Efficiency will be the key, we’ll see if I can make my shop/designs easier to work around, the small table took 4-5 hours so I need to improve at least 2-4 times. I actually think it’s possible, especially since I’ve exposed a few issues I know I can improve on. I will give it another try this week, and maybe we can turn this effort into a few hundred dollars!

It’s starting to get a little tough staying focused on the small things I need to do to increase my budget to a few thousand, my imagination is trying to leap to the next big thing. But, rules are rules, and I know that forcing myself to bootstrap and grow this effort organically will make my decisions to be well-thought out and purposeful, and hopefully that will result in greater successes. I’m really excited to get going, so I just need to work that much harder on the quick-win type items to boost this budget!

Thanks for following along, the support really keeps me motivated!

The family had a great weekend at the local auction. It happened to be located in my in-laws neighborhood, so we parked there to hang out for a while and walked over to the sale. The in-laws and my parents both came to the sale, which was really fun! My parents are auction regulars, they picked a few things (mom grabbed an almost-new Kirby vacuum for $15, nice!) and my Dad was able to get the item he was there specifically for, a really nice shotgun (a 20 Ga Browning A-5, Belgian, absolutely mint) for a good price. My Father-in-Law, who doesn’t typically go with us, grabbed a few small items he could use and then scored HUGE with a snowblower for about 1/3 of the usual price. Pam and I got some nice items for the house, she picked a neat antique wash basin/pitcher for $5 and we finally found a refrigerator for our garage in really great shape for $100. It was an awesome “personal” sale day, we all made some great scores and had a wonderful time in the sun. The boys were their typical popular celebrity selves, checking everything out and being the cutest things at the party. 

The project progress, however, was a little slow. I bought a couple small items, but nothing exciting. Except maybe one thing, but we will have to see how that settles out…

I’ve been looking for a little bit of a “middle” step in the 100Kproject, something beyond just buying and selling things since that’s limiting my options and scale-ability, but I don’t have quite the money to start producing/selling real products like I want to (see our review of the first month). Looking around at things close to me, I think the natural “in-between” from finding value (buy/sell) and creating value (building/selling products) is adding value. Finding something with some value, fixing/enhancing/creating with that thing, and then selling it for an increased value.  

I started with an attempt last week, I grabbed some cast-iron lawn furniture (typically a pretty high-dollar item) that had legs broken off for pretty cheap ($25). I offered to split any profits with my little brother if he could weld them back together (he does welding for fun!).  He’s making pretty good progress, and I hope to be able to get them sold in the next couple weeks.
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In addition, I’ve been thinking about building different wood furniture/decorative items, especially out of reclaimed wood. I enjoy building things and these types of “distressed” or basic quality wood furniture is pretty trendy, and Pam wants me to build some things for our home anyway. The issue I was encountering is the somewhat large upfront investment for the lumber, as quality reclaimed lumber looked like it was expensive (and new lumber was even more!).  The upfront investment was a little worrisome, but my biggest concern was that the cost of the wood would limit my flexibility on price... meaning I might be stuck on some expensive work if I couldn’t sell them! 

The auctioneer decided to sell it all together, which pretty much meant I wasn’t interested because of my limitations on storage and budget. I was interested in watching it go, however, to see what the price was and maybe I could offer to buy the box and a few pieces of wood from the winner and get started on trying out the furniture building idea. The price started at $200, but the auctioneer couldn’t get any bids. Just like the boat motor, he kept going down and no one was interested (the pile of wood did look like a lot of work!). I finally shook my head and held up one finger, bidding $1. I figured at least it would get the action going, and then I could maybe talk to the winner and get a couple pieces of the wood for cheap or even free. Low and behold, no one else bid, and I bought the entire pile for $1… Oh crap.
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The following three hours were a sequence of brief panic, humorous reflection, desperate calls for help, borrowing my dad’s trailer, and a decent amount of work from my family. I picked a great day to also buy a refrigerator! A large part of Sunday was sorting the wood, getting rid of the junk and saving the most useful pieces for the project. The rest of the day was spent cleaning and re-arranging our entire garage to accommodate the new refrigerator and a large stack of reclaimed, weathered wood. 

This week will be looking into designs that I can build, and see if I can’t turn this windfall of material into some value. I already received an order for a side table from my Sister-in-Law (thanks Natasha!), so maybe I can build one for her soon.

Another interesting adventure, hopefully I’ll have a profitable update later this week! Remember to follow us on Twitter for more updates, and if you are doing any internet shopping on Amazon, shop through the links on this site to help support the project!

Thanks everyone, the journey continues!