Ask HN: How do I turn 100K into 1 million?
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Continue contracting. Sell the BMW and buy a 2000 Camry.
Take 60% of the 100k and invest in Apple, the rest in a selection of index funds. Reevaluate Apple in four years. Invest 15% of your ongoing contracting gross income the same way.
Pick some 'just for fun' iOS apps and write them in your spare time. Brainstorm for app ideas weekly, and other low-capital ideas. If one shows promise, partner with some other developers and put more time into it. Only invest cash you can afford as long as it doesn't get in the way of continuing the 15% long term investing.
Take 60% of the 100k and invest in Apple, the rest in a selection of index funds. Reevaluate Apple in four years. Invest 15% of your ongoing contracting gross income the same way.
Pick some 'just for fun' iOS apps and write them in your spare time. Brainstorm for app ideas weekly, and other low-capital ideas. If one shows promise, partner with some other developers and put more time into it. Only invest cash you can afford as long as it doesn't get in the way of continuing the 15% long term investing.
> Take 60% of the 100k and invest in Apple
Quite possibly at the top of the market right now. Or maybe not. But if you're good enough to run the analysis on the market for smartphones and high end consumer electronics to be reasonably sure Apple is a good buy right now, then you're good enough to find better buys. Maybe some of Apple's suppliers or manufacturers, for instance - I don't know personally, I don't have the skills to evaluate on those things. But I do know buying a stock just because it's cool, fashionable, and has gone up a lot recently is a pretty good way to lose your shirt.
Quite possibly at the top of the market right now. Or maybe not. But if you're good enough to run the analysis on the market for smartphones and high end consumer electronics to be reasonably sure Apple is a good buy right now, then you're good enough to find better buys. Maybe some of Apple's suppliers or manufacturers, for instance - I don't know personally, I don't have the skills to evaluate on those things. But I do know buying a stock just because it's cool, fashionable, and has gone up a lot recently is a pretty good way to lose your shirt.
Time will tell.
Hi wagerlab,
If your burn rate is 3.5K/month, with $100K, you can survive for at least 28 months comfortably, give or take. That's 2.5 years of not working for money. If you're already an amazing programmer, go build a product and sell it at $100/license. You only need 10,000 copies to make $1,000,000, and burn through just a fraction of your money. You can probably build something in less than 6 months and start building a real business around it. With proper SEO, marketing, perseverance, and some luck, the chance of you reaching the sales number isn't all that bad, providing that your product is compelling enough for users to fork out $100. As you say, your weakness is you can get bored easily, then find a way to keep yourself interested: find a partner, outsource boring stuff elsewhere, and plainly just make it a goal to build a meaningful business for yourself and for your family.
Nothing is more profitable than investing in yourself. You can double up your money is no time at all. Instead of solving really hard technical problems just for the fun of it, try solving people's problems and make a tidy profit along the way. There are tons of ideas and problems worth solving. You will be much more wealthier in a short time, and you can have your ego petted as well.
Personally I quit my job last year to work on my own startup. I was making $90,000/year and was billing $85/hr, but I was getting burned out working on other people's stuff. So I quit. $85/hr is quite a bit of cash, the money was addicting. I was 24, single, living cheaply in Chicago. My expense was $1,500/month, and with some light traveling, that was about $2,000 - $2,500/month. I was able to save quite a bit in just a few months. After saved up to $20,000, I quit. I'm not wasting my life working for money. Not when I have other choices to build up a much better future.
Now I'm actually invest 100% of my time into my startup and I'm building it up alone by myself. My life is my start up until I get it launch in September, then I keep on pushing till I make it. Everyday I push out something new, write some thing amazingly awesome, or just get really productive -- all for myself.
I'm very easy to get distracted with new ideas and bored with existing ones. However, I told myself specifically to not think of new ideas, and not to get bored with my startup. It's been 2 months working non-stop on it, and I feel more energized than ever. From HTML slicing to server setup, compiling stuff, to writing the next best UI to solve a problem for user, I'm doing it all. If my startup doesn't generate money right away, I'll keep pushing it. I don't know what next year will be like, but I know it will be a lot better. What's funny is that I don't consider myself a very good programmer. I can get by with some stuff (like JavaScript). I can barely programming Ruby on Rails the right way, none of that C++ hardcore programming. I secretly envy those C++/C guys that can hammer out code that looks really hard, but I don't care. I'm building my own product and I feel good about it. My life has a meaning, instead of just working for money.
The best thing is, if nothing happens (very unlikely), I can still get back to consulting, making a nice 6-figure salary, and execute my plan B of become a millionaire: investing in real estate.
My plan B is simple. I plan to purchase 1 rental apartment every year. Where I lived in Chicago, you can get an apartment for $60K - $80K (foreclosures), and rent them out at $900/month, positive cashflow on day one. I can purchase one a year if I save 50% of my income (not a hard thing), and repeat this a few years. If I leverage the home equity of the rental properties, I can reduce the time to about 6 to 7 years before hitting the $1,000,000 net-worth. And these properties can only appreciate in values, since they are already really low in price. I WILL be a millionaire before 40 and I don't even have to think. However, I chose to be a millionaire by 30, so I quit my job because obviously my job won't get me to where I want to be when I'm 30. I don't think I can get a salary of $333,333/year for the next 3 years to make $1M. And if I really have that salary, I'd just quit to do my own thing. If I'm that good, then why I'm not investing in myself rather than working a 9-5 (or in this case, a 6am-12am job since you'd better be worth every penny at $333,333/year)?
So there you go, it's my plan of turning an amount much less than $100K into $1,000.000. Precisely, I have $2,500 (I traveled quite a bit and invested some money in Vietnam with my family between the time I quit and when I started fulltiming on my Startup) in my bank account and I hope that will last till September, which shouldn't be a problem since my burn rate right now is about a whopping $400/month, if not less. I'm single still, and will be suspending my iPhone very soon to switch to Skype. When I run out of money, I'm sure I'll figure something out.
So I hope you'll have an updated post in a year telling us here about your journey to make $1,000,000. Good luck following your heart and passion.
Alex
If your burn rate is 3.5K/month, with $100K, you can survive for at least 28 months comfortably, give or take. That's 2.5 years of not working for money. If you're already an amazing programmer, go build a product and sell it at $100/license. You only need 10,000 copies to make $1,000,000, and burn through just a fraction of your money. You can probably build something in less than 6 months and start building a real business around it. With proper SEO, marketing, perseverance, and some luck, the chance of you reaching the sales number isn't all that bad, providing that your product is compelling enough for users to fork out $100. As you say, your weakness is you can get bored easily, then find a way to keep yourself interested: find a partner, outsource boring stuff elsewhere, and plainly just make it a goal to build a meaningful business for yourself and for your family.
Nothing is more profitable than investing in yourself. You can double up your money is no time at all. Instead of solving really hard technical problems just for the fun of it, try solving people's problems and make a tidy profit along the way. There are tons of ideas and problems worth solving. You will be much more wealthier in a short time, and you can have your ego petted as well.
Personally I quit my job last year to work on my own startup. I was making $90,000/year and was billing $85/hr, but I was getting burned out working on other people's stuff. So I quit. $85/hr is quite a bit of cash, the money was addicting. I was 24, single, living cheaply in Chicago. My expense was $1,500/month, and with some light traveling, that was about $2,000 - $2,500/month. I was able to save quite a bit in just a few months. After saved up to $20,000, I quit. I'm not wasting my life working for money. Not when I have other choices to build up a much better future.
Now I'm actually invest 100% of my time into my startup and I'm building it up alone by myself. My life is my start up until I get it launch in September, then I keep on pushing till I make it. Everyday I push out something new, write some thing amazingly awesome, or just get really productive -- all for myself.
I'm very easy to get distracted with new ideas and bored with existing ones. However, I told myself specifically to not think of new ideas, and not to get bored with my startup. It's been 2 months working non-stop on it, and I feel more energized than ever. From HTML slicing to server setup, compiling stuff, to writing the next best UI to solve a problem for user, I'm doing it all. If my startup doesn't generate money right away, I'll keep pushing it. I don't know what next year will be like, but I know it will be a lot better. What's funny is that I don't consider myself a very good programmer. I can get by with some stuff (like JavaScript). I can barely programming Ruby on Rails the right way, none of that C++ hardcore programming. I secretly envy those C++/C guys that can hammer out code that looks really hard, but I don't care. I'm building my own product and I feel good about it. My life has a meaning, instead of just working for money.
The best thing is, if nothing happens (very unlikely), I can still get back to consulting, making a nice 6-figure salary, and execute my plan B of become a millionaire: investing in real estate.
My plan B is simple. I plan to purchase 1 rental apartment every year. Where I lived in Chicago, you can get an apartment for $60K - $80K (foreclosures), and rent them out at $900/month, positive cashflow on day one. I can purchase one a year if I save 50% of my income (not a hard thing), and repeat this a few years. If I leverage the home equity of the rental properties, I can reduce the time to about 6 to 7 years before hitting the $1,000,000 net-worth. And these properties can only appreciate in values, since they are already really low in price. I WILL be a millionaire before 40 and I don't even have to think. However, I chose to be a millionaire by 30, so I quit my job because obviously my job won't get me to where I want to be when I'm 30. I don't think I can get a salary of $333,333/year for the next 3 years to make $1M. And if I really have that salary, I'd just quit to do my own thing. If I'm that good, then why I'm not investing in myself rather than working a 9-5 (or in this case, a 6am-12am job since you'd better be worth every penny at $333,333/year)?
So there you go, it's my plan of turning an amount much less than $100K into $1,000.000. Precisely, I have $2,500 (I traveled quite a bit and invested some money in Vietnam with my family between the time I quit and when I started fulltiming on my Startup) in my bank account and I hope that will last till September, which shouldn't be a problem since my burn rate right now is about a whopping $400/month, if not less. I'm single still, and will be suspending my iPhone very soon to switch to Skype. When I run out of money, I'm sure I'll figure something out.
So I hope you'll have an updated post in a year telling us here about your journey to make $1,000,000. Good luck following your heart and passion.
Alex
Thank you Alex, that was inspirational!
your wise friend is right.
bet on yourself. expand your work team into a multi-person team.
bet on yourself. expand your work team into a multi-person team.
Build products that are low-maintenance, but provide lots of value to a market that has pain/understands the concept of paying for value.
We didn't start out with 100K euros, more like 30K USD, but my SaaS, developed part time, grew 5x in revenue year over year and that was not with a lot of effort - if we do that again, it'll be earning nearly $600K/yr by June 2011.
So far "we" is me and my husband, part time, plus a summer intern and the occasional freelancer. So it's a pretty good place to be, cost-wise.
We didn't start out with 100K euros, more like 30K USD, but my SaaS, developed part time, grew 5x in revenue year over year and that was not with a lot of effort - if we do that again, it'll be earning nearly $600K/yr by June 2011.
So far "we" is me and my husband, part time, plus a summer intern and the occasional freelancer. So it's a pretty good place to be, cost-wise.
"How do I turn that into 1 million?"
Iterate this last year ten times. ^_^
On a more serious suggestion, try to stick to something a bit longer, make a product, iterate it some times and finally take profit from it. BTW, What happened to your poker server?
Iterate this last year ten times. ^_^
On a more serious suggestion, try to stick to something a bit longer, make a product, iterate it some times and finally take profit from it. BTW, What happened to your poker server?
I don't play poker and I'm not interested in learning. I inherited the software at http://sourceforge.net/projects/openpoker/ and tried to fix it. I then thought I'd write a much better server quickly.
I ended up writing a server that's scalable and robust but incompatible with the original Delphi client. Part of it is that the contract programmers blackmailed me into Delphi (C++ will cost you more!) and I was greedy. The other part is that they are serializing Delphi objects and shipping them down the wire. Supporting that would be a nightmare.
It's hard to sell a server without a client and my server is pretty bare bones too. There's only Texas Hold'em, no tournaments. There's no accounting, payment processing, affiliate tracking, etc. I tried to sell it as a base people could build around but not very successfully. I broke even on development but that's it.
Ultimately, poker people are fine with running a 200K solution on scores of servers that handle just thousands of clients. There's not much interest in squeezing that into a handful of servers since marketing expenses of a new poker room dwarf those of hardware and software.
I ended up writing a server that's scalable and robust but incompatible with the original Delphi client. Part of it is that the contract programmers blackmailed me into Delphi (C++ will cost you more!) and I was greedy. The other part is that they are serializing Delphi objects and shipping them down the wire. Supporting that would be a nightmare.
It's hard to sell a server without a client and my server is pretty bare bones too. There's only Texas Hold'em, no tournaments. There's no accounting, payment processing, affiliate tracking, etc. I tried to sell it as a base people could build around but not very successfully. I broke even on development but that's it.
Ultimately, poker people are fine with running a 200K solution on scores of servers that handle just thousands of clients. There's not much interest in squeezing that into a handful of servers since marketing expenses of a new poker room dwarf those of hardware and software.
>I'm thinking that trading may be my best bet
if you had asked "how do I turn 1 million into 100K?" I think I'd agree with that statement.
if you had asked "how do I turn 1 million into 100K?" I think I'd agree with that statement.
How do you make a small fortune in the x business? ...
Let me ask you a question, given your experience which is easier to bet on ..yourself or someone else?
I used to run an offshore development company out of the US and even went through a round of VC at ~1.25mm post-money. The round did not go past a bridge loan since the internet bubble was bursting at about this time.
I can judge technical skills but I don't think I'm a good judge of character. I'd rather bet on myself.
I can judge technical skills but I don't think I'm a good judge of character. I'd rather bet on myself.
"Trading" is not the answer. "Investing" is.
Read The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis, both by Benjamin Graham; and F Wall Street by Joe Ponzio (His website fwallstreet.com also has a number of gems. Particularly, his post about how to value a business http://www.fwallstreet.com/article/25-calculating-the-value-... )
If you read those materials, you will learn how to invest and using the approaches set out in those books, I believe you can turn $100k to $1m.
Read The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis, both by Benjamin Graham; and F Wall Street by Joe Ponzio (His website fwallstreet.com also has a number of gems. Particularly, his post about how to value a business http://www.fwallstreet.com/article/25-calculating-the-value-... )
If you read those materials, you will learn how to invest and using the approaches set out in those books, I believe you can turn $100k to $1m.
To illustrate this point around the same time you were trading those Apple options (2006?) and not making any money I made a straight stock purchase of Apple at $73.25... its up 263% since then.
I'm going to invite a flurry of disagreement here, but I'm just going to say it. Investing is not the answer, trading is.
II and SA are phenomenal books, but they are also more relevant to a different time in market history. The basic tenets certainly hold true. (Ben Graham famously loved buying companies under book value. Thats still a winning bet and will continue to be.)
Its important to realize the macro picture here as well though. The last 70 years have produced tons of literature saying that long term growth is the way to do it and that int he last 70 years long term investments have outperformed. This period of "proven returns" coincides with the US rising to the world superpower, becoming the richest nation on earth, and spending beyond our means.
I have a massive faith in America, but its irresponsible to not consider that times have changed. The next 70 years could be like the last 70, but we stand at a social/economic/global power precipice which could imply a dramatically different America in 10 years. If the American economy sucks hard for the enxt 10 years, returns are just going to suck. Long buy and hold portfolios have won in large part also because the American economy has expanded for the last 70 years.
The other huge difference is that HN is comprised primarily of extremely computer savvy people. The tools wielded by the readers here are uniquely suited to tackle financial problems that can produce excess returns that far exceed
The risks aren't significantly higher, yet the upside is disproportionately greater when utilizing the techniques (computing) and infrastructure (electronic markets and cheap execution) that have become available in the last 10 years that did not exist in almost the entire duration of the period that produced all of the "buy and hold is the only way to go" literature.
HN people are smart. REAL smart. That's why a lot of people have read mountains of literature to educate themselves. Unfortunately, the success of buy and hold strategies in the last X years produced a bias towards that sort of literature and everyone's drank the kool-aid.
The last 5 years, and even more the last 2 years have democratized the quantitative trading process, exposed the tools to those not in the industry, and changed the face of finance.
There's still a place for the Intelligent Investor. But if you're the average HN reader, Ben Graham style investing isn't your best shot in finance. Quantitative trading is. Both will take a lot of work. It won't be easy. But if you're going to invest serious time, think about how much the tools and the game have changed in the last 2 years and ask yourself if you really think that all the literature that predates this change is indicative of the new world.
I too believe you can turn 100k to $1mm. and I think you can do it a lot faster.
II and SA are phenomenal books, but they are also more relevant to a different time in market history. The basic tenets certainly hold true. (Ben Graham famously loved buying companies under book value. Thats still a winning bet and will continue to be.)
Its important to realize the macro picture here as well though. The last 70 years have produced tons of literature saying that long term growth is the way to do it and that int he last 70 years long term investments have outperformed. This period of "proven returns" coincides with the US rising to the world superpower, becoming the richest nation on earth, and spending beyond our means.
I have a massive faith in America, but its irresponsible to not consider that times have changed. The next 70 years could be like the last 70, but we stand at a social/economic/global power precipice which could imply a dramatically different America in 10 years. If the American economy sucks hard for the enxt 10 years, returns are just going to suck. Long buy and hold portfolios have won in large part also because the American economy has expanded for the last 70 years.
The other huge difference is that HN is comprised primarily of extremely computer savvy people. The tools wielded by the readers here are uniquely suited to tackle financial problems that can produce excess returns that far exceed
The risks aren't significantly higher, yet the upside is disproportionately greater when utilizing the techniques (computing) and infrastructure (electronic markets and cheap execution) that have become available in the last 10 years that did not exist in almost the entire duration of the period that produced all of the "buy and hold is the only way to go" literature.
HN people are smart. REAL smart. That's why a lot of people have read mountains of literature to educate themselves. Unfortunately, the success of buy and hold strategies in the last X years produced a bias towards that sort of literature and everyone's drank the kool-aid.
The last 5 years, and even more the last 2 years have democratized the quantitative trading process, exposed the tools to those not in the industry, and changed the face of finance.
There's still a place for the Intelligent Investor. But if you're the average HN reader, Ben Graham style investing isn't your best shot in finance. Quantitative trading is. Both will take a lot of work. It won't be easy. But if you're going to invest serious time, think about how much the tools and the game have changed in the last 2 years and ask yourself if you really think that all the literature that predates this change is indicative of the new world.
I too believe you can turn 100k to $1mm. and I think you can do it a lot faster.
> Ben Graham famously loved buying companies under book value
I read 'The Snowball' about Buffett, and one of the things he mentions was sitting around compiling these forms about companies to determine their value. Isn't that the kind of thing that's automated these days? And if it's automated, it means someone big is likely doing it better than you can. In other words, Graham had an advantage because he was doing something noone else did at the time, and had some very real costs associated with it (paying people to sift through data) that don't exist today.
But then again, I don't know much about this stuff...
I read 'The Snowball' about Buffett, and one of the things he mentions was sitting around compiling these forms about companies to determine their value. Isn't that the kind of thing that's automated these days? And if it's automated, it means someone big is likely doing it better than you can. In other words, Graham had an advantage because he was doing something noone else did at the time, and had some very real costs associated with it (paying people to sift through data) that don't exist today.
But then again, I don't know much about this stuff...
"I have a massive faith in America, but its irresponsible to not consider that times have changed."
So diversify with foreign assets.
So diversify with foreign assets.
great idea. that's exactly what you should do if you're insisting on an intelligent investor style value portfolio, and thats what Buffet does.
But the real point is that trading isn't a chump game and the entire notion of "long term holding is the best strategy" is premised on a lot of old notions that predate the current market environment.
But the real point is that trading isn't a chump game and the entire notion of "long term holding is the best strategy" is premised on a lot of old notions that predate the current market environment.
Looks like your trading experiments have not worked out so well. Probably because you seem to be a fan of market timing... good luck with that. I think you need to take a longer term view with your investments. I also think your friend is right - you should bet on yourself. I worked in the financial services industry and I know first hand how horrible 90pct of the software is in that space. It's a market full of poor quality or outdated software with roots in the 80s and I think it's ripe for a shakeup if you can figure out how to break in and sell.
I left Wall St with the semi-official title of "Director of Prime Brokerage Technology". I did work on the technology budget and spoke to vendors. I simply don't have the organization required to service Wall St.
I'd agree with your friend.
You obviously have some skills, or you wouldn't have been able to earn the 100K. So, given the recent windfall, there ought to be a way to use the 100K to magnify your income.
What's the bottleneck in your regular business? What is it that is keeping you from having a blockbuster year each year? Or, even better, having a double-the-blockbuster year?
Once you've identified the constraint, try to figure out how to use some (or all) of the 100K to lift it.
Then: rinse, lather, repeat.
You obviously have some skills, or you wouldn't have been able to earn the 100K. So, given the recent windfall, there ought to be a way to use the 100K to magnify your income.
What's the bottleneck in your regular business? What is it that is keeping you from having a blockbuster year each year? Or, even better, having a double-the-blockbuster year?
Once you've identified the constraint, try to figure out how to use some (or all) of the 100K to lift it.
Then: rinse, lather, repeat.
The bottleneck is that I sell a service and I can only offer so much of it. Also, my base rate is 100 EUR/hr, about $125, although I always quote a fixed price.
I found a niche in writing Mac device drivers for a big company this year. I had to buy a hardware USB analyzer and IDA Pro to reverse-engineer a good chunk of LabVIEW so I was able to charge a good price for that project.
I could raise my base rate and charge more for projects (fixed price) but that doesn't scale and there are only 24 hours in a day.
I found a niche in writing Mac device drivers for a big company this year. I had to buy a hardware USB analyzer and IDA Pro to reverse-engineer a good chunk of LabVIEW so I was able to charge a good price for that project.
I could raise my base rate and charge more for projects (fixed price) but that doesn't scale and there are only 24 hours in a day.
There's a trick a lot of contractors/consultants use if they work in the same industry for a while. They create a "platform" (which honestly is just a few libraries of code), and then charge clients more to use their "platform" (which comes with nice-looking sales materials). You still do the same amount of programming, and charge the same for that, but charge extra for use of the "platform".
You sell the client on the fact that they'll save heaps of money using your platform because a lot of code is already written. This isn't actually true, code re-use doesn't save that much money, but it sounds good and they tend to buy it. I've seen it happen over the years again and again and again.
It's a bit tricky but loads of people do it. It used to be cms platforms, now it's social networking platforms or mobile app platforms. Same trick.
It's a little dirty though but one of the only ways to actually "scale" consulting. The other way is to have high-powered sales people, and hire superjunior beginner who do all the work. I think that's even dirtier.
You sell the client on the fact that they'll save heaps of money using your platform because a lot of code is already written. This isn't actually true, code re-use doesn't save that much money, but it sounds good and they tend to buy it. I've seen it happen over the years again and again and again.
It's a bit tricky but loads of people do it. It used to be cms platforms, now it's social networking platforms or mobile app platforms. Same trick.
It's a little dirty though but one of the only ways to actually "scale" consulting. The other way is to have high-powered sales people, and hire superjunior beginner who do all the work. I think that's even dirtier.
I don't think it needs to be dirty. I think a "platform" is a good idea.
> there are only 24 hours in a day
Per person.
Trade on your name? You are an A+ player. You must be turning work away. Take on more work than you can handle and farm it out to A-/B+ players.
Consultants don't scale but consultancies can benefit from scale to some small degree.
Per person.
Trade on your name? You are an A+ player. You must be turning work away. Take on more work than you can handle and farm it out to A-/B+ players.
Consultants don't scale but consultancies can benefit from scale to some small degree.
I just outsourced a project to my brother, a first in a few years. I also know a great local 3D modeler often in need of work. It is sounding like I'll need to transition into running a consultancy. Nothing new, I ran my own offshore development a few years back. Good 50% margins for a bit of marketing, sales and project management work.
I haven't had to turn work away only because I've been able to queue up projects and space them out. Oh, and because clients have been patient while I've done that.
I haven't had to turn work away only because I've been able to queue up projects and space them out. Oh, and because clients have been patient while I've done that.
Create generic game server product for turn based games. Start to sell it with insane price :D
Kunthar, did I give you a quote? ;-)
Learn to play poker and enter the world series, which is getting under way in a week. Analytical minds do well in poker, especially since most poker players are degenerate gamblers.
This is a true statement, but don't enter the world series unless you are already a top notch player. Just play in the 150$ nightly tournaments on pokerstars and you could expect a 120-150% ROI as a solid player.
Most solid players have an ROI between 0-5%. WSOP is a luckfest even for a good player.
Ahoy! Sailing is great, I've got a personal goal to do the SHTP in 2014.
You have a terrible investment track record and a good programming track record. Go with your strength. Since you have a short attention span, you should focus on short projects that you can ship quickly.
Bring maritime weather / charts to the iphone, I'd buy that :-)
You have a terrible investment track record and a good programming track record. Go with your strength. Since you have a short attention span, you should focus on short projects that you can ship quickly.
Bring maritime weather / charts to the iphone, I'd buy that :-)
I concur, maybe invest in learning R first and build a couple prototypes that monitor a market trend and report some sort of result then just start iterating and building applications for investments that interest you.
I own a Mathematica license and played with R a bit. I just don't know how to develop an edge with statistics yet.
Some of that already exists, check out the App Store. I'm thinking an iPad would make a decent chart plotter, though :-). Now, if I could only find a weather-proof enclosure!
A friend of mine uses a Ziploc freezer bag. She can still operate it through the plastic, apparently. Haven't tried it myself.
EDIT: I just tried wearing a Ziploc sandwich bad as a mitt and operating my iPad. There's apparently no degrading of the touch screen! I'll have to pick up some large Ziploc bags the next time I'm at the store.
EDIT: I just tried wearing a Ziploc sandwich bad as a mitt and operating my iPad. There's apparently no degrading of the touch screen! I'll have to pick up some large Ziploc bags the next time I'm at the store.
I run, rain or shine. Last year, I had an eight mile run through some heavy flooding, to the point where I had to backtrack because some of the roads had developed lakes in the most inconvenient places.
Took two days for my shoes to dry.
The Ziplock bag around my Runkeepering iPhone didn't miss a trick. :)
Took two days for my shoes to dry.
The Ziplock bag around my Runkeepering iPhone didn't miss a trick. :)
Here is one option for a water-proof iPad enclosure, though I'm sure it can be improved upon: http://gadgetsin.com/waterwear-waterproof-ipad-case.htm
Looks great. Need to figure out whether the built-in GPS is good or how to connect an external one.
I have TideApp, but I haven't seen anything like weatherfax on the iphone :-)
You're right that chart plotter on the ipad would be pretty tops. As waterproofing.. you'd have to use a material that lets the capacitance of your finger through.
You're right that chart plotter on the ipad would be pretty tops. As waterproofing.. you'd have to use a material that lets the capacitance of your finger through.
Do you know of any material that lets capacitance through?
The other issue is connecting a GPS to the iPad if the internal GPS is not good enough. I don't know if it is yet, will take my iPad sailing this August.
Apple requires you to build external accessories specifically to work with iOS devices. I think that even requires a special chip. An external Bluetooth GPS would likely be power-hungry.
I think http://www.tacktick.com/ are an awesome example of low-power marine electronics. They designed and built their own low-power wireless network to connect their instruments and powered them with solar energy whenever possible.
The other issue is connecting a GPS to the iPad if the internal GPS is not good enough. I don't know if it is yet, will take my iPad sailing this August.
Apple requires you to build external accessories specifically to work with iOS devices. I think that even requires a special chip. An external Bluetooth GPS would likely be power-hungry.
I think http://www.tacktick.com/ are an awesome example of low-power marine electronics. They designed and built their own low-power wireless network to connect their instruments and powered them with solar energy whenever possible.
"Do you know of any material that lets capacitance through?"
Just avoid insulators!
Regarding the connection of a GPS to the iPad, I don't have on hands the technical details of the iPad (or iPhone) GPS, but on open water, it will surely be better that in an urban canyon. It can see a lot of sky --> a lot of satellite. So, the internal GPS may be not so bad in your scenario.
But an external GPS with an active antenna will always be better (better GPS chip, better antenna and fewer electronics noise being far from the iPad radios). You can find kits build by Microchip and Cypress for the connection of external devices to the iPod/iPhone, but you first, must enroll in Apple’s Made for iPod licensing program, by completing the online application at http://developer.apple.com/programs/ipod/.
Here is the microchip kit: http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_P...
And here's the Cypress one: http://www.cypress.com/?rID=41030
Let me know if you need some advice on the GPS stuffs.
Regarding the connection of a GPS to the iPad, I don't have on hands the technical details of the iPad (or iPhone) GPS, but on open water, it will surely be better that in an urban canyon. It can see a lot of sky --> a lot of satellite. So, the internal GPS may be not so bad in your scenario.
But an external GPS with an active antenna will always be better (better GPS chip, better antenna and fewer electronics noise being far from the iPad radios). You can find kits build by Microchip and Cypress for the connection of external devices to the iPod/iPhone, but you first, must enroll in Apple’s Made for iPod licensing program, by completing the online application at http://developer.apple.com/programs/ipod/.
Here is the microchip kit: http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_P...
And here's the Cypress one: http://www.cypress.com/?rID=41030
Let me know if you need some advice on the GPS stuffs.
iPad 3G and iPhone 4 use the Broadcom BCM4750 receiver: http://www.broadcom.com/products/GPS/GPS-Silicon-Solutions/B...
"High-sensitivity, -157dBm assisted acquisition sensitivity (with coarse time assistance) and -162dBm tracking sensitivity, enabling indoor and deep urban operation"
You can compare this with an usual SIRF Star III based GPS receiver (Leadtek 9101x), which is not assisted: http://www.leadtek.com/eng/gps/overview.asp?lineid=8&pro...
With a sensitivity of -159dB and a cold start time of 35s (worst case scenario).
I think that, on open water, with a good sky visibility, the GPS included in the iPad 3G and the iPhone 4 should be more than adequate for this kind of usage.
"High-sensitivity, -157dBm assisted acquisition sensitivity (with coarse time assistance) and -162dBm tracking sensitivity, enabling indoor and deep urban operation"
You can compare this with an usual SIRF Star III based GPS receiver (Leadtek 9101x), which is not assisted: http://www.leadtek.com/eng/gps/overview.asp?lineid=8&pro...
With a sensitivity of -159dB and a cold start time of 35s (worst case scenario).
I think that, on open water, with a good sky visibility, the GPS included in the iPad 3G and the iPhone 4 should be more than adequate for this kind of usage.
sure, there are lots of "screen protectors" that are thin plastic films: http://www.amazon.com/9-7-Screen-Protector-Apple-iPad/dp/B00...
Tacktick looks pretty awesome, i will check them out!
Tacktick looks pretty awesome, i will check them out!
I hope someone like aquapac who make them for iphone will make an ipad cover too.
There is a company working on making an iPad enclosure that can be used in the tank with dolphins. I don't know what pressure depth it's supposed to be rated at, but it should be adequate for sailing.
Do you have the company name by any chance?
Timescales: How long do you have to turn your 100k into 1mm?
(I'm assuming here we're not considering inflation. )
If you need it in 10 years, you're going to need an annualized 25% or so rate of return. That's unlikely.
If you need it in 25 years, you can get by with 10%. That's definitely possible, if you follow good principles.
On the other hand, if you can put in an extra 50k a year, You should have close to $1mm in 10 years. (550-600k in investment, 400k in growth).
Given that you hate people and are super smart, and have a self described penchant for gambling, I would suggest you not try to grow your business, and also that you stay away from the stock market as long as you think timing it is a great plan.
All that adds up to (in my mind) buying some real estate. You live in a beautiful vacation spot, and could find property managers so that you don't have to deal with tenants.
Your 100k could easily buy a 300k small property, with some left over for unforeseen problems. Try it! It won't fluctuate in value like your previous stock market purchases, that's for sure.
(I'm assuming here we're not considering inflation. )
If you need it in 10 years, you're going to need an annualized 25% or so rate of return. That's unlikely.
If you need it in 25 years, you can get by with 10%. That's definitely possible, if you follow good principles.
On the other hand, if you can put in an extra 50k a year, You should have close to $1mm in 10 years. (550-600k in investment, 400k in growth).
Given that you hate people and are super smart, and have a self described penchant for gambling, I would suggest you not try to grow your business, and also that you stay away from the stock market as long as you think timing it is a great plan.
All that adds up to (in my mind) buying some real estate. You live in a beautiful vacation spot, and could find property managers so that you don't have to deal with tenants.
Your 100k could easily buy a 300k small property, with some left over for unforeseen problems. Try it! It won't fluctuate in value like your previous stock market purchases, that's for sure.
Thanks! I don't hate people, I just get tired of lots of people around me and need the solitude of my office.
My timeline is 10 years or less and I could, likely, add 50K a year.
I don't have a penchant for gambling, I traded twice in ... ugh... 15 years or so. I stopped because I figured I didn't know enough and wasn't capitalized well.
Real estate is great long-term. There are some awesome deals to be had in Tenerife as a lot of people are giving up their speculatively bought houses. You can buy a 1-bedroom apartment in a well-travelled tourist area near the beach. This will cost less than 100K in foreclosure.
Buying one apartment a year and renting it out to tourists is a great option, so long as the market has hit bottom, more or less. I don't think the Spanish real estate market has hit bottom, though.
My timeline is 10 years or less and I could, likely, add 50K a year.
I don't have a penchant for gambling, I traded twice in ... ugh... 15 years or so. I stopped because I figured I didn't know enough and wasn't capitalized well.
Real estate is great long-term. There are some awesome deals to be had in Tenerife as a lot of people are giving up their speculatively bought houses. You can buy a 1-bedroom apartment in a well-travelled tourist area near the beach. This will cost less than 100K in foreclosure.
Buying one apartment a year and renting it out to tourists is a great option, so long as the market has hit bottom, more or less. I don't think the Spanish real estate market has hit bottom, though.
No problem, I understand completely, and sorry to call you out on gambling, incorrectly.. : )
You might like this book: http://www.amazon.com/Retire-Early-Live-Million-Dollars/dp/1... He gives some advice about real estate investing for income, and suggests that a 'safe' amount of margin is 50% if you may want income from them to live off. So, you could possibly buy two of those apartments now. If the market drops 30% next year, and you have another 50k, buy another one. The first two are still going to cashflow, and you're making a long-term bet here.
In my experience, it's hard to time the market, really any market. I remember being desperate to buy a place in Cambridge, MA while the housing boom was going on in the late '90s. 800 square foot condos were selling for $500k+, in two to three days. Now, 10+ years later, you might have made a little money, net.
Meanwhile, in 2008, real estate looked 'risky'. Thinking about asset value first, market pricing second can fundamentally change one's decision matrix; this is one of the big points that Value Investors make, repeatedly.
You might like this book: http://www.amazon.com/Retire-Early-Live-Million-Dollars/dp/1... He gives some advice about real estate investing for income, and suggests that a 'safe' amount of margin is 50% if you may want income from them to live off. So, you could possibly buy two of those apartments now. If the market drops 30% next year, and you have another 50k, buy another one. The first two are still going to cashflow, and you're making a long-term bet here.
In my experience, it's hard to time the market, really any market. I remember being desperate to buy a place in Cambridge, MA while the housing boom was going on in the late '90s. 800 square foot condos were selling for $500k+, in two to three days. Now, 10+ years later, you might have made a little money, net.
Meanwhile, in 2008, real estate looked 'risky'. Thinking about asset value first, market pricing second can fundamentally change one's decision matrix; this is one of the big points that Value Investors make, repeatedly.
> My timeline is 10 years or less and I could, likely, add 50K a year.
Just a quick note here:
With 100k in year 1, plus 50k per year after, for a total of 10 years, you need to get about 11.5% annualized return after taxes and fees.
Good luck. :)
Just a quick note here:
With 100k in year 1, plus 50k per year after, for a total of 10 years, you need to get about 11.5% annualized return after taxes and fees.
Good luck. :)
$50k plus an additional 50k per year at 10% = $1,006,245.8 (compounded annually). What fees are you referring to? Different investments carry different loads, including nearly no load (or one included in calculations), for say real estate or direct stock purchases.
Ah, yeah I was assuming he meant this year (0% interest) plus 9 additional years of x% interest. I see now that I should have given him another year.
Okay, so he only has to return 10% annually. Still extremely difficult. :)
Okay, so he only has to return 10% annually. Still extremely difficult. :)
Many, many value investors have easily beat 10% p.a. over extremely long investment periods.
Very very few people who market themselves as investment advisors successfully deliver these returns to their clients, net of fees and taxes.
Very very few people who market themselves as investment advisors successfully deliver these returns to their clients, net of fees and taxes.
Maybe from 1950-1999. I do not know of many value investors who returned 10% annual over the last 10 years.
If they are that cheap, don't buy one paid in full, but buy three with 60% leveraged. Try to rent them out to long term tenants, or at least two of them, and maybe try your hand at the tourists with the third one, see if it can make a significantly higher ROI and get a feel for how much work it is.
With real estate, you need to be in it for the long haul. Let your tenants pay the mortgage and put the bit you have left over away so that you can buy a new unit every year or two. Real estate will appreciate with inflation and after 20 or 30 years (or 15 if you want to pay off aggressively) you'll be mortgage free and can retire on the rent. Or you can finance new properties with a mortgage on the equity in the other ones in 5 years... Real estate is awesome like that, but you'll get burned if you see it as a get rich quick scheme.
With real estate, you need to be in it for the long haul. Let your tenants pay the mortgage and put the bit you have left over away so that you can buy a new unit every year or two. Real estate will appreciate with inflation and after 20 or 30 years (or 15 if you want to pay off aggressively) you'll be mortgage free and can retire on the rent. Or you can finance new properties with a mortgage on the equity in the other ones in 5 years... Real estate is awesome like that, but you'll get burned if you see it as a get rich quick scheme.
Agreed. My edge here is that my wife (receiving travel agent) gets a flow of tourists that need accommodation. It's not even necessary to rent the units long-term, packing the summer and a few winter weeks, for example, should pay the mortgage.
p.s. Flipping real estate -- eventually, you're going to want income. Transaction costs for real estate are high, man. I guess my major advice is "Slow down. Value stability and income. Keep socking away the money, and invest it in areas unlinked to your primary earning potential (programming)."
Buying to rent should result in income uncorrelated to programing.
Go to law/medical/dental school and in about 10 years open your own practice. Anything else is a lottery and you should be playing for the fun of it, not to make money.
And school isn't a lotto? You know many happily employed recent law school grads these days? Or many young doctors who are confident they'll retire rich?
Law school is more of a lotto than medical school. They really aren't even comparable. My old college roommate makes $300K a year as a dermatologist.
The WORST you do as a doctor is about $120K/yr which is one of the best salaries you can make as a programmer.
Doctors don't become Google rich but if you are looking for a solid stable job that pays a lot it's still one of the best.
Law is different because there is no limit on the number of lawyers minted each year. Every year is a new record number of lawyers. A law school grad isn't guaranteed any job at all, even with a degree from a school like Yale. In contrast, doctors can literally kill people and keep their jobs.
The WORST you do as a doctor is about $120K/yr which is one of the best salaries you can make as a programmer.
Doctors don't become Google rich but if you are looking for a solid stable job that pays a lot it's still one of the best.
Law is different because there is no limit on the number of lawyers minted each year. Every year is a new record number of lawyers. A law school grad isn't guaranteed any job at all, even with a degree from a school like Yale. In contrast, doctors can literally kill people and keep their jobs.
School can be a lotto if you get a degree in aboriginal affairs or something similarly obscure.
Becoming a md/lawyer/dentist is a pretty sure thing. At least where I live (Canada) these professions are in demand. You can always move to smaller communities if needed.
I think the parent comment was pretty good advice.
Becoming a md/lawyer/dentist is a pretty sure thing. At least where I live (Canada) these professions are in demand. You can always move to smaller communities if needed.
I think the parent comment was pretty good advice.
Maybe things are different in Canada, but it sounds like pretty terrible advice to me. Starting out your career with six figures of debt in a bad economy?
I really feel very strongly that you should ONLY be a doctor, lawyer, or dentist if you genuinely like doctoring, lawyering, or dentistry. It ain't a get rich quick scheme.
I really feel very strongly that you should ONLY be a doctor, lawyer, or dentist if you genuinely like doctoring, lawyering, or dentistry. It ain't a get rich quick scheme.
Buy stock in SecondMarket for companies that are likely to IPO: LinkedIn, Zynga, etc
Why do you want a million euro? Are you going to spend one million euro on something?
I bet the answer is that you aren't going to spend $1M on anything. You intend to put the $1M in some very safe investment and live off the interest, correct?
So you don't really need $1M, what you need is $100K per year passive income. It's the same thing.
If you look at your problem that way, things seem more doable. Instead of spending 10 years making $1M, you can spend the same 10 years growing your passive income from $1K to $10K to $100K.
As somebody who has made a lot of money in real estate and in stocks ... and who has also lost much of it, I believe a business is a better investment for you than stocks or real estate. A business is a machine that produces money. Making your money in stocks or real estate is like hunting. Every time you go hunting, you may be lucky, but you may be unlucky. It's not conducive to a stress free state of mind.
Since your current business can't ever be passive, you'll need to start a new one that can be. Your sailboat electronics passion seems like a good one. Electronic products can be passive income and sailboat owners have money.
Good luck.
I bet the answer is that you aren't going to spend $1M on anything. You intend to put the $1M in some very safe investment and live off the interest, correct?
So you don't really need $1M, what you need is $100K per year passive income. It's the same thing.
If you look at your problem that way, things seem more doable. Instead of spending 10 years making $1M, you can spend the same 10 years growing your passive income from $1K to $10K to $100K.
As somebody who has made a lot of money in real estate and in stocks ... and who has also lost much of it, I believe a business is a better investment for you than stocks or real estate. A business is a machine that produces money. Making your money in stocks or real estate is like hunting. Every time you go hunting, you may be lucky, but you may be unlucky. It's not conducive to a stress free state of mind.
Since your current business can't ever be passive, you'll need to start a new one that can be. Your sailboat electronics passion seems like a good one. Electronic products can be passive income and sailboat owners have money.
Good luck.
When I first read the question, I thought Oh boy, there's going to be some asinine suggestions to this one. But this is one of the most sensible answers I can think of. Seeking to turn 1 buck to 10 in the markets, and quick, sounds like the beginning of a disaster. Reframing the question to one of passive income, one can view the 100K as a sort of financial buffer that can finance or cushion different forays into passive income generating ideas (for example, take a month off regular work, take 5K (or whatever it costs to maintain your family) out of the buffer, and work on some crazy idea that may or may not work out. You could do this 20 times (although I doubt anyone could be so dumb as to totally lose it all 20 times in a row!) and even if it's all financially unsuccessful, you would have learned a ton! That sounds doable and realistic and actually fun.
On a personal note: I'm in a similar position to the OP, except I inherited the money a few weeks ago, and am still trying to figure out how to go about this. Thanks a lot for this new perspective!!!
On a personal note: I'm in a similar position to the OP, except I inherited the money a few weeks ago, and am still trying to figure out how to go about this. Thanks a lot for this new perspective!!!
You are right. I don't need the million euro since I don't know what to spend it on. What I'm looking for is freedom to learn and do new things that interest me.
I used to do this by working 6 months out of a year at most but I still don't own a house and don't have a nest egg. Nothing to ensure my family has a comfortable life if, God forbid, anything happens to me.
I like your perspective of growing passive income from 1k to 10k to 100k!
I used to do this by working 6 months out of a year at most but I still don't own a house and don't have a nest egg. Nothing to ensure my family has a comfortable life if, God forbid, anything happens to me.
I like your perspective of growing passive income from 1k to 10k to 100k!
Well then for starters maybe you should spend some of that money on life insurance.
I looked into that and was very surprised at how small the payout is. I could buy 500k or 1mm of life insurance in the US from what I remember. Here in Spain it's 50k or 100k or a similarly small amount.
If you were in the US, I'd suggest real estate. At this point in the real estate cycle, you could probably buy two single homes, or a duplex/triplex and rent it out and have positive cashflow immediately. I used to be a landlord, but sold the house and I sometimes regret that decision since it was bringing in about $400/month with no work on my part. Rental property isn't a bad investment if you're willing to do the work and it's easy to sell if the property is making money.
I don't know what Spain's real estate market is like, but in a touristy location there are probably opportunities to get creative.
I don't know what Spain's real estate market is like, but in a touristy location there are probably opportunities to get creative.
Spanish real estate has been tanking. Over 1.5mm units unsold. I think it's a good time to buy, perhaps towards the end of the year.
My wife is a self-employed travel agent catering to the Russian market (I'm Russian/Cuban). I she would love to go into property management, specially if the property is ours.
I'm reading about LBOs in "Barbarians at the gate" and I think it's a bit like that. You need to figure out the potential rental income of a property and convince the bankers that it's enough to service the mortgage debt. All the while putting as little of your own money in as possible.
My wife is a self-employed travel agent catering to the Russian market (I'm Russian/Cuban). I she would love to go into property management, specially if the property is ours.
I'm reading about LBOs in "Barbarians at the gate" and I think it's a bit like that. You need to figure out the potential rental income of a property and convince the bankers that it's enough to service the mortgage debt. All the while putting as little of your own money in as possible.
"You need to figure out the potential rental income of a property and convince the bankers that it's enough to service the mortgage debt. All the while putting as little of your own money in as possible."
This last part is not true. 100% leveraged properties are hard to make serious money on, and it makes for a fragile business (you only need one down cycle to bring down the, ehm, house). Average return on rental in the private is 4-5% in most parts of Europe. Right now you can get a mortgage lower than that (I actually took one out this morning for this exact purpose) but only for variable rate ones, which will reset almost surely to above 4% in a few years. It depends on the circumstances what the most profitable thing to do is, but it's almost never to finance 100% (which would be 100%+ because of closure costs...)
This last part is not true. 100% leveraged properties are hard to make serious money on, and it makes for a fragile business (you only need one down cycle to bring down the, ehm, house). Average return on rental in the private is 4-5% in most parts of Europe. Right now you can get a mortgage lower than that (I actually took one out this morning for this exact purpose) but only for variable rate ones, which will reset almost surely to above 4% in a few years. It depends on the circumstances what the most profitable thing to do is, but it's almost never to finance 100% (which would be 100%+ because of closure costs...)
Roel, I was thinking of a regular 20% downpayment, maybe a little more. That's about 30% with closure costs in Spain.
Yes, I too feel that that is about the right level at this moment.
I was in Tenerife earlier this year and I was shocked at the number of properties that were lying around, half completed. It seemed like every cove and beach along the south and west coasts of the island had uncompleted holiday/retirement apartment buildings lying semi-built. I was also amazed that prices in the local agents seemed ridiculously high given the obvious devastation in the market. I would be extremely wary about entering the Spanish real estate market right now...
Developers are going out of business and don't have money to finish properties. Banks are saddled with large inventory of foreclosed properties and are getting rid of it very slowly, hoping not to show large losses, I think.
The asking prices are set high all over the island in the hope that foreigners will bite. You need an official appraisal by the bank before you get a mortgage and you may then get 80% of the amount.
Asking prices used to be exactly 80% of appraised value or less and people are still clinging to the high prices from the market top. Try negotiating, though, and you'll see prices come down rapidly.
I rented a house a few months ago and the owner wanted 330K or so. I insisted on renting and the owner said that if the price is the problem then he could go down to 290, 280, etc.
It's not even funny how prices in the US are more or less uniform, as if people are aware of property values around them and are trying to price them fairly. No such thing around here as people ask what they want and then negotiate down, down, down.
The asking prices are set high all over the island in the hope that foreigners will bite. You need an official appraisal by the bank before you get a mortgage and you may then get 80% of the amount.
Asking prices used to be exactly 80% of appraised value or less and people are still clinging to the high prices from the market top. Try negotiating, though, and you'll see prices come down rapidly.
I rented a house a few months ago and the owner wanted 330K or so. I insisted on renting and the owner said that if the price is the problem then he could go down to 290, 280, etc.
It's not even funny how prices in the US are more or less uniform, as if people are aware of property values around them and are trying to price them fairly. No such thing around here as people ask what they want and then negotiate down, down, down.
> At this point in the real estate cycle, you could probably buy two single homes,
For $100k? Where in the US would that be?
For $100k? Where in the US would that be?
Not for cash: well, you probably could buy two condos for cash, but that's not what I meant.
I meant in terms of down payment. Even here, (rural Minnesota outside the Twin Cities), people want to rent. A house around here with 20 acres of land can be had for less than $300k. Houses in town on 1/2 acre can be found for under $200k, and this is in a pleasant small town. There are many people who for one reason or another can't afford their own home, and make great tenants. My favorite was the guy who paid cash, months in advance because he traveled a lot and "didn't want to be late."
I meant in terms of down payment. Even here, (rural Minnesota outside the Twin Cities), people want to rent. A house around here with 20 acres of land can be had for less than $300k. Houses in town on 1/2 acre can be found for under $200k, and this is in a pleasant small town. There are many people who for one reason or another can't afford their own home, and make great tenants. My favorite was the guy who paid cash, months in advance because he traveled a lot and "didn't want to be late."
Here in small town midwest you can get decent rental properties for around 50k-60k.
you could get 10 of them in detroit.
If you'd like to flip real estate, you might want to look into investing in Uruguay (South America), or another reasonably lawful third world country (Costa Rica?) where 100K Euros might get you somewhat far (taxes are the killer here, though).
However, building over here is better investment than flipping. You'd need a reliable partner or heavy hands-on overseeing, and I'm not him :P
I also agree with other posters that you stick to your strengths, and research VERY carefully. Edit: sailing over here is quite nice :)
However, building over here is better investment than flipping. You'd need a reliable partner or heavy hands-on overseeing, and I'm not him :P
I also agree with other posters that you stick to your strengths, and research VERY carefully. Edit: sailing over here is quite nice :)
From what you have written, it seems like you are a hard core programmer.If you like programming then shifting to some other profession to earn more money , might not help much as you will always have the craving to sit on your computer and create code.
Trading is good but risky, i would suggest not to risk all your hard earned money there though you might allocate a smaller portion for this.
Since you mentioned you take only those projects that you are interested in that means you do get more offers, start a consulting business and give the other projects that you are not interested in to other folks that you hire and earn from their hourly rate.
I don't have a craving to sit in front of my computer and create code. I have a craving to learn things, get to the bottom of things, solve tough challenges.
I also like selling. I spent a year as a commission-only sales person, selling trading software over the internet. I think I did reasonably well and I enjoyed it tremendously.
I did notice that I missed the technical challenge, though.
I also like selling. I spent a year as a commission-only sales person, selling trading software over the internet. I think I did reasonably well and I enjoyed it tremendously.
I did notice that I missed the technical challenge, though.
I suggest you stay with what you know, (software) and do not try more investing in stocks and equities
"I rent but paid cash for a recent BMW last year"
One tip I can offer is not to do things like that. A house or condo is generally an investment that increases in value, so you should buy that for yourself instead of buying it for your landlord. And paying a lot for a car that will be
virtually worthless in 10 years won't help you achieve your goal.
Buying isn't always a better idea than renting. The OP lives in Spain, but the nytimes has a US based rent/buy calculator that is very good:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...
It basically comes down to how long you'll be in the house, and how much you think it will appreciate over that time. There are plenty of scenarios where renting comes out ahead.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...
It basically comes down to how long you'll be in the house, and how much you think it will appreciate over that time. There are plenty of scenarios where renting comes out ahead.
Umm... I forgot to mention that I'm still an illegal alien :). My wife received her residence just last year so the BMW (1.5 y.o when bought) was really a gift to her. Plus, I really wanted one after driving the 2004 Fiat Punto (no air conditioning!) for over 2 years.
I still have the Punto and hope to get a residence this year. It's an 80% mortgage when I do and 50% while I don't so I'd rather wait.
I still have the Punto and hope to get a residence this year. It's an 80% mortgage when I do and 50% while I don't so I'd rather wait.
Couldn't agree more. Seems like the OP needs to start with basic money management skills before doing fancy things. 100k isn't a lot. I suggest reading getrichslowly.org/blog, it's focused on getting out of debt but the same principles apply to personal finance beyond that point.
Invest in adderall and see where that takes you. Joking.
In all seriousness, drop the desire to turn 100k into 1 mil in x amount of time. That will lead you into wreckless, speculative behavior. Trading is tempting for you because it offers instant feedback. With one or two successful trades, people tend to extrapolate their returns into future returns, believing that it's possible to repeat these trades over and over again. Odds are stacked against them. Don't fall victim to this thought pattern.
Smart investors invest where their odds are highest of winning. From what you've written, it sounds like that investment would be in yourself. What led you to this "blockbuster" year? Can you grow and expand upon the factors that led to such a successful year? I'm sure there's some opportunity. Do it.
In all seriousness, drop the desire to turn 100k into 1 mil in x amount of time. That will lead you into wreckless, speculative behavior. Trading is tempting for you because it offers instant feedback. With one or two successful trades, people tend to extrapolate their returns into future returns, believing that it's possible to repeat these trades over and over again. Odds are stacked against them. Don't fall victim to this thought pattern.
Smart investors invest where their odds are highest of winning. From what you've written, it sounds like that investment would be in yourself. What led you to this "blockbuster" year? Can you grow and expand upon the factors that led to such a successful year? I'm sure there's some opportunity. Do it.
> That will lead you into wreckless, speculative behavior
I think you meant wreckful. Or reckless. :-)
I think you meant wreckful. Or reckless. :-)
hire more developers!
[and feed them adderall!!]
[and feed them adderall!!]
Seriously, my best friend has had fantastic results from adderall. He feels like he can get things done 150% as well as he used to, and I agree from watching and listening to him. He's a self employed HVAC contractor, but I think some of the same factors might apply.
What led to my blockbuster year? Luck and my desire to work more. I used to work 1-2 weeks out of 4, that was enough for everything since my burn rate is low (3-3.5K EUR/mo). I sailed for about 8 weeks in the first half of 2008, for example. The relaxed work style didn't let me save much, though, not enough to get a shot at independence.
I guess "independence" is in the eye of the beholder. Working 1-2 weeks out of 4 and sailing around sounds like a pretty nice level of independence for someone like me. If your idea of independence is to never have to work a day of your life ever again if you choose not to, it sounds like the solution would be to "work more" in the near term. It sounds like you're a pretty bright fellow and when you do work, your services are highly valued. The more you work, the higher your odds of "getting lucky" are.
Aye!
"With one or two successful trades, people tend to extrapolate their returns into future returns, believing that it's possible to repeat these trades over and over again."
Worse, he describes how he has tried trading various times with no success, and still thinks trading is his best bet for meeting his goals.
Sounds more like a compulsion than a well thought out strategy.
Worse, he describes how he has tried trading various times with no success, and still thinks trading is his best bet for meeting his goals.
Sounds more like a compulsion than a well thought out strategy.
Given the probability that you will not actually make a million, I think that this is a false goal that will only lead to frustration. My plan is to utilize my savings, after having got out of the 10 year rat race, to do something I enjoy (that also has a fair chance of being big). If it turns out that I make a million, well and good, if not then atleast I've been enjoying the money instead of leaving that to after retirement. The rat race is always there if I feel the need to go back.
Addendum: I also believe pretty much anything you do for the next ten years has a fair chance of being big. The only problem I see is that you're constrained by having a family and so might not have 10 years to fritter away like that.
Addendum: I also believe pretty much anything you do for the next ten years has a fair chance of being big. The only problem I see is that you're constrained by having a family and so might not have 10 years to fritter away like that.
I have a very understanding family and my wife works lightly while she babysits the younger daughter. I think I can still manage to accomplish something.
Then AOL ran out of capacity and I was back to my 700 bucks after paying about 200 in commission to Bear.
How did you pay 200 dollars in commissions on a 700 dollar trade? How did you find work at an investment bank without being sufficiently savvy to realize that buying options on a credit card and then paying a gigantic commission is an absolute, guaranteed way to lose money over time? I'm genuinely confused here.
At any rate, the only people profiting on derivatives are the market makers. And even they blow up eventually. (Example: Bear Stearns).
How did you pay 200 dollars in commissions on a 700 dollar trade? How did you find work at an investment bank without being sufficiently savvy to realize that buying options on a credit card and then paying a gigantic commission is an absolute, guaranteed way to lose money over time? I'm genuinely confused here.
At any rate, the only people profiting on derivatives are the market makers. And even they blow up eventually. (Example: Bear Stearns).
How did you find work at an investment bank without being sufficiently savvy to realize?
Is this deliberately intended to be disparaging? 1. There are plenty of people at investment banks whose principal function isn't to understand options. 2. What makes it so clear that buying options is a "guaranteed way to lose money over time".
At any rate, the only people profiting on derivatives are the market makers. And even they blow up eventually.
This is empirically false. There are a lot of people who make money in derivatives. Vol stat arb funds have performed very well over the last 5 years, dispersion has long been a popular trade.
Bear stearns did not blow out in its marketmaking capacity.
Typically the options traders that are said to "blow up eventually" are premium sellers, not buyers, which is in direct contradiction to your previous comment about option buyers being guaranteed to lose money over time.
This is unnecessary and not really in the spirit of providing help to someone asking for advice.
You either think he's full of BS and are trying to call him out or are just being rude. I think he sounds sufficiently accomplished and is trying to understand a new field. Don't discourage that.
edit: had to look up how to properly italicize
Is this deliberately intended to be disparaging? 1. There are plenty of people at investment banks whose principal function isn't to understand options. 2. What makes it so clear that buying options is a "guaranteed way to lose money over time".
At any rate, the only people profiting on derivatives are the market makers. And even they blow up eventually.
This is empirically false. There are a lot of people who make money in derivatives. Vol stat arb funds have performed very well over the last 5 years, dispersion has long been a popular trade.
Bear stearns did not blow out in its marketmaking capacity.
Typically the options traders that are said to "blow up eventually" are premium sellers, not buyers, which is in direct contradiction to your previous comment about option buyers being guaranteed to lose money over time.
This is unnecessary and not really in the spirit of providing help to someone asking for advice.
You either think he's full of BS and are trying to call him out or are just being rude. I think he sounds sufficiently accomplished and is trying to understand a new field. Don't discourage that.
edit: had to look up how to properly italicize
What makes it so clear that buying options is a "guaranteed way to lose money over time".
Derivatives are mathematically zero sum minus costs. That's why. For traders in aggregate, they are a certain loss. Tack on leverage via credit cards, well...
Is this deliberately intended to be disparaging
Sort of. The guy needs to realize that he's capable of really stupid mistakes before he opens that fresh new brokerage account. 700 dollars is obviously nothing, but should be a valuable lesson, and not an optimistic one.
Derivatives are mathematically zero sum minus costs. That's why. For traders in aggregate, they are a certain loss. Tack on leverage via credit cards, well...
Is this deliberately intended to be disparaging
Sort of. The guy needs to realize that he's capable of really stupid mistakes before he opens that fresh new brokerage account. 700 dollars is obviously nothing, but should be a valuable lesson, and not an optimistic one.
Derivatives are mathematically zero sum minus costs. That's why. For traders in aggregate, they are a certain loss.
1. Fair enough. HSO makes the point that this is true for all financial transactions. So by your logic, investing in the stock market is also a guaranteed way to lose money over time. I don't think this is your contention, but this is really going to end up being a silly conversation if we have it. We'll just agree to disagree.
2. On a different note, in the interest of sharing something I learned recently. Options almost always trade at a volatility premium to their realized volatility. The reason for that is that vol traders want to price in the future uncertainty in vol.
Derman writes about this a bit here by comparing it to interest rate term structures: http://ederman.com/new/docs/gaim-trading_volatility.pdf
3. Also, historically (if that matters) selling vol is actually positive EV. BXM is a buywrite index and has outperformed the SP500 on a risk adjusted basis (http://ederman.com/new/docs/gaim-trading_volatility.pdf) indicating that option vols have not been fairly priced.
4. Countering #4 is the popular Taleb wisdom about selling vol. Taleb is a net buyer and won. His general contention though is that kurtosis of the distribution is mis(under)priced. So from those 2, you might think that selling at the money options is positive EV and buying "tails" is positive EV. Of course the rest of the Taleb intuition is that we have no idea what the actual yield distribution should look like, so all pricing is out the window.
1. Fair enough. HSO makes the point that this is true for all financial transactions. So by your logic, investing in the stock market is also a guaranteed way to lose money over time. I don't think this is your contention, but this is really going to end up being a silly conversation if we have it. We'll just agree to disagree.
2. On a different note, in the interest of sharing something I learned recently. Options almost always trade at a volatility premium to their realized volatility. The reason for that is that vol traders want to price in the future uncertainty in vol.
Derman writes about this a bit here by comparing it to interest rate term structures: http://ederman.com/new/docs/gaim-trading_volatility.pdf
3. Also, historically (if that matters) selling vol is actually positive EV. BXM is a buywrite index and has outperformed the SP500 on a risk adjusted basis (http://ederman.com/new/docs/gaim-trading_volatility.pdf) indicating that option vols have not been fairly priced.
4. Countering #4 is the popular Taleb wisdom about selling vol. Taleb is a net buyer and won. His general contention though is that kurtosis of the distribution is mis(under)priced. So from those 2, you might think that selling at the money options is positive EV and buying "tails" is positive EV. Of course the rest of the Taleb intuition is that we have no idea what the actual yield distribution should look like, so all pricing is out the window.
[deleted]
1995 was 15 years ago. I advanced a bit since then.
I'm thinking that trading may be my best bet.
I traded twice in ... ugh... 15 years or so.
I advanced a bit since then.
Yeah right. You might want to put your money in this:
https://online.citibank.com/US/JRS/pands/detail.do?ID=SvgCDs
I traded twice in ... ugh... 15 years or so.
I advanced a bit since then.
Yeah right. You might want to put your money in this:
https://online.citibank.com/US/JRS/pands/detail.do?ID=SvgCDs
It's a vague recollection but I think options commissions at Bear -were- $100 per side back in 1995/96. Now, I didn't work in investment banking, I was a lowly programmer in the Securities Lending department. Also, you had to use Bear to trade if you were working for Bear.
That said, I was green and didn't know anything about trading at that time. I found work by being good at what I do :D.
That said, I was green and didn't know anything about trading at that time. I found work by being good at what I do :D.
Bear Stearns loved to hire autodidact college dropouts.
"Under Greenberg’s control, Bear’s profits grew quickly. At its peak it employed almost 15,000 people. While most Wall Street firms preferred to hire Ivy Leaguers, Greenberg looked for people with “PSD” degrees, by which he meant “poor, smart and a deep desire to become rich.”"
"Under Greenberg’s control, Bear’s profits grew quickly. At its peak it employed almost 15,000 people. While most Wall Street firms preferred to hire Ivy Leaguers, Greenberg looked for people with “PSD” degrees, by which he meant “poor, smart and a deep desire to become rich.”"
My advice to you is to have a long timeline. If you try to turn it into a million in 1 year you're going to take too many risks and fail.
Diversify your investments. Putting $100K in 1 stock is how you lose money. Try picking 10-15 companies in different industries: technology, healthcare, finance, commodities, etc. Do your research and pick companies that have a lot of upside potential.
For example, if you wanted to make a bet that the mobile space is going to be the future of computing, which seems pretty likely, start buying up suppliers of tablet computers. ARM holdings, Qlogic, etc, find all of the chip makers that make chips in an iPad and research each one of them.
Finally, I would recommend you protect your earnings. My portfolio is up 35% in the past year, and I keep trailing stop limit sell orders on all of my securities to protect my winnings. The global economy is uncertain enough right now, and who knows if we're going to see a repeat of fall 2008 again (my bet is we are). I want to lock in my earnings. Consider pair trading, or hedging yourself in other ways.
Definitely think long-term, protect your earnings with stop limit orders or hedging and pair trading. This is the only way to come out ahead of the market.
Diversify your investments. Putting $100K in 1 stock is how you lose money. Try picking 10-15 companies in different industries: technology, healthcare, finance, commodities, etc. Do your research and pick companies that have a lot of upside potential.
For example, if you wanted to make a bet that the mobile space is going to be the future of computing, which seems pretty likely, start buying up suppliers of tablet computers. ARM holdings, Qlogic, etc, find all of the chip makers that make chips in an iPad and research each one of them.
Finally, I would recommend you protect your earnings. My portfolio is up 35% in the past year, and I keep trailing stop limit sell orders on all of my securities to protect my winnings. The global economy is uncertain enough right now, and who knows if we're going to see a repeat of fall 2008 again (my bet is we are). I want to lock in my earnings. Consider pair trading, or hedging yourself in other ways.
Definitely think long-term, protect your earnings with stop limit orders or hedging and pair trading. This is the only way to come out ahead of the market.
I think there's money to be made in trading Apple against Nokia, RIMM, etc. This just needs a LOT of research. I agree with the rest.
I'm not planning to use more than 25-30K if I trade and 0.5-1% of that on every trade. Proper money management and risk controls are key.
I'm not planning to use more than 25-30K if I trade and 0.5-1% of that on every trade. Proper money management and risk controls are key.
It's not impossible, but pairs trading is something a lot of full-time analysts research, and hedge funds put a lot of money into it, so you're going to have to have either luck or some kind of unique insight to find pairs trades where there are significant unexploited arbitrage opportunities left.
Blog about your quest to turn 100k into 1 million. Lots of people will read it, the advertising potential would be strong, and - if you're successful - you could write a book about it.
Thanks! I think it stands to have more success than the Erlang book I never finished :D.
You may invest in http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=MUTF:FNMIX
1) take $50K to a casino
2) buy a color on the roulette wheel
3) set up a bet that has some fun characteristics ... maybe a 10% chance of paying 1m and a 30% chance of losing entirely (with some variety in the middle).
Let the wheel spin and enjoy the adrenaline. Worst case you go back to your lucrative consulting gig. Consider that you already paid the amount you lost in taxes and you don't even miss it.
Let the wheel spin and enjoy the adrenaline. Worst case you go back to your lucrative consulting gig. Consider that you already paid the amount you lost in taxes and you don't even miss it.
I don't pay taxes. Mine is an offshore company and I'm not yet a resident of Spain. I hope to start paying about 20% in taxes by the end of this year, I'm sick and tired of being an illegal alien.
You may develop a HFT platform and sell it off to HNIs.
Here's an idea. There is an instrument called a "straddle option" that is essentially a bet on volatility. I think it'd be interesting to try to formulate a strategy that made aggressive purchases of these around various product announcements.
edit: Perhaps this wasn't the wisest comment ever, but not sure why it was modded down.
edit: Perhaps this wasn't the wisest comment ever, but not sure why it was modded down.
I tried buying strangles and stradles a few times, up to a few small bets ($40-50) at a time. There's a substantial difference on whether the earnings announcements are after hours in the evening or in the morning, for example.
I think I would have made money with a trailing stop but Thinkorswim did not have trailing stops at the time. The problem, of course, is the volatility drop-off right after earnings announcements. You also need to evaluate what the company is doing and see if there's a good chance the stock will move.
I found http://www.theflyonthewall.com to be excellent for research.
The volatility drop-offs doesn't happen right away after the earnings announcements, at least that's what I noticed. There's still a bit of time (minutes?) where traders are slugging it out.
It's virtually impossible to monitor several positions for volatility drop-offs on Thinkorswim, though. ZenFire is available on the Mac but ZenFire equities and options are only available through a couple of brokerages where a large account is required. Contrast with futures (and options on futures) that I can get over ZenFire through my Mirus/Dorman account for a $500 deposit.
I think I would have made money with a trailing stop but Thinkorswim did not have trailing stops at the time. The problem, of course, is the volatility drop-off right after earnings announcements. You also need to evaluate what the company is doing and see if there's a good chance the stock will move.
I found http://www.theflyonthewall.com to be excellent for research.
The volatility drop-offs doesn't happen right away after the earnings announcements, at least that's what I noticed. There's still a bit of time (minutes?) where traders are slugging it out.
It's virtually impossible to monitor several positions for volatility drop-offs on Thinkorswim, though. ZenFire is available on the Mac but ZenFire equities and options are only available through a couple of brokerages where a large account is required. Contrast with futures (and options on futures) that I can get over ZenFire through my Mirus/Dorman account for a $500 deposit.
Its a fairly well documented phenomenon that option volatility increases going into earnings then immediately deflates after the fact.
An at the money "straddle option" is essentially purely a volatility play, but the problem is that once the stock moves, the "straddle option" accumulates various other risk factors that are harder to manage.
This is also why you can't just sell the position knowing that the volatility will go down after earnings, because the change in the risk characteristics other than volatility may be sufficiently costly so as to offset the gains from the decrease in volatility with a short straddle position.
This particular play is fairly common though and many option traders who feel they have insight into the magnitude of the future move relative to its pre-earnings pricing will make plays on it (largely based on historical evidence or earnings predictions).
An at the money "straddle option" is essentially purely a volatility play, but the problem is that once the stock moves, the "straddle option" accumulates various other risk factors that are harder to manage.
This is also why you can't just sell the position knowing that the volatility will go down after earnings, because the change in the risk characteristics other than volatility may be sufficiently costly so as to offset the gains from the decrease in volatility with a short straddle position.
This particular play is fairly common though and many option traders who feel they have insight into the magnitude of the future move relative to its pre-earnings pricing will make plays on it (largely based on historical evidence or earnings predictions).
multiply it by 10
this sounds like the most surefire way to achieve your goals.
seconded.
seconded.
Trading sounds like a very risky way to try to grow the $100k you worked so hard for, esp considering you have a wife and kids. My best non-expert advice would be to try starting a profitable small business that leverages all your strongest skills and passions, and that can evolve into a passive income stream. That stream plus possibly more contract/wage work over the next 5-10 years could take you to $1 million. Take this with grain of salt.
You could move to Argentina. EUR $100k = ARS $480k
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=eur+ars++exchange+ra...
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=eur+ars++exchange+ra...
Before you can turn 100k into a million... First attempt to turn 100 into $1000
Certain, Quick, Legal. Pick any two.
It sounds like you made 100k from contracting in six months. If that is the case, the fastest way to a million is to continue contracting.
Considering that you already built a poker product and some trading programs and that betting on fantasy sports will be the next major thing and there is no industry leader yet, I would probably look into creating a fantasy sport product with a trading component in it.
Something that you can sell to media operators or gambling sites either as a standalone product or white label.
Coding and selling.
Something that you can sell to media operators or gambling sites either as a standalone product or white label.
Coding and selling.
Doing event-driven trading isolated in the Cayman Islands without any sort of insider connections is a recipe for failure.
There are lots of high-frequency trading shops that could put your engineering chops to work, most of the shops are small enough that I'm sure they'd be happy to offer you some form of partnership with your spare cash. HFT strategies have very definite limits on lifespan and investment cap, but tend to produce out sized returns (yes, 10x).
Most of the big shops are in Chicago. Start with Jane St: http://www.janestcapital.com/
There are lots of high-frequency trading shops that could put your engineering chops to work, most of the shops are small enough that I'm sure they'd be happy to offer you some form of partnership with your spare cash. HFT strategies have very definite limits on lifespan and investment cap, but tend to produce out sized returns (yes, 10x).
Most of the big shops are in Chicago. Start with Jane St: http://www.janestcapital.com/
[deleted]
How do I turn that into 1 million?
I'm a self-employed contractor, have been at it for over 10 years.
My strong point is learning complex things from scratch, on my own and quickly. I'm an autodidact and a college dropout. Judging by the amount of money I made from programming over the years, I'd say I'm a pretty good programmer. I'm driven by a quest for knowledge and I'm a voracious reader.
I'm quite tenacious and often seek perfection. I once rewrote a compiler from a trading language to C# in Haskell, OCaml and Lisp.
My weak point is that I get bored quickly, otherwise I would have developed an app and sold it already. My other weak point is that I love to work alone and hate lots of people around. Last but not least, I take a hedonist approach to programming and only take on projects that please me. I'm fine on the Mac, for example, and wouldn't go to Windows even if it made me money.
Trading is fun and interests me. I would also love to learn electronics, with an eye towards low-power gadgets on sailboats. I love sailing and will take August off to sail and get a RYA coastal skipper qualification. I'm also interested in robotics and embedded bits, although that's related to electronics.
I live in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) and would love to flip real estate but I'm afraid 100K won't carry me far. I'm married and have two daughters. I rent but paid cash for a recent BMW last year.
I'm thinking that trading may be my best bet. My first trade was back in 1996 when I was working at Bear Stearns and AOL announced unlimited dialup. I drew about 700 bucks from my credit card and bought two AOL calls (different months). My bet was that AOL will dominate the competition in the short term and I was up to over 2K in a month or so. Then AOL ran out of capacity and I was back to my 700 bucks after paying about 200 in commission to Bear.
I also bought 5K worth of APPL calls before Apple announced the iPhone. I had 12.5K less than two weeks later. Unfortunately, I rolled the profits into more calls to speculate on the following APPL earnings announcement. The iPhone bit was the big news, though, earnings did not matter and volatility dropped off. I got out with the same 5K I started with.
I tried small scale straddling and strangling (options) around earnings announcement but lost a bit of money. I also lost around 1.5K day-trading trading S&P 500 and Russell 2000 e-mini futures.
I think there are plenty of opportunities for careful market speculation, particularly around events (BP oil spill?). I'm going through dozens of trading books and certainly won't repeat my amateur mistakes above.
I'm pretty content with what I have and use. I can't find a pressing need to develop something for myself and I can usually put up with my tools (Emacs, Erlang from the command-line).
I work alone at home and thus have a hard time spotting inefficient business processes. It was much better when I worked on Wall St, for example. I tried to launch a Securities Lending platform in 1997 but I guess I was way ahead of my time.
I also sold trading software full-time for a year, on a 30% commission. I found that existing trading software imposes the need to program on people who don't want it. Think making a non-programmer develop trading models in C#!
A wise friend, an experienced businessman, suggested that the only way to have a chance in hell to grow those 100k in to "bet on yourself" one way or the other.
Any other suggestions?
http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelreymont