Where/How to invest £25k

[Big Jim]

I have recently remortgaged my house and pulled out the equity we have accrued over 4 years.
This will leave me with between 25 and 27k to invest.

Currently we are very much break/fix, we service pcs/macs and phones/tablets (can't do micro-soldring though that is outsourced and not regular work for us anyway)

We have a small brick and mortar on a busy road in a small town.
The road gets huge amounts of passing traffic due to ur stupid one-way system but not much in the way of footfall.

We ask every customer who comes in how did you hear about us, I think we are running around 90% saying walked/drove past and saw us (our colour scheme is bright red)


My friend (business owner, but not techie in anyway) is really pushing for me to move in to the town centre so that we get higher footfall and start doing more retail as a pose to repairs.
Parking is not great anywhere in town centre, whereas the location we have now has its own parking out front.
and you know people want to be able to pull up outside so they don't have to lug equipment around.

I am kind of thinking this is not the way forward.
I am not really savvy with MS servers, we have our own that I manage (with the help of google). So my knowledge grows weekly but certainly not enough to fully support them and start chasing big business.

We do advertise small business support but don't get much in the way of business support calls (currently)


I would appreciate your ideas and thoughts.

 

[HFultzjr]

With the "consumer" junk that is out their, I would be looking at refurbishing BUSINESS class laptops and desktops. Add an SSD and you sell someone a much better system. Keep several in stock and rotate as they sell. Have a nice "display" set-up to show them when they come in. Up sell Anti-virus, backup, etc.

 

[Markverhyden]

By definition foot traffic is not going to bring in immediate customers in your case, other than the cracked screen smart devices kind. No one walks around with their busted laptop/desktop on the off chance they might pass by a place. And the parking observation is very valid as well.

Personally I'd be very conservative about that equity you've pulled out and what to do with it. Other than equity purchases investing in any business, inventory, real estate, advertising, etc is risky. I think you'd be better served by taking some of that an spending it on adding to your small business skills. Like a M$ Action Pack Subscription. In addition to use of current versions of all OS's, desktop and server, you get credits you can use for Azure. This also includes O365, 5 seats if I remember correctly. This will let you practice setting it up and using it. Look around on here for discount codes. They can drop the price in half.

Also look at getting a second server, used of course, for a lab. You can learn Hyper-V, included with MAP, as well as ESXi. Even small businesses may want to use VM's.

As far as inventory, again I'd be conservative about how much and what you hold if you are thinking about buying and stocking. Returns are non-existent for the most part. So you'd be stuck with item that age, drop in value over time. Would not take long to be underwater on them.

 

[AML]

I would not think of putting anymore than 5k into your business, as stated above those thing to expand your knowledge is better than stock, most stock you can get next day. I'd take the rest and look at a monthly income fund from your bank. 20K is a good start. Your not getting a pension running your own business, this is a way to pay for retirement.

 

[Markverhyden]

I would not think of putting anymore than 5k into your business, as stated above those thing to expand your knowledge is better than stock, most stock you can get next day. I'd take the rest and look at a monthly income fund from your bank. 20K is a good start. Your not getting a pension running your own business, this is a way to pay for retirement.

Yep, a chunk of cash like that needs to be taken care of. And a broad based index fund can do very well. Warren Buffet bet someone that one would do better than the other's picks. Beat them by several %.

 

[Paul Rodgers]

Donate it to me?

 

[GTP]

The roads are choked with cars!
Invest in an auto repair business! There's about 2000 Mechanics workshops within a 5 mile radius of me! (being sarcastic! Lol) But there is a lot!
They are always busy, takes over two weeks to get in to get a service!

 

[Big Jim]

I specifically drew the equity out of the house in order to grow my business.

Worth mentioning that myself I am part time in the business and I have 1 full time employee.
I have a full time job (not IT related) the shop does not generate enough money for me to justify leaving my job.

I wouldn't think about increasing stock unless I moved closer to town centre. But the move to town centre would fundimentally change my business I think, I would have to start selling a lot more systems etc, and be a proper "PC shop" the towns local version of PC World so to speak.

And I personally am leaning away from that and trying to think of ways to increase revenue on the repair/support side of the business

 

[labtech]

Invest some in precious metals, especially gold. Indicators are there to support a major crash/recession/correction coming up. Just about everything will lose value, except precious metals. They are low cost now, and once everything goes to the crapper, their value will go through the roof.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

Invest some in precious metals, especially gold. Indicators are there to support a major crash/recession/correction coming up. Just about everything will lose value, except precious metals. They are low cost now, and once everything goes to the crapper, their value will go through the roof.

Hes not in the US, I assume the indicators you are referring to are related to the USD?

 

[labtech]

Hes not in the US, I assume the indicators you are referring to are related to the USD?

Does not matter all that much where. The world is globally interdependent. So, wherever there is a problem, consequences will be felt through out. And from what I am learning, while the US is in bad shape, just about every nation is over-leveraged in debt, close to defaulting. Except maybe China, but they have other dependency problems. And of course, the Scandinavian countries, which do better generally speaking as far as self-reliance goes.

 

[pcpete]

We ask everyone where they hear about is and maybe two per month are from driving by. You sound like you have a good location where you are and moving might not work out as well as you think.

 

[Markverhyden]

Does not matter all that much where. The world is globally interdependent. So, wherever there is a problem, consequences will be felt through out. And from what I am learning, while the US is in bad shape, just about every nation is over-leveraged in debt, close to defaulting. Except maybe China, but they have other dependency problems. And of course, the Scandinavian countries, which do better generally speaking as far as self-reliance goes.

At the moment debt load for all Chinese government entities is not that bad compared to other developed countries, some 40% of GDP. US is just over 100% of GDP as an example. The big problem in China is a lot of the debt is sponsored by local governments to fund private sector projects and that funding comes from their National Banking entities. Due diligence is a shadow of what happens in Western countries so default risk is really unknown.

 

[goldmercury]

I'd probably be putting that $25k in some form of linked stock/shares saving account bit in gold/bitcoin. Speak with a financial advisor. I would avoid investing it in the business of break fix or MSP at this point.

Build up your skills in the business/server area gain new clients, 24 months from now once you have a good base of MSP customer then start thinking about using that $25k to go towards another set of hands in the business - but only when you're busy enough

Don't drop it on something physical or rent!

 

[Big Jim]

At this point I'm not really interested in investing in stocks and shares.
As far as I'm concerned the stock market is akin to gambling.
I'm sure with lots of research you can reduce the risk somewhat but at this poiunt in my life I have next to no knowledge with regards to stocks and shares.

I seriously want to grow my business and even if I don't invest the full amount as has been suggested, I do want to grow the business.

 

[labtech]

At this point I'm not really interested in investing in stocks and shares.
As far as I'm concerned the stock market is akin to gambling.
I'm sure with lots of research you can reduce the risk somewhat but at this poiunt in my life I have next to no knowledge with regards to stocks and shares.

I seriously want to grow my business and even if I don't invest the full amount as has been suggested, I do want to grow the business.

Then investing in yourself with knowledge and skills is the best route.

 

[Markverhyden]

But if you're thinking about long-term low-risk investments then the stock market as a whole is a very good bet. If you have half an hour free it would be well worth your time to look up index-tracking funds; these are very low-fee funds managed automatically to make the fund's profile mirror that of the underlying index - the FTSE 100, FTSE All-Share, S&P 500, S&P 200, or whatever. The returns are very similar to the returns you'd get if you spread your money over all the companies represented in the index and the management fees are tiny.

A few links to get you started:

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/18/how-to-make-money-in-the-stock-market/

http://www.fool.co.uk/investing-basics/isas-and-investment-funds/choosing-an-index-tracker/

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/

Please note that I am not a registered financial advisor here or in the UK, these suggestions may be worth no more than you paid for them, results may vary, and your cat could leave you for the nice lady next door who can still afford name-brand cat food.

As I mentioned above Warren Buffett had a bet, it was with an hedge fund manager, about the best way to invest. He beat the other's portifolio by quite a bit. The link below is in the Financilal Times. Yo do have to answer some stupid marketing question to read the whole thing.

https://www.ft.com/content/758068c4-3762-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e

Of course spreading it around is a must.

 

[NviGate Systems]

I know many folks balk at China goods, but there are some decent players in China who make decent product that could be imported en mass if you think your client base would be interested.

For example, I just brought in a 10" Android tablet with Quad Core 1GB/16GB for $125 including taxes and import fees. I'm sure you could get much lower if you committed to a higher volume. Same with cellphones. You can get tri band 3G phones 5.5" for under $100. Then you can partner with Square trade to offer warranties.

I'm just saying that depending on your area, if you don't have what folks want/need they may go elsewhere. I've always found that having inexpensive tablets and cellphones always sold well. Someone breaks a device and needs something to tide them for a few months/year etc.

Those types of quick items that parents and grandparents get as presents etc. You can even offer pre wrapped tablets and phones for last minute presents.

 

[TurricanII]

You've got the money before the 'need for money'. The real first question is how your business can make more money. Open a second office or work towards doing business support?

You say the shop does not generate enough money to give you a full time job. Why? Is the shop busy? If It Is busy and not making money then look at your pricing and costs. Home computer repair is an ever decreasing niche as more people just Google it.

As has been said, putting money into your business is gambling as much as talking to a financial advisor/investing.

What else can you sell? TV/Audio?

 

[timeshifter]

I have recently remortgaged my house and pulled out the equity we have accrued over 4 years.
This will leave me with between 25 and 27k to invest.

I think this is a huge mistake. You borrowed all that money without a plan? Your business doesn't even support you working in it and you have to work full time somewhere else to support yourself and your family? What do you do when life happens and you have to move or sell the house quickly and / or there's a simultaneous downturn in housing prices? You're going to say "we won't ever need to move, we're here for the long term, etc. etc.". To which I'd respond "do you wear your seatbelt when you're in the car, do you buy any kinds of insurance at all?