Comments on: Make Money The Odd Way

Question: Make Money The Odd Way

divabat — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:08:19 -0800

Interesting entrepreneurial ventures - what are some unique and quirky ways that people have used to make money?

The ones I've heard:
Million Dollar Homepage
Selling stories on the street

Any others?

By: ThePinkSuperhero

ThePinkSuperhero — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:13:03 -0800

Asking for money on the internet?

Pretending to be sick/in need to get money on the internet?

By: frogan

frogan — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:18:36 -0800

Pet rock.

By: crapples

crapples — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:27:23 -0800

There was a guy a few years ago who placed an add in the Sacramento Bee that said, "This is your last chance to send $2 to [His Home Address]". A local news story reported that he made a few hundred bucks.

By: brokekid

brokekid — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:28:19 -0800

When I was in Peace Corps, I used to buy poetry from a homeless man. He wrote it on the back of business cards and on napkins.

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:33:21 -0800

Send me $20 and I'll send you an information pack filled with quirky ways to make money...

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:40:42 -0800

Recently on the blue, a guy was attempting to start with a paperclip and gain a house, by continually trading the item for something else, but always trading up to something of slightly greater value, presumably aided by people being more willing to let him trade up because it's an interesting project. At the time of the post, he was up to a jet ski.

Re: asking for money on the internet, a girl asking for money for a boob job, got the necessary thousands. I don't recall if posting before and after pictures was part of it, but I'm guessing there would have been something like that :)

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:47:38 -0800

A web venture beautiful in it's simplicity are gift register sites (I forget the link). Not just for weddings, it can be used for birthday, xmas, etc. The person puts the stuff they want on their list, usually with a link to the item in an online store so people can see the exact item. The person's friends/relatives buy the stuff on the registry.

But the registry site owner has the site enrolled in every merchant-associate program in the book - when a relative follows the link to, say, a book on amazon, and then buys it, the registry gets a few cents under amazon's program.

The site is cheap to run, simple to make, performs a service free to people, has no need to spam anyone or be evil in any way, no maintenance, can be left to run itself, and just constantly generates revenue.

Colour me impressed :)

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:56:14 -0800

Remember save whatshername? Save karyn or whatever. What a bitch.

By: Izzmeister

Izzmeister — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:00:27 -0800

using stock in a public company.

gain control of a pink sheet shell, and leverage the stock in it to aquire assets...

By: scruss

scruss — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:10:34 -0800

Billing service: send small(ish) invoices to large companies or the estates of recently deceased wealthy people. Use a line item of something like "Billing service", and the date. Sometimes you get paid ...

This probably constitutes mail fraud, so if you try it and end up in a federal jail cell, don't say I didn't warn you.

By: divabat

divabat — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:45:35 -0800

-harlequin- : where is that blue post? That sounds highly intriguing.

I'm asking out of general curiosity - who knows, maybe some of these ideas can spark something.

By: charmston

charmston — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:49:51 -0800

2 of my favorite moneymaking scheme websites are the Million Dollar Homepage and SaveToby.com

By: charmston

charmston — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:52:05 -0800

My bad, I didn't see that you mentioned the Million Dollar Homepage already.

By: Tryptophan-5ht

Tryptophan-5ht — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:52:09 -0800

register a PO box. take out an ad in the local free/seedy classifieds paper advertising "the secrets of scamming! 100% legal & guilt free! send $50 to [your po box]"

By: AmbroseChapel

AmbroseChapel — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 21:50:33 -0800

I heard this idea on the radio some years ago: two scammers in France were supposed to have made millions by sending out thousands of letters saying simply "we know your secret" and asking for $50 to keep quiet.

It could just be a joke on the French, mind you.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:29:26 -0800

Recently on the blue, a guy was attempting to start with a paperclip and gain a house, by continually trading the item for something else, but always trading up to something of slightly greater value, presumably aided by people being more willing to let him trade up because it's an interesting project. At the time of the post, he was up to a jet ski.

one red paperclip was the site/blog.

By: Good Brain

Good Brain — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 09:23:43 -0800

Those "adopt a road" plackards you see up alongside highways. Most, if not all, are handled by a company that basically sells sponsorships to businesses and then turn around and hire minimum wage workers to do the actual work. When the business model was described to me I think the terms used were "very low overhead", and
"generates free cashflow like a motherf*cker."

By: Caviar

Caviar — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 11:44:30 -0800

Starting a search engine and then collecting a million dollars in unverifiable advertising revenue seems to be popular with kids from Stanford.