Background info:
Alright, so I've been job hunting for a while. My background is in finance and I was previously an equity analyst. The market is very saturated (I'm in Toronto) and I am having trouble getting a job as other a number of other people I know in the industry (acquaintances).

I am interested in starting a business. I have access to capital if the idea is good (lets say I can get $500K, maybe more).

I live in Toronto and all my experience has been in finance. I know little of the restaurant business, IT, software, etc. I could learn them though. I have checked into a few franchises and they seem to be big upfront costs, brutally long hours, and not a huge ROI after royalties and fees.

Give my background and my locaton, What business(es) would you start/buy?

Food trucks have a comparatively low startup cost VS traditional establishments and might be a good bet if

A) You've got a prime location nearby i.e university

B) The truck has clean, modern non-food poisoning look to it.

I have a lot of business ideas and was thinking of starting and open-source business idea thread. They come and go but I forget about them.

For example, I have an idea for a robotic hole digger. Basically you put the thing on the ground and it will dig a hole to your specifications say 6' length x 8' width x 4' depth. It does so like a cnc machine. It drills into the ground and vacuums out the debris into a pile.

This also includes a robotic post hole digger where you lay your fence out on a screen and the machine digs perfect 4" x 4" holes in the ground about 2' deep. Or to the proper depth such that you just put the post into the ground without cement.

I have a better ideas.

A activist hedge fund. It seeks to find the companies where the CEO and management is most overpaid (100x the average employee) and replace them with low cost managers (3 to 0.5x the average employee). I would think many of the smartest 20 year employees would love to get away from the line and run the company.

The problem with food trucks is that they aren't making a ton of money, and they are essentially a restaurant on wheels. The restaurant biz is one of the worst to be in. Very high failure rate, and I think I would need to have a passion for the cuisine.

This is an area that I could get into if I had the capital. But the problem is raising the capital needed for this. Plus the regulations have become more strict in Canada. You have to disclose if you are buying interest in a company to gain control.

i too have tons of ideas too. most probably poor, but a few good ones i hope.

what you are describing may already exist.... google "badger daylighting" and/or hydrovac.... your idea may be different and/or more refined.

my basic experience is that almost all ideas already exist and are being applied somewhere........... ipad, facebook, redbull - i don't think any of them were remotely new ideas, just better design/marketing on existing products

OP, i would retrain in something.........

i think increasingly you need either a job with certification (CFA doesn't near qualify... think lawyer/accountant/plumber/nurse/electrician) or a government job.... and lawyer/accountant might even tie into my next paragraph.

intermediary jobs (travel agent, insurance agent, stockbroker, money manager etc.) are dying, replaced by internet do-it-yourself or much much lucrative forms of their business (ETFs for money managers for example)

its simple - pick an industry, become a master of said industry, find a problem in the industry that could be fixed, start a business.....starting a business in an industry you have no experience in is just lighting money and time on fire.

Real Estate....but you may have missed the easy street. I'm in the u.s, so really no idea I just remember reading crazy things about Toronto RE in recent years and it's a pretty easy industry to make money in if you are smart, get a passion for it and have capital.

its not that easy to "become a master" in an industry. I can learn quickly, but I am not going to start training as a plumber or electrician and then solve the problems of plumbers. I am thinking of trying to find a business that exists, but can yield a reasonable return without a ton of risk. The market is not saturated, there aren't huge barriers to entry (besides capital), etc.

So you've done nothing but equity analysis? What other work experience do you have?

How would you learn them? For example, how would you learn the restaurant business? What steps would you take to learn? Be specific please.

Yeah, there's no free lunch with franchises. If you want guaranteed money you work hard and long hours for years to get the good returns.

It all depends on where your head is at, hence the questions above. Do you have any hands-on business experience?

And a little bit of investment banking. This involved discussing the business models that a lot of smaller companies had. Some were pre-revenue, most were not profitable yet. Tech start-ups, clean-tech companies, etc.

There are a few seminars on running a restaurant, I have a few people I could approach that would be receptive to discussing the business and things I need to think about. My father is an accountant and he has book keepers who do the books for a lot of restaurants/ night clubs. He does their taxes.

No hands on experience. I have worked a number of retail jobs in the past.

I sense you are looking for a high return, low investment, turnkey business that will throw out 100K+ yr net with little work on your part. Since you've indicated no passion for any particular field, it doesn't sound as if you want to get very involved or gather experience in anything other than finance. Good luck. This is a bad idea, everyone looks for free money ideas, but without the passion and zest for the business, it will just suck you dry....regardless of where you eventually throw your money.

You don't have to stick with what you know, but you have to stick with what you love.

You should look for a job in credit risk.

lol do you really think you're going to enter a new industry with zero skills and expect to make solid money within the first year? Maybe you can enter an industry similar to your old job where you have some edge otherwise you're headed down a much tougher road then you realize.

If you can really get access to that kind of money for ANY business idea that you start, I'd love you as my business partner / CEO for an idea I have spent several years developing. And if you like poker... this business is related to poker.

I'd have to tell you about it privately. I need investment to ramp up software development which I am good at but need more people.

BTW, I'm very familiar with Toronto.

It would not be like that. It would be more like a cnc machine. You turn it on when you go to bed and wake up and you have a hole in your backyard. Vacuum might be replaced with robotic shovels. Also attachment might be made to turn soil in lava into bricks or to fuze the dirt into a sealed liner by heating the edge and floor of the hole to 4000C.

Most things people think about and forget, or they don't set high enough target.

We are at the beginning of the robotic era. If you ever seen a irobot vacuum cleaner work or how much each version improves, you will become a believer.

I've also looked into it specifically in the toronto market along with all licensing issues... it seems like doing it in city itself is a lot more difficult because most of the desirable locations are spoken for, regulations are highly restrictive in terms of where you can park, and there's a cap on the number of licenses they offer.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hal...od_trucks.html

If I was going to do it I'd want to do it in the GTA. There're a lot of pockets with a lot of traffic comparable to downtown locations, and the options available to people are far more limited.

The biggest issue I have with investing the time and effort is that it doesn't seem to be something that scales well.

*it being food trucks

Not looking for low investment. I said $500K. A lot of my interests don't translate well into investments. I enjoy food and have taken cooking classes, but I don't want to be a restaurateur. They have a very high failure rate, a ton of uncertainty, and the business can still fail even If I do work insanely hard.

Not a free money idea, just an idea that will yield a reasonable return, with my main knowledge being on the financing side. I am also thinking of trying to advertise that I want to invest and help run a business (be the CFO) of the company. What would be the best place to advertise for this?

If you want to work with food but are worried about the high cost / risk associated with restaurants you could always open a catering company. The licenses / start up costs are minimal and you can basically work out of your home to start. It takes a little bit of a creative approach to make your initial sales, but if you're offering good value and are professional every contract you close on is free marketing. A good start would be to approach small venues (for things like weddings) and offer them kick backs for them recommending you as their caterer. And if that is what you want to do it would probably be worthwhile to work as a cook for a similar company for a short period of time to learn the ins and outs of the business.


RE the CFO thing - If you're having trouble getting a job in finance why would a high level management job be a realistic possibility?

^^also, analyst to cfo seems a little optomistic lol

why not consult small companies on their business models?