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Ask HN: You have $200k to spend on maximising future earnings, how to spend it?
Imagine you get a $200k windfall but you are only allowed to spend it on things that will help maximise your future earnings, how would you spend it?
Rules: you can't buy assets/investments, the goal is to understand how HN folks would invest in themselves (via courses, training, experience, tools or whatever) that will allow them to be able to earn/generate the highest possible income in their future
- andsoitis 3y agoPay off your highest interest rate debts first. Next, I would: - buy / do things that improve your sleep - physical therapy (to learn proper way to carry your body) - gym membership - hire someone to declutter your home - go on a non-extravagant trip to a destination that is wildly different than what you're used to - buy an instrument and take music lessons
- blackhaj7 3y agoPaying off the debts first is a great move many would overlook! I like the focus on health/sleep too - thanks for the response
- kstenerud 3y agoBut the way to maximize your future earnings IS to learn how to invest properly. Your own two hands are only going to generate so much. So you'd be best off finding a mentor and then using the 200k as your "learning" money.
- blackhaj7 3y agoIt is, I totally agree. I was more trying to frame it in a way to understand the areas of ability/experience that HN folk think will be lucrative to get good at for the future. I like the mentor idea! Thanks for the response
- dazc 3y agoWith that kind of money I reckon you would be better off just hiring someone to either share the workload or bring in a skill set that you don't have yourself. You can spend relatively small amounts of money that will improve your own productivity but your future earnings are very much limited by your own abilities.
- mettamage 3y agoActually, starting up a digital agency might be the way to go? Like, he can learn from his colleagues. He also makes a return on investment. Imagine this: you hire one UX designer, one marketeer and one dev guy (not in the US but in The Netherlands you could do this). You yourself oversee their projects and learn from all their skills. Even if you lose $40K per year, that's okay because you'd pay that money anyway for education. It doesn't have to be one UX designer, one marketeer and one dev guy either. You can also think of other things that you might want to learn that synergize well with each other. @OP: if by any chance you go through with a variation of this idea, feel free to shoot me an email. I'm curious how it would play out. Also, in certain cases I'd love to be the dev guy :) Email is in profile.
- blackhaj7 3y agoThis is a great answer. I think I would do something similar (or pay for help with a side hustle to work on alongside investing in myself through course/deliberate practice). I am not sure which areas I would focus on though. If I ever get my hands on $200k, I will hit you up!
- blackhaj7 3y ago> your future earnings are very much limited by your own abilities Exactly. I thought it would be an interesting framing to see how people would invest in their own abilities. Specifically I was interested in what areas HN folk think it would be worth improving their abilities in
- ksherlock 3y agoIt's not what you know it's who you know. Upgrade your wardrobe. Learn to schmooze. Join a golf club, a yacht club, an underground sex club, or a country club. Get a sinecure job as an executive vice president. Profit.
- Doctor-R 3y agoGo to the Stanford Business School. Learn to schmooze. Stanford has a golf course, with classes for students. Date and marry one of the students. Make lots of contacts. Hang out at the various startup groups and the D-school. Attend the biannual Y-Combinator Demo Days (Sept 6 and 7, 2023). Hang out with the VC's that circle the Bus school. Visit the Computer History Museum for inspiration.
- blackhaj7 3y agoLove all these!
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoHire someone to help market side projects
- blackhaj7 3y agoI think this is a great answer. Hiring people to help you with the aspects of creating successful side projects that you don't already know and getting them to teach you how to do it would be great for future earnings
- joshxyz 3y ago1. healthy food and exercise equipment, might as well build a cheap home gym. 2. learn sales. get into a saas sales role. 3. build income stream number 2 while employed. 4. once earnjng 2.5x of my salary on my side hustle, quit the job and double down on my biz. 5. i dont know yet, i havent planned that far yet.
- blackhaj7 3y agoLove this response. I agree that investing in some sort of side hustle would be a good path to take
- blackhaj7 3y agoOP here. Thanks for the answers folks, really interesting If I ever get my hands on $200k I will let you know how I get on!