Free is the magic number

There’s little doubt that late 2020/early 2021 will be calamitous for business. The combination of Covid-19 lockdown economic inactivity and Brexit will destroy vast amounts of businesses, large and small.

And yet, from some perspectives, there’s never been a better time to go into business. The arguments in favour off this are as simple as they are brutal; people going bust sell their goods off at knockdown prices, businesses that begin and make it through what will almost certainly be the worst economic events since 1929 are fundamentally sound business models, and information technology has democratised business tools to an unprecedented level.

Consider the children’s story, ‘The Indian in the Cupboard’. In the story, a boy receives a cupboard for his ninth birthday. Putting things in this cupboard changes them and brings them to life. By putting the right things in, complicated new things can be made, explored or brought to life.

3D printing is rather the same; things that you could not otherwise have created - or possibly even imagined - can be brought to life at home in a way never before possible. Although the cost of the equipment put this outside the Three Fivers’ scope, the democratisation of IT has made this possible in the very recent past.

If your £5 business was consultancy, you could - via Zoom, Skype, FaceTime etc, reasonably have clients in Surrey, Singapore and Sydney. Even more so since lockdown, location matters not at all.

For free you can write word documents, create spreadsheets, design 3D structures, trade shares or, if you’re desperate enough - start a blog like this.

For the knowledge economy, free things are plentiful, manufacturing and physical things are less well served, though they can be supported.

If your £5 business is making pork scratchings, that’s not much help, but of course you’ll still have to market, sell, account for, re-order etc and for these, free is definitely the magic number.

What free stuff the three £5 businesses use, I’ll document and review. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Comments

Three Fivers - the idea of spare money

The Covid-19 virus and lockdown have changed things, somewhat. Brexit changed things somewhat. Things will change again, somewhat more. Having worked, over the years, for a number of corporations either American or with strong American influences, the path we are headed down, is strongly American. American colleagues get PTA (paid time off), not holiday. They are guaranteed only 8 days annually - everything else is discretionary. They got into work when they are ill, because labour laws allow arbitrary dismissal. They, by and large, have a ‘side hustle’ going on; a secondary source of income. They quite often have second jobs too. And what has this to do with an obscure blog called “Three Fivers”? The title is a nod to the Three Tenors concert which was huge, way back when, because something popular (football) mixed with something relatively unpopular (opera). I wanted to explore whether it is possible to create money - wealth - from limited means, ten or fifteen poun...

Beginner’s luck

Three Fivers is predicated upon being able to start a ‘business’ that makes money from just five pounds of investment. Today I could close it down as successful. In my first ever venture into share dealing, I bought £5 worth of Harland and Wolff shares at 4:05pm. At 4:38pm, I offloaded them for a 13p (2.6%) profit. Not enough to pay the mortgage, nor even to qualify as a side hustle, but profit nonetheless. 13p doesn’t buy much these days - not even a Freddo - but, 2.6% profit compounded does add up; my love of a spreadsheet shows how profit becomes more interesting over five days below. Over 12 months (365 days, although you cannot trade for at least 104 of these days) that would turn my humble £5 into around £5300. Not bad. I’m not especially enamoured of share trading, but it can be quite interesting I think if I add in additional rules; devote a maximum of 5 minutes a day to it and invest the whole of the capital at once - no portfolio. Whether this will survive even the next ...

The Runners Up

I once worked with someone who had done some consulting for Richard Branson directly, as opposed to working for one of his companies. He told me of his excitement on the first day of the contract, to be going in to meet the man himself. Being a creative, he was expected to go into his presentation straight after the introductions. His presentation - effectively a pitch - was about a new venture for the company. He began his presentation. Within a minute or two, Richard spoke with an idea - "what if we create a...", that being briefly debated and parked, the presentation continued for 30 seconds. Again, a voice interrupted, "why don't we market a...". And so it went on. Fizzing with ideas, Richard interrupted time and time again. The presentation's impact was lost and the whole experience was a dreadful chore. A while later, the company got back in contact to offer another similarly lucrative contract, complete with a presentation. My acquaintance found that,...

Three Fivers

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