Financial Freedumb and Brownie

I love to ponder what if questions.  So in this episode of pondering, I thought about great business models, and wondered what if I were Meg Whitman and/or how life would be with a business like eBay.  Oh, in case you’re wondering who is Meg Whitman, she is the President and CEO of eBay.  Out of all the businesses out there, eBay is one that intrigues me because it’s, well, awesome.  By the way, I’m not that choosy, I wouldn’t mind being Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, or even poor Michael Dell.  But this is a post about what makes eBay so much better than Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, and Dell.

Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Walmart, Target, Costco, blah blah blah…‘It‘ is eBay.  (from the commercial…:) ) 

Think about it, eBay, unlike the 3 aformentioned companies, requires almost no labor!  Set up the infrastructure and make money!  It’s really like a pyramid scheme, except legal.  Meg’s the tip…everyone else the base.  A really, really flat pyramid, but one none-the-less.  All the little eBayers selling their stuff, running their online businesses, while Ms. Whitman makes her millions!

Run a mall you say?  Sure but the manual labor and staffing required plus the liability…nah, I’ll pass.  Get a building?  Heck no!  Imagine the maintenance and management involved there…managing rent…yuck.  Maybe a credit company? Hell no, I’m not about to go hunting down non-payers nor am I interested in staying up late at night wondering if the next payment will come in.  Credit card company you say?  They are also a consideration, but they require much more work…All those credit cards to mail out…defaulters…etc.

Write your little ‘eBay’ application, get people to sign up, take a chunk of change from every transaction that happens, and all the work gets done for you.  NICE.  I think you could call it passive income, right?

Sure an online business requires ‘maintenance’ but it’s peanuts compared to most types of business maintenance…no real need for a warehouse, staff counts can be kept extremely low, and really accounting and customer service may be the only components necessary.  Even that is not that critical…just blame the sellers for the problems!    Network goes down?  Complain to the IT company running your infrastructure.  Now I’m not thinking growth…if that’s the case, of course you’d need marketting, but I’m just thinking about a simple, low-maintenance business.

I don’t own eBay stock if you’re wondering.  As if my little blog would impact EBAY anyway.  But if I had to make a recommendation, I’d say stay away from eBay.  I don’t see tremendous growth opportunities ahead at this point, so I don’t see much stock growth.  I could imagine EBAY remaining nice and stable for quite sometime, but nothing exciting…yet.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, a restaurant business would be my worst nightmare.

What do you consider the best, low-maintenance businesses out there?  How about the worst?