Launching soon from Kingston

Every way to build wealth in Jamaica,
brought into the light.

Some opportunities live on the stock exchange or in a piece of land. Some live in a problem your community needs solved. InvestInJa covers both, in plain English, with the real numbers and the steps to actually start.

  • Markets and property
  • Building a business
  • Investor strategies
  • Made in Jamaica

Two ways in

Put money to work,
or build something that works.

Most people only ever hear about one path, and usually from someone trying to sell it. Here both get the same honest treatment: what the opportunity is, what it costs to get in, what can go wrong, and how to take the first step.

Path one

Markets and property

Jamaica has a working stock exchange, funds that will take a few thousand dollars a month, and a property market that has quietly made more Jamaican families comfortable than anything else. The doors are open. Most people have just never been shown them.

  • The Jamaica Stock Exchange

    Owning a piece of Jamaican companies through the Main Market and the smaller, faster Junior Market.

  • Pooled funds

    Unit trusts and money market funds where a manager does the work and you can start small.

  • Property

    Where most Jamaican wealth was built

    Ask almost any family in Jamaica how they got comfortable and the answer is land. A lot on the outskirts of town, a house that got rented out, a second one built on the savings. It still works, and a newer version of it is taking off.

    • Buying to hold. Land and houses, how prices have moved parish by parish, and how the NHT and a mortgage fit into a normal salary.
    • Renting long term. Turning a room, a flat or a second house into money that arrives every month, and what landlords wish they'd known.
    • Short-term rentals. The Airbnb trend from Montego Bay to Kingston: what a listing really earns after fees and empty nights, the licences and taxes, and whether to run it yourself or pay someone to.
    • Without buying a whole house. Property funds and listed real estate companies that let you own a slice with a few thousand dollars.
Path two

Building a business

Not every opportunity comes with a ticker symbol. All over Jamaica there are things people need that nobody is providing well, or at all. Each gap gets written up like an investment: who the customers are, what it takes to serve them, and who's already trying.

  • Farming and food

    We import a lot of what we could grow, process and package ourselves.

  • Getting things around

    Delivery and transport outside Kingston is still hit or miss.

  • Tourism beyond the resort

    Visitors want the real Jamaica. Most of that money still stays inside the hotel gates.

  • Power and water

    High light bills push people to solar and storage. Installers and financing are scarce.

  • Services for small businesses

    Bookkeeping, payroll, websites, online payments, at prices a shop can afford.

What every write-up includes

The same five questions,
whatever the opportunity.

A share on the Junior Market, a short-term rental in Ocho Rios and a solar installation business are different animals. The questions you should ask before putting money in are not. Every opportunity on InvestInJa gets answered the same way, so you can compare them honestly.

  1. 1

    What is it, really?

    In one paragraph a first-timer can follow. No jargon left unexplained.

  2. 2

    What does it take to get in?

    The minimum in Jamaican dollars, the fees, the paperwork, and the time.

  3. 3

    What can go wrong?

    The realistic ways you lose money, and how people who did it wish they'd known.

  4. 4

    What does a good outcome look like?

    Returns people have actually seen here, not numbers copied from an American website.

  5. 5

    How do I start this week?

    Where to go, who to call, what to bring. The step most guides leave out.

Learn from the people who did it

Jamaicans who built real wealth,
and the strategies behind it.

See all profiles
Markets and property

Michael Lee-Chin

Took control of NCB in 2002 and turned it into the region's biggest bank.

You don't need to trade. Pick a few good Jamaican companies you understand, buy, and sit still.

 Markets and property

Joan Duncan

Opened JMMB in 1992 and set the minimum at J$1,000 so anybody could invest.

The gap between the rich and everyone else is often just the minimum. Look for the door that was built for you.

 Built a business

Thalia Lyn

Shut out of the family business, she built her own from a soft-serve stand into a national chain.

Being locked out of the obvious path is not the end. Sometimes it's the start of the better one.

How it works

Here's the plan.
It's not complicated.

  1. 01

    Learn

    Read short guides on each market and each business gap I find. I write them for ordinary people, so you won't need a finance degree to follow along.

  2. 02

    Compare

    Every opportunity answers the same five questions, so you can put a stock next to a shop next to a piece of land and see which one fits you.

  3. 03

    Start

    Follow the steps to open an account and make your first investment, or to register a business and find your first customers. I'll walk you through it.

Why InvestInJa

Built for everyday Jamaicans,
not just the ones with a broker.

I'm Von, and I'm building this on my own from Kingston. Whether you sell in Coronation Market or nurse in Montego Bay, you should have the same shot at building wealth as anyone in New Kingston. It shouldn't come down to who you know or which school you went to.

  • Plain language

    If I can't explain it to your grandmother, I go back and rewrite it.

  • Independent

    I don't sell products and I don't take a cut. I explain how things work, and I tell you what can go wrong too.

  • Made in Jamaica

    I live here. I write about Jamaican dollars, Jamaican institutions and the way things actually work on the ground.

  • Start small

    You don't need a lot of money to start. Many of the investments I cover begin at a few thousand dollars, and some of the business gaps need more skill than cash.

Be the first to know when it launches.

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