Proxies do take some time to maintain. Not as much, and if you've got personal traffic sources, you control your portion of the industry. But it's not as easy to learn, since everything you do for conventional websites would kill a proxy, etc.
You could buy a website (or multiple websites) for $25000 that will get you $25k a year. If you know a bit about websites you could invest that money each month and earn it back plus $10k or so.
Two suggestions... Find a need, use the money to help you fill that need, let it be online or not. Use the money to do something (that will generate revenue) that you love, working at it will be a joy. And chances are you'll see a nice ROI over time.
If your not sure what your doing, then I would suggest you not spend the money in one place. Try maybe 2-3 completely different areas to invest in. Just an idea
Buy Domains, thats the best investment but be careful if you havent got much experience in the industry, it is one of the easiest ways to loose $25k if you just go on reging and buying domains and websites
I just sold a celebrity website I started 2.5 years ago for $3,000.00 (custom CMS, and design work) into high $XX,XXX. Obviously there was a lot of time, love, building up the massive archive of content, membership base and things that made it into a cash cow. But it can be done. While you could fast forward some of that process with some green. But you still have to put in the work. That seems to be one thing that is lacking all over any industry board. The whole 'work' factor. Anything worth having requires it. Some, more a less than others. But there are no free rides, and throwing money at a site with no intention of doing the maintenance is a recipe for lighting your money on fire. Good luck sire.
Some luck for others maybe toots. I basically did something that _I_ liked and apparently others did also. So they 'paid' for that privledge via monthly recurring memberships. I've done it now on two celebrity sites, and going to work on a third I am now completing. Also took $3,000.00 3-4 years ago, and invested/started an adult production company. That $3k included the initial shoots, and the camera gear. Needless to say, 4 years later, we've easily made over $150,000.00 in that time. Which is pretty nice cash when you are a small, two person, production company. Quite a return on that investment I'd say. One thing that is beautiful when you own content is that you have so many ways to milk it, not just memberships. Again this was another thing I started, basically doing something I liked, and apparently others did as well. Either I am the "luckiest" man on this board, or I know a thing or two about making money on the web toots.
Hehe, I noticed a lot of people around here didn't want to do the work so I started a program specifically for that. Empire Autopilot has been growing extremely fast and we parlay the up front money into lowering our expenses per site. It's not typical but it's a working model.
The question isn't weather or not you can turn your 25k into 60K, because anything is possible. The real question is how hard are you willing to work to get your 60k. The real benefit is not just the money, even though that is a very big part , rather the real benefit is the knowledge you will gain in the process of making that money.
or invest $25k with me and get back $60k in 2 years. seriously pm me if you want more information.. im in ny too btw