An initial outlay of hundreds of thousands of dollars was well worth it, he said.

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The cost of putting a smartphone app together, for example, is so high that only the most popular of books would be likely recoup the initial outlay.

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Yet figures released to the BBC earlier this week from financial information service Moneyfacts found that mortgages were still being rationed, making the initial outlay for first-time buyers relatively expensive.

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When the venture, launched by someone he knew, went into the deep (so to speak) in 2009, he was one of 30 investors who lost all but 13% of their initial outlay.

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One can see a future where experience-customised versions of Android running on devices like the Amazon Kindle Fire take the low end (or rather, the low initial outlay) market, but traction against the iPad at the high end remains elusive.

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While there will be up front costs of purchasing the new vehicles, over time the enormous fuel savings will more than make up for this initial outlay of capital, and Fedex is also gaining a reputation for being socially responsible, thus potentially attracting additional customers who would have otherwise used a competitor.

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Nuclear energy plants are very difficult to build because they have an extremely high initial cost outlay, which generates financial risk.

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While traditionally one would trade bonds to make such bets, by entering into either side of an interest rate swap agreement, you would gain immediate exposure to interest rate movements with virtually no initial cash outlay.

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