How do you look at your ROI?

[Mike Rodriguez]

Hi All! I wanted to know your opinions on how you view ROI.

For example, if I'm creating a website and it costs $8,000 for example. My thinking is that if I just sell $8000 of products on there, I'll recoup the cost of the website. However, shouldn't I be looking at the net profit from that sale not just the $8000?

Similarly in real estate, if I want to build a ADU in the back of my house and it costs $100,000 but rents for gross $24k a year, I'll recoup the cost of the build cost in 4 years. However, when making these decisions, how do we know upfront what the net rent is going to be after depreciation, taxes, expenses, etc to determine an accurate break even amount? I'm sure after calculating this it won't be 4 years?

Looking forward to everyone's insight on their thought process.