Awesome idea to product website

Found this recently as Kluster.com went out of business, and got merged into this company. Cooler idea - people submit product ideas, people vote on them, then winning ones actually get made into products and then sold. The idea generator has to pay $99 to get the idea in, then they get some of revenue as the product is sold. People who vote and comment also get some of the revenue. Looks like they are also generating a lot of data.

Quirky.com


Pretty darn cool.

Friend Notes

I'm working with my friend Eric Allen on a facebook application that let's people take notes about their friends, whatever kind of notes they want!

I think it's really cool because it lets you now build your own content about your friends. They present themselves, and you record and interpret it through your own lens. For now, all notes are confidential to the user, so the friends and others can't see them, but we're thinking about creating some sort of sharing or collaboration capability in the future... thoughts?

Here's a link!
http://apps.facebook.com/friend_notes/

Self-Marketing Idea

Ok so thinking about jobs now - there is so much great creative and idea work that can be done when you are part of a larger whole, and you can work in an area you enjoy. Everything doesn't always have to be completely independent.

Anyway, in getting a job, or even work as a consultant, I had an idea for an interesting way I could market myself:

In New York City there are billboards and signs everywhere to compensate for the fact that people don't watch as much TV. Many of these take the form of maybe 2'x3' posters pasted on walls or the plywood barriers outside construction sites. here's the kicker...
I advertise myself on them. 3-5 different photos of me, with my name, a tagline (possibly "for creative business success"), and a website that leads to a portfolio page of my projects, or simply a resume. It would be fun, funny, and in peoples faces. I could post them outside of leading advertising firms, to advertise back to them that I can come in there and kick ass. The photos would have variety too, one would be of me in a business suit, and depending on how far I wanted to push it, it could range to me in paint splattered clothes as an artist, or me as a rap star with a diamond toothed grill and lots of bling.

A step further would be to cut the tagline and website (or make the website name really small) so it is more of a mystery, and then I just promote myself making my name and face famous. That oughtta generate some valuable opportunities.

Name This

have I ever shared this website? I think it is very good... earlier this winter I made about a hundred bucks naming things, not much money for sure, but it was only a few hours of time, and lots and lots of fun!!

www.namethis.com

wiki idea

create a wiki dedicated to the cololaborative creation of self help materials. people can share their experiences and weigh in on how they achieved success or fought failure. probably based on a for-profit advertising model.

neon repair idea

i have a peeve about broken neon signs. put business cases together about how much money is lost because of broken signs. build a taslforce that repairs neon signs within 24 hours for a reasonable price.

business research study idea

so people talk about how most acquisitions of businesses fail. maybe however, they are getting judged unfairly. a study could be done to quantify the full benefits of having made the aquisition. this would be similar to finding the option value of an opportunity rather than the DCF value, or looking at inaction as a steady decline of revenues rather than a steady state. competitive issues and future positions must be factored in. i beleive it is very likely that many of these acquistions has more value than people will admit.

another business services idea

patent commercialization services. we don't work the market segment that just has an idea but needs a patent (general consensus seems that this is worked by a bunch of scam artists now anyway so that would not be good to be associated with that). we will work with the technical or creative side of the market that wants to spend more time making ideas and less time commercializing them. target: many patents, 0-3 commercialized already. this might just mean something like an agressive extension of a university's tech transfer office.

business services idea

sell business planning services over the internet at low cost to small business owners who need help with getting set up. this could mean making a plan that is acceptable to the bank or the government immigration authorities.

business strategy idea

if ever faced with a situation where industry regulation seems onerous to all companies involved but also seems inevitable in the long run, start ramping up for compliance immediately and switch lobbying dollars from fighting the measure to supporting the measure publically. this will allow you to gain an advantage over your competition.

Example: auto industry and fighting environmental regulations. if one of the US manufacturers supported regulation and lobbyied agressivly for it, they could have crushed competitors both foreign and domestic by being ready with the required capabilities more quickly and at low cost.