Hey there!
This will be a full idea disclosure with no hidden inner structure or guarded know-how.
I recently finished "Unscripted " and before that - "The millionaire fastlane " and got my head bubbling with ideas. And one of them keeps coming to me again and again. But since I am in no way a buyer of that idea, I want to validate it with someone, who might be a user or at least have a gut-feeling about it.
I live in Northern Israel, just about 20 kilometers from the Jordan River and Kineret lake. I do travel a lot and I really love my country. So when I heard about "Geographical arbitrage" as a way to look for ideas, I started thinking about what can I get in this land to send to people around the world what they would cherish. An obvious choice for Holy land would be to send something holy - water from Jesus baptism site, water from the lake where he walked the water etc. So I jumped the Amazon and started looking if anyone is doing it.
And indeed they do. There are plenty of suppliers of holy water from here, olive wood crosses from there and stones from King Solomon temple covered with holy flour. It really looks as if a nuclear bomb has fallen on the Old Market of Jerusalem and explosion debris have covered the Amazon whole (I firmly do not believe those guys in the Old Market would even notice a nuclear explosion).
The thing that caught my mind is that the area is capitalized as Hell. Lot`s of similarly-looking, similarly packaged, cheap-looking water and sand vials in cheap cartboards from sellers named "Jesus blessings inc". They are covered with miriads of certificates of authenticity, signed (via printed facsimile) by all the archbishops you can positively think of, but really with no ways to prove those authenticity claims.
How can I skew the value here?
I am not a Christian and do not (yet?) have archbishop friends. But I can put some authenticity and living soul into those goods. Since the sent volume is usually not that great, a single weekend trip to Jordan valley can yield a supply for hundreds if not thousands of sent samples. I can film the whole gathering and packaging process and let the buyer see the exact place and time where his keepsake was collected. I can sign the damned papers myself or ask some Christian priest to do it for me if it proves needed.
What`s in it for me?
Obviously, this is not a "get rich fast" business. But I see it as a low-risk learning opportunity. Most my other ideas circle around inventing, producing and distributing tangible hardware products. So this idea I see as a "start next week" way to:
-Set foot into Amazon and other trading places
-Get to know wholesale, packaging design and manufacture, worldwide shipping and all the accompanying accounting, banking and so on
-Learn to be close to the customer and present online, to gather and work through feedback if I ever have one
I have some local entrepreneur activities going and I really see getting human with customers as a leverage many businesses lack nowadays and I want to use this experience when building my personal online brand.
-Lastly, money. The hustle is not very time-consuming and I won`t find myself working 24/7 for a minimal wage even in worst case scenario. It won`t kill me if I do not have any customers at all, but get some money to refund those trips and maybe even buy some equipment for my more complex ideas would definitely be nice.
So what do you think? I believe I will try this anyways, but I wonder what pitfalls and opportunities others would see here.
This will be a full idea disclosure with no hidden inner structure or guarded know-how.
I recently finished "Unscripted " and before that - "The millionaire fastlane " and got my head bubbling with ideas. And one of them keeps coming to me again and again. But since I am in no way a buyer of that idea, I want to validate it with someone, who might be a user or at least have a gut-feeling about it.
I live in Northern Israel, just about 20 kilometers from the Jordan River and Kineret lake. I do travel a lot and I really love my country. So when I heard about "Geographical arbitrage" as a way to look for ideas, I started thinking about what can I get in this land to send to people around the world what they would cherish. An obvious choice for Holy land would be to send something holy - water from Jesus baptism site, water from the lake where he walked the water etc. So I jumped the Amazon and started looking if anyone is doing it.
And indeed they do. There are plenty of suppliers of holy water from here, olive wood crosses from there and stones from King Solomon temple covered with holy flour. It really looks as if a nuclear bomb has fallen on the Old Market of Jerusalem and explosion debris have covered the Amazon whole (I firmly do not believe those guys in the Old Market would even notice a nuclear explosion).
The thing that caught my mind is that the area is capitalized as Hell. Lot`s of similarly-looking, similarly packaged, cheap-looking water and sand vials in cheap cartboards from sellers named "Jesus blessings inc". They are covered with miriads of certificates of authenticity, signed (via printed facsimile) by all the archbishops you can positively think of, but really with no ways to prove those authenticity claims.
How can I skew the value here?
I am not a Christian and do not (yet?) have archbishop friends. But I can put some authenticity and living soul into those goods. Since the sent volume is usually not that great, a single weekend trip to Jordan valley can yield a supply for hundreds if not thousands of sent samples. I can film the whole gathering and packaging process and let the buyer see the exact place and time where his keepsake was collected. I can sign the damned papers myself or ask some Christian priest to do it for me if it proves needed.
What`s in it for me?
Obviously, this is not a "get rich fast" business. But I see it as a low-risk learning opportunity. Most my other ideas circle around inventing, producing and distributing tangible hardware products. So this idea I see as a "start next week" way to:
-Set foot into Amazon and other trading places
-Get to know wholesale, packaging design and manufacture, worldwide shipping and all the accompanying accounting, banking and so on
-Learn to be close to the customer and present online, to gather and work through feedback if I ever have one
I have some local entrepreneur activities going and I really see getting human with customers as a leverage many businesses lack nowadays and I want to use this experience when building my personal online brand.-Lastly, money. The hustle is not very time-consuming and I won`t find myself working 24/7 for a minimal wage even in worst case scenario. It won`t kill me if I do not have any customers at all, but get some money to refund those trips and maybe even buy some equipment for my more complex ideas would definitely be nice.
So what do you think? I believe I will try this anyways, but I wonder what pitfalls and opportunities others would see here.
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