I posted about this on SteveO's thread, but to not get off topic I figured I'd post my own.
My first step towards the fastlane was finally saying "do this!" and it was buying 2 domain names that I feel I can build good service businesses around. I was hoping to have more of a plan around both before posting, but seeing as ideas are a dime a dozen I figured it's worth a shot to post up and see what you guys think:
Domain 1) besthometel dot com
Backstory- Having roommates to help foot the bill on my mortgage, one of the services I used was roommates dot com. Knowing that a great service based page with a great demand such as this has great value I figured I'd go off my experience and thought of a new idea that most likely has not been tested.
The Idea- Being a road-warrior myself, well casual traveler who is sick of how much hotels cost and knowing that home owners are in need of extra revenue as well, I thought of an idea of "home hotels", a service that links business travelers with home-owners who need a lil' extra cash and violia- the idea of "besthometel" was born. In fact I wanted to do "hometel" and even had other ideas where either the .com was taken or the name just didn't sound good enough such as athomehotel or stayathome or hotelathome, etc.
What I need to do- find out the obstacles/challenges, the major challenge that comes to mind is being able to pre-screen members and make sure that someone who is opening their house to a complete stranger knows that this stranger is not an ex-felon or other possible risk. Another risk is if the "renter" damages any property or gets injured, now we're talking about liability. To top that off, what is the legality and ultimately the viability of such an idea. Hopefully I can have more research and DD into this prior to B&P, but all I know is even if this idea never takes off, just taking these first steps and realizing that ideas really are a dime a dozen will help me to go through the hundreds even thousands of dreams to finally finding the one that catches on!
Domain 2) automotiveservicereminders dot com
Backstory- I'm a DIY mechanic/gearhead/carnut, etc... lol, when I was 18 I took the engine out of my car and took it apart- FOR FUN
I also wanted to get into mechanical engineering with the "realistic" dream of working for Porsche and the "pie in the sky" dream of owning my own tuning shop. While I never finished my engineering degree and actually got my degree in German AND put the tuning shop idea on hold as the market is so watered down with the only way to profit is a really good niche market(P-cars, Lambos, Ferraris, etc) OR do very high volume in a Mustang/Civic market, both of which I feel either an engineering background or being an ASE cert technician are a MUST to understand the field.
With all that in mind, I figured a realistic plan I could develop would be a service reminder page that I could develop, most likely with the help of an elance developer.
The Idea- It wasn't until recently that I really kept track of the actual mileage/dates that I did the service on my car, granted the longest I went over on an oil change was the one time I went about 3500 miles, but using Mobil 1 Synthetic, I'd imagine doing it any earlier is just flushing money down the toilet. So the idea, which was somewhat inspired by one of the success stories here, is a web subscription service for SMS reminders of when your car is due for service. Let's face it, people are glued to their smart-phones and despite the sticker that JiffyLube puts on your windshield, most don't keep track, so why not have these reminders where you'd have the best chance of seeing it- YOUR PHONE!
What I need to do- Research to see if any of the service chains do this and if not, how I could approach them to implementing such a service while of course developing it myself. This might include having an exclusive deal with a wireless carrier AND service franchise. Find a developer to setup the site and work on marketing it. Possibly inventing a device that keeps track of the odometer on the car via the web and can automatically generate these reminders w/i 500, 50, 0 miles of service- whether it's shocks, brakes, oil, etc. This way the customer has more than just a recommended date to go by.
So anyways those are the "big" ideas, there are plenty more floating around, an e-Commerce site and REI are of course other outlets I want to explore on the road to the fastlane and will hopefully have plenty of practical/real-world knowledge after B&P so that one of the many goals including the most important one of having a business in place and having the option to leave my j-o-b by Jan of next year can become a reality :coolgleamA:
My first step towards the fastlane was finally saying "do this!" and it was buying 2 domain names that I feel I can build good service businesses around. I was hoping to have more of a plan around both before posting, but seeing as ideas are a dime a dozen I figured it's worth a shot to post up and see what you guys think:
Domain 1) besthometel dot com
Backstory- Having roommates to help foot the bill on my mortgage, one of the services I used was roommates dot com. Knowing that a great service based page with a great demand such as this has great value I figured I'd go off my experience and thought of a new idea that most likely has not been tested.
The Idea- Being a road-warrior myself, well casual traveler who is sick of how much hotels cost and knowing that home owners are in need of extra revenue as well, I thought of an idea of "home hotels", a service that links business travelers with home-owners who need a lil' extra cash and violia- the idea of "besthometel" was born. In fact I wanted to do "hometel" and even had other ideas where either the .com was taken or the name just didn't sound good enough such as athomehotel or stayathome or hotelathome, etc.
What I need to do- find out the obstacles/challenges, the major challenge that comes to mind is being able to pre-screen members and make sure that someone who is opening their house to a complete stranger knows that this stranger is not an ex-felon or other possible risk. Another risk is if the "renter" damages any property or gets injured, now we're talking about liability. To top that off, what is the legality and ultimately the viability of such an idea. Hopefully I can have more research and DD into this prior to B&P, but all I know is even if this idea never takes off, just taking these first steps and realizing that ideas really are a dime a dozen will help me to go through the hundreds even thousands of dreams to finally finding the one that catches on!
Domain 2) automotiveservicereminders dot com
Backstory- I'm a DIY mechanic/gearhead/carnut, etc... lol, when I was 18 I took the engine out of my car and took it apart- FOR FUN
I also wanted to get into mechanical engineering with the "realistic" dream of working for Porsche and the "pie in the sky" dream of owning my own tuning shop. While I never finished my engineering degree and actually got my degree in German AND put the tuning shop idea on hold as the market is so watered down with the only way to profit is a really good niche market(P-cars, Lambos, Ferraris, etc) OR do very high volume in a Mustang/Civic market, both of which I feel either an engineering background or being an ASE cert technician are a MUST to understand the field.
With all that in mind, I figured a realistic plan I could develop would be a service reminder page that I could develop, most likely with the help of an elance developer.
The Idea- It wasn't until recently that I really kept track of the actual mileage/dates that I did the service on my car, granted the longest I went over on an oil change was the one time I went about 3500 miles, but using Mobil 1 Synthetic, I'd imagine doing it any earlier is just flushing money down the toilet. So the idea, which was somewhat inspired by one of the success stories here, is a web subscription service for SMS reminders of when your car is due for service. Let's face it, people are glued to their smart-phones and despite the sticker that JiffyLube puts on your windshield, most don't keep track, so why not have these reminders where you'd have the best chance of seeing it- YOUR PHONE!
What I need to do- Research to see if any of the service chains do this and if not, how I could approach them to implementing such a service while of course developing it myself. This might include having an exclusive deal with a wireless carrier AND service franchise. Find a developer to setup the site and work on marketing it. Possibly inventing a device that keeps track of the odometer on the car via the web and can automatically generate these reminders w/i 500, 50, 0 miles of service- whether it's shocks, brakes, oil, etc. This way the customer has more than just a recommended date to go by.
So anyways those are the "big" ideas, there are plenty more floating around, an e-Commerce site and REI are of course other outlets I want to explore on the road to the fastlane and will hopefully have plenty of practical/real-world knowledge after B&P so that one of the many goals including the most important one of having a business in place and having the option to leave my j-o-b by Jan of next year can become a reality :coolgleamA:
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