More Business Ideas...

Just so you don't think I 'rigged' an earlier post, writing in hindsight of good business ideas I've had, only after they came to fruition: I want to share some good future business ideas. Each business idea below meets a need or fills a niche.

1) New Jukeboxes. Context: Matt Neher and I were at Crescent Moon when someone played Little Mermaid on the jukebox. This killed the mood at the bar and I overheard other groups of guys cussing about the music. SO...I propose jukeboxes where if people can put in $1 to play a song, $3 can be used to 'kill' a song and put in another one.

2) Man Stationary. Context: Over the years writing lots of letters to friends and supporters, I have been extremely disappointed in stationary. Stationary is usually made for women, is bright pink, has butterflies, etc. I wanted 'manly' stationary, if there is such a thing. I wanted stationary in browns and tans, with dark blue complements. I think having nice stationary that is marketed specifically to men would be a big seller and I'm personally prepared to drop a lot of cash. I could see this being valuable for any guy in missions, in churches, or even in business. Instead of pure cream colored stationary, a bit of dark color is mixed in, and guys can feel good about sending notes again.

3) Accounting Program. Context: When working for a bank and also when working for WMF, finding potential accounting errors was extremely time-consuming. BankOne had a whole team of people looking through Excel spreadsheets trying to find numbers when I was there. In accounting, often there isn't one transaction that is wrong, but two or three transactions that leads the 'batch' or reconciliation to be in error (Let's say the batch is in error by $24.14). There is a program that can be written (after talking with a computer science friend and an engineer friend), that gives the possible combination of 2 or 3 numbers that add or subtract to $24.14. It could also rank the possibilities by their probability based on the task (two positive numbers might be more common in a batch). +12.12 on 1/01 and +12.02 on 1/29 might be tied with +8.64 on 1/3 and +15.50 on 1/15 for highest probable errors, but other probabilities would show as well. This would work best with small bodies of numbers (weekly or monthly reconciliations).

The program could also perform a second, but different task, which is to find a number in a certain range. Quickbooks is good for finding numbers above or below another amount, but not good at finding a number within a range. These two sorting mechanisms could significantly decrease the amount of time that bookkeepers and/or accountants to find an error in a batch.

4) Pitch a new 'Judge' show on T.V. Context: I know that the market is saturated with judge shows on t.v. right now (8-10 in my market), so how does another one fill a niche? So many of these shows are dominated by women suing men who have taken advantage of them. The kind-hearted woman pays for everything for the man because they are supposedly in a relationship. The man dumps her/cheats on her/leaves her and the woman sues for rent, phone,etc. The judge usually tells the woman that these were gifts and that she can't sue just because the man was a whore-bag. So, I propose that a judge show be created where ONLY women sue ONLY men and the judge is a comedian but also performs a bit of a social service. Someone like Steve Harvey. The show will feature large segments of Steve Harvey berating the man but also telling the women to be smarter and this is generally how men are, so be careful.

5) Tear-Off Calendar. Context: When George Bush was in office and United States standing in the world was at an all-time low, I started a project of a 'tear-off calendar' where every day shows a different invasion, coup, etc. that the United States has performed in its history against another country/people group. Generally, these actions by the U.S. would fall under the following criteria: 1) that it was unprovoked, or 2) that it was in some way horrific; that it violated the Geneva Convention, the national sovereignty of another country, or demonstrated a severe barbarism. I didn't find any difficulties coming up with entries, but with the election of Obama I thought the calendar sales might not nearly do as well, especially in the States. However, they still might do well if translated into Urdu, Farsi, etc.. An example: May 20, 1961 US provides rifles for conspirators who assassinate the Dominican Republic dictator after he fell out of favor with the US.

6) Brake Toggle Lights. Context: I almost hit another car when I saw their brake lights but I didn't know how quickly they were slowing down. Brake lights just tell whether or not the brake has been applied. In the last couple of years, some buses have started to incorporate a different kind of brake light that seems to show how hard the brake pedal is being pressed and therefore how quickly the bus is slowing down. I would love to see these more sophisticated brake lights on all cars.