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Ideas are a dime a dozen - most of mine suck
Lately I’ve been meeting with a lot of budding entrepreneurs to talk about ideas they have or businesses they have started. I really enjoy getting together and talking with like-minded people. Just today I met with a fellow Westminster grad who has built a great little outsource programming shop. On the side, he and his developers bang out ideas that he comes up with. The problem is that they come up with a good idea then another cool idea comes along and they move on. So they’ve built some cool stuff but they’ve never really taken their extracurricular activity anywhere. Why? Well, as he admitted to me, there’s no focus on one idea.
I can relate! I’ve been through it myself and I’ve seen it with countless other entrepreneurs. About a year ago I came up with a new process for myself for evaluating my own ideas and whether or not they are worth pursuing. I’ll give the first couple of steps because they are the most important.
First, I write the idea down on a document I have with a bunch of other running ideas. I write down why I like it and some potential URLs. Second, and this is the most important step, I shelve the idea for a month. That’s right, I put it away, let it ferment, and forget about it. I figure if I still like it a month from now then it may be worth taking to step three. Step three is to talk to 10 people I trust about the idea and get their opinion. I also contact potential customers to assess if they really have a need for my idea. If that goes well then you act on/think about team, money, product dev, etc, etc, etc…
Since implementing this process I took an idea (that wasn’t originally mine but I did come up with the business model) all the way to a funding offer. We didn’t take the money. Some people would say that was a mistake - it wasn’t for so many reasons. Many, many other ideas sit as words on a document and that’s probably all they will ever be.
That brings me to another point. The thing I see more often than anything else is a good idea hatched by the wrong team. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. So the real challenge is finding the right team to take the idea all the way to exit. I love the idea of finding the right team then wrapping a great idea around that team - an idea that FITS that team. Stop trying to make your team fit your idea. Most of the time it doesn’t work.  Â
OK, so let me embarrass myself and drop some of my ideas that have never made it past the 30 day test (meaning I dumped the idea for some good reason). I’d love to get your take…
- A “techmeme” type site that tracks finance/economy news and blogs. Revenue model = ads
- A area code or address proximity restaurant guide for mobile devices. Revenue model = ads
- A Google Q&A phone service. This would be like the 411 service in NYC. So a person or a small business would call a 800 number, enter their credit card number, then speak with a Google expert. I think a lot of people with SEO and adwords/adsense questions would call. Since Google’s support sucks this idea could have legs (until Google un-sucks their support). Revenue model = per minute charge to talk.
- A “hot or not” type site for ranking celebrities on the A,B,C and D list. Revenue model = ads. I own the domain FamousOnTheWeb.com and I thought it might be a good idea for the domain. Americans are obsessed with celebrity.
- Ultimate online guide to tech trade shows. Revenue model = ads and affiliate deals with conference promoters.
- I’d love to wrap an idea around another domain I own: AsSeenOnWeb.TV. Any ideas?Â
Why do most of these ideas stink? Because they’re mostly content plays. In order for a content site to make any real money you need a lot of traffic. In order to build traffic you need a lot of money. I think you see where this is going. Legendary Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway recently said that of 200 ideas he has none of them are Internet content plays. The Google help line idea has a huge upfront investment and numerous other problems that disqualify it. The URL’s? Well I think you can build a business around a good URL (Business.com is a great example) but these URL’s aren’t that great.
At any rate…what are some of your ideas?
I own a bunch of domains I’d be curious to hear ideas on as well.
http://www.fishr.com
Left by Russ on 03/28/2008http://www.bestinstate.org
http://www.luxotics.com (a play on luxury and exotic)
http://www.theprbook.com
http://www.hognest.com
http://www.lingowire.net
http://www.snikr.com
Russ:
hognest.com - resell Harley-Davidson branded accessories.
theprbook.com - customer rankings site and reviews for PR agencies.
Left by Chris Knudsen on 03/28/2008Chris:
- FamousOnTheWeb.com: Just create the site. It is a fire and forget deal. Challenge is, as you said, to have the trafic. Celebrities are a hit world wide, so the potential is there.
Russ:
Left by drVirtanen on 03/30/2008- fishr and snikr are trendy names for fishing equipment and sneaker shops. Both have a huge market, and with some effort you could sell to world wide markets on both.
I can SO relate to this post! I come up with what I initially consider to be the most brilliant ideas ever discovered. I research it to death. I write a full business plan (after about 20 of those that never came to fruition I stopped taking the ideas to that level). I buy the domain (actually that’s the first thing I do). Then usually by day 3 I’ve lost interest no matter how great the idea.
I did once buy a franchise (retail shop). The start up phase was so exciting (off the charts stressful too). There was so much to do and I had so much on the line. But strangely, immediately after the hugely successful grand opening I found myself standing behind the counter thinking, “Well, that was fun. But now I’m bored. Now what?”
I discovered I had no passion whatsoever for that particular business. My passion was in the start up of the business. So, I started a website teaching others how to start their own businesses. The problem is traffic. Amazingly with the little traffic I do get, I make sales (my own product and affiliate). The potential is certainly there but I can’t seem to get the traffic going.
And I’m still bored and still obsessed with finding the right business idea! That’s how I found this blog. Love it.
Oh, btw, I have bought so many domains I lost track of how many I own. I’ve started to let them expire knowing I’ll never do anything with them. I had one person inquire about buying one of them babybumpmaternity.com. I know it’s a hugely popular term (baby bump) thanks to the celebrity obsession angle so I asked for $3000. I never heard from him again and the domain sits unused.
Left by Sylvia on 07/06/2008I left the previous post and realized I didn’t leave the name of my website: SmallBusinessStartup.BIZ
Left by Sylvia on 07/06/2008In case anybody was curious.
Chris, I had a question regarding your strategy about finding a biz idea to fit your team, rather than finding a team to fit your idea….
How does one build that team? I seem to be the only one in my circle of family and friends with the entreprenuerial curse. I mean spirit.
I have no contacts that would benefit me or help me in this area.
Left by Sylvia on 07/06/2008