The key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” But it is “Why in god’s name isn’t everyone creative?” Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think a good question might be not “Why do people create?” But “Why do people not create or innovate?” We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything at all.
For a long time, I’ve been really interested in what makes a business work. What separates one business from another. Why some great ideas never materialize, and why some incredibly simple, and stupid ideas explode (The Snuggy). There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
So how do you know? How do the owners of McDonalds, not only take McDonalds from a single location and turn it into what it is now, but then buy a single obscure restaurant in Colorado and turn it into Chipotle? How come Barnes & Noble passed on buying Amazon before it become THE Amazon. Why did American Express pass on PayPal, just to watch it get snatched up by eBay and turn it into what it is today. Why would Rupert Murdoch (Fox) buy MySpace for $327 Million when everything pointed to a serious decline in revenue? (MySpace’s revenue has declined nearly 60% for two consecutive years since it sold)
Maybe most people don’t care, but to me it’s really interesting.
I am only one guy (obviously), but I truly believe the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas, and throw away the bad ones. So here are a few of them I’ve had kicking around in my head for awhile. I thought I would type them all out before they get pushed out of my head and replaced with other useless information.
I’m not scared of anyone taking these ideas and executing them before me. I encourage it, and hope someone can pull some of these off. I’d love to see them in action.
Artists Playground
What?
- Okay. This one takes a bit of visualizing to get the full effect. First, imagine a health club. When you think of a health club, you think of sectioned off rooms that serve very specific purposes. You have your spinning bikes in one room, weights in one, pool, tanning, etc. Everything is in its own designated area.
- Now, picture that building completely stripped of everything inside of it besides the walls and floor plan. In place of the weights and work out equipment, instead you have art supplies. Each room serving a very specific purpose.
- Room ideas:
- Ceramics
- Painting
- Silk Screening
- Writing
- Dance studio
- Photography
- Computer Graphics
- Music Instruments
Why?
- A lot of people, especially middle aged people, want to take up new hobbies, or revisit old hobbies. They never get/take the opportunity due to the fact that their lives are too busy to make that full time commitment. It’s hard to justify re-buying a bunch of supplies, dedicating floor space, or even a whole room, to a hobby you’re not sure if you’ll even be able to commit much time to.
- We provide the supplies, you make use of them, we clean up. Whatever you make, you keep at no additional charge. All supplies are covered in the monthly membership fee.
- The business model partially takes on the “Long-Tail Economy” in the sense that they might sign up to use the ceramics, but they’ll keep their membership going because they fall in love with the drums.
Where’s the money?
- The money is in the same place as a health clubs money. In the monthly membership fees. You could also charge for classes. To garner interest in getting artists to take classes, you could have on-site teachers offering assistance/tips for whoever is around working on things. You could also have the “Standard” supplies available for free, then have “Premium” supplies for additional costs.
Rochester Restaurant 411
What?
- A over-simplified search engine that only returns results from local Rochester restaurants. Think of Google for the simplicity, Bing for the results. I stress the simplicity fact, because 70% of all travel to Rochester is for the Mayo Clinic, which a large majority of are elderly. The “elderly” are that age group stuck in no mans land between the old world and new technology.
- Picture a single search input field (again, think Google…) where all it asks you is “What would you like to eat?”. To which the visitor simple enters in keywords of what they are looking for; “Steak, Fries, Salad”. Then up pops all the restaurants in town (that are listed) who have items on their menus matching those keywords. Obviously it’s pretty easy to find a steak house. But what if you were looking for a very specific Mandarin dish or something? That’s when the average local person won’t be able to help you anymore.
Why?
- Rochester is a town of 100,000+ residents. That’s cool and all, but the real bread and butter lies in the fact that we are home to the Mayo Clinic, St. Marys, and IBM. I work in the Lodging Industry now, and have for almost 10 years. Every single day, I have 15 people ask me where they can find a random food item. Like I said before, every person in the Lodging Industry basically has one of two of the main types of restaurants down. “Chinese? Go here. Steak? Go here.” etc. They don’t put any thought into specifically what you’re looking for. It’s just a canned response to get you to go away. Believe me, I know.
Where’s The Money?
- This is the type of “While you sleep” business I’ve been really interested in developing. Literally, while you sleep, you are making revenue. This business would have a large amount of upfront work, but once that is done, it would require very minimal work moving forward.
- The upfront work would be building the web site, and creating a database to archive all the restaurants in town. What they serve, hours, location, phone numbers, etc. Once that is out of the way, you get into the “While you sleep” revenue.
- The money would come from offering “Premium Listings”. For example, if you were to search Google for “Dentists”, you’ll see two to three listings on the top of the search results. These are paid, or “premium” listings. People pay good money to have their name stuck right on top. I would offer premium listings to Rochester restaurants, basically as a bid. Highest bidder gets the highest listing. Aside from that, I would offer tiered monthly fees. For example, for $10 a month, you can have a map to your location, for $15 a month, you can have a map, and phone number, for $30 a month, you can have everything, plus a menu, plus the ability to login and add your own specials to your listing.
Street Bar
What?
- Imagine a typical “party bus” that most bars offer. It’s pretty bland, and more often than not, it is literally just an out of service yellow school bus. It’s a “trendy” thing to get one for special events, and in reality, it just ends up being an expensive and inconvenient means of bar hopping.
- But what if you made the “bus”, the main attraction? With the “Street Bar”, you’d have a full service bar, with bartender, for you and lets say, 15 friends. The bus would be smaller than a full size yellow school bus, but a little more spacious inside. More room to move, dance, drink and party. It would have a full dance club light show built in, plus a booming sound system. The windows would be large, run the full length of the bus, and see-through from the outside in. If you’re on the Street Bar, you wanna be seen on the Street Bar!
- Instead of driving bar to bar, and leaving the Street Bar in the parking lot. You drive around town all night partying the night away!
Why?
- A typical party bus, runs anywhere from $400 – $700 a night. But look at it this way. The people who rent out the party bus, just use it as a mode of transportation between the bars they visit every other night of the week. I’d be willing to bet that if you rented a bus from 9:00 pm to 2:00 am (5 hours), you spend only one to two hours on the bus all night. The rest of the night it sits in the parking lot of whatever watering hole you’re at. That seems like quite a waste of money.
- By making the “Street Bar” THE attraction, your money doesn’t sit idling in the parking lot. You’re enjoying every penny you spend. The Street Bar is yours for the night. We provide the bartender and driver, you decide when and where to go. Then at the end of the night we get everyone home safe and sound.
- We would be providing a 100% unique experience which no one else is offering. We’d be the first in our market, we would be the first to hit the bell curve of popularity.
Low Overhead
- Again, the key to this business model is keeping overhead extremely low. The Street Bar “bus” is the bread and butter. We don’t need to pay for a office building (and the utility bills it brings), we don’t need 40 hour a week employees. The only cost would be routine maintenance to vehicle(s). The bus drivers and bartenders would work for cheap, making their real money off of the tips.
- Advertising would be minimal. With something like the “Street Bar” driving around, it would do the majority of its advertising on its own. On top of that, word-of-mouth would be our biggest asset.
Cereal 7’s
What?
- The idea is to offer something quirky, like cereal. Yeah, Cereal. Offer every type of cereal you can imagine. Offer it in dispensers. Customers pick up a bowl, walk down a line of every kind of cereal you can imagine, (Think Hu Hot, Old Country Buffet, etc) mix and match whatever they want, pick from a selection of milk (whole, strawberry, chocolate, etc), and enjoy your own cereal creation!
- Also include “extras” such as sprinkles, gummy bears, chocolate drops, pretty much any type of ice cream sundae topping.
Why?
- Rochester has an extremely large population of 18-25 year olds. This demographic will only grow when our own 4 year college opens. College kids love “trends”. They like fads, such as Starbucks. Starbucks exploded because of college kids. It wasn’t about getting coffee, it was about the experience. You could get a cup of coffee anywhere, and for a lot cheaper. But Starbucks turned the “Get a cup of coffee, leave happy.” experience on its head. Instead of Small, Medium, Large. Starbucks had Short, Tall, Grande, and Venti as well as drinks with names like Caffé Americano, Caffé Misto, and Frappuchino
- Someone in Rochester needs to “hit” on a trend, any trend with the 18-25 year old demographic in mind.
- This business thrives on two concepts:
- “ Well rounded doesn’t cut. Aim sharp enough and own your niche.“ Meaning, there is literally no one doing this. We would be pioneering new ground. We aren’t here to say, “oh, we offer this, this, and this. Hopefully you like one of them.” We are here to say, “We like cereal. If you like cereal, this is the place to be.”
- Low Overhead. When you’re dealing with only cereal, you don’t need much of a kitchen, or kitchen staff for that matter. You’re dealing with mainly dry goods, aside from the milk, so refrigeration (and in turn, electricity consumption) would be kept to a minimum.
- The store would be designed to essentially run itself. Only requiring 1 employee during most hours, 2 and MAYBE 3 during peak hours.
It’s all about the experience, baby. Adapting Starbucks to cereal.
- Cool seating
- Bean bags, rocking chairs, mismatched chairs of all types.
- Hi-top bars.
- Free Wi-Fi
- Flat screen TV’s
- “Recipe of the Day”
- Submitted and chosen by Cereal 7 “visitors”.
- Maybe “gaming stations” to pass some time?
- Computer Kiosks for people without computers
- Odd Hours
- Open late at night/early mornings
- Breakfast/Lunch specials
- Closed during dinner hours
Bargain-A-Bagel
What?
- This would be an exercise in a business plan with extremely little overhead costs, capitalizing on the “long tail economy“. This is also a similar business model to the “Cereal 7’s” above, except with it’s own unique “thing”. We would typically operate as the average bagel shop. Sell variations of bagels and spreads.
- In this sense, think Panera, Brueggers, etc.
- The catch is, once a week, we will hold a “Bargain for a bagel” event. Bagels would be assigned a monetary value (known to the employees but not the customers). Customers will bring in all their useless junk and exchange it for an equal value in bagels. We would obviously need a cap on this, or people will be trading old cars for 10,000 bagels or something.
- …. and in this sense, think of a clothing consignment shop. You (the seller) bring your old clothes in, exchange them for cash. The people working the register (the buyer) know what their spending limit is (unknown to the seller).
- Now exchange “clothes” with “junk” (We’d proudly exclaim the word “Junk!” too. Again, finding a niche…), and exchange “cash” with “bagels“.
- …. and you get…. “The Seller brings their old junk in, and exchanges it for bagels. The Buyers know what their spending limit is, and the Sellers do not.“
- Say someone wants to trade a junked out (but working) TV. An employee would estimate the TV to be worth $15 (this value is never given to the customer). The employee also knows the arbitrary values on our bagels (again, the customer does not). So the employee says “I’ll give you 6 blueberries, 2 plains, and 2 strawberrys for that TV” (a value equal to $15 which is what we valued the TV at). Then the Customer can “bargain” and say he wants more blueberries, no plains, and wants us to kick in some spread, eventually reaching an agreement.
- Once a month, or maybe quarterly or something, we would hold a auction or “junk sale” and sell all the items we’ve collected for cash. We would essentially come out even on the whole thing (or we could skew the values in our favor to turn a profit), but it would be a cool niche that would draw attention to our business.
Why?
- Why not just open a bagel store? Cause its been done, and done again. The key to being successful isn’t doing what everyone else is doing. The more people do something, the less valuable it is. So… Doing the opposite of everyone is valuable. So we’re opening a bagel store, but we’re turning the model on its head and giving it its own unique life.
- One way to look at it is people are basically taking their items that would otherwise go in the trash (or to Good Will) and exchanging it for something that is of value to them (bagels). We are then taking one mans junk and giving someone else an opportunity to own it, who may be in need of it.
High School Blogging Platform
What?
- A combination blogging platform / analytics package for high school teachers that would let students submit their papers/writing online. The papers would then be available online for other students, teachers, parents to read.
Why?
- The idea is that the software would teach students to write something that people actually want to read. No longer are they writing for one person (the teacher). They are writing in essentially an open forum, for anyone, including their peers to read. No longer will they have the mentality of “I gotta knock this paper out in 15 minutes, turn it in for a C, and move on to the next one.” This will give students the incentive to put thought into what it is they are writing about.
- On top of that, the Analytics package will be able to track how many views a certain paper gets, how much time people spend reading it. Students can then compare their writing with other students from other schools, and other school districts.
- The best student papers could be featured monthly, determined via something like a “Digg” or Facebook “Like” feature. Or even just the most views/time spent reading.
Additional “Whys”
- Kids have lost interest in school. It was never fun for anyone, but even the teachers have given up now. Its just turned into daycare for older kids. “Keep them out of trouble. Keep them in line. Get through the day.” Instead of trying to make an impression on kids, teachers are letting kids fall through the cracks, even the kids who go above and beyond.
- I think the idea of typing up a paper, double spaced, printing it, bringing it to school and physically handing it to the teacher is an outdated idea. I’m not a conservationist by any means, but think of how much paper a school district wastes in one year.
Money?
- This could go either way. It’s kind of like having a super power and having to decide to use it for good or evil, although, maybe not that extreme. You could sell the proprietary software to individual schools and school districts for a hefty sum. Then sell subsequent versions, addons, modules, etc for even more.
- Or, you could set this up as a “Not-For-Profit“, and use any income as a way to develop further learning tools for high school level students.
Chips and Salsa Restaurant
What?
- This is the same concept as “Cereal 7’s” above, “Aim sharp enough, and own your niche.“ This would also be marketed to the immense 18-25 demographic this city has to offer. This would be a very location driven business. Place something like this near RCTC and you’re in business.
- It’s very simple. Offer just Corn or Flour Tortilla chips. Maybe only five types of salsa, two types of meat, two types of cheese.
- The trick is to sell one plate. If you get the up-sell on the meat and/or cheese, even better. After the first plate, offer FREE bottomless chips and salsa (not meat and cheese, even if they ordered it on the first plate.)
- Make the “plates” fairly cheap (which then includes the bottomless chips), this will encourage the 18-25 demographic to go often since it is affordable.
Where’s The Money?
- BEVERAGES. That’s it. It’s called “Chips and Salsa”, but the cash cow is in the beverages. How could someone eat bottomless chips and salsa and NOT get multiple drinks?
- Tortillas are insanely cheap, and when turned into chips, make people incredibly thirsty. That is the point of the free bottomless chips. Its costing you nothing in chips, no matter how many they drink, the cost is still covered in the first plate you sold them. Then on top of that, every beer/mixed drink they purchase due to the bottomless chips, is just multiplying your profits.
Petopia
What?
- A hotel specifically suited to the needs of travelers with pets.
- 70% of all Rochester hotel traffic is Mayo Clinic patients.
- Civic Center, Convention Center, IBM, College account for rest.
- Yearly Jehovah’s Witness convention brings 10,000 additional travelers.
Why?
- If you’ve ever had to travel with a pet you know it’s a pain in the ass. You get stuck on the top floor with all the smokers, you don’t get housekeeping service, you get charged extra, and often hit with a heavy cleaning fee.
Amenities/Services
- Indoor/Outdoor play areas.
- In room toys available.
- Day-care during medical appointments / business meetings (IBM)
- Includes feeding, walking, bath, etc.
- Gift Shop for pets and humans alike.
- Hot/Cold continental breakfast for the humans, an equally delicious breakfast for the animals.
Band Bid
What?
- A service that allows venue promoters to make an online post saying when they need an entertainer, where, their ideal budget, and any other information that pertains to the event. The bands/artists/entertainers can check out the post, and if it is something that interests them, they can send a private “bid” saying “We’ll play that venue for $500, plus 50% of the ticket revenue.”
- The venue promoter can then review all his bids, and options, as well as sample the artist, and find the deal that works best for both the venue and artist. He can then “accept a bid” and just like that, have the night booked.
- After the event, both the artist and the venue would be able to post a “review” about each other and their experience working together. Subsequent venues and artists can then use these public reviews to decide if they may be someone they want to work with, or avoid like the plague.
Why?
- A lot of “barking” is done by bands, and even sometimes venues, just to fill an opening. “When things aren’t working, think ’smarter’ not ‘louder’.“
- Most times this “barking” is done in all the wrong places. You have metal bands barking at latin night clubs, you have country acts barking at dance clubs, etc. As I’ve said in this blog post a few times already, and I’m sure I’ll say it a few more times…. “Aim sharp.“ Narrowcast.
- If you’re looking for a “Hillbelly Flamenco” band to play your St. Patty’s Party, put an ad up specifically for Hillbilly Flamenco! If a bid comes through from a rap act, simply ignore it.
Where’s The Money?
- This could essentially be a “While you sleep” business model. You could set it up a few different ways.
- Monthly subscription fee’s for both the venue and the individual artists.
- Take a percentage of each transaction. Say, the venue pays the artist $1000 for the night, we take 5% of that.
- Take a flat fee for each transaction. We could charge $25 for each “connection” we make. Which could either be split 50/50 between the venue and artist, or just charge $25 for each.
Unnamed News Feed Project
What?
- A few months ago I noticed a growing trend among many people. Over the last few years celebrity gossip has absolutely blown up. Do you remember 5 years ago when no one cared who was having kids, or who was seen leaving a shopping mall? People have babies, it happens. Now it seems everytime someone who has ever been in front of a camera is pregnant, its a national media event.
Why?
- Accompanying the growth of celebrity coverage came hundreds of celebrity “gossip” sites. Now you could instantly see who was where, with who, and wearing what. With so many of these sites online, people spend countless hours checking, and rechecking every site every hour, in an endless loop.
- RSS Feeds are becoming extremely popular for just this reason. Except, for the average person RSS feeds can be hard to configure and use effectively.
How?
- I created a site which displays 4-6 of the most recent headlines from 18 hand picked celebrity sites. I compacted the display into a small, yet informative window. Aptly named, Celebrity Junkie (working title) allows “Junkies” to quickly browse for updates on each site. The instant a “celebrity blogger” posts an update, it automatically puts the headline on my site.
Future
- Currently it’s only set up to display the 18 sites I’ve found to be the most popular. Eventually it would be cool to expand this into other news areas such as Sports, Business, Financial, International, Art, Music, and so on.
- If “Old Marketing” is still in play, then “Content is King.” Then, to me, the introduction of “New World Marketing” means “Consumer created content is King.” (Damn, I should trademark that phrase….) What I mean by “Consumer created”, is the ability to do something as simple as type in a web site URL and instantly add that feed to your favorites, then in turn, add your own categories, drag and drop, set up alerts, etc.
Ideas I still need to expand further on…
- Religious Credit Card
- The only three certainties in life are Death, Taxes, and the Church needing more money. So, how about a credit card, that when used, a certain percentage goes directly to the church of their choice. So if you wanna spend $200 on a new purse, an additional 10% will go straight to your church. That can be incentive both to buy, or not to buy.
- Mr. Potato Head Type Music Toy
- You wouldn’t be using a “Mr. Potato Head”, but think of a toy with the basic plug in, fully swappable parts. A toy that starts with a basic musical loop. You add the “eyebrows” and a Shaker is added in. You add a “Mouth” and the vocals start. Add a “nose” and the synth’s start.
- There could be “advanced” models which allow kids to “program” changes in instruments. Or even something that allows you to route certain pieces through EQ’s, Compressors, Guitar Amp models, etc.
- Movie Theater For Live Sports
- Picture a basic movie theater experience. Popcorn, High Definition picture and surround sound. Stadium seating. Except now instead of sitting down to watch a movie, you’re sitting down to watch the Super Bowl.
- There could be nightly showings of scheduled sports events. Larger parties for things like the World Series, Super Bowl, Olympics, etc.
- There could be smaller rooms, but still with the movie theater experience, for more niche events and private parties.
- Twitter / SMS Restaurant Ordering/Reservations
- Why restaurants have not adopted Twitter and/or standard text messaging is beyond me.
- Why not allow visitors to make reservations via text message? Just send a text to a dedicated line (or Twitter) with your time, how many will be eating, and a phone number in case you need to be reached. Then when the restaurant receives, and processes your reservation, they can text back a confirmation, or call you with further questions or changes.
- In addition to that, pizza places have adopted online ordering, and some even accept faxed in orders. So why not allow someone to place a to-go order (Not just pizza, but Chinese, Mexican, anything with a to-go service), and the same as the reservations, send back a confirmation with an estimated time of delivery, total cost after tax, etc.
- Friend Approved Match Making Service
- This one could be as simple as, and possibly even thrive greater, as a “app” on Facebook. Think of an online matchmaking service. The problem with a typical online matchmaking service, is you just fill out a questionnaire, and it matches you based on that. Who knows how truthful your match was, or even how truthful you were about yourself.
- A “Friend Approved” match making service would only match you with people your friends deem as “suitable” for you. No one knows you better than your friends, and a lot of times, especially in Rochester, your friend will even know a lot about your “match”.
- Pre-Packaged School Supplies
- I don’t have any kids, thank you sweet baby Jesus. But if I did, I could imagine how much of a nightmare school supply shopping would be.
- Why don’t stores like Target, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. Just provide a all-in-one, prepackaged, school supply pack? Of course all the schools put out the “list” prior to every year, and each school is a little different, but why not include the standard stuff? 10 pencils, 5 notebooks, erasers, crayons, ruler, etc. You could charge the same price as buying individually, or even charge more for the “convenience”.
“Creative minds are rarely tidy”
You can find Dallas on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/DallasJoel
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