Inspired by this piece of utter genius <a class="postlink" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64B2Q920100512" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64B2Q920100512</a> Focus Discuss the article, the probabilities of the owners being high when they dreamt it up, and its customers being high when they use the business Alt Focus Talk about any million dollar ideas that you may have, or had in your hair-brained younger days, and if anything ever came of them I'll get the ball rolling, I've had an idea for a few months about the possibility of a betting website that searches all the other bookies' sites, and compares their prices or specials. By signing up for an account, you can always avail of the best odds available without having to trawl through all the different sites. As yet, I haven't really thought of how I would make money off it, but I'm sure that can be arranged through advertising or whatever
Alt: I've had an awesome idea about something to do with pool construction. Imagine this: you're swimming in your pool oasis trying to escape from reality. The bottom of your pool is sand. The walls of your pool are a singular aquarium with all kinds of sea life from plants, to corals, to fish. How cool would it be to be swimming underwater with your goggles on, and encounter a sun fish followed by a school of minnows swimming right in front of you? The bottom of the pool could be lined with an really strong acrylic that sits atop a layer of maybe an inch of sand and then the concrete base. Around the outside would be a 1ft-2ft wide aquarium where fish could live, feed, and do what fish do. There would be maybe three openings where you could feed, clean, etc. the fish tank.
Focus: Spoiler Really? Alt: I had the idea awhile back to start up a strip club where the dancers are fully clothed and take off their clothing only when giving a lap dance. It leaves a lot more to the imagination. Never gave it any more thought than that. I did tell this one dancer about it awhile back when I went to a club with some friends. She thought it was a good idea. She also thought it was a good idea to see how much money I had in my wallet. Oh the curiosity of females.
I toyed around with starting an apparel company geared towards extreme sports enthusiast. It was going to be called Faceplant. I even designed an initial skater design. The font you see there was to be the trademark. I used Legal Zoom to file but never got around to actually sending in the final proof. My buddy sent me an email last week informing me that someone else had indeed trademarked the word for use on apparel. I don't like their website, but hats off to them for actually getting something going. If the word is marketable, they may do OK.
I thought of this once when I was high. A resturaunt... that only sells casseroles. But wait! Before you say "That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. Casseroles are the assorted slop you have leftover from the last week all thrown together in a pan. I can make that shit at home," just listen! It's actually a TWO restaurant idea. The first restaurant is your standard fancy joint. Pretty good food, but what you're really paying for is atmosphere and a hot waitress to flirt with you and make you feel rich. It would be a pretty high volume place-- and since restaurants always over-order and have a lot of waste that they usually try to creatively pawn off to dumb customers, why not be more honest about it? Resturaunt number two, "Big Mamma's Casserole'Orama", takes all the leftovers from the fancy place, combines it into various delicious concoctions, and tops it with a mound of cheese. They could even share the same kitchen and building. Same food sold for a fraction of the price, with low operation cost. Don't even say you wouldn't go for a huge portion of delicious Tuna Noodle or Hamburger casserole when you're drunk. Now that I think of it, it's also open 24/7. Genius.
This is an idea I heard about from a friend a long time ago, it's called the "Combat Wrap." With a normal condom, obviously your dick is (mostly) wrapped up, but there's still a fair amount of exposed skin that makes contact with your partner, which leaves the door open for crabs, herpes, what have you. Not so with the Combat Wrap. Imagine a condom that has attached to the base of it a sort of Seran wrap type of material that covers your inner thigh and general genital area. This would come complete with a little (big?) shower cap for your balls. I foresee this all folding/rolling out from some sort of packaging that, while larger than a condom, is still relatively portable - maybe something the size of a pack of baseball cards. There has to be something out there like this that already exists, right?
Fertilizer distribution built into sprinkler systems. The trick is refining the fertilizer. I was thinking something along the lines of chlorine tablets for a pool.
In taking an entomology class in college (that's a bug class), I started thinking of the "Invisible Screen Door". I learned that alot of bugs responded to high pitch sounds, much like dogs do. I figured if you could find an effective frequency that would deter bugs, but not affect dogs, people, etc., that a device could be installed in office buildings, grocery stores, etc. to keep bugs out. Any building with alot of door-opening going on. I thought any loading dock area that stores/ distributes food would be a prime candidate. Ta-Daaaa!
My buddy and I spent some time one day talking about what we thought was a pretty awesome idea. The main business model is based on doing video recording of events, weddings and such. That is how we would bring in our initial customer base and get our name out there. And then comes the second side of our business, the best part: Private Porn production. Couples could pay us to come in and set up our professional video capture equipment and lighting, and then they could decide if they would want us to turn them on and leave, or have an actual live camera man getting all the good shots. Then we would professionally edit and produce it and deliver the only copy to the customer. Pure gold I tell ya.
Until they just kill you off should you try to leave... So basically like the end of Zack and Miri Make a Porno? FOCUS: When I worked for a landscaping company, we would put down weed blankets over the ground but underneath the mulch. It was meant to stifle weed growth even more so than the mulch. However, weeds still managed to get through either by ripping through the blanket or through the holes cut for plants. So I had the idea to impregnate the weed blanket with some form of weedkiller, released by water. Now I have no clue how to do it, but the idea in theory seems sound. I would happily create it and then sell it to Scott or someone for a small percentage of royalties.
Most nights I have a hard time falling asleep, which translates into me generally getting up later than I want to. Alarms do the job, but I'll often just turn them off and go back to sleep. It is especially bad if I'm in a deep sleep when the alarm goes off as I'll either turn it off unconsciously, or if I do happen to peel myself out of bed I feel like I'm dealing with the aftermath of a cask of goon. About 2 years ago I had the idea of creating a device that can somehow detect when you are in REM sleep (aka 'active' sleep, which is the best time to wake) and get you up then. I was going to make millions! I just needed a way to monitor sleep patterns easily, so I hit the trusty google. Search result number 2 was a link to this: Sleep Monitoring Watch A watch that monitors and records your sleep patterns, and will wake you up in REM sleep ~hour either side of a time you set and made the TIME magazine 100 best inventions of 2005 list. Fuckers. I bought one, and while the physical watch is pretty cheap and crappily made, it actually works really well. Lost it in a fire a year ago, but while I had it it was useful.
I posted a similar idea in another thread but instead of Couples, guys come in and film their own films with porn stars either opting to direct themselves or have a director provided by us. Optional extras include background cast, script writing and costumes.
About five years ago I was sure I came up with a million dollar idea. Frying pans with detachable handles. Sear something off, place in the oven, detach handle and close. Also good for storage. For about 2 weeks I researched before discovering someone got a patent for it four years earlier. Four fucking years.
Beer delivery service. Call it "Booze to Yous" or something catchy. I buy beer on a consistent basis. I know how many I go through each week, and I know what types I want (High Life and Shiner) when I go to the store that next weekend. This is routine, and if I happen to get off of it, I inevitably drink the lesser backup beers I have stocked at the back of the fridge for suck emergencies. I always regret it, but because I need beer and didn't have time to go pick up more, I always have to. I'd happily pay a nominal subscription fee for a service that drops off whatever number of ice cold cases I specify, of whatever beer I specify. Weekly, bi-weekly, whatever. It's a pain to go to the store, and it's even more of a pain to reluctantly drink those first few kinda-cold ones while the others chill in either the freezer or the fridge. Also, this service would be available on-call for a singly delivery fee (or just plus tip) as well. I'm thinking those nights that "accidentally" consume all of your available alcohol and you are left playing the dangerous game of "who's more sober?" to find someone to go back to the store. The answer, of course, should be to call the beer delivery boy, similar to how you would order a pizza. They'd rush an ice cold six pack, twelve back, or even 30 rack of whatever you ordered right to your front door. Of course, this place would have to have a massive selection of beer to choose from, so naturally it could open a bar if it chose to expand business as well.
My idea is to browse internet message boards and steal ideas. The "Invisible screen door", a sleep monitoring watch and private porn production are going to be great businesses!
Used to do this kind of thing "part-time" when I worked for a junk-hauling business a friend of mine owned and operated. We'd go about business as usual during the day, and every now and then we'd get a call from someone asking to have a two-four or whatever delivered. We dealt mostly to good friends, and college students, and as we spread the word a bit, we'd end up with a dozen calls a day while driving arond in the truck hauling shit to the dump. We'd pick up whatever they asked for, add $15 to the receipt price and deliver it. Made great money for several months until it got a little out of hand and we were worried about getting pinched by the cops. I'm not sure what the legalities of this kind of thing are, but I'm surprised this isn't already a commonplace thing. FOCUS: The traveling pizza wagon. Similar to those fry buses and mobile barbecues that wander around during closing time at the bars, the pizza wagon would be bringing you piping hot slices of homemade pizza at the low, low cost of $7 a slice. The numbers have been run on supplies and at $7/slice you'd make between $4.47 and $5.12CAD on each piece, depending on what kind was ordered. Start-up cost is a bit steep, as fitting a proper vehicle with a pizza oven and a cold-well is not something you can do on the cheap, but based on the revenue I've seen those shitty frozen burger pushing yahoos make outside a crowded bar, you'd be seeing profit in two months, even with properly made (read: more expensive) food. Best thing about this city in this regard is that there's a go-to bar for every night of the week. I imagine most every city is like this, as well. It requires zero staff. It requires only minimal knowledge in the culinary arts, as making pizza is a fucking breeze. You make a shitload of dough, roll it out, freeze each shell and spend maybe an hour before going out doing prep work, including sauce. A half hour before showtime you prep your pies, getting them ready to be thrown in the oven at a moment's notice, and make one or two to tide you over during the early hours. After that, you grab a book and wait for the crowds to amass. You order from suppliers in your area and get orders three times a week. This doesn't take long at all with online ordering. Once you've gotten an order guide hashed out with a couple of rough pars you'll be spending only fifteen minutes a day, three times a week, placing orders. You start work at 8:30pm and by 10:30pm you're ready to go. You park your ass in front of a bar and rake in the dough hand over fist until it dies down at 3:30am or so, and then you go home to eat the leftovers. If you over order on meats or veggies you can freeze most of it. Cheese has an excellent shelf life, and is the backbone of a pie so you shouldn't have to worry there. As with any business you roll with the punches and discover what works best for you and the folks you're serving.
I haven't seen it yet, from a lack of searching, but I've always thought having a porn studio with contract girls that doubled as pro's seems like a good business model (obviously would have to be done out of Nevada). The Bunny Ranch show is entertaining and all but if you set up a place where guys from all over could come and have sex with the porn stars they fantasize about multiple timed a day, it just seems like great cross promotion. So you own a porn studio and draw from the distribution of movies and a brothel where you take a good chunk of the girls fees. There are about half a dozen porn starlets it be hard to turn down if they worked at a legit whorehouse. There are a lot of legal things I might be missing, I assume there might be laws against doing both at once if you are a pornstar. But fuck they wouldn't just be girls on a screen. edit: Also had the idea of having a sort of "green" taxi service where all of the vans are retrofitted with those engines that run on vegetable oil and fry grease. If you could get the upkeep and overhead under control you'd think the gas savings would help make it more profitable right?
re: beer delivery service I think there's one major barrier: the possibility of your delivery being consumed by a minor, specifically in the arena of a house party. Similar to grocery stores in the U.S., where they are legally required (though they often don't) to ID every member of the purchasing party for beer if any of them look under 21, you could potentially make a delivery and have a 21 year old sign for it at the door, while a bunch of under-agers hang out in the next room. In order to cover your ass, you'd have to ID everyone in the house, or alternatively have the person signing for it also sign some kind of release stating that everyone who will consume the alcohol is of age and that they assume the legal responsibility to not server under-agers. Of course, such a document would never hold up in court. If you order alcohol online, the person receiving the beer must be of age, and with a subscription service you could have an of-ager register for delivery at an under-agers house. If someone can think of a way around this, please let me know. Or better yet, someone run with this idea themselves. I need my beer, damnit!
This sounds very similar to my business where I steal children's toys and take ransom pictures of them in various locations before demanding an exorbitant sum for their return. Alt. Focus: I've always thought, living in Portland, a drive-thru fruit/vegetable stand that made other various healthy foods would go over well, especially if I allow bikes to go through the drive-thru lane. Of course, I'd want to kill 90% of my clientele, but sometimes I just really want a banana and don't want to walk into the grocery store to get it.