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That million dollar business

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by McCann, May 14, 2010.

  1. Pink Candy

    Pink Candy
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    Last week, I got a text from one of my good friends. There was a crazy sale on chicken breasts in one of the local grocery stores. Then she texted me a little later about how something else I wanted was on sale in the other local grocery store.

    I started to think "Wouldn't it be just fantastic if there was a website that compared prices weekly from the grocery stores in the area?" One week things might be cheaper at Safeway. The next week things are cheaper in Albertsons. Perhaps things are cheaper at QFC. It would save me a fuckload of time instead of going to three different places to compare prices.

    Eh. I have no idea how I'd make something like this happen anyway. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
     
  2. Deepinit

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    I had worked for one of those weed killing companies when I was in university. Customers would bitch to us that their grass wasn't green enough in early May. I thought up of the idea of 'paintable' fertilizer. Basically take your standard liquid fertilizer and then add in some fast biodegradable thickening agent and some green dye and it would paint your grass green. The idea was that by the time the 'paint' had faded away, the fertilizer would have kicked in and you'd have a smooth transition to a green lawn.

    Other not so great ideas include 'half pipe ice skating', thought up while extremely stoned watching X-games in the early 2000's. And a strip poker site that runs on the same fundamentals as every other poker site except we would include models on web cam that would play with the remaining 8 players at the table removing their clothes whenever they lost a hand or doing whatever nasty things they wished to do. Imagine no longer having to switch windows between your internet poker with internet porn?!
     
  3. PewPewPow

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    Unfortunately someone's already stolen your idea. There's a whorehouse in Budapest that you can fuck the chicks for free at, but they record the thing and put the videos up on the internetz. Dunno what the place is called.
     
  4. villagebicycle

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    I just had this gem this morning.

    I was checking out apartments with my girlfriend and a couple girls that all want to move in together, and one place had really sick drapes. Like, fancy silk with crazy patterns. Think of the wall paper in the movie Lucky # Slevin.

    So I thought to myself, I thought, "What if I made designer garbage bags?!"

    They already have ziploc bags and tupperware with random patterns and shit, so the next logical step would be garbage bags! Have fleur de lis (sp?) on them, or some goofy pattern you'd find in a Urban Outfitters type of shit.

    I think it's an excellent idea. Also, I want to bring over the designated driver service to the states. The "drivers" would have foldable gas or electric scooters or bikes that they take to the drunk person's car, fold 'em up, and shove them in the trunk. They drive the car to the destination and then bike/scoot to the next person or back to home base. I think the UK has this service now.

    Also as far as the booze delivery goes, I am pretty sure that's available already, at least it was in LA when I visited a friend. Taking it nationwide would be tits.
     
  5. The Beer Baron

    The Beer Baron
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    It existed in Toronto a few years ago as Dial-a-bottle and Liquor Express but I've never used them. Actually they still exist.

    My idea is a giant snow shovel on stilts that you can drive a 53' trailer under and clear off those snow drifts that accumulate on the rear of a trailer, when it's parked in a loading door during a snowfall. I tried to google-image a picture of what I'm talking about, but it's basically a a 'quarter-pipe' of snow on the rear-roof of a semi-trailer. They could be installed at all truck stops, DOT/MTO Inspection Stations and CAT Scales.

    You don't know scary until the driver you're following/running with hits a bump and 6cu.ft. of snow fall off his trailer and blind you in the dark.
     
  6. Volo

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    Well, I might actually look into this and see if I can get one up and running in my area. Who knows, it might even earn me enough cash to start up my restaurant, or at least make some headway. Fuck, I might even take that casserole restaurant idea. This thread is pure fuckin' gold!

    If I get it up and running I'll call myself The Beer Baron and the phone will never stop ringing. Hope you don't mind that I'm taking your name, eh?
     
  7. Tuesday

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    Rex Banner: You're out there somewhere, beer baron! And I'll find you.
    Homer: (Way off in the distance) No, you won't.
    Rex Banner: Yes, I will!
    Homer: Won't!

    First thing I thought of.

    I've always had the idea of having a Pontoon Boat fast food joint. Something as simple as McDonald's or Subway, all the way up to something a little more extravagant. Patrols the river, does deliveries, etc. Could also work on lakes. Or it could be a bar/booze delivery on the water. Cause what mixes with boating better than burgers and beer?
     
  8. KMD

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    I've always wanted to start a modular clothing company. Something where you get shirts, and then sell patches and designs and/or get your shirt done up like a tattoo.

    Now, this already exists in some form, but having professional designers working on it instead of some schmuck with a decal press seems like it could make some money with the self-consciously individualist crowd. Hipsters would fucking eat it up at least.
     
  9. Disgustipated

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    I get stupid ideas all the time that I decide won't work or are un-commercial.

    A couple of years ago I was thinking about nutritional issues and thought it would be a good idea to freeze dry fruits and vegetables, grind them up and put them in capsules. I don't know how much nutritional value would be lost in the process, but at least there'd be some left. I decided that you'd need to take dozens of these a day to have any real benefit and just let the idea go.

    I was in the pharmacy the other day getting a script filled and I saw my idea on the shelves. I've really got to stop being so self-dismissive.
     
  10. crimson2

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    I used to do a lot of long-distance driving, and I noticed that 80-90% of 18-wheelers are blank on the sides, or else have the name & logo of the shipping company on them. In my mind, that's billboards 53" long and 12" high being towed around the country every single day with no advertising on them. Some companies do (McDonalds, for example, or Wal-Mart), but only on their own trailers.

    My idea was to start a business where I'd put easily changeable/removable advertisements on the sides of 18-wheelers, paying the trucker/trucking company a commission. You'd have to have facilities at truck stops to change the ads from time to time, but other than that I can't see why it wouldn't work.

    Even better, if advertisers demanded it, you could set up your rigs with GPS (if they're not so equipped already, and most are), and charge your advertisers premium rates for being on congested roadways or populated areas during the daytime, and discount rates for rural areas or at night, and maybe no charge at all when they're in the trucking facility and not being viewed by anyone.

    Finally, you might set them up with some type of screen on the side, kind of like an industrial-sized Kindle, so you could change the advertisements electronically and instantly. Advertisers get a new place to splash their ads, trucking companies (most of which run on razor-thin margins) get an additional revenue stream with minimal investment, and the company gets the commission.

    Then, my rational/lawyer self says to my entrepeneurial self, "If it's such a good idea, why hasn't anyone done it before? It must be against DOT regulations or something." Anyone have any ideas?
     
  11. no use for a name

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    Last summer my friends and I were in the Outer Banks raging on our annual weekend trip down there. We decided that we didn't want to return to our day jobs, and we needed to think of a way to get rich doing the one thing we were all passionate about and good at: Partying and getting awesome.

    It was about this time that we got really, really high (unusual, since we don't really smoke dope too much anymore) and starting floating out ideas. So keep in mind our mental state of being drunk and stoned. One idea was to tour the country as a group, including really hot hired party girls/stippers whatever, and just set up shop and throw raging parties at different cities, college towns, etc. One of my buddies suggested "We'll have people walking around with fucking bazookas that shoot tacos out of them, so when you're hungry some dude will just shoot a taco into your mouth with a bazooka." When we picked ourselves up off the ground from laughing we coined the company name "Taco Bazooka." Upon returning home I commissioned an artist to draw a badass taco holding a bazooka, made t-shirts, and registered the domain name. The picture is fucking awesome, but I'm not going to post it because we still may do something with it. When any of us wear the t-shirt out, we will get compliments on it all night. It's legitimately funny and awesome.

    This idea transformed into making some sort of website for partying. A type of social networking site to discuss events going on in different places, share stories, pics, videos. We had a bunch of other features we were going to put on the site that was going to make it pretty cool. I'm not going to go into specifics, because the idea isn't actually completely dead. We even received encouragement from other friends who are pretty smart that thought it was a great idea (Including one who graduated from UVA's business school, and another from William & Mary's. Just to hopefully provide some legitimate evidence that we're not completely retarded). We've already registered a bunch of domain names just in case we actually decide to go on with this one day. Names include wepartyharderthanyou.com, prisonersofparty.com, tacobazooka.com. The thing is that the three of us who are actually somewhat serious about it all have really good jobs already, making a lot of money and working in professions that we enjoy. It'll never happen, but I guess you never know.

    PS - for shits and giggles if I remember I'll post a picture of the t-shirt when I get home.

    Edit - after re-reading my post I realize that the website description sounds absolutely no different than facebook or even a messageboard such as this one. I guess take my word for it that the idea we had is actually different. Or don't. It's your life man.
     
  12. McCann

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    STOP PRESS! I just found an idea 5 times as ballsy as the Finnish teddy bear one. I found this product while out and about in Cobh (a tourist town in the South of Ireland, popular as a cruise stop) and nearly collapsed there and then due to its awesomeness. Here's the website

    <a class="postlink" href="http://www.officialirishdirt.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.officialirishdirt.com/</a>

    I actually want to meet the owner of this company, and shake his hand because he must be the craziest, most optimistic businessman in the world. Time magazine, you have found your Person Of The Year 2010
     
  13. Sam N

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    My dad has been toying with this idea for years. Him and his two buddies (drinking buddies) will charge a flat rate to go over to people's houses and hang out and drink with them. They would be "The Three Guys."

    It's just a joke, and my dad and his buddies find it hilarious... but they are pretty fucking awesome to drink with. I go back to Cleveland once a year or so and the first thing that happens is all my dad's buddies come over his house and we all sit in the garage and drink. Every time I go back, I love it.
     
  14. Riggins

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    Your at a sporting event, concert, etc and don't want to leave your seat to go get a beer or food. What do you do? Text your order, and seat #s, and they bring it to you with a small added surcharge. BAM!! million bucks. Now one of you guys set that up...
     
  15. Supertramp

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    And to think of all the other, legit million-dollar ideas that aren't being posted by paranoid kleptomaniacs who want to keep it all to themselves.

    Focus:

    I write well, my friend is funny and my other friend is good with computers and internet social media. Combine them all together and what do you get? Nothing. Nothing at all. It turns out that collaborating with three people who function on three completely different wavelengths on one thing is a recipe for jackshit being done.

    I've been doing it all myself now - running a blog/website - I'm trying to set up my empire brick by brick, and it's modestly successful*. If ShitMyDadSays can get picked up, I will too, eventually. GulfstreamV, that baby's as good as mine.

    So far people in my social circle are aware of it and I've gotten a surprisingly high amount of hits.

    *Only one person on this site has a link. You'll never guess.
     
  16. Nettdata

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    Typical software get-rich-quick scheme.

    1. Make software that is moderately good at what it does in a niche market, priced way less than competition.
    2. Garner the attention of the 800 lbs gorilla in the space.
    3. They buy you.

    It's a life sciences reagent management software package conceived and developed when my cousin was a cancer researcher at Harvard.

    So far, it's been 6 years and $500k of my own cash into the project, with the past 1.5 years off to work on another project, but it's going fairly well. We took the crazy approach of ensuring that the software was complete, functional, and bug-free before we launched it.

    We have 14 beta customers that represent some of the top cancer research labs in North America.

    We've even been endorsed by the Howard Hughes group.

    A divorce and temporary lack of funding has meant that the software hasn't been touched in almost 2 years while I went off and made a living, and yet none of the clients are complaining... it's doing its job, and still doing it well. And they still send us their yearly licensing renewal fees. As a matter of fact, it is still generating sales due to word of mouth. I can even say that last year we were profitable.


    Once I'm done my current contract, I'll be taking a year off and concentrating on the sales/marketing of the product, and developing out the sales channel, on top of tweaking/updating the product a bit.


    And best yet is that our market research is still the same... the need is still there.


    So yeah... in a couple of years I hope to have established enough of a client base that I can accept a comfortable buy-out from the major players in the field... not fuck you money, but enough that I can then invest and work on my next project at my own pace, totally self-funded.


    This is the 4th such idea that I've worked on in 15 years... and I've learned not only what to do, but what not to do. The key is that it's not so much the idea or the talent, it's the work ethic behind it, that will drive success.
     
  17. BL1Y

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    I think the issue is that you're putting ads on the sides of the trucks, which aren't seen nearly as much as the back. It would maybe work inside cities, where you have a lot of intersections and so people would be seeing the side, but delivery trucks spend most of their time on the highways.

    The ads may also open you up to law suits, either being sued because a distracted driver got in a wreck, or because your truck driver got in a wreck and the other person thinks you are vicariously liable. I don't think either would fly in court, but you'd still have more law suits to defend against, which could outweigh the benefits of the ad.

    Also, trucks get really freaking dirty, especially if they travel through states that have snow 9 months of the year.

    As for the giant Kindle type display, there are actually billboards like this already that can change their ads electronically. They're pretty annoying I think, because it always changes halfway through reading it, and then I don't have time to read the next ad.
     
  18. BL1Y

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    They have this at most ballparks, except instead of texting you give your order to a cute 22 year old girl. Also, you have to pay like $500 for your seat.

    For the rest of the donkeys in the cheap seats, the hawkers can walk into any section and get a dozen or more sales without knowing what anyone wants or having particular customers targeted. Why waste the time and manpower taking orders?
     
  19. BL1Y

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    How are these different from vitamins?
     
  20. BL1Y

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    In New York City this is known as "Fresh Direct."