OK, I have been an entrepreneur for many years. Had several businesses, sold one, the others didn't fair so well. I am contemplating a few new ideas and thought, since I am part of Idea Cafe, I would run them past the CyberSchmooz crowd. Again, please realize, these are in the paper napkin phase so if they sound totally ?out-of-it? let me know, no feelings will be hurt, no money lost. Here we go;

1) A Netflix style business for hard copy books. You could set it up from a local library so they could handle the drop areas. Or, you could bump the price to cover shipping. Or you could partner with a Powell?s, Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Borders to take advantage of their inventory. Makes money through memberships & advertising.
2) A website that stores your own personalized obituary. In text or video form, customers would submit their obituaries for storage. They write (or video) them themselves so no one else has to, pay a small fee and store it their. Site is searchable by year or alphabetically. Possibly a membership site? Makes money from one-time submissions or memberships & advertising.
3) Textbooks online. Sell textbooks in .pdf format to college students. Might run into copyright issues here. Or, sell the concept to Universities so they can re-sell the .pdf formatted books through the book store and make even more money off the students. The store can offer discount coupons to local restaurants, theaters etc. for download & print. Money made from purchases, advertising and rights sold to the Universities (if we chose to go that route).
4) A single ?Solo? card that you purchase that has a website where you can upload all your balances from gift-cards you?ve received. This single card can be used at all the participating retailers. When you upload your balance from gift-card (let?s say Target) a printable coupon (from Target) will pop-up with a percentage discount to lure you back in to spend there. You also have a ?cash-out? option that can give you cash for 80% of your balance, deposited directly into your checking/savings account. Money made from sign-up fees, retail stores, advertising and cash-out fee.
5) Advertising. ATM screens. When you get cash or make a deposit, you view an ad and choose which local vendor you want a coupon from. On the back of your receipt (or on a separate slip) is printed the coupon. Money made from participating banks (maybe) and local retailers.

OK, those are just a sampling. Yes, I do have a real job and just don?t sit around thinking up this stuff. Thanks for your input.

Ed Coon
http://www.xswaste.com
ecoon@xswaste.com

>>1) A Netflix style business for hard copy books. You could set
>it up from a local library so they could handle the drop
>areas. Or, you could bump the price to cover shipping. Or you
>could partner with a Powell?s, Barnes & Noble, Amazon or
>Borders to take advantage of their inventory. Makes money
>through memberships & advertising.

I'm not quite sure how this would work, but if you did it through the airports, it might be an interesting idea... Logistics strike me as being a potential nightmare though.


>2) A website that stores your own personalized obituary. In
>text or video form, customers would submit their obituaries
>for storage. They write (or video) them themselves so no one
>else has to, pay a small fee and store it their. Site is
>searchable by year or alphabetically. Possibly a membership
>site? Makes money from one-time submissions or memberships
>& advertising.

OK, this is just plain creepy, but there is a certain crowd to whom I think it would sell.

>3) Textbooks online. Sell textbooks in .pdf format to college
>students. Might run into copyright issues here. Or, sell the
>concept to Universities so they can re-sell the .pdf formatted
>books through the book store and make even more money off the
>students. The store can offer discount coupons to local
>restaurants, theaters etc. for download & print. Money
>made from purchases, advertising and rights sold to the
>Universities (if we chose to go that route).

PDF! Brilliant... Why didn't the Universities think of this? We could save a fortune on textbooks... Oh wait... because then the publishers wouldn't make all that money off our starving students... I think this is a fantastic idea, but you'll have to sell it to the University first.

>4) A single ?Solo? card that you purchase that has a website
>where you can upload all your balances from gift-cards you?ve
>received. This single card can be used at all the
>participating retailers. When you upload your balance from
>gift-card (let?s say Target) a printable coupon (from Target)
>will pop-up with a percentage discount to lure you back in to
>spend there. You also have a ?cash-out? option that can give
>you cash for 80% of your balance, deposited directly into your
>checking/savings account. Money made from sign-up fees, retail
>stores, advertising and cash-out fee.

This is just me... but since I've never actually gotten a gift card, I don't see the value (to you) in this idea...

>5) Advertising. ATM screens. When you get cash or make a
>deposit, you view an ad and choose which local vendor you want
>a coupon from. On the back of your receipt (or on a separate
>slip) is printed the coupon. Money made from participating
>banks (maybe) and local retailers.

This would work well if your target ATMs were the privately owned ones. I don't see the big banks offering this... Maybe in the US where banking is different? Take my comment on this one with a grain of salt, I'm Canadian.

Let us know if something comes of any of these ideas.

Tina Brooks, VP Marketing
Brooks Pepperfire Foods, Inc.
Makers of Peppermaster Hot Sauces
http://www.peppermaster.com

Eat more peppers!