Category: Ideapreneur

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Spicy Archives

A Spicy Idea

Posted by Simon

How old are those bottles of spices in your cupboard?

Spices

Did you know that they get old and lose there flavor? A few years ago we started to once a year write the year of purchase on the top of each jar.

Spice Tops

After they are two years we throw them away. Wouldn’t it benefit us all if the spice companies would put an expiration date on their bottles? Why don’t they? It seems like a really good product differentiation idea that could command a premium price.

Thanks to Nurit for this idea.

Date October 28th, 2006
Comment:
We really haven’t kept this up because we cook less and less and many spice bottles now come with expiration dates. Packaging the spice in single serving sizes would also be a good idea.
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iPad Improvement

I got a new iPad for my 65th birthday.  And I’ve been filling up my time figuring out how to transfer all of my data and apps and setting from my iPad one to this new one.

Because it’s new I’ve also been thinking about security and for me that means the likelihood that I will lose it.  I have already had to go back to numerous restaurants to retrieve my iPad or my iPhone. The problem is that if you set the security so that only you can use the iPad then others can’t access it far enough to get you contact information.

I did put one of my business cards inside the back of the cover but it could easily be overlooked.  I couldn’t tape one to the outside of the cover with any of the tapes or glues that I had and then I had an idea:  Take a photo of my business card and use the photo as the start-up screen.

I made three samples:

I settled on Chairman Mao for the test.

I probably should add a sign that says “reward if found.”

I let you know if it works.

The only commercial application I could think of was if a company like Zynga or the Angry Birds people were willing to build a template to that just happened to have their logo on it.

 

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Facebook Value

Facebook went public with a valuation of about $100 billion and quickly lost about a third of that value to about $70 billion.  That is still a lot of money and it values each user at about $100.  The question now for Facebook is how do they get a revenue stream that justifies that $100/customer valuation or more?

Coaxing value from friends

Here is my Facebook value idea.  First buy or build a search engine like Google.  Then make one major improvement.  Build into the search algorithm a feature that uses the searches of the users friends and friends of friends to give much better targeted results.

Facebook is uniquely positioned to provide this service because of it’s size.  If the average person has 200 “friends” that means that at the second level there are 40,000 people who are more similar to the user than the common Google searcher.

while providing entertainment

And Facebook has an opening right now to fill this niche.  Both because of their critical mass which no one else has and because it appears to users that Google searches are being dominated by commercial enterprises.

The revenue will come from advertising on the search pages and developing a unique home page that has a customizable combination of search, friends, news, pet photos, clever sayings and other features.

Here is an example:  Last night we heard a speaker talk about “Mofuz” but didn’t know how to spell it.  A search through Google was at first useless.  Using the “friend tuned” Facebook Search Engine could have fixed the spelling error and found that Mofaz is the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.

A few month ago I had a billion dollar idea for Starbucks.  Now I have a ten billion dollar idea for Facebook.  The Ideapreneur is on a roll.

Buy Facebook.  If they implement this idea it is a bargain.

 

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The Matchbook Museum

The Matchbook Museum is not a place.  It is a website where the curator/owner James Lileks shows matchbooks from his extensive collection along with some witty and illuminating commentary.

The idea of a Matchbook Museum is interesting to me for a few reasons:

  • Online Museums are a new and very good idea that may earn some diligent curators an independent living.
  • Nurit and I have been collecting match books and boxes for a few decades.  We saw Carole B’s collection and started one of our own.  Carole gave me a Piggly Wiggly matchbook fron the 1960’s.
  • Matches are vanishing faster than cigarette smokers.  In the past I have pondered what will replace them as a giveaway

So we have bit of American history that illustrates a potential money making opportunity for someone enterprising who collects something.  It would have to be something that interests tens of thousands of people.  Like nail polish or lipstick.  Or maybe Disneyobelia.  Or postcards?  What about the International Bridge Museum?

The revenue stream is ads for resellers or tourism related companies on the museum site.

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A Billion Dollar Idea

It is rare that even I the “ideapreneur” have an idea that is ready to go, is brilliant and has the potential to increase someones bottom line by a billion dollars.

Companies like AT&T, Apple, Microsoft, Verizon and others spend billions of dollars each year selling technically complicated products to consumers who don’t know how to use them.  Starbucks has these same consumers standing in line for coffee every morning.  Make the connection the simplicity is brilliant.  Starbucks rents a table in their stores in the morning to, lets say, Apple for $100/hour.  Apples reps can offer technical support and do training.  They cannot sell products.  The advantage for Apple is that their customers become better users and more loyal while they demonstrate a competitive advantage over their competitors.  The advantage to Starbucks is using their “safe space” to generate revenue.  The math I figured was 3000 stores time 4 hours a day time 200 days times $100.  Close to 200 million dollars a year. Starbucks has 17,000 stores worldwide.

One of the great things about this idea is that it can be tested regionally at low cost so that the rules of engagement can be clearly defined before rolling it out internationally.  Perhaps call it “in store reps” and have a different one each day, on a regular schedule that is listed on the web site.  So if I want to talk about my iPhone I will go to the Sierra Madre Starbucks on Tuesday when the Apple rep is there.

 

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$2.1 Billion Baseball Sign

The LA Dodgers were sold for 2.1 billion dollars this week.  A billion dollars more than was expected and twice what a sports franchise has ever sold for.  I’m calling it the DVR premium.  Follow me on this for a minute and then I show you the next place where values are going to increase.

A DVR (Digital Video Recorder) allows a viewer to fast forward through commercials.  So if your okay with watching CSI later you can watch it in 40 minutes by fast forwarding through the commercials.  But sports is a contest that is best watched live so its value as a deliverer of viewers to commercials is higher than that of shows that can be recorded like dramas and comedies.

The $2 billion valuation of the Dodgers franchise is an estimate of this new reality.  It is however contingent on a few assumptions that have yet to be tested.  One potential issue is that network driven, free to the consumer, advertising financed television is not the only model available.  Another is that competition to sports as a deliverer of advertising viewers is already developing in the form of reality TV contests.  Shows like American Idol, Dancing With the Stars and The Great Race have injected an audience participation element, typically voting, that causes some viewers to want to watch live.  This is good for advertisers.

But there is a way it could be better.  If a show like Dancing With the Stars also gave its voting audience points that were redeemable for discounts and free stuff they would increase viewership of their target demographics and with the premiums the brand loyalty of the viewers.  This is a win-win the audience would receive rewards for playing and the advertisers would get live viewers.  Move over Frank McCourt this is a billion dollar idea.

 

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Where’s Waldo, The App

Here is an App idea from Howard R.  Using the regular sightings and twitter posts of celebrities create an iPhone app that tells you what direction and how far it is to the celebrities on your list from where you are right now.

Where is Kim Kardashian?

Where is President Obama?

Where is Anthony Weiner?

Where is Rush Limbaugh?

You get the idea.  The technology exists.  All you have to do is put it together and start to rake in the money.  People want to know this stuff.

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Salad Days

Here is an idea for bagged lettuce makers like Ready Pac.

Make a mix labeled:

Restaurant Mix.

It seems to me that the best salads are served at restaurants and this would give retail buyers the hope of recreating that experience.

The hook would be:

“today’s freshest and most flavorful greens”

Which would allow the producer to vary the mix depending on availability.

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All Inclusive Opportunity

We stayed at the Royal Solaris Resort in Cancun last week and it was beautiful.  To keep track of all the guests at this all-inclusive resort they give you a color coded bracelet when you check in.  The bracelets are the same ones they used to use in hospitals and they are not well suited to the festive vacation atmosphere of the resort.

IMG_4789

There is a nice opportunity for someone to start making improved resort bracelets.  You could set up a factory in Mexico.  I estimate that just the resorts on the Mayan Riviera use nearly a million bracelets a year.  Don’t use vinyl or pvc use a nice molded polycarbonate that looks and feels luxurious.

IMG_4896

Interestingly the bracelets that they used at the Solaris are manufactured by Precision Dynamics in San Fernando, California.  They are clearly focused on the security issues not the appearance.

IMG_4898

Lots more photos and stories from Cancun in the days ahead.

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Better Cat Litter

This is a billion dollar idea.  It is also one of the holy grail searches.  Find a material that indoor cats will use as a bathroom, that is easy to clean up and that does not get tracked all over your house.

But if you find it you will have a product worth a billion dollars.  We bought, at twice the price of the granulated clay stuff, a litter that claimed to be “The Best Litter Ever.”  Within a week I gave most of it away.  The cats hated it and it still got tracked all over the hall.

Has anyone tried the cat toilet things?