In mailings or advertisements, instead of rent vs mortgage payment in ads, lean on 30 yr or 15 yr wealth build by own vs rent.
Author: Patrick
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Kitchen Only
A restaurant, minus the restaurant. More ‘send out’ than ‘take out.’ This caters to the gig economy deliveries. Since the restaurant portion only exists online, many types of a restaurant can exist from one kitchen. Since their is not actual physical design, if one type is a failure, simply remove the listing.
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Post Your Idea
Click here to post your idea in the Shrimp Tank
How to make an effective post:
- Make it easy to respond to your post. You shouldn’t just walk up to a stranger and say, “I have X idea,” and expect a thoughtful response.
- You do not need to post a business plan, but a few thought out sentences go a long way.
- Share the event, problem or other ideas that served as the basis for yours.
- Tell us if you think your idea will make people happy, fulfill a need or make life a little easier. Even tell us if you have no clue.
- Tell us if you have a particular goal in mind.
- Ask questions. Give a starting point to create a real dialogue.
Click here to post your idea in the Shrimp Tank
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Leasing Rooftop Rights for Solar
Leasing the rights to rooftops of commercial buildings for solar, which is subleased to others as a means of more efficient power generation than the roofs of their personal homes.
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Coders Keyboard
In addition to Caps Lock, have Symbol Lock. When coding, at least in my experience, there is far more use of the symbols above the numbers than the numbers themselves. In Linux, I can custom map the keyboard so it defaults to the symbols. Simple having an extra key on the keyboard for this function would be way easier than switching between keyboard maps.
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Group Author
People write screenplays in teams, why not a book over a weekend?
Have an event where participants get to pitch a story idea. After, everyone can vote on a couple of them to narrow them down. Then people can join up in teams with the ideas that were voted on. Over the next day or two, they can collaborate to write the story. At the end, a winner can be chosen.
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Combine Lottery & Pink Sheets Investing
Give lottery players something to buy that gives an instant risk/reward thrill, but also gives some longterm win. If nothing else, this justifies investing more. Having an education lottery gives one cover to say that they are playing for a good cause. How about giving one the cover of investing in a sound financial future with no risk. One can win at best cash and at worst a 1000 shares in a pink sheet company. The Lottery could own X shares of a pink sheet listing, and the ticket could serve as a right of claim to Y number of those shares. Over time, players can see their portfolio grow as they play more.
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YouTube Shock Collar
Something to shock, or otherwise inflict physical pain when I spend more than 5 minutes of every hour on youtube.
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Pitch Contests in Tertiary Markets
As a way of building a catalog, have pitch contests in tertiary markets. It’s (almost) free advertising. A town with 40,000 people has ideas to share but might not support a regular meetup. However, having one time events might be enough to turn out 20 or 30 ideas. Which can be enough to make a day trip worth the time.
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Local Drag Racing Timer
Local drag racing competitions work on the driver’s ability coming closest to their qualifying time without going over. If the driver had a live display of their current time against their qualifying time, they could maintain a proper speed. It could be color based. Something like the driver needs to keep the car in a ‘yellow’ category.
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Anti-Hangover Drink
Something along the lines of vitamin water, but with after a night out recovery in mind. This is more of a marketing angle than a science.
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Perfect 360° Sphere Phone Photos
I find that taking a 360° photo is difficult because one cannot easily rotate the phone on a perfect axis. However, the quality of the images, at least on my Google Pixel XL is outstanding. Even if there is a handheld device that works with levels to keep guide me to keep the phone in the perfect position that I can see from all sides, not just the screen side.
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Give memorabilia to a celeb to increase value
This is not so much a business plan as an investment play. Rich people collect memorabilia. Celebrities are rich. Memorabilia that happens to also be owned by a celebrity is worth even more. One example is Charlie Sheen’s selling of Babe Ruth memorabilia.
My idea is to buy memorabilia, then gift it to a celebrity. In return, I would be guaranteed something like the original purchase price plus 50% of the profit. The real deal comes down to a negotiation.
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Two-way resistant weight workout
If exercise equipment utilized shock absorbers, it could provide resistance in both directions.
Fluid flow through the piston controls the resistance of shock absorbers. It can be adjusted for different resistance in each direction. For example, one direction could simulate 30lbs of weights and the other direction 15lbs.
Also, the resistance would be constant throughout the lift, unlike rubber bands. Like bands, the equipment does not need to be as heavy or cumbersome.
This could be applied to an entire line of equipment. Or, the shock absorbers could be stand alone or hook to a wall mount of foot holder to giving more freedom of movement.
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Fabric Phone Visor
Using my phone at the beach is hell. I already want to cover my beautiful face when laying out to avoid wrinkles. Plus, I want to use my phone because laying out is boring as hell. I generally throw my shirt over my phone and hold it above me so I can see it and keep the sun out of my eyes.
I think if a piece of cloth is cut specific with this in purpose in mind, it will hang better and cause less hassle. The shirt hangs badly all around.
A problem that I don’t know how to address is my arms getting tired holding up the phone. If this could also be solved this product would be killer.
Long-term, if this took off, I am not sure if a brand strategy would be centered around products for phones, beach or random infomercial crap.
Does anyone have an idea on how to address the issue of tired arms? Also, what are some complimentary products to this idea?
Lastly, has anyone else had this problem or am I the only one?
Thanks.
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Successful Kickstarters as Mentors
Our successful Kickstarter friends are an excellent resource for validated comments. They can provide examples of the cost of building prototypes of the product. As well as designers and manufacturers and the overall team structure an inventor needs to have around them.
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Plane Dinner
Frozen dinner is so trashy. Unless, it’s first class plane food! It’s perfect for someone too poor to fly and to busy to cook.
“Feel like you’re in the sky when you have your block of key lime pie.”
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Everyday things database
A database of everyday tasks that can be referenced to help spur ideas to make them easier, better or to compliment them. An example being a selfie. Which someone then thought of making a selfie photo editor.
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Uber for Cessna
This already exists. It’s called Skyüber. It is not affiliated with Uber. However, it hardly has any flights, and is not at all consistent in offerings.
A similar app could focus only on specific markets. A more targeted approach could provide a stronger launch point.
A concern is the highly regulated flight industry. I imaging there is a real possibility this is not allowed. However, I believe regulations are looser around light aircraft.
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Long distance ride share like in Europe
BlaBlaCar is a popular ride sharing service in Europe. Unlike Uber or Lyft, it specializes in long distance trips. This service does not exist in the USA. I simply propose that it be copied.
One problem I foresee would be the higher vehicle ownership rate in the United States. However, the ability for individuals to relax instead of driving themselves may be appealing.
Would any of you use a service like this and for what length of trips?
Are there legal consequences to copying a service?
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Highlighter Scanner
When you highlight something in a book, it’s because you need to study it. These are the same items that one might then use to create a study guide.
The highlighter can scan the text highlighted and automatically add it to a document to copy, paste, or edit.
I am not sure if this is something that could grow into a brand or if it is a one-off product for the infomercial world.
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Need Ideas for a Million-Dollar-Idea
Great ideas, inventions, and companies are born of providing convenience to our daily lives. It would be nice to have a database of daily tasks. It would serve as a reference point to spurn creativity.
Another way to get the mind thinking and innovating could be with a word game. A few words could be provided, and then a user could create an idea for a company from those words. I participated in a live version of this at Startup Weekend Charlotte.Overall, both of these are for when a person wants to come up with a million-dollar-idea but can’t think of anything.
Besides a website, a mobile app could be made in a game format. It could help users build ideas through a series of questions following the initial starting point (a daily task or random words). It could guide the user into building an idea, piece by piece.
As for long term, look at Cashflow, the game based on Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This created an international community of clubs and Meetups for people interested in new ideas.
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How long until you die
There are endless statistics on death. I want to build a calculator that asks you questions, then tells you statistically how likely you are to die tomorrow, within a month and within a year. This is the ultimate new year’s eve game.
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Block Specific Picture
I hate when ads on sites like yahoo show nasty pictures. I want a plugin that lets me pick a picture, then never see it again.
Google can search images by images. Does Google have an image API that can match pictures with a click? From there, written code can block the css layer that displays the picture
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Nudge Presentation Timer
A timer for presentations that updates you on time by touch. Subtle enough that can’t be heard. More nudge than vibrate.
This keeps you on track without glancing at a watch or clock.
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Sort Penny Stocks by Location
Create program/app that sifts through penny stocks. Arrange them by geographic location. Also, adjust how much money it takes to get on the board of the company, or to take controlling interest. By investing in companies that are local, you can investigate them. You can visit them. See if they’re real. Real employees. Real location. Real anything.
And, making it easier to investigate companies and set investment goals, the stock value of real companies can rise above the fraud. They have such low volume; even a few local investors could boost stock price with slight liquidity… I think.
Depending on how hard it is to get the data, sort by market cap, employee size, how many companies the board members are a part of (some of the fraud companies are one of multiple companies with the same ceo.
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Charlotte Airport Parking App
Charlotte has open data regarding parking at Charlotte Douglas Airport. There is not currently an app that provides live parking availability for the airport. It is available online, but that is not convenient to find in your car when you are near or at the airport. An app is an easier means of delivering this information.
http://parking.charlotteairport.com/
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Web Controlled Robot Fights
You can have a robot battle. Robots can be controlled online. So you can have real robot fights from your computer.
You could mail your bots to the competition but control them locally. An entry fee could even include on-site tech support to fix stuff on your behalf. This allows international competitions without travel costs.
Maybe live tweet the battle.
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Live Shrimp Tank Startup Events
Live two hour events where people submit ideas on Shrimp Tank and get live feedback from guaranteed, verified expert commentators. Then, a winner from the ideas can be chosen. This could be a weekly event. Just like people watch a TV show every week, they could participate in the event every week.