Friday, May 29, 2009

The American Single Malt

This idea comes from a few things I've been reading up on that I think add up to a good business idea.  Consider these facts:
  1. Single Malt Scotch is still considered to be the best whiskey in the world by many. 
  2. Single Malt Scotch is made from barley, whereas American whiskeys are made from mostly corn, and some rye and wheat.  
  3. Single Malt Scotch is made from used oak barrels, but American whiskeys are made from mostly new oak barrels.
So here's the idea.  Make single malt whiskey here in the US.  It wouldn't be considered "Scotch"  because it is made here, but it could still be marketed as The American Single Malt.

Step 1: Buy cheap, used, oak barrels from bourbon makers in the US.  
Step 2: Use 100% malted barley instead of corn.  
Step 3: Sell it at a premium price point, but still come in under the imports.  

One thing I have to note is that there are some companies who are trying to do this, but I am confident that nobody has done it properly.  There is not an American Single Malt brand that people categorize with Scotch.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Mail Scanning Service

 What if you never had to open your physical mail?  What if you could just open your email box and find scanned versions of everything that was mailed to you?  

Banks already auto-process mail for large organizations, depositing checks and scanning documents for them.  This would be the same service at your house.  It would filter the junk mail for you, and send you scans of the rest of the mail.  

The challenging element of this is that certain types of mail (letters from your grandmother, magazines, etc.) would still need to arrive at your house.  

Here's how I think it would have to work.  The company gets your consent to forward all of your mail to it address instead of your house.  Then they process all of the mail and send you scans each day.   Every other day or so, the company sends you personal cards, magazines and packages.  

Even better, what if the post office started to offer this service?   Then no forwarding would be necessary.

I can see how this might be worth $10-20 a month.  

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Value Priced Massages

My theory is that the pricing structure for massages is incorrect.  In terms of supply and demand, I think that the place where supply meets demand is at a lower price.   

First let's talk about the demand.  Raise your hand if you don't want a back massage right now. Enough said.  Demand is really high.  Obviously you'd have to pay for it and that's a different question, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Supply is the tricky part of this equation, and the key to this business idea. We'd have to find a way to get cheaper labor.  Licensed massage therapists would want to make as much money as possible, and are getting no lower than $40-60 an hour currently.  If they lower prices, they'd have to work harder to make the same amount of money.  I think they are missing it big time, so we'd have to find other therapists.

With unemployment rising, a job at $12 -$15 an hour could attract some applications.  Think about the person between jobs, or a high school student or college student.  They would love to have a job that would pay that kind of wage for a few hours at a time.

Certification might be an issue with this cheaper labor, but if we could skip the official certification and train them in a 2-day training session, I think it could work.

Then we get back to the question, "Would you pay for it?"  Would you pay $20-25 and hour for an unlicensed massage?  What about $10 for 20 minutes?

Friday, May 1, 2009

Can I handle the risk? (General)

I wonder sometimes if I am willing to risk it.  I see all of these ideas and think to myself, "Somebody will make a killing doing this."  But would I take out a loan for $200,000 to execute it?    Would I quit my job?  That's a different question.

I've had the privilege of working with several entrepreneurs with multi million dollar businesses.  Here's what I've noticed about entrepreneurs.  
  1. They only take one idea out of one hundred.
  2. They minimize the risk by bouncing the idea off of everyone they know before they jump in to the risk fully.
  3. Ultimately, they do take the risk.  They take the loan, and do whatever it takes.  They act