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.  

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?

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

Paperless File Cabinets

We all know that there is a major shift happening with record keeping.  It's all going electronic.  Almost all bills can be received via email and paid online.  Medical records are going electronic too. 

A few weeks ago we checked out at the Apple Store and the sales person asked, "Do you want a receipt or should I just email it to you?"

On top of that  people are beginning to accumulate photos and videos on there computers, but don't have a consistent backup of those files.

What if someone would come to your house and set up an electronic filing cabinet?   Here's what you'd get:

1. Scanning of all the files currently in your file cabinet saved to electronic folders instead
2. Electronic billing setup for all your bills
3. Filters and rules set up in your email inbox to make sure they are all filed consistently
4. A server set up to back up all of your files each day
5. Instruction  on how to stay organized
6. Instruction on how to label all of the people in your photos so that they are easily searchable

What do you think?  Could you charge enough to pay for the time?  Would it be hard to get people to trust the company with personal information?

Home Energy Consulting

Test homes for energy efficiency and sell them on improvements.  Reseal windows instead of replacing them, suggest solar panels, replace heating filters, fill attics and crawl spaces with more insulation, etc.

Concession Trailer

I'm not talking about buying an old truck that plays terrible jingles at ridiculously high volumes. I'm talking about rethinking the ice cream truck concept altogether.

It wouldn't be very hard to compete with any ice cream truck I've seen in the last 5 years.  All you really have to do is accept a credit card. 

Here's what I'm picturing.  

• Shops pulled behind Hummers
• Glass all the way around the shop so that people can see in easily
• 4 workers with 4 credit card machines to keep the lines moving quickly
• Full coffee bar functionality
• Fresh baked cookies
• Stereo system with Jack Johnson playing
• A second truck nearby dedicated to selling alcohol

It's almost summer and pretty soon there will be a lot of parks full of hungry people watching a softball or soccer game.  There is a business opportunity here. 

Honor System Vending Machines

It's a small refridgerator stocked with drinks, and a coffee cup beside it.  Prices are clearly marked so people know it isn't free. Even better if it has food, candy and gum for as well.  

It's critical to have an office environment or a common break area at a workplace for this.  Wouldn't want to try it at a mall or anything.

Another key here is using $0.25 incriments on prices.  It just needs to be easy for people to make change.

So I've actually tried this one and it's working right now on a small scale.   I actually stole this basic idea from a book, and then I modified it for my work situation.  The idea I read about was somebody who delivered bagels to a whole bunch of offices in California every day with a box for people to leave money.

I have been doing this for 6 months, and it's consistently bringing in revenue.  Cans of soda, chips, and muffins are the staples. 

Could this be done on a large scale?  Could I be the honor-system-vending-machine-guy for my entire city?