Dog Matching Service (Idea #42)

What if your personality, living situation, primary transportation means, and personal preferences were considered when you wanted to buy a dog? What if you could find not only the perfect breed, but the perfect temperament within the breed that is right for you?

Fill out an online survey, and get a list of possible pets for you.

Cost is still debatable. I'm thinking $10, gives you all the information you need to find the dog yourself, but maybe there is an additional fee to actually find the perfect dog that is nearest to you. Shipping a dog would have to be a whole different level of service for high end clients.

Franchises & Their Drawbacks (General)

A few months ago I talked to a franchise broker. This is a person who represents a lot of franchise companies, and who tries to match entrepreneurs with the perfect franchise.

My thought process was something like this. "I have good business sense, and I'm creative. If I purchase a business that has all of the detail worked out for me (franchise), I could probably run it well enough to make a solid profit."

I think a lot of people probably feel the same way, and they are absolutely right. If they are good at hiring the right people, and have a keen business sense, they could easily run a business that has already been set up. This is the positive side of franchises.

However, franchises have some significant drawbacks.

1. There are franchise brokers. Any business that needs someone to sell it has to be questioned a bit. Plus brokers get commissions, and franchise owners get fees. So the business starts with an extra expense.
2. Capital requirement. They want you to have a high net worth ($100k minimum) to start most franchises. This rules out most young people.
3. Less control. Franchises do most of the work for you on finding a location and getting things set up, but that also means that the owner doesn't have much freedom on many things (pricing, hours, decoration, branding, etc.)
4. Capital requirement. They also want you to have at least $50-100k in cash or liquid assets. If I had that much money to start a business, do you think I would need your franchise?

For these reasons, I will leave franchises to Baby Boomers who have lots of cash and are in career crisis. That's who these franchise brokers seem to be targeting anyway.

The Happy Company

This business would make employees happy. It would be an outside consulting company, paid to evaluate employee satisfaction at a given company, and attempt to make them happy at work every day. Key words: every day.

What if someone at your company had no other responsibility than to check in with you about your work satisfaction each day? They may not do something specific for you every day, but they at least check in with you to find out what is making you happy or unhappy at work. Then their whole job is to make work more fulfilling for you and everyone else.

Productivity would go up, and people would stay at the company for a long time. That's my pitch and I'm sticking to it.

Like Minded Matching Service

There is actually a site called LikeMinded.com that seems to be on track to launch this business, but here is my idea for it.

It is a way to find business partners with a sophisticated matching process. So it is like eharmony, but for businesses. Currently, I can browse profiles and meet people face to face, but there are many questions I'd need to ask before I'd know if we could work together.

If I could fill out a 30 minute questionnaire to find 10 potential business partners that live in my area, I'd do that. Or if I met somebody that I thought would be a good business partner, I'd pay to have someone analyze our compatibility.

For an HR team, imagine that instead of searching through a stack of resumes, a computer analyzes work styles and personality styles to help them find employees.

What's the cost? Maybe $25 to have my information on file, and a $10 fee each time I request a comparison with someone else's profile.

Thoughts?

Wheeling and Dealing

This business buys discounted items from large companies like costco and SAMs, and sells them online. It could buy discounted clothes, electronics, gift cards, anything.

The key here is not having inventory. The business can list the product and pick it up after it sells.

The employees of this business spend all their time looking for things they can sell online.

Another key is to constantly change inventory, and try to make money whenever Internet stores have a higher price than a local superstore.


- Posted using my iPhone

Cereal Restaurant

This is a restaurant with every type of breakfast cereal on the market... And nothing else. That's right. Customers come for a bowl of cereal with milk, any time of the day. Open until 10:00pm for late night snacks.

Really this would exist for the cool factor more than practical reasons. Environment is WAY more important than the product.

- Posted using my iPhone

2009 Top New Business Ideas

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this blog in 2009! We came up with 36 business ideas in 2009. I consider that a huge success, and am really looking forward to some more breakthrough ideas in 2010.

In no particular order, here are the top 10 ideas for businesses in 2009.

1. Self Powered Gym
2. Nanny Day Care
3. Solar Panel Leasing
4. Photography Archiving
5. Concession Trailer
6. Twitter Consulting
7. American Single Malt Distillery
8. Lending Tree for Landscaping
9. Home Food Inventory
10. The Man Store

2010 here we come.