October 31, 2005
PBWiki - Creating Wikis is As Easy As Making a PB&J Sandwich
Today, I had a great conversation with the co-founder of PBWiki. He is a recent graduate of Stanford and a few months ago, he and friend created a site where consumers could easily create a wiki. After softly promoting it, he got 1,000 registrations in the first 2 days and now has over 15,000 and is the leading consumer wiki web site.
I think there are many things that led to the success of the site. However, from an outside perspective, I think he created a perfect metaphor. Many people have heard about wikis, especially via the wikipedia, but they didn't know where to get started (myself included). The idea of having a wiki for a free in a matter of a few minutes is just very appealing.
Overall, I think there is a big shift to simplicity. In fact, I just read the Fast Company cover story on this topic. "For Dummies" has done very well in the book publishing industry. In fact, becoming the first or second most successful book franchise ever. In a way, Google is the "For Dummies" for software.
It seems like there are many opportunities for "momentary enterprises" based on simplicity. I think a particular hole to fill would be making "getting started" easier. I think a lot of people don't start stuff because it's fuzzy in their mind. However, when it's broken down into its smallest components, it can become very easy. One specific thing I've heard mentioned by many people recently is the complexity of starting up a business. Many people are extremely interested in this, but never do it.
In search of knowledge
I have really enjoyed our recent discussions on ideas such as DesperateForMoney.com, BrokeStudent.com, and TheScreenplayExperiment.com. This style of back and forth feedback and critique seems to be doing a good job at shaking out important insights.
My recent thought, however, is that we need, at this early stage, to balance discussions of our ideas with more systematic investigation of existing ideas. By studying what is out there and what has worked, I think we will arm ourselves with a lot more creative ammo to motivate our own, even better ideas. In particular, I might suggest the following three foci for the near future:
1) Identification, on this blog, of good sources to monitor or discover existing ODIs and related phenomenon. For example, I have been trolling iFilm.com recently to sniff out viral videos that are breaking out.
2) Locate and post about any and all ODIs. Once an ODI has been posted about, we can start to discuss its merits. Try to identify what makes it hookey.
3) Open up lines of communication with ODI originators. For example, what if one of us sent an e-mail to the founder of milliondollarhomepage.com, and explained, honestly, that you are part of a small group that is intriguiged by web phenomenons, and was wondering if he would mind talking with one of us (or answering e-mail questions) about his experience. We could then get an insider scoop on how he came up with the idea, what the initial iterations were like, what caused the tipping point, etc.
Combined, these three directions might quickly produce a solid wealth of creative inspiration for our idea construction.
Thoughts?
Momentary Enterprises
An interesting essay about the phenomenon of "momentary enterprises" -- targeted, low-cost web services that pop-up to meet specific demands. Seemed relevant to this discussion...
October 25, 2005
IDEA: Use What Works
This is a car advertisement. When they finished filming the ad the people who made it noticed something moving along the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist, and an eerie sound that you can barely hear (must have sound). The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon.
Watch it and about halfway through, you will see the white mist crossing in front of the car then following it along the road ......
Spooky!
So this is an idea for this blog. As part of the public portion, what if we posted viral ideas we came across, such as the one above. These are proven to get traffic/word-of-mouth and people could refer others to this site to view the video and we could get money from Google Adwords? The earlier we catch the idea, the better.
October 23, 2005
The Screenplay Experiment -- critical mass
An important question for any ODI, as mentioned before, is building interest and momentum in the early stages. This would require a publicity push. But this idea, especially with the $1 this-is-not-a-commercial-venture angle, is condusive to such publicity. A sweep of hollywood related bloggers would probably put out the word. We can also get some coverage in screenwriting magazines (which have concentrated circulations, but are pretty low-key and cheaply put together, so persuadable). Perhaps, even, we can make an agreement with such a magazine to have a regular feature about the experiment -- i.e. what's the current state of the screenplay experiment, including an update, and some exceprts. That would really be a best case scenario.
In all these initial pushes, we emphasize the potential to get upgraded to a moderator. That is, push people to get their early because that maximizes their chance of grabbing a bigger role.
Finally, we can anatagonize movie executives; find some way to disparage the experiment in collaboration, and then use this as ammo to bolster the community. Perhaps post the latest quote from someone saying why the idea can't work.
The Screenplay Experiment -- v2
Here is a refined version of the idea taking your feedback into account...
TheScreenplayExperiment.com remains an experiment in collaborative creativity. At the lowest level, we have a discussion board for tossing around ideas. Above this, we have a collection of wiki's for writing rough drafts. Registered users can contribute to these wiki's. At first, we maintain ulitmiate control, but, the plan is, we invite users to become the moderators for each wiki based on their participation. Finally, once the rough drafts begin looking good, we have the entire community of registered users vote on which one they like best. At this point, the moderators of that draft can clean it up, and then we're done.
Following Michael's points from earlier, the idea has low risks, guarenteed small returns, and large potential upside. For example, browsing the site has the immediate return of reading the current state of the movie ideas. People are interested in movie concepts. And it's a good 10 minute distraction to check in every few days to see how the plots are unfolding. Are they stupid? Are they cool? Are they crafting a wicked twist ending? At the next level, participating in the ideation, the return is receiving recognition for your creativity. It feels great to have an important plot point or character be added on the basis ofyour recognition. At the highest level, is being a moderator. The benefits here are clear, you are in control of a creative community. Very ego-gratifying. The potential large upside is the treatment eventually getting turned into a movie. This is not a financial upside. It's a cool-factor upside. You were a part of Hollywood history. You can go to a movie, and know that you had a part in making it. In fact, you can go to a movie, and point to scenes that you yourself actually constructed. Great, fun, and exciting.
The key that brings this together, at least from a publicity and community standpoint, is this guarentee that the site owners will sell the treatment for exactly $1. In fact, we should have part of the registration process be clicking on an agreement that basically says "I am participating only on the understanding that the resulting idea can only be solds for no more than $1." There's the hook. It transforms this into a creative, community venture. The common movie-goer fighting against the excesses and mediocrity of the studio system. We think your movies suck, and we can do better!
October 21, 2005
Publicity Person
In a random thought, I think it would be powerful to have a person who is a publicist weigh in on ideas and also write press releases when ideas are launched. Just a thought.
Desperate for Money - V2
Overview
Sample
Qualities of Successful ODIs
Overall
- The idea is very easy to get.
- The idea is very quick to get.
- The idea is easy to communicate to others.
- The idea is new.
- The idea is big.
- The idea is edgy.
- Give people their money back if the idea doesn't reach a pre-defined tipping point!
- Make it possible to contribute in very small ways and still receive some benefits.
- Give contributors recognition. Give special benefits to early contributor (e.g., the first 100 people to contribute will be acknowledged as founders on the web site). Firefox gives recognition via a roll call.
- Allow people to get recognition for the success of the overall project and the success of their contributions.
- Make the founders have enough skin in the game that they're willing to promote the site to others and even invest more time/money to protect their initial investment.
Getting ODIs to a Tipping Point
So far, I think the ideas that have been generated are all very interesting and feasible to some degree. However, I feel that were no taking "tipping points" into account.
Two hurdles I see us having to jump for the ideas are:
- Visitor W-O-M. We need to make the idea compelling enough that people will visit the site and tell others, even in the beginning when there is little content.
- Visitor Contribution.Secondly, we have to make the site compelling enough that people will contribute content, votes, or even capital when there isn't much content and there aren't many visitors.
A different case study is The Business Experiment. Their idea has generated a lot of chatter and publicity, but the contributions from its members haven't been large. In fact, there are a lot of free riders waiting to see if it is worth putting in more time. From this, I would argue that getting visitor contributions is perhaps the largest component in the beginning.
Perhaps we should focus on making crazy incentives for early adopters who are contributors. My sense is that if you can get people to champion the idea in the very beginnig, then the idea will reach tipping point sooner. At its most simple level, I think this can be accomplished by lowering the risks and increasing the potential upside. Ideas for accomplishing this can be seen at Qualities of Successful ODIs.
October 17, 2005
IDEA: TheScreenplayExperiment.com
The Pitch
How many times have you walked out of a movie and exclaimed: "I could have written something better than that" ? Finally, a chance to put this common boast to the test. The Screenplay Experiment is a study in both the power of collaborative thinking and the creative ability of the movie-going public. At TheScreenplayExperiment.com budding cinemphiles from around the world can collaborate, using wiki technology, to craft the perfect movie treatment. No more plot holes, boring characters, or weak twists...the optimistic premise of this site is that from the combined power of many movie lovers can emerge a movie concept devoid of the common problems that frustrate us at the theatre time after time. At least, that's the hope. Will it succeed? That's up to you -- and thousands of your movie-loving peers.
If the treatment ends up sucking, then everyone who participated is no longer allowed to complain once the credits roll. If, however, it ends up compelling, then the site owners will sell the rights, for exactly $1, to the production company or studio that seems to be most capable and most committed to actually getting the project onto the big screen.
Continued in the extended entry is a quick discussion of how to make money from the idea and some potential problems...
The Financial Model
Money can be made by ads. Hollywood is obsesed with itself, so, if played right, publicity from the hollywood press should not be hard to gain. From there, other mainstrem outlets might chime in. Especially if the project starts veering towards a success or dismal failure. This type of project would attract the huge aspiring screenwriter crowd . This crowd is very desirable to the huge industry that sell books, and seminars, and script doctoring services to these hopefuls.
Furthermore, following the lead of SaveToby.com, there is money to be made by selling hipster merchandise at the site. That is, merchandise that only people familar with the project would recognize (understated, retro, obscure, and/or campy t-shirts...perhaps containing a quote that was lambasted by the participants with a particular furor, or understated versions of the logo, etc.)
The Problems
There are many. Such as...
How do you get the collaboration to work? I assume a wiki model makes the most sense, but there would have to be some sort of hierachy of rights to prevent idiots from ruining other people's efforts.
What about people stealing the idea? There might not be too much we can do about this. Though, let's be honest, the final treatment will most likely suck, so who cares. Perhaps stringent copyright notices would be enough to scare of most theifs to be. Besides, even if it was stolen, that could cause a ruckus, which would generate more publicity for us.
Could we build a big enough audience to make it interesting? I don't know much about this aspiring screenwriter world, but I think, for the most part, these people are energetic and eager to look for any way they can to distinguish themselves. i.e. to be a site admin for TheScreenplayExperiment.com might inspire many to work feverishly...every bit helps in that industry. One way to drum up initial promotion is to target some screenplay related bloggers and web site owners to offer us their advice on how best to set up the collaboration structure. After doing this, they would most likely post about it, generating a good initial buzz?
The ODI Wiki?
If (and this is a big if) we decide to keep this blog private, only allowing people we invite to participate, then we might consider launching a companion wiki. The idea being that as theories get polished and tested, and lessons enumerated from analyzing other ODIs and trying our own, we could start to capture the information in the Wiki. Over time, this Wiki would grow into a rough draft of what could become a compelling book (or eBook). It also ensures that lessons learned one day don't need to be relearned many days later.
First Movers
So as Richard pointed out, it turns out that one of my ODIs is already being done.
In general, should this matter? My first inclination is to abandon the idea, since competing head-on with an almost identical concept doth not a one-day idea make -- 1) the competitive element may drain the "click" factor from the ODI, and 2) there's no first-mover advantage to leverage.
I believe the idea of a first-mover "advantage" is usually overblown in most industries -- quite the contrary, I believe the first-mover often succumbs to pitfalls that serve as an example for later-movers to avoid. However, my initial thought is that in order to be a successful ODI, you need to be the first mover.
What do you think?
Now Where Was I?
In addition to being generally fascinating, the October 15th NYTimes Magazine article, Meet the Life Hackers, got me thinking about how an ODI can enhance productivity via simplicity. The article mentions that some "sickeningly overprolific" workers utilize the simplest tools to manage their daily tasks -- "they find one extremely simple application and shove their entire lives into it."
Perhaps an ODI website can be promoted as the end-all simple solution for enhancing productivity and task management. A clean, ultra-simple Google-like user-interface that provides users with a place to record what they're currently doing before they get interrupted, record To Do lists in a clean and simple manner, etc. E-mail reminders can be sent from the website to remind a user to complete a task. Like del.icio.us, which allows users to record bookmarks from any computer, this site could be used to allow a user to record their tasks at hand from anywhere. Something that allows a user to return from an interruption and answer the question, "Now where was I?
There seem to be a million CRM tools with a thousand screens each, but not one extremely simple, easy-to-use personal productivity tool that's available online. Your thoughts?
NowWhereWasI.com - Discuss, discuss.
October 16, 2005
Online vs. Offline: Part 2 - ODI Implementation
Scott Pollack, a very good NYU friend, and also the coiner of the term "One Day Idea" is more interested in the offline aspect to this. That is keeping the idea to a trusted group of friends who meet offline, brainstorm ideas, and then implement the ideas.
Hey, don't get me wrong, I think this blog is a great idea, and can be a valuable resource for budding and experienced entrepreneurs alike. My original thoughts were that a public blog such as this could be used to discuss thoughts on One Day Ideas (ODI) in general, rather than specific opportunites waiting to be implemented. Contrastingly, an "entrepreneur club" formed in the model of an investment club would be a venue for a small group of trusted individuals to carry out whatever ODIs most tickeled their respective fancies.
However, having seen a few day's worth of discussion on this site, it is obvious that there's something here. The DesperateForMoney.com idea is perfectly inline with ODIs that seemed to have taken off over the years. However, my concerns still remain -- as this blog gains popularity, how can the proprietor of an ODI protect it from some untrusting idea-poacher lurking in anonymity? How can we prevent someone from having registering and launching DesperateForMoney.com and BrokeStudent.com while we flesh out the details in the public domain?
Cal, I like your equity sharing plan in the post "Learning from the TBE Example," but how do we assure such a system works? The honor system only works when you know who's in your circle of trust. As they say, "in cyberspace no one cares if you scream."
October 15, 2005
Tangent Rant: Transaction World: Extending the Pay-to-view ads
Time to put the futurist hat on.
Increasingly, our world is measured via transactions. I can imagine a world in which your earnings and credit limits are pre-estimated from birth. I can imagine a world in which desicion trees and their estimated ramifications are given to you at every turn to help you make more informed decisions.
Stepping back to a more realistic vision, I can imagine a AOL-esk service that gives you money for everything you do. Everytime you check your email, you can accept an ad or survey to make money. Everytime you read a news article online or anything... you are given an opportunity to make money in relation to what you are doing. Simple choirs make you money and build your reputation as a insightful consumer. Maybe employeers could read responses and hire based on the quality of one's participation in the service. You get credit for your day-to-day thoughts!
October 14, 2005
Pay-to-view ads
Michael mentioned in a previous posting those once hot dot-coms that paid people to watch ads.
Anyway, following Michael's earlier prompt, how could such an idea be revived again? Clearly, right now, the leader in in this field is freepay.com. This site has you fill out "offers" and then refer a bunch of friends. If all of these friends fill out "offers" then you get a free product. I'm not sure what one of these "offers" entails, but I assume it involves a survey and you giving permission to receive mail for the rest of your life.
What could we do better? Here are some ideas:
1) Focus on college students and recent graduates. An incrediably hot market. And we're young, which leverages our youth as a selling point.
2) Kill referral requirement. For me, at least, this is what stops me from something like freepay. If you were to offer me money or a product for spending my own time, I might do it given a lazy weekend and a low bank account. But I draw the line when it comes to annoying my friends. Of course, we could still reward referrals for those who want to do it. But we don't have to require it.
3) Use a graded focus group model. Instead of simply gathering some demographic stats and an address, what if we present the respondent with a privite wiki. The wiki contains the structure of a marketing plan (including pitch, pitfalls, discussion of the psychology of the target market, and how to position), and a bunch of pages of background material on the product. The respondent is asked to use the background material, and his or own insights and experience, to fill in the blanks of the plan. That is, basically construct a marketing plan web site from scratch. They key is to grade the responses on a scale of 1 to 10. The better your grade, the more money you get. Therefore, these young people have incentive to really put in some effort. If you give some shitty effort, then you might get a couple bucks. If you dedicate an afternoon to polishing some smart ideas, you might make a couple hundred bucks. Intelligence is rewarded. Insight is rewarded. Effort is rewarded. Many students will spend this time. Especially because the activity is engaging and interesting. And companies will kill for this level of insight into their target market. This info would be much stronger than what a focus group would provide. If you gather students into a room for an hour, they will either tune out, or worry obsesively about saying the right thing to be cool in the situation. Give them a web site to build on their own time, and offer them money for their insight, and they'll start turning out some gems.
4) The report variant. The problem with this above idea is that it's too service oriented. Each client requires a new survey, which we get paid for, but requires effort to setup. This could, of course, be very much automated. And the money could be very good for a system that requires very little work to calibrate for each new customer. But another variant is to use some of the funds to run our own surveys, and then anaylze these responses ourselves to generate a youth markeitng report to sell to companies. The advantage of this piece is that selling the same report twice costs as much effort as selling it 500 times. Comparable reports, by the well, currently sell to companies for around $15,000 to $20,000 a pop. A twist on this variant is to first approach some companies to fund the surveying in exchange for getting the report for free and having input on its direction. We, however, are free to resell it to anyone else we want at a nice profit.
Learning from the TBE example
The message Michael posted from TBE got me thinking. What's the best way to go forward with this concept in terms of ownership issues? That is, we assume many ideas will be bounced around, and that most people will contribute to most ideas, but only a few people will probably really push any one given idea. So how do we balance who gets credit for what without getting greedy, overly subjective, or complicated?
Here is one suggestion--a refinement on Michael's earlier post--that I will throw out for feedback:
Let's make a clean split between inspiration and perspiration. On this (public) blog, we can discuss specific ideas as well as articulate general theories about what makes ideas work. Most of the inspiration work should occur here. Ideas can be repeatedly polished, poked, prodded, and reformed. Not all will survive. But those that do will boast a solid hook, specified site features, and targeted promotional plans.
At this point, those who are interested in taking on the perspiration duties identify themselves as owners. The domain can then be bought, and the detailed work of putting together a site map and tech spec for the web developers can continue among these self-identified owners on a private extranet, on the phone, and in person.
At the same time, discussion can continue in the public blog about promotion. Once the site is launched, it is hoped most everyone from the public blog will aid the promotion by tapping their networks. At this point, the owners identify the non-owners who contributed significantly to both the idea development and promotion. We call this group contributors. The owners will continue to be responsible for all details (and finacial support issues) related to an actual venture once it's up and running.
With all this being said, we can now talk turkey. In terms of revenue splitting, how about something along these lines:
* A set percent of revenues goes to the web developers (up until a certain per-project cap)
* Another percent (10% - 15%) goes to a pool that is split by the contributors.
* The rest is split by the owners.
This general approach recognizes that not everyone can contribute equally to every project. However, it does give incentive to help polish and promote other people's ideas. As these "inspiration" activities are not too taxing, and they can lead to a nice little financial return. Enough, at least, to justify the effort.
Imagine, one day in the near future, this evolving into a powerful community of smart entrepreneurs, where most people had small stakes in many ventures, and large stakes in a few, everyone pushing to help everyone else, everyone making some nice scratch in return.
The Business Experiment Status
Check out this blast email I got from thebusinessexperiment.com. It is fascinating and has a lot of ideas that we could learn from:
Hi Everyone,There seems to be a problem at TBE. We put something up for a vote, and we get emails and forum posts about how we aren't ready to vote on that issue yet. Nothing is getting done. The business plan has been "open" for weeks and it is going nowhere. This wisdom of crowds process for creating a business simply does not work. There is no accountability. We are experiencing the classic free rider problem where each individual lets everyone else do the work, and hopes that the crowd does good work and they get their cut of the next big thing. As a result, nothing gets done. Yet the moment I talk about moving away from giving out equity to everybody, I get a bunch of complaints about how then there will be no incentive to participate. Let's face it. Participate in what? As of now there is no business.
Think about this for a second. In this era of WEB2.0 hype, we have the only company attempting to bring users together to create a real business or businesses. We have a talented and creative user base that is interested in these ideas. And we are getting ready to get a lot of attention as a major business periodical will publish a story about us late next month. Don't give up just yet.
The major change at TBE is this - we are going to create an "upcoming vote" blog and "upcoming vote" forum. The blog will list polls opening in the next few days. The forum is where you can discuss options that should be in the polls. When the polling day comes, the poll is posted. If you didn't get a chance to contribute your opinion, it's too late. Options will be pulled out the forums and posted so that you can vote. If no options are posted, Sean, or the teams, can make the decision without input from the crowd. We can't wait on every one of you to give us your opinion because this has to get done someday.
Finally, the equity issue is becoming a very big problem for us. Seriously, there may be no way around it without spending a whole bunch of money. Even if we give options or warrants or promises or anything like that, if there is a chance you end up with equity, the SEC requires us to go through an expensive disclosure process. However, if groups stay small, that is irrelevant. If you want to use TBE to find 5 people to start a company with and split the equity in that yourself, it is fine because that is a small number of people. So, next week there will be a vote on how TBE will solve this problem. If you have a proposed solution, post it in the forum and we will put it up for a vote.
There is one new open poll, about whether TBE should pursue other businesses right now or just focus on WOU. Many users seem not to like WOU, so perhaps those of you that don't would rather work on something else.
This has been an experiment, and round #1 has failed. Help us define the next direction for the site. Somewhere in all of this, there is a new way of doing business. Yes I know, you don't want to share it with the crowd because you want compensation for your idea. Didn't we cover the value of ideas already? Log in. Make TBE what you want it to be, but let's make it something other than a freerider's utopia.
Blog Description
I sent the web site to a few people without much explanation. It clicked with some people right away, but others didn't really get it. I personally think we should make it less with an academic goal and make it a goal that will draw more people. While I'm extremely interested in the academic component, I don't think that will attract as many people. I propose the following revised description:
A One Day Idea is a low-cost web venture, requiring no more than one day’s worth of effort and less than $100 to launch, that ends up yielding huge rewards in terms of financial gain, publicity, or both. It completely flips the conventional 10% inspiration / 90% perspiration equation. The goal of this online discussion is to create and evolve ideas and ultimately form teams to implement them. We believe the more people that participate in this process, the more effectve and plentiful the ventures will be.
Testing Out New Ideas in Less Than One Month With Less Than $20
I see a common implementation process emerging:
- Refine the idea on blog (free)
- Come to some sort of agreement to implement the idea (free)
- Register a domain name ($7.95 per year with Go Daddy)
- Create a revenue-splitting agreement with an offshore web development team (free)
- Create and refine the specifications and demo site (free)
- Develop and test the system on an existing domain (free)
- Register for a web hosting account ($9.95 per month with Net Basiks)
- Launch the site
- The One Day Ideas idea community promotes it through their own network.
Entrepreneurs are famed for having a million ideas, but being not as strong in or passionate about implementation. Imagine if people could work on what they're most passionate about and strong at. On the other hand, entrepreneurs would have to make a big shift in mentality. They would have to:
- Be open with their ideas and trust an honor system.
- Be open to having a small percent of something big.
The Wisdom of Crowds
I can already see the power of The Wisdom of Crowds developing in the following ways:
1. Ideation - We're starting to get ideas that evolve on other ideas. Also, existing ideas are evolving rapidly.
2. Implementatoin - Once ideas become refined enough, individuals who feel it can work can begin to dedicate time toward implementation. Furthermore, people who believe in the idea can very easily promote it.
As we recruit more people, it seems like both of these steps would be improved. Theoretically, more and better ideas would evolve. Also, good ideas would be less likely to be abandoned as individuals become more likely to find ideas they would like to implement.
Implementation Strategy
It seems like a lot of the ideas we've proposed so far will require the most time during the web development and programming stages. I like Cal's idea of doing a revenue split with our connections abroad.
Another aspect that will take time is the creation of specications and demo-site that we to send to the web developers. Even a simple site would probably take one day to develop. I think we can definitely use an open-source approach on this. The specs can be created as a blog entry that is continually edited. Also, since most of us have HTML knowledge, we can build a simple demo site together.
New Vocabulary
I have a feeling that our discussions will result in a new vocabulary. As such, I created a new category called "vocabulary". So, when you coin a new term you can post it to that category. Also, when other mention it in entries, they can link to its definition.
Start With a Cross-Over
Interesting thought...
I mentioned in my previous post that a student-centric web site like BrokeStudent.com might lead to some media cross-overs, like a related show on a college cable channel like MTVU or Al Gore's thing.
What about starting with such a cross-over? That is, what if a group of young student/entrepreneurs approached MTVU or Al Gore's channel, and pitched a show and a web site. The idea would be that we launch some youthful web site like BrokeStudent.com, and design (but not produce) a related TV show, such that both promote each other. It's a win for the cable station, because it expands their brand into authentic web communities and strengthens their audience, and its a win for us, because we don't have to put up money, and get big promotion.
Broke Student Click
As I have posted earlier, my working theory is that at the core of any One Day Idea is a "click" --- the ability for a quick description of the idea induce a release of pleasurable chemicals in a person hearing the description for the first time. Accordingly, before I even consider specific features or promotional plans of an idea, I am first interested in analyzing whether or not the concept is "clickable."
Along these lines, let me first re-present the main idea of BrokeStudent.com:
"BrokeStudent.com is like a manic love-child of Craigslist and Facebook. An online community, where college students try to convince other college students to pay them money for everything from the mundane to the outrageous. There is no longer any reason to ever be broke again. If you need some extra cash, there's got to be something that you can do that one of your classmates is willing to pay money to see."
The primary click I am hoping for here is student's realization that a) they could use some extra cash, and b) this web site might actually make that easy. CraigsList works on that click. But here, it's more focused, because there is something safer and simpler about just dealing with your fellow students then a general citywide community. It seems more youthful, less dangerous, and fun. And the idea of having more money is a powerful one.
What are your guys thoughts? Is this a real click? Or a dud? Is there a way to make it stronger?
The promotion would be, hopefully, viral, in that outrageous posts can get circulated via e-mail forwards, which would inspire more people to post outrageous things. This could be encouraged by a "hall of shame" featured on the front page.
In terms of end game, the obvious option is sale. This audience is so desirable, that if it grows to a decent size, one of the larger players in the field (i.e. Facebook) might snatch you up to add to their portfolio. There is also some media crossover potential here. A related mini-show could be pitched to MTVU or Al Gore's youth network.
In terms of the "perspiration quotient," the launch expense would be somewhat minimal. It would require some back-end programming, but using one of the off-shore firms we know, we could probably reduce the price with a capped-profit sharing agreement (i.e. if they want $1000 for the work, we pay $250, and give them 10% of the ad profits until we have paid them $2500 or shut-down the site). The upkeep would be minimal once launched. As mentioned, people could report inappropriate posts, and the admin could skim through to delete posts as needed.
Desperation Seperation
I think it makes sense to seperate DesperateForMoney.com and BrokeStudent.com into two seperate ideas. They are different enough that I think each has more to gain by being discussed alone. Accordingly, I have created a new subcategory for the student-centric idea.
What do you think about the following plan:
For the next week we can post heavily about both--filling in the details, refining the features, and articulating the hook that would make it catch on. After about a week we can then decide whether either, both, or none are worth pursuing to the implementation phase. This phase would involve in-person discussions, and the construction of a solid action plan. In general, this style of approach might work best for getting the maximum out of this blog. It allows us to harness the web to streamline the "inspiration" step, but doesn't do away with the in-person discussions and deadlines necessary to succeed through the "perspiration" step once an idea graduates to that level.
October 13, 2005
Purposeful Giving
On Seth Godin's blog, he points to a school that was built in Nepal as a result of ebook sales he donated.
I think that this is a very smart move. It seems like everybody is jumping on the cause-related marketing band wagon. This means that it's less unique to say, "A % of sales are donated to charity."
With that said, do you think the desperate for money idea has a relation to this. Corporations could donate to the best stories and get a better return on their donations.
In my experience in the nonprofit world, many sell themselves with stories of top alumni, not statistical analysis on the impact they've made.
Online vs. Offline: Part 2
Scott Pollack, a very good NYU friend, and also the coiner of the term "One Day Idea" is more interested in the offline aspect to this. That is keeping the idea to a trusted group of friends who meet offline, brainstorm ideas, and then implement the ideas.
Hey, don't get me wrong, I think this blog is a great idea, and can be a valuable resource for budding and experienced entrepreneurs alike. My original thoughts were that a public blog such as this could be used to discuss thoughts on One Day Ideas in general, rather than specific opportunites waiting to be implemented. Contrastingly, an "entrepreneur club" formed in the model of an investment club would be a venue for a small group of trusted individuals to carry out whatever ODIs most tickeled their respective fancies.
However, having seen a few day's worth of discussion on this site, it is obvious that there's something here. The DesperateForMoney.com idea is perfectly inline with ODIs that seemed to have taken off over the years. However, my concerns still remain -- as this blog gains popularity, how can the proprietor of an ODI protect it from some untrusting idea-poacher lurking in anonymity? How can we prevent someone from having registering and launching DesperateForMoney.com and BrokeStudent.com while we flesh out the details in the public domain?
Cal, I like your equity sharing plan in the post "Learning from the TBE Example," but how do we assure such a system works? The honor system only works when you know who's in your circle of trust. As they say, "in cyberspace no one cares if you scream."
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Refining the Desperate Idea
First, I used the "subcategories" feature and put all the entries on this idea under it. I thought it might make things a little easier, especially once we start debating multiple ideas.
After hearing each side, I like the idea of opening it to a wider audience and making it a site that people donate money to individuals instead of big corporations where they're not sure where there money is going. In other words, I don't think it is as exciting when it is just for students, and I think the quality of the stories will drive its diffusion across the web.
I picture people posting the following:
- A photo
- A blurb about themselves (100-words)
- A blurb about why they need the money (100-words)
- How much money they need
- When they need it by
I think the easiest revenue route (easiest to get) besides Google Adsense would be taking a percentage of each donation. For example, let's say somebody wants $100 dollars. Our system could automatically make it $110 and then we'd take $10. This would be easy to do with the Amazon.com Honor System where I believe you can make a donation campaign with a set amount that shows how far you're along to your goal.
At the most simple level, this idea could be implemented by:
- Creating a blog on this domain.
- Registering a domain and pointing it to this one.
- Soliciting stories - It would be hard to get really good stories at first. I see this being the most time-consuming.
- Telling others
- Posting one new story a day.
- People submitting videos.
- Discussion boards
- People committing to doing something (ie - eating 100 hamburgers in an hour)
October 12, 2005
Trivializing ideas to "one day ideas"
FYI: I am posting this email to check our thinking and so that our "one day ideas" don't become too complex.
From my email to Mike:
Thoughts on Overall concept:
I'm a bit concerned that we are trivializing ideas by calling them "one day ideas". I would highly doubt that any of the ideas we discuss, were executed in one single day. For example, savetoby.com probably got put together in a day... but the concept and business was woven over many months OR perhaps even years. There is a tendency to call things "one day ideas" because most of them depend on the web, and websites are simple to build.
Mike, you hit on the core of this thing when he was talking about inspiration versus perspiration. Perspiration is associated with money, time, and hard work. Inspiration is association with revelation, instant gratification, and no investment. This "onedayidea" concept stems from the fact that the internet enables inspiration; a single viral idea or story can generate physical and emotional capital, mobilize people, and instantaneously become the center of a national debate.
I don't mind calling it "onedayideas.com" , but perhaps we can keep ourselves productive by checking ideas against broad metrics like:
1) inspiration-ability of the concept:
2) controversy-driven; it's buzzworthiness
3) the sheer lack of effort and investment it takes to implement and manage after implementation
4) authenticity of story: sincerity and honesty seem to drive the successful ideas
5) measurable results (ie money, press/publicity, clicks, qualitative reponses)
This also raises the question: Should we consider onedayideas that are heavily, financially backed.
Defining Desperate
This is starting to get interesting.
Michael, can you flesh out a little more your idea about what people would post? It seems like we are diverging slightly, so this would be a good time to lay both directions out on the table and reach a consensus on what sounds best. In particular, I was starting down a path that was rapidly turning into a more irreverant, college-targeted version of elance.com. Your direction is different. More of a philanthropic, social experiment feel to it. I'm intruiged, but I want to make sure I understand correctly. Is the basic idea that people who need money post a plea for why they are deserving, and then individuals can donate to specific people?
There could, actually, be two different ideas here. And there is, of course, nothing stopping us from launching both. One could be a fun college-style eLance were students try to get money from other students, the other, and interesting twist on personal philanthropy -- instead of donating to a big organization, fix individuals lives.
Desperate Challenge
Hey Cal- You're right, desperate students is probably the key anchor to attract attention. They will also buzz to their friends about the post. However, I think its more provocative to include the creepy adult.
I think it would be cool to pit the creepy adult against the college kid against the homeless man, etc. As a social experiment it would be interesting to tally results and see how, when, and for what reaons people give. Perhaps there would be a entry space for donors to explain why and how they may their choice.
I think the snobby college kid could get a run for his money from from the depressing, fourty year old virgin. This type of competition may drive repeat donors who suddenly have a stake for their choice to win. Could we include a forum for the participants to talk trash or just communicate with each other? As cal stated, each desperate participant needs a goal to hit as well, at which point they are no longer deemed desperate.
As for the revenue model, I'll push the typical ad/sponsor model and say... I'd like to put the participants up for coporate sponsorship and we take a cut. It forces corporations to make a choice and state their side... which is lofty, but interesting. (IE Kaplan sponsors a widow that always wanted a degree over the college kid that wants a cancun trip)
Desperate Students
An interesting play on Michael's DesperateForMoney.com idea is to focus specifically on students.
Desperate adults can be creepy. And the site could quickly devolve into something very lewd.
Students, on the other hand, are often desperate for money. Not the huge, depressing, multi-thousand dollar mortgage payments that an adult might need, but a much more lighter $100 for plane fair, or $50 to buy a new DVD player or something. Also, they are easy to screen for, as facebook.com demonstrated, because you can simply require that they have a valid .edu e-mail address. Finally, students are very comfortable with web technology, and will happily web surf for hours in search of entertaining content -- the best being real content about real students doing real outrageous things.
Accordingly, we could imagine: BrokeStudent.com or DesperateStudent.com or PoorUndergrad.com, etc. You have to be a student to post pleas or reply to pleas, but anyone can browse. If you need money, you post a plea, which consists of a photo, what school you attend, your sob story, and what you are willing to do in exchange for this money. Here the creativity of the audience, as Michael points out, will lead to the entertainment value, as students outdo each other to come up with more outlandish proposals. On one end of the spectrum there could be boring stuff, like offers to tutor or do your homework or clean your dorm room, on the other end of the spectrum there could be offers to eat two dozen hamburgers, or streak the library, or panty-raid a sorority or whatever. And, of course, this brings more attention, as other students want to see what their idiot peers are offering to do. The transactions can be controlled by the individuals. Like craigslist, most would probably happen in person between two people at the same (or nearby) schools, so we wouldn't have to worry about building a payment system or getting involved in those complications.
Instead, there is money to be made first by advertising. Start with Google AdWords so that you can get an immediate cash-reward for a huge traffic spike. Then, if it catches on, you could seek out individual sponsors, and do creative advertising for larger money. Then, of course, perhaps, the ultimate endgame would be the sale of the site.
The whole thing remains low maintenance of course. A simple registration system. The plea posting engine is just a glorified bulletin board. People can report bogus postings (things that are illegal, too distasteful, or adds) and the site administrator could have a real simple interface for deleting any of these posting.
What would be required to jumpstart publicity? I assume we get as many people as possible that we know to post. Then get as many bloggers as we know to write about it. Then send unsolicited info to other bloggers. Then post flyers? Maybe the key would be to plant an outrageous post then leak it to the media?
Promotion of Ideas
Something we should consider is promotion of ideas. Once an idea is refined, it is probably worth making a list of A-List bloggers that might have a propensity to blog about it. If this blog itself tips, then the liklihood of each idea tipping will probably be higher.
Selling the Invisible
Another trait that I noticed with milliondollarhomepage.com (MDHP) and also chrisandluke.com (CL), thefirst corporately sponsored college students, is that they sold the invisibe. MDHP sold ads without an audience and CL sold announce corporate sponsors wit