International Goods
To my knowledge, Alibaba is the elance.com for goods. There are probably a lot of products that could be sold for high margins in the US.
To my knowledge, Alibaba is the elance.com for goods. There are probably a lot of products that could be sold for high margins in the US.
I think there is a lot of open source software that can be very good for many one day ideas. As the open source community gets more steam, there is more and more high-quality, customizable software that can be used.
One of my favorite classes at NYU was Technology & Innovation. In it, the professor talked about how many of the most successful entrepreneurs aren't necesarily the people who create the technology breakthroughs. It's the people who come up with creative applications of the breakthroughs and monetize it.
To my knowledge, Sourceforge.net is the best search engine for open source projects. Is this accurate?
Guy creates a website with fake, but creative 3D renderings of his imagined products. He'd redesign already famous products like Louis Vitton bags and stuff. Knock-off manufacturers in China began producing his products because they were so cool. He's now a famous designer.
Lesson: use the web to share a vision. become an expert overnight.
how can we make this into an ODI of our own?
Article: From Faux to Fortune
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_46/b3959136.htm
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?
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...
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:
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.
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?
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.
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 without having them (see press release at http://www.chrisandluke.com/press.html).
What is true with both of these is that the first people to buy in have the most to gain. For MDHP, they get their pick of space and ad size. For CL, the sponsor gets tons of PR.
This blog entry describes several of the many copy-cats that were launched after Million Dollar Homepage's initial publicity blitz. The key is that, as far as I can tell, none of these copy-cats have reached anything near the hundreds of thousands of dollars generated by the original -- even though they are functionally identical, and, for the most part, cheaper.
There is probably an important insight at play here. What made the original site click with so many people? It's clear that there is a strong hook lurking behind the scenes. The idea could be summarized in one line: "a poor student sells pixels to pay his way through college." When you hear this hook, you are compelled to check out the web site. When you check out the web site, the idea is so simple, so bold, so novel, that something "clicks" in your mind. This produces a pleasurable effect. This effect fuels the success of the idea.
I've long been interested in this "click." I've studied it mainly from the context of book writing, where I refer to it as the "self-help effect." It comes from the observation that a good self-help book offers a premise that is:
1) Simple;
2) Bold (alternatively, provocative);
3) Novel ("i never thought of that...");
4) Inescapably logical.
When we encounter a premise that meets these four criteria, we experience a flush of pleasure (which must source from something biological in our brain's construction), and this pleasure induces us to buy. The term "self help" is probably much too restrictive even in this context, as this style of premise occurs all over the book world. Such as in business (How to Become Ceo proposed that simple to follow, but stringent micro rules about daily behavior will lead to macro-level success in business) and in fiction (Jurassic Park proposed that it is scientifically plausabile that dinosaurs could be brought back to life).
Anyway, I wonder if the self-help effect is at the core of One Day Ideas like the Million Dollar Homepage? It's copy-cats failed, perhaps, because the novelty aspect was gone. And once you lose one of the key aspects of the effect (novelty, simplicity, boldness, logic) it fails to produce the required pleasure.
Following this thought to its conclusion would imply that brainstorming these ideas should occur with these four properties always in mind. How do we test this theory? First, we need to observe more One Day Ideas. We can see how many boast these four properties. If many do, then we can develop an idea use the "self-help" effect as the primiary guide; then see how well it works.
Michael has the right idea. The best way to jumpstart this discussion is to post about existing One Day Ideas. Once we get a feel for what has worked for people in the past, we can begin to theorize about why they worked. Being good scientists, of course, we will then have to test these theories by launching our own ventures. That’s the part I’m looking forward to...
Accordingly, if anyone knows of any other existing One Day Ideas like Million Dollar Homepage, please post about them. Similarly, if anyone knows of any good blogs or websites to monitor to find out about new ventures has they happen, please post this info as well. The more we observe, the better we can act.