Startup Almanac: ideas

Showing posts with label ideas. Show all posts

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Another Boring Derivative Piece of Crap Business Book

Do you want more promotion for your business? Do you want your company to get free publicity? Do you want to get attention-getting headlines for your product or service? Then you need to read Another Boring, Derivative, Piece of Crap Business Book: Make The First Basic Leap In Work in 100 Years, Laughing All The Way by Mike Veeck and Allen Fahden.

The book makes it very clear that the best way to get the publicity you want is to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing, and not only that, but do something stupid.

One of the interesting chapters in the book is about how author Allen Fahden wanted to come up with an idea to promote his book. He realized that he should take the advice of his own book, and did something stupid. So he set up a one book bookstore.

He rented 1,000 square feet of retail space, set up various bookshelves with different sections, such as travel, philosophy, and history, with just his books in all those sections. The sign over his shop said One Book Bookstore. He also posted a little sign that said Shoplifters Welcome.

A woman walked by and asked what he was selling. He invited her in, showed her around, told her about his top ten best selling books list (his book was in all 10 places of course), and she was very impressed. She told him that she writes a small column in the local newspaper and would write about his store.

Within a month, the One Book Bookstore was written about in major magazines and newspapers all across the country, and was covered by ABC and the BBC.

The book has numerous and hilarious ideas and true stories. Here is just a small sample of some of the chapter titles:

Think One Person Can't Make a Difference? - I Killed Disco
We're Number Three and We Don't Try at All
If You're Worried About Covering Your Ass, Learn to Walk Backward
The Joys of Wine Slobbery
English for Me is a Second Language - I Don't Have a First
Bat Night with Tonya Harding

The book is only available in hardback, but it is a small size book, about the hight and width of a regular paperback, so it fits easily inside a briefcase, purse, or carry-on. The book even has a flip page video inside.

For light amusing reading with great, inspirational, funny promotional ideas, I recommend Another Boring, Derivative, Piece of Crap Business Book.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Microinterview with James Altucher About Startups

James Altucher is an American hedge fund manager, author and blogger. He has founded or cofounded several companies, including Reset Inc. and StockPickr. His writing has been frequently published by a number of media outlets, including The Financial Times, TheStreet.com, TechCrunch and The Huffington Post. He has also published several books on investing. He maintains a blog at JamesAltucher.com where he discusses his experiences as an entrepreneur and his theories for success and happiness.

Comments in italics are from StartupAlmanac.com.

Question: Can you give three new ideas for startups that you haven't talked about before?

Altucher: podcast2book

This is a great idea. So many bloggers are doing podcasts right now, it would be nice to have a service that can transcribe all your recent podcasts then put them into book form.

Altucher: lead gen to people who will renegotiate edu loans

There are a huge number of former students with outstanding student loans. There are businesses that will help those people renegotiate those loans. Those businesses just need leads so they can contact those people looking for help.

Altucher: credit lines to pawn shops. charge 15% and 2 pts

Pawn shops need money and sometimes the demand for borrowing gets strong, especially during a rough economy with lots of people out of work. If pawn shops need money, they can easily afford to pay 15%, considering the outrageous amounts they charge on their loans.

Question: Thanks, James.

Altucher has several books worth reading that would be useful for entrepreneurs and those involved in or considering startups, including I Was Blind But Now I See: Time to Be Happy, How to Be the Luckiest Person Alive!, and Faq Me.

A microinterview is a very short concise to-the-point interview with no more than two or three questions and answers.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

My Second Best Ideas for a Startup

Every day I try to come up with different ideas for a new startup business. The best ones I am keeping for myself for obvious reasons. However, I have many other startup ideas that I am rejecting for many reasons, and would like to share with everyone.

Some ideas have already been done and I just didn't realize it. Other ideas would take up too much of my time. And for some, I just don't have the expertise.

One idea that I came up with while making breakfast is a toaster with a timer on it. There is nothing I hate worse than standing there waiting for my toast to pop up. (Actually, there are other things I hate worse, but not usually at breakfast time.) It would really help if I could see a digital timer on the toaster, just like what a microwave has, instead of just staring at the lever on the taser. Unfortunately, Cuisinart already came up with a Toaster with Countdown Timer which I happened to find on Amazon. As a matter of fact, it retails for $130.00, but has been marked down to $39.99.

Another idea I had was a silent leaf blower. The gardeners in my neighborhood drive my dog crazy with the noise from those machines. I checked Amazon again, and although I didn't find a silent leaf blower, I did find a Husqvarna Back Pack Blower which is described as having minimal noise.

A politically incorrect idea I had would be a book about how to get out of jury duty. I've seen books on how to get out of speeding tickets but there are far more people that get jury summons than speeding tickets. Of course, the book has been written, 10 Ways to Get Out of Jury Duty. It's even written by an attorney.

I do a lot of tweeting. It would be nice if there was some software that could extract all my tweets, then sort them by hashtags, and make them exportable to Word or Excel. I haven't found any such software in my initial search.

One other idea I had was a child/pet/property finder app using RFID size transmitters to provide locations on your smartphone. The RFID could be sewn inside a child's clothing, attached to a dog's collar, or put inside a car or computer. Is it technically feasible? I don't know. Has it already been done? I've seen something similar.

Anyway, that's it for this week. I will try to come up with another set of second best startup ideas next week.