A Startup A Day

Hey all,

I racked my brain and couldn’t think of any good ideas today, so I thought I’d cheat and post one of my all-time favorite ideas from back in the day.  Enjoy!

Have you done something bad? Lost some major karma points? Here’s your chance to earn them back! Simply hit up the Karma Police website and anonymously confess your sin. Other users can then view your confession and vote on an action that they feel is an appropriate penance for you to perform to restore your karmic balance.

Example: “I spilled my drink on a sofa during a party and instead of cleaning it, I just flipped the cushion over”

Options:
- Make a $50 donation to a local non-profit
- Buy a drink for the person behind you at Starbucks
- Say hello to 5 random people
- Call your mom

Users would vote on the “punishment” they feel best fits the crime. After 1 week, the votes would be tallied and the “sinner” would receive their karmic sentence.

The inspiration for this idea came from a recent visit to Thailand.  I was amazed at what a friendly and open society it was, which is partially based on their religious beliefs in earning karmic points for their next life. Also, seeing the growing momentum of a new genre of anonymous confession sites like postsecret.com. And, of course, Radiohead. 

Modern Bride recently published an article entitled “Death of Bridezilla”:

“Brides behaving badly? Not anymore. A new kind of bride has emerged—think of her as a “bridechilla”—and perfection is no longer her priority.”

I love that term, bridechilla.  Weddings are a huge business and anything that can make life easier for a bride can translate into startup success.  The problem is, there are some big players in this space already (theknot.com, ewedding.com).  So how to disrupt them?

To answer this question, I turned to my beautiful blushing bridechilla-to-be to tell me about some of the frustrations she’s had when planning her our wedding.  She had a great idea: a wedding in a box.  Allow me to explain.

Bridechilla.com would be a step-by-step process that would walk the couple through every logistical detail that would be needed for a wedding.  You’d first answer a few basic questions - things like location, date, approx budget, etc..  You would then be presented with the option to choose between 5 reception halls, 3 caterers that are available on that day, 4 DJs that are within your budget, 9 invitation styles, 6 types of flowers.  The site would contact all of the vendors that you have chosen and have them call you for details.  Or for an additional fee, you could choose to have a Bridechilla planner who would be there to work with the vendors and show up on the big day to ensure everything runs smoothly.

What do you guys think?  I just registered the domain today - hopefully that issue sells like hotcakes and the name catches on! 

I just signed up for Facebook!  Come on over and poke me or whatever it is you kids are doing these days.  I do like it, though; it’s like MySpace only it doesn’t make you want to poke your eyes out.

One of the compelling features of Facebook (so I’ve been told) is the ability to “gift” your friends.  It’s a little digital image that you can purchase for $1 and give to one of your friends to post on their profile.  It’s a cool idea – if you think about it, gifts aren’t usually so much about the actual item but the idea that you would take a portion of your hard-earned money and put it towards someone that you have a connection with.

Today’s idea takes this concept of gifting one step farther.  Instead of just being able to gift a simple image for a fixed price of one dollar, users would have the ability to give a more interesting image that could be purchased at a premium price.  For example, instead of just a simple image of a heart, the image could be a limited-edition heart image designed by the lead singer of the band Heart.  Or a picture of Paris Hilton taken by Nicole Richie from her cell phone.

The gifts could become of online status symbol that people would be happy to pay a premium for, much like people today pay premiums for offline brands like Nike, Diesel, Yves Saint-Laurent, etc..  Plus, thanks to Facebook’s new API that allows 3rd party developers to create their own Facebook apps, it’s very much something you could technically accomplish.  And unlike any of my other idea…this one could actually make you some money!

What do you guys think about this one?  I personally love it, wish I had the time to code this up.

Here’s a transcript of a real conversation I had with my alter-ego TheCougar today:

Kevin:  Dude, did you hear the big news today?  Yahoo is opening up it’s search advertising platform to 3rd party developers!

TheCougar:  And I care because…?

K:  This is huge!  Paid advertising is economic force behind the Web 2.0 movement, and with all the big acqusitions happening lately, there’s a “gold rush” mentality out there.  Forget the gold, now’s the time to start selling some pick axes.

TC:  So I’m guessing you’ve got Yet Another Horribly Obtuse Opinion to share today? 

K:  Actually I do.  I’m proposing a WordPress plug-in that searches your post and allows you to insert paid links into your blog.  For example, let’s say I wrote a post about the ridiculously cool new Ask.com search engine upgrade.  Before I publish, the Rent My Links algorithm could recognize the words “Search Engine” and provide me the option to link to J-Cal’s new Mahalo search engine, with a CPC of $.35.

TC:  Your ideas intrigue me and I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter.  But come one, it’s Yahoo.  Now, if this were Google and AdSense, maybe you’d be on to something here.

K:  Ah, but that’s the beauty of this whole thing.  You really think Eric “I’d-Write-APIs-To-Access-My-Mom-If-It-Were-Possible” Schmidt is going to stand by and let Yahoo gain share on them?  Here’s what you do.  Take advantage of Yahoo’s developer marketing budget to build out this idea, beta test it for six months until Google announces their API, and be first-to-market on that gigantic opportunity.

OK.  I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but the new iPhone commercials are pretty much the most ridiculously awesome thing I’ve seen in a long time.  No link to this one – I’m sure you’ll be able to find it easily enough.

I’ve just polished off 30 lbs of gummy bears and now I’ve got my inspiration for today’s idea.  It’s pretty basic, so I’ll skip my usual intro and just dive right into it.  The idea is a Digg-like site that aggregates web-based contests.  Users or contest sponsers would provide details about interesting contests and also give feedback on newly-submitted contests ala Digg.  The filters and default view would be eBay-like.  It would list the contest in order of most recent end dates, and you’d also be able to filter based on highest ranked, best prizes, etc..

A fun twist on this might be the ability to enter the contest on behalf of all the users on the site.  Here’s how this could work.  Users would earn points for every contest they entered on behalf of the COTD site owner (i.e. if I owned the site, they would enter the contest as “Kevin Leneway” and use my contact info).  If the COTD site owner won the contest, they would distribute the prize money to the users of the site.  To encourage users to participate, users with more points would earn a greater share of the winnings.

Massive legal ramifications aside…I love this idea!  What do you guys think?  

It’s Friday, it’s hot and sunny, and I’ve got an extra $50 burning a hole in my pocket - time to get out and start my weekend off right.  Hope y’all do the same.

Actually, I’ll probably just go home and mow the lawn.