Plenty of variety in the sodas.  Plenty of passion in the entrepreneur.

http://www.sodapopstop.com

Now that I am actively trying to restrict the number of projects I’m working on, I wanted to get these ideas out of my head.  They are not quite as powerful as they were when the ideas were born, but they might be of interest to someone out there.  If you decide you want to take on one of the projects, great!  Go for it.  I’ll even help you with getting hosting.

The three projects are right after the break.  They are ‘Hivemind Snapshot Project‘, ‘Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement Generator‘, and ‘Auto-task generation… thing‘

Hopefully you will find at least one of them useful!

Hivemind Snapshot Project - This project revolves around our beliefs and ideas.  Everyone has beliefs and they *KNOW* absolute truths.  Often times these truths are in opposition to those of other people.  Over time these ideas about the world and it’s workings change.  This project would take data and track it over time.
Just a little over five hundred years ago everyone knew the world was flat.  It was an absolute truth.  Although some explorers, astronomers, and philosophers the truth was different.  Perhaps they didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they knew it was different.

What if somebody came along with a website where people could log on and put in their truths, beliefs, and ideas?  You could have some sort of structure where users could write and publish an article.  Other users would be able to log on and mark which statements on which they agree and which they disagree.

One way to do it would be to ask a specific question every day/week where people answer in essay format.  They have a set amount of time to submit their answer.  After a bunch of essays are sent in you would drill down and pull out the specific simplified statements and do a poll on them. ie… “The Earth is the center of the universe.  True/False/Neither/don’t know”

You could group like minded individuals and identify thought leaders.  From there a user would be able to identify users with different belief structures and follow their activity.

One question I’ve gotten is what about the lack of general sciences available for the common person.  It is true that a lot of the scientific questions being asked right now are highly specialized with phd toting scientists working on them.  If they post something that is true, it doesn’t mean that it is the accepted truth.  Over the long run the experts answer on the topic would most likely become more widely accepted as people learn about it.  Adding qualifications to the users as well allows you to determine where their core expertise lies.

Until the empirical truth arrives you can’t be certain who is actually correct.  For some topics, the truth may never be actually known, but we can observe the changing of minds and take a snapshot of how people view the world.  Over a period of a number of years or some cases months you could see how our perceptions of the world are changing.

Sort of a rather longterm scope on this project, but it could be really interesting.

Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement Generator - This project would help people to construct the documentation for starting their own business.  The idea being that users would be able to cut the expensive costs of having a lawyer draft the documents without getting a pre-made cookie-cutter document that doesn’t apply to your business.

A user would start out by entering the basic information of your new company (Company name, Address, phone, industry, entity type).  This information will be used to create the simple Articles of Organization your business would need to file with the state.

Next the software would help out with your Operating Agreement.  Generally speaking they are used in LLCs and LLPs and sometimes partnerships as well.  This document states how the business will be run.  How are the different interests in the company split up?  What are the voting privileges?  How will profits and losses be divided up?  How is the thing going to be managed?  What happens if somebody wants to buy in?  What if somebody wants to sell their interest in the company?  What happens in the event of illness that prevents someone from working?

There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed for your company, and the Operating Agreement is exactly the place to do it.  This is an internal document for your members, so naturally they will naturally receive a copy.  When opening up a bank account, they will probably want a copy of your operating agreement.  Some businesses extending you credit might want to look at it or take a copy.

A user would be able to go through different sections and select exactly which items they want in their document.  If they chose to add membership information first, they would be taken to a page with 3-4 pre-written segments and a blank text-box.  Choosing one of the segments would bring it over to the text-box with the users company data inserted where relevant.  The user would then be allowed to customize the text further.  When complete just  save the section and move to the next.

After the user gets through the different issues that are commonly addressed, they would be given the option to add their own sections for any special needs they would have.  When everything is complete and the user is happy, the document is generated as a .pdf file and given to the customer.

I imagine you could charge somewhere between $25 and $50 for this service and do well.  Some of the very cookie cutter documents are in this range and offer no personalization.  Having a lawyer draft the documents for you would easily cost hundreds of dollars.

Companies such as LegalZoom have began simplifying the process online, although I am under the impression that the costs are still high.  So if you start, you will have some competition already!  With this you would most likely need to set up an affiliate program or pay for traffic to get customers.  If you are ambitious enough, then go for it!

Auto-task generation… thing - This project is all about getting things done.  The basic idea is a program that emails out automatically generated tasks and tracks if you do them or not.

I mostly want this one just so I can use it myself!  I have multiple websites that I own or help people with.  Each one needs many of the same things done to it.  It could be anything from coding and design to contacting advertisers, updating the content, and checking stats.  Just quick little tasks that will take between 30 seconds and 10 minutes.

The program would take two lists and randomly combine a piece from each one each day.  We would have a list of websites and a list of tasks, and every day an email would show up telling us the days project.  If an email read, ‘Set the peralinks for project quicksilver’ I would be off to do that.  The email could also give me a link for when the task was complete.  I would mark it as complete and leave a comment if needed.

The next day a new project would be automatically assigned and emailed out.  Or if I was feeling particularly productive I could go to the site and get a new task to work on right then.

The program would allow me to keep track of my projects and what needs to be done on them.  I’m sure someone else would find it useful as well!

There is quite a bit more that you could do with this project as well.  Scripts could be set up to determine if what it is emailing out is a valid task, or to verify that it was done.  You could track the response time between sending the email and having the task complete to determine which tasks take longer.  Perhaps multiple users per project so different tasks could be sent out, then you could really get things done.

Just writing about these different projects is getting me excited about them!  I think I’ll have to go back and read my post about not taking on to many projects.  You are welcome to take/borrow/steal these ideas if you want, and hopefuly make something out of them.  Let me know what you do with them.

They would have these ‘opportunities’ for us that could usually be described as ‘hemorrhaging money from the company.’  This is clearly not the best thing to do, unless you are trying to show a loss for they year.  Yet still we would have a couple of people per week who had no idea about the business come in with plans that offered little to no value.

To be fair, there were some legitimate ideas and a couple were even worth taking up.  For the most part they were a waste of time.

One particular company was basically putting together a local web directory.  To be in the directory you had to do a little interview so they could write a paragraph about your company.  Then they would let you be in the directory to try it out for 90 days.  After that time was over, you needed to shell out some money. $100 bucks per month.

While $100 a month isn’t a whole lot for online advertising, there are much better ways to spend it.  Especially due to the fact that our store’s web page had higher search engine rankings and we were able to track the minimal amounts of traffic that their site brought in.

There is some value in their business model; however it is not quite balanced.  The value that they provide is having another link to your website, presumably marketed to people living in or traveling to the area.  One of the bigger problems about this site was that it was to new.  It didn’t rank well in google for local terms and not a lot of people knew about it.

If they would have also had a deal along the lines of, “If you link to us as well, we’ll give you x% off each month.”  Then they could build up the amount of targeted local traffic to their site buy leaps and bounds.  The more people that link to them, the more valuable their links become.

Any business wants you to provide value to them.  If all you have is a team of salesmen then where does the value come from?

If you are going to pitch your product or service, make sure it benifits enough to justify your pricetag.

Building something amazing.

It is interesting that this company is selling phone services, but still they made a great video. So get out there. and get focused. Get determined. And when the economy is running full steam again, you will be ready.

Over the last couple of years I have had so many projects that I wanted to get done. And new projects and million dollar ideas were sprouting up all of the time. Some of them were online, some of them off.

These ideas were across a broad range, everything from building a chess board, building a giant ‘colony size’ ant farm, to creating a program that sent out lottery numbers after every draw (And most of them were just as dorky sounding!).

It’s time that I start retiring a couple of projects of mine. When I get ideas, I want them to happen, so I’ll begin. The problem is that new ideas come and I want them to happen, so I’ll begin. Of course there hasn’t been enough time to complete the original project before starting on the next. This basically means the old project is doomed.

Soon there is another great flash of inspiration and a new project emerges and another becomes doomed.

My final stance is I’m officially closing down some projects. A big problem is that juggling so many things, none of them ever got completed. It’s time to start filling that filing cabinet with those ‘million dollar ideas‘ and start focusing on fewer and fewer.

I’ll be posting quite a few ideas and one-day projects. By one-day projects, I mean “one day I’de like to…” Hopefully there is someone out there that can benefit from some them.

We are restoring backups; however, the layout of the site is being restored and might take a little while.  So please pardon the mess.

-Todd

Timing Is Everything

Well, timing may not be everything, but it’s important. If you’re not pressured to sell your house quickly, consider yourself lucky. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section. If, on the other hand, you’re faced with a pressing situation, like a new job that requires you to relocate, you’ll need to act quickly and efficiently to get the ball rolling.

As soon as you even suspect that a transfer or relocation may be possible, get in touch with a real estate agent and hammer out details like what a reasonable asking price might be. If the relocation does, indeed, happen, you’ll be that much further along in the process, and listing your house will just mean filling out some paperwork and keeping the place picked up for showings.

As a new employee about to relocate, you’re well within your right to contact your new employer to request a deferment of your start date by a few months. If your new job is set to start in the middle of the winter, for example, you’d be much better off waiting a few months to relocate to try to sell your home when the real estate market is at its peak in the warmer months.

Wait for the Warm Months

People buy houses when it’s nice out, not when there’s snow and ice on the ground. Showing a house with a lush, green front yard and trees full of leaves is a boon to real estate agents everywhere. When the sun is shining and the grass is green, potential buyers have an easier time imagining their new life in the house.

There’s no getting around the fact that winter is a terrible time to put your house up for sale. Viewers will traipse in and out with slush covered boots, the trees are bare, and everything is gray and overcast. If you can wait for the warmer months, you absolutely should. Also, potential buyers are much more open to discussing how much things like property taxes, home insurance policies, and general upkeep will cost them when they can hear birds chirping and brooks babbling.

A Special Note About the Current Real Estate Market

If you can avoid selling your house right now, you should. With property values at record lows, the current market is nowhere close to being in the seller’s favor. Upside-down mortgages (when the balance of the mortgage exceeds the value of the property), short sales (when a seller is forced to sell the house for less than the balance of the mortgage), and foreclosures are an increasing reality. Buyers certainly have the upper hand in the current real estate market, and can make demands that, even just four or five years ago, would have been considered insulting to the seller.

This doesn’t mean that all hope is lost, though. If you still decide that you want to sell your home, prepare yourself to be patient, and hold off listing until the weather and time of year are on your side. Needless to say, the best time to sell is when you can, at the very least, recoup your initial investment on the property. Give yourself as much time as possible, which will prove to be the most important factor to selling successfully.

The problem is that a fancy card doesn’t hold a whole lot of value for the person receiving the card – especially if that person is a child.  Every year, we’ll spend a couple of dollars to buy kids a card.  Why not make them a simple little card and put the $3 you would have paid for a commercial card into the envelope instead?  

I know that $3 doesn’t seem like much for an adult.  But to a kid, money is money.  They can do a lot with $3 that they can’t do with a card, especially if everyone who usually buys them a birthday card hands them a handmade card and $3 instead.

It’s just something to think about.

Most of those items came from one place, Amazon. I’ve also ordered from Barnes and Noble online, the Apple store, and a couple specialty shops. The specialty shops unfortunately didn’t do an excellent job and won’t be named.

Amazon remembers who I am. It’s not hard to grab my email address and set a cookie on my computer. When I go to Amazon, I see all kinds of different things. I see what is recommended based on previous purchases. I can see what is in my shopping cart from last time. I can even check out the recently viewed books and other items.

At Barnes and Noble’s online site, I can log in and there is nothing. Nothing is unique to me. There is ‘My B&N’ their social network. It is completely blank for me. You can add your favorite books, or what you’re currently reading. But it is absolutely blank. Why not add suggestions based on my recent purchases. Instead I can add new titles by searching for them in a sea of millions of books.

When I go over to the Apple store, it doesn’t matter if I have ever bought anything. It doesn’t matter if I am logged in or not. At their site I’m going to be looking at the same thing either way. Nothing is linked together and there are no recommendations for me. They could easily say, ‘we see you’re using Windows, isn’t it time to upgade to a Mac? Here are a few suggestions…’, or how about ‘Upgrade your iPod shuffle to an iPod Touch and get -some incentive-’ They know what products I have purchased and they know what I am using to check the site.

As for now, I’m going to keep shopping at Amazon. They may be a big giant evil company (or something) but even more importantly they know who I am. They know what I want to buy and they help me do it. Most of the time, Amazon knows what I want before I even do. They are not cramming merchandise down my throat. Instead they are giving me suggestions based on my browsing and spending habits.

While it might be hard to do as well as Amazon for you and your company. The competition is very clear. You can easily tell what they are doing and honestly it’s not a big secret.

Great Service = Loyal Customers

Whereas mediocre products and services leads to
Mediocre Service = Indifferent Bargain Shopping Customers

When you do a better job of knowing me, I’ll spend my money with you.

One important part of the book is having 10,000 hours of any activity to become truely proficiant at it. It doesn’t matter if it is writing programs and designing software all throughout software like Bill Gates, or if it is playing night after night nonstop in seedy establisments like the Beatles did.

Getting in that many hours would mean that whatever you wanted to completely master would have to be something that you absolutly loved doing. It would have to be a complete passion of yours.

Malcom Gladwell is very good at making things interesting, even if they normally wouldn’t be appealing to you he is great at crafting his words together.

This is a great book and I highly reccommend it; however I do believe that his previous two books Blink and The Tipping Point were better reads overall. They had more information that could be applied to life situations. In this book there are a lot of moments that will make you think “Oh, that’s cool.”

I haven’t been dissappointed by any of Malcolm’s books yet, and this one certainly lived up. I would also reccommend the audio versions of his books, you can load them up on your ipod and listen to them. Being read by the author, they have the inflections and dramatizations added to them percicly where Gladwell wanted to emphisize.

Pick up either Blink or Tipping Point first, and then don’t let this one go by.

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