3 Business Ideas

For our first assignment in my TINST 475 Entrepreneurship class we are to come up with 3 business ideas related to Information Technology.  I initially struggled coming up with some ideas but as I spent more time thinking about the needs of the consumer, it started to come together quicker than I had anticipated.  For me it comes down to what are services or products that are always in high demand.  For instance when we look at successful establishments that surpass billions of dollars in revenue its usually in areas such as food, oil/gas, automotive, retail, pharmaceuticals etc..  The thing that ties all these types of commodities together is that they are things that as humans we absolutely need.  When it comes to technology, how do we find that niche to bridge into this area of fortune 500 companies, and find what consumers feel they cant live without?  That's the long term goal, but for the short term its about getting a start-up idea together with realistic expectations, costs and making enough profit to make it a viable use of my time.   

Here are some ideas for some start-ups that bring together technology with some of my hobbies, and creating services that are not readily available today.

1.   Saltwater Aquarist Exchange:  The idea would be something similar to ebay (auction site) but for local sellers of all things in the Saltwater aquarium trade.  One thing that I have noticed since getting back into this hobby is that there is very little places to go to get quality items/livestock for people wanting to buy/sell items locally.  There is hardly any local fish stores that carry rare saltwater fish, and there are many times when people get fish that are not compatible with other inhabitants of their aquarium, so instead of giving these beautiful fish to places like petco that dont know how to take care of them, I would rather sell them to someone locally who wants them for their tank. Below is a picture of my saltwater tank, in which it took me nearly 6 months to locate some of the fish you see here. The Pink Tail Triggerfish was one of the hardest to locate along with the Naso Tang (grey colored fish with yellow belly).  Had I some way to stay connected to others in the hobby, I believe I could have saved an expensive fish from being flushed down the toilet or just given away to a chain pet store (which is the same as the death swirl).

2.  UFC gambling smart phone community:  This would entail creating not only an app for smart phones for users to join a community, but also creating a gambling community that doesn't use real money.  Instead of money users would use "punch tokens" and they would gamble on who they think would win fights, by rounds, finishes, scoring etc.  These tokens would then be used as a way for friends to play a sort of fantasy fighting championship where the winner at the end of the year could win real prizes.  This would obviously generate income from advertising as there is no real money exchanged.  Below you see a breakdown of the last UFC where the odds could have played a excellent advantage, had there not been this freak outcome that ended the fight prematurely. 

3.  Senior Citizen Support:  This is an idea that has manifested from my managing tech teams course and my non-profit internship that I just completed this past summer.  I worked for a retirement home where the clients are functional citizens, that use computers and tablets, but are not very tech savvy with them.  During my time with this client, I was told by the staff that almost every senior citizen home desperately needs IT support for their citizens and someone to come in and teach classes like I did each week.  They are willing to pay great money for a start up in such a venture and I could shop this idea around to multiple homes to set up a business model from.  I not only got over 30 clients computers working properly and secured, I taught them all how to do all the basics for computing and working in the new tech age.  I believe this could be a very profitable business if I am able to secure the right clients and they are wiling to pay a decent wage for the time these sessions take.