New Business Idea!! What Do You Think????

[skeeley 10]

I was chatting to my pal the other day and he was banging on about a new business idea. Usual I listen to ideas with a serious face and do a lot of head nodding, but this idea I thought could be worth its waiting gold. What do you think?

 

The plan is to create a website allowing user to simply order and send out postcards to neigbours with different messages. He went on to explain that the messages could be in regards to a complaint or request and so could be sent anoumously. Here are a just a few of the reasons you would send a postcard out to your neigbours.

 

My Car was broken into!

My House was burgled!

I'm have a party, Sorry about the noise!

I have lost my cat/dog!

I cant park my car!

Please do not park in front of my drive/house/gate/path!

 

Would this work!!!????!!! Let me know... I will pass you comments on to him.

[joeyannie 10]

I would rather just put a note through their door (typed if I wanted to be anonymous and posted in the dead of the night!).

I suppose the biggest issue would be the time frame of the arrival of the postcard in relation to the issue being complained about...if it takes 2-3 days (I believe postcards go 2nd class even with a 1st class stamp on but may be wrong) then the reciever may have no idea what you are talking about.

[skeeley 10]

Yeah I suppose your right, but i dont think everyone would be so brave and creep up at night for the fear of getting spotted.

 

And if you need to tell more than one neighbour this could back fire.

 

Si

[KenH 10]

Great idea, the only problem I can think of is that ..... you can just put a note through the door.

[Bago 10]

Bad idea, cos it's not something that people would spend money on for it. Even if you want to make it financially feasible, you'd have to have other ideas which will bring in the revenue to actually support a website of this kind.

 

Someone got famous for selling online advertising space by per pixel. It would worked for him. However, behind the basic business model, its a tried and tested principle. Which is selling advertising space. Somehow he got enough publicity by doing something so outrageous like that, it brought in the revenue anyway. Imagine someone doing that in the real world? It may not get the same publicity. It probably wouldn't reach a global audience either.

[Liose 10]

I think that's a pretty good idea...can you ask him to send:

 

1. to my neighbour with the yappy dog who barks whenever I hang my washing out,

2. to a neighbour a bit further down who has the mega noisy subaru who thinks it's fantastic to rev his engine so all the world can hear everytime he goes out,

3. to my neighbour opposite who thinks the road in front of his house has his name on it,

4. to an ex-neighbour who used to always use my drive!

 

mmmm...!!!

[skeeley 10]

hhhmmm, mixed opinions, The thing with this idea is that no one has done it before and thats half the battle these days.

 

I suppose people who have different experiences and neighbours would see this service in different ways.

[Bago 10]

hhhmmm, mixed opinions, The thing with this idea is that no one has done it before and thats half the battle these days.

 

I suppose people who have different experiences and neighbours would see this service in different ways.

I used to think that too. Just because the idea is new, so therefore this is why it's not been done. No, businesses do not work that way. You gotta think about the demand and supply of businesses too. No point making something if there is no demand for it.

 

I don't want to dampen your entrepreneurial spirit, which I think is great. Though, you gotta weight up the sums, and actually do a whole business plan, and possible feasibility studies.

 

There's a lot of books on starting a business, and business plan writing in order to get the finances for start-up. Maybe consider buying one and browse it briefly to see what it says?

 

The question that came to mind is, who is your target audience?

 

The plan is to create a website allowing user to simply order and send out postcards to neigbours with different messages. He went on to explain that the messages could be in regards to a complaint or request and so could be sent anoumously. Here are a just a few of the reasons you would send a postcard out to your neigbours.

Why not modify the business model to be a "messaging service" ? Pay someone to notify and to inform clients of decisions and actions. Moving offices, and services or anything similar to that. Then again, most companies actually have this kind of "newsletter" service installed as part of their computing system anyway. Defaults letters are issued and printed if certain criterias are not matched. i.e. red letters for unpaid bills etc.

 

You gotta ask yourself, do a lot of people send postcards to each other anyway? Unless you want to change the way people live their lives. It is a very hard idea to apply to every day life.

 

E-cards are now quite established too. Also, no-one actually pays for e-card businesses. Not that I know of ... Cos most are free. There's a lot of business ideas related to the web, but I don't think the postcard one is a foolproof one just yet.

 

Sorry to be so cynical, but I really tested the idea against everything I know! lol... Not that I am a business owner, but.. sometimes I do discuss ideas with my siblings cos they are business owners themselves. I just give them the joe pleb view of it.