First, a meta-discussion … I think when a lot of people hear the word “startup” they think two things: long hours in an under-funded environment, and the hope of a short-term payoff (or at least an exit strategy). This may be incompatible with the idea of pulling a bunch of hours away from a bunch of bright people already involved in other things. It may also be counter-productive to the goal of benefiting people: one of the shortcomings of established corporations is the focus on near-term gains, even at the cost of long-term viability or benefits—that mindset is exponentially worse in a time-accelerated enviro with a burn-rate that implies a near-future mortality for the corporate corpus.
Personally, if someone told me I had to do just 2 more years of what I went through with a startup in order to never work again, I’d say “no thanks”. And while I’m happy to pitch in some time on concepts that either help humanity or personally enrich me (and am extra-eager if we can tie the two together), I’m not leaving my 30-hour-a-week, slippers-&-bathrobe-dress-code, commute-to-the-livingroom business any time soon (although I would if I got involved in something hugely beneficial and moderately profitable). So, I think some of the ideas already mentioned about marrying interests and abilities with different classes of start-ups need implementation if this is going to move from some sort of communal stew to a concrete business with distinct individuals making discrete contributions. [Aside: I think that’s a start-up possibility right there … a mechanism that allows arbitrary-sized contributions to a project (think open-source), but has some (community) basis for valuing those contributions, so when the cash starts rolling in, people can be compensated roughly in proportion to their contributions (yes, this is probably a harder problem than most of the startups suggested here). Thought exercise: if someone gave $1B “to Linux” (sic) for contributions to humanity, how would that money be doled out to contributors?]
Ideas with long payoff time frames are generally not good candidates for startups (unless the founders are willing to light their money on fire just because it’s something they just want to see done), which limits the scope of things that can be done in a “non-philanthropic” enviro. I think you also need to delineate classes of businesses: some people will see the philanthropy angle as a mere selling tool to generate funding/interest; other people are interested in “doing good”, and have ideas for companies that won’t work any better as non-profits than for-profits.
So, for me: I’d like to contribute SOME time to a project with public benefit, and if I happen to get some money out of it down the road, I can decide to commit more time and/or consider that gravy. I’ve had a web design/hosting business (mostly LAMP) for about 15 years, and do a little bit of most things tangentially associated with that.
My experience with the Rejuvenate people is quite different—basically, if you are someone like a coach who can generate high income/hour but doesn’t work many hours, you just outsource everything.
Coaches (who have taken marketing courses) usually make $97+/hr, so in that position, if you can pay someone $10-50/hr, to do a few hours of work for you—usually they get more done/hour on tasks like cleaning, filing, and basic website development anyway, and then you use a fraction of the time they save you on marketing and doing coaching, and easily make it back while spending much less time working.
If you’re someone who can make a lot of money consulting or programming, do a little contract work, and hire college students to do all the work you don’t want to for your projects. Have them help you come up with systems that you can easily teach new people if they quit, and you save a lot of time and stress and work that is not what you want to be doing.
I’m working on developing a program with that sort of material for this crowd (decided it was higher leverage use of my time than individual coaching/counseling after seeing the response on this post) - I’d love to quiz you (or anyone else interested) about the topics you’d most like to see covered for making your life better, easier, and more successful when doing start-ups. If you’re interested, email me—shannon dot friedman at positivevector dot com. I have a ton of information I’ve collected through that program and other sources already, so I’m trying to figure out which pieces are highest impact to focus on for this crowd.
Was going to make this it’s own post, but what about a micro job placement center? A Job-Starter?
Based of AltonSun’s reverse Kickstarter, this would be more of a converse Kickstarter or something on par with Craigslist or Fiverr, where people can be sign up to be notified about opportunities for PayPal cash, gift cards, or equivalent wealth for work done that they are skilled in. Unlike Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, this would allow for a semi-sustainable income through bigger job prizes, and more variety of work then “transcribe this” or “take data from here to there” for pennies on the dollar, where the jobs can come to you and are further incentivized through gamification or whatnot in the name of prioritization. Maybe I’m asking for too much for nothing, but it is crazy insane hard to find a job where I live, let alone one that won’t take a crap on you for minimum wage and you can easily be replaced as a crap receptacle by someone more agreeable.
Maybe take it in a different direction, something like Wealthy Affiliate where you can get the resources to self start, but instead of paying per month and letting it fall into Gym Membership Stagnation, make a bootable usb or an app on your phone that locks you into better productivity habits and out of bad habits, where you can pay your own bills, and toss away the key. About anyone who procrastinates has a market in that, either to make better use of their time, or to bully and coach people who aren’t.
First, a meta-discussion … I think when a lot of people hear the word “startup” they think two things: long hours in an under-funded environment, and the hope of a short-term payoff (or at least an exit strategy). This may be incompatible with the idea of pulling a bunch of hours away from a bunch of bright people already involved in other things. It may also be counter-productive to the goal of benefiting people: one of the shortcomings of established corporations is the focus on near-term gains, even at the cost of long-term viability or benefits—that mindset is exponentially worse in a time-accelerated enviro with a burn-rate that implies a near-future mortality for the corporate corpus.
Personally, if someone told me I had to do just 2 more years of what I went through with a startup in order to never work again, I’d say “no thanks”. And while I’m happy to pitch in some time on concepts that either help humanity or personally enrich me (and am extra-eager if we can tie the two together), I’m not leaving my 30-hour-a-week, slippers-&-bathrobe-dress-code, commute-to-the-livingroom business any time soon (although I would if I got involved in something hugely beneficial and moderately profitable). So, I think some of the ideas already mentioned about marrying interests and abilities with different classes of start-ups need implementation if this is going to move from some sort of communal stew to a concrete business with distinct individuals making discrete contributions. [Aside: I think that’s a start-up possibility right there … a mechanism that allows arbitrary-sized contributions to a project (think open-source), but has some (community) basis for valuing those contributions, so when the cash starts rolling in, people can be compensated roughly in proportion to their contributions (yes, this is probably a harder problem than most of the startups suggested here). Thought exercise: if someone gave $1B “to Linux” (sic) for contributions to humanity, how would that money be doled out to contributors?]
Ideas with long payoff time frames are generally not good candidates for startups (unless the founders are willing to light their money on fire just because it’s something they just want to see done), which limits the scope of things that can be done in a “non-philanthropic” enviro. I think you also need to delineate classes of businesses: some people will see the philanthropy angle as a mere selling tool to generate funding/interest; other people are interested in “doing good”, and have ideas for companies that won’t work any better as non-profits than for-profits.
So, for me: I’d like to contribute SOME time to a project with public benefit, and if I happen to get some money out of it down the road, I can decide to commit more time and/or consider that gravy. I’ve had a web design/hosting business (mostly LAMP) for about 15 years, and do a little bit of most things tangentially associated with that.
My experience with the Rejuvenate people is quite different—basically, if you are someone like a coach who can generate high income/hour but doesn’t work many hours, you just outsource everything.
Coaches (who have taken marketing courses) usually make $97+/hr, so in that position, if you can pay someone $10-50/hr, to do a few hours of work for you—usually they get more done/hour on tasks like cleaning, filing, and basic website development anyway, and then you use a fraction of the time they save you on marketing and doing coaching, and easily make it back while spending much less time working.
If you’re someone who can make a lot of money consulting or programming, do a little contract work, and hire college students to do all the work you don’t want to for your projects. Have them help you come up with systems that you can easily teach new people if they quit, and you save a lot of time and stress and work that is not what you want to be doing.
I’m working on developing a program with that sort of material for this crowd (decided it was higher leverage use of my time than individual coaching/counseling after seeing the response on this post) - I’d love to quiz you (or anyone else interested) about the topics you’d most like to see covered for making your life better, easier, and more successful when doing start-ups. If you’re interested, email me—shannon dot friedman at positivevector dot com. I have a ton of information I’ve collected through that program and other sources already, so I’m trying to figure out which pieces are highest impact to focus on for this crowd.
Was going to make this it’s own post, but what about a micro job placement center? A Job-Starter?
Based of AltonSun’s reverse Kickstarter, this would be more of a converse Kickstarter or something on par with Craigslist or Fiverr, where people can be sign up to be notified about opportunities for PayPal cash, gift cards, or equivalent wealth for work done that they are skilled in. Unlike Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, this would allow for a semi-sustainable income through bigger job prizes, and more variety of work then “transcribe this” or “take data from here to there” for pennies on the dollar, where the jobs can come to you and are further incentivized through gamification or whatnot in the name of prioritization. Maybe I’m asking for too much for nothing, but it is crazy insane hard to find a job where I live, let alone one that won’t take a crap on you for minimum wage and you can easily be replaced as a crap receptacle by someone more agreeable.
Maybe take it in a different direction, something like Wealthy Affiliate where you can get the resources to self start, but instead of paying per month and letting it fall into Gym Membership Stagnation, make a bootable usb or an app on your phone that locks you into better productivity habits and out of bad habits, where you can pay your own bills, and toss away the key. About anyone who procrastinates has a market in that, either to make better use of their time, or to bully and coach people who aren’t.