business
business ideas
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My Order Code
With the prevelance of POS systems tied to the internet and available to anyone with a smartphone, why are we still ordering our meals like Neanderthals? There’s always been an issue of with near infinite options, one has to repeat a long list of preferences to match the long list of options. No mayo, GF…
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Speed(ing) Dating
I was sitting in downtown SF watching the comings and goings of a much younger crowd. I was near a gym and there was this constant stream of people in and out. And in front, I saw this weird dance taking place. People would stand at the curb with their phones out and cars would…
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Box Bladders
I welcome the gradual shift from styrofoam peanuts to little bags of air cushioning my various mail ordered products. And though a one-size fits all product allowing them to just toss in more or less of the bags, it still seems like an incomplete patentable journey. Thereby I came up with the idea for the…
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Sales Tax
I buy a lot of things on Amazon.com. I buy more things using their iPhone app than most people buy period. Right after ordering some baby gear today I thought about the whole online sales tax issue. Given that I live in California, I have paid the use tax that is on the California state…
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Novelty Hearing Aids
We happened to be visiting “The Shack” today looking for a sort of novelty Xmas present and next door was a hearing aid store. Quickly an idea came to me – why not novelty hearing aids? On the one end of the spectrum you could have the “hearing voices” model which records random bits of…
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Rental Cars
I know enough about business and the world to know that the rental car business is an unglamorous and difficult business. It’s hard to innovate for a fleet of reasons, but that doesn’t always mean one shouldn’t try or that one can’t succeed. One of our case studies in business school illustrated the difficulties of…
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Taste the Inorganic
So, first there were brands sold based on those brands with store labels hidden where no one could see them. Then store labels became brands in themselves. Now is there anything considered “generic?” So in a world that’s branding everything, where your brand can reinforce or even reimagine what your product is, why not brand…
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Rock Concerts, The Next Generation
You’ve had the reunion tours, the all-star line-ups, but what will concert promoters do next to bring in the audience attention? How about concert mashups? How about Metallica & Neil Diamond in concert together? They can take turns. That way the fan who secretely likes both can see both acts without losing any of their credibility…
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No Disclaimers
I work for a certain Financial Services firm and I see various legal and disclaimer text every day. It’s often (sadly) hilarious what requires disclaimers and how unlikely it is to release anything without it. And it makes me wonder whether disclaimer text has any unconscious effects on consumers. I am not sure that the…
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Shut-Itster.com
Sitting through a web conference hyping Web 2.0 and web communities, I realize (yet again) how much I am not that demographic. I have rarely ever chatted, posted to newsgroups, hung out on blogs, etc. So, with the proliferation of MySpace, Facebook and Friendster, why isn’t there a Shut-itster which would be a (parody) social…