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Free Business Idea – Right Wing Vitamins and Organic Foods

Object 4The Left Wing Temperament –

  • Idealizes: caring, tolerance and balance
  • Prone To: Hugging

The Right Wing Temperament –

  • Idealizes: Cleanliness, organization and order
  • Prone To: Personal space

There are many political overtones and exceptions to the above sweeping characterizations, but in terms of temperament they are true (just trust me on that).

You’ve probably noticed that vitamins, natural/organic foods, and homeopathy are marketed almost exclusively to the left wing temperament and almost never to the right wing temperament.  That neglect means that there is a market opportunity to seize the right leaning side of the population.  After all, if smut on the airwaves angers someone, why should preservatives in their steak get a free pass?   If the complexity of the tax code angers them, why would the jumbled supply chain of mega farms be any different? Continue reading →

Biz / Free Ideas / Misc— 2 comments
16
Mar 10

Written By Steve French

 

The 3 customer targets for Stronico

DartsSomeone recently asked me who would actually use this service and I had no specific answer for them. Lots of vague answers, but nothing specific. I decided to fix that problem. Since declaring targets defines them; these are the top three Stronico customer targets

  1. Primary Market – The near Aspberger entrepreneur – I call this market “Steve” because I’m trying to solve my own problem.  Steve needs help in maintaining his personal network since he remembers connections, names, faces, and details poorly, but needs to remember them better.  Steve networks poorly, has a medium sized network, and has a strong need to maintain that network.
  2. Secondary Market – The power salesman – we’ll call this market “Eric”.  Eric needs help maintaining the network not because of any natural defect in his networking skill but because the network is large and expanding.  Eric has strong networking ability, a large network, and a strong need to maintain that network.
  3. Tertiary Markets – The researcher – we’ll call this market “Greg”.  Greg could be a lawyer, policeman, student or teacher, but fundamentally he is someone who maps out social networks, usually not his own.  The Stronico.org model will be the primary avenue into this.  Greg has variable networking ability, huge networks, and a moderate need to maintain that network.

Thoughts anyone?

Creative Commons License photo credit: Bogdan Suditu

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz / Stronico— No comments
15
Mar 10

Written By Steve French

 

Call for Beta Testers

Stronico Contact Management has now reached the point of private beta!  If you would like to be a beta tester please contact [email protected] for more information.  Your input will be used to shape the final product, and all beta testers will receive TWO FULL YEARS of free Stronico.  We only have a limited number of beta invitations slots, so sign up now!

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz / Stronico / The Beta Test— No comments
12
Mar 10

Written By Steve French

 

Free Idea #2 – Homemaker Incorporated

As my domestic status has changed over the past year, this idea no longer would applies to me, but here is another business idea I would have paid for.

Home Maker Inc – A service that would mimic many of the offerings of the good homemaker, solely in the care and maintenance of the home and retirement planning.  There would be no actual in-person services rendered by the Homemaker Inc (heretoafter called HMI) just financial  and long-term home matters.  The business would largely be by mail, phone, and internet.  The retirement and financial planning would be largely limited to enforcing Ramit Sethi’s I will Teach You To Be Rich book (which covers about 80% of what you need).

The home maintenance would consist of:

  • Paying all utility bills (though the customer’s account), and notifying them of any deals (like on natural gas or the like) that come around.  The customer would be given a monthly statement of the expenses.
  • HMI would hold all warranties in a central and findable location, and handle all home repair services.  HMI would also hold all insurance policies.
  • HMI would schedule and arrange all home maintenance tasks (like annual servicing of appliances) that never actually get done.

That way the house could be maintained at limited expense, and things would actually get done.  Just a thought.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz / Free Ideas— No comments
11
Mar 10

Written By Steve French

 

Startup Atlanta – March 2010 Edition

My studio experienceLast Wednesday I attended the StartUp Atlanta March event (on the web at StartUpAtlanta.org, @StartupAtlanta on Twitter) where about 60 or so members of the Startup community mixed, mingled, and listened to 5 presentations by new Startups in Atlanta.

The community was quite nice (I saw a number of familiar faces, and met some new people too), and the Georgia Tech was nice enough to loan out the Georgia Tech Research Institute facility auditorium. I had a great time meeting everyone and Mike Schinkel and his volunteers moved things along well. It is impossible to overstate how important it is to keep these events running on time.

And now, the contestants! We listened to the presentations, and voted via twitter for our favorites, here were mine, recorded here for posterity. I judge startups by the following criteria, on a scale of 1-10 (higher is better). I thought I would share it here for the first time.

  1. Problem Solving – It can be a cool product, but does it make anyone’s life easier?
  2. Actual Customers – I am defining the customer as someone with both problems and money.
  3. Simplicity of Pricing – can the fees be described to anyone, do you need more information about the prospect before you can offer a quote?
  4. Chicken and Egg Problem – does the product require a lot of Customer A before Customer B becomes interested, and vice versa? This applies a good bit to middleman/broker type companies like E-Bay.
  5. Remarkability – that is to say, can someone who heard a quick presentation about it describe it to someone the next day, and have it be understood?

Note, I do not judge the passion of the founders, quality of marketing, execution etc. That’s too hard to judge based off of a short presentation. Continue reading →

Biz / Stronico— 1 comment
08
Mar 10

Written By Steve French

 

Sorry for the light updating

I’ve been bogged down with client work, and then StartupAtlanta took a chunk out of the week too.  Look for the writeup of that soon.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz— No comments
05
Mar 10

Written By Steve French

 

Jason Fried and I have common ideas

I just watched an interview with Jason Fried of 37 Signals and he and I share the notion (first said by me in 2001) that people in prison are the most effectively creative people in the world (in their escape attempts), and that constraints are good for creativity.  He says that  bootstrapping forces companies to think about what their product, instead of just running around spending money.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz / Recommended Reading— No comments
27
Feb 10

Written By Steve French

 

Thoughts on predictable software scheduling

Schedule 2/6
While pondering installing Visual Studio 2010, as well as thinking how all software is moving to a subscription basis, I had the thought – why not do two predictable releases a year?  The first release, say in January, would be whatever new features were in place by that date.  The second release, say in July, would be a pure performance and usability release, as the development team would spend half the year optimizing and tweaking the code, as well as fixing all bugs.  Any new “Features” would have at least six months to cook in the minds of the developers and would be implemented on a much stronger code base. Continue reading →

Biz / Sentiment— No comments
25
Feb 10

Written By Steve French

 

It’s sad when hold music makes you happy

After being on hold for about 10 minutes now, I can honestly say that Godaddy.com has the best tech support hold music I’ve ever heard.  It seems to be remakes of 1930’s hot jazz numbers.  I have found the tech support to be clear and usually worth the wait.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz— No comments
23
Feb 10

Written By Steve French

 

General updates in February 2010

Nearly a week has gone by without any sort of posting.  Rest assured that work is still being done – it’s just tedious and not very remarkable.  Our second e-blast went out without incident.

On a somewhat related note, might I recommend Brain Rules by John Medina – it is a wonderful book about the working of the brain, with a remarkable number of surprises.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz / Stronico— No comments
22
Feb 10

Written By Steve French

 

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