10 Free Business Ideas for Internet Startups
Ideas are cheap. At least that’s what I’m told, but people will struggle for a long time to come up with the idea that will launch a new business into the stratosphere. It’s a given that some ideas are indeed better than others, but how much is an idea really worth?
Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and give you some ideas for FREE. Like all business ideas, I can’t guarantee you success with any of them. That takes a combination of talent, hard work and luck that makes starting up a new business so challening – and fun.
My goal is to generate 100 ideas. I’m starting with 10 internet/tech ideas so bear with me. I’ll get to other ideas as I go along:
- Fwitter: A site that’s something in-between twitter and a forum. Get real time updates (instead of hitting “refresh” to see what’s posted) and have special rooms for event-specific chat (Say, talking about Lost on Wed 3/18) It’s also rich version of real-time search with images and video in the stream. (Trust me, tech people are all about the real-time search these days)
- Stalker ads: Location-based ads that send deals to your phone when you’re in the area of brick and mortar stores.
- Metorological modeling for the masses: Supercomputing-on-demand: imagine a 100,000 node cluster you can use for complex math, available on-demand. Not “cloud” computation the way Amazon sees it, but hardcore supercomputing on demand for research. More like grid on demand.
- Better banner ads: A self-optimizing ad network that is free from the constraints of conceptual ads. All advertisers try (or *should* monitor their ads to see how people are responding. How about an ad network that does it for you? Your ads show up where they work best.
- Virtual Business cards: A vanity URL that points to a business card. Think what LinkedIn does for resumes, but for business cards. Add a social network for people to exchange cards. Aside from the obvious printing and office products tie-ins, there’s an opportunity for geo and industry targeted ads. Charge for premium services.
- A national real estate MLS: Not easy and people are trying this, but the winners will be rich.
- My Cartoons: An animation studio that lets you create your cartoon. Think The Sims meet The Simpsons.
- Rental listings: A site that provides all the features of pay sites, but is free like CraigsList. I actually tried this. I was too short on cash and time. I gave up after a year. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
- Stock Picks: Vote on which stocks will be successful. Think derivatives without the money.
- Pyramid Builder: A forum or network for people who love MLMs. There seems to be a core group who are into working them or into selling them. Let them find and recruit each other.
I honestly have no idea how many people are doing one of these ideas. I know some people are trying these things, but I’ve always heard that if no one is competing with you for a market, there probably isn’t a market to compete for.
I’ll get to different ideas in the future. Some may involve the internet (well, what doesn’t to some extent) but I’d like to broaden the scope a lot. Any ideas you want to share? Think my ideas stink? Let me know in the comments below…
Not bad. I agree that banner ads could be improved quite a bit, but not sure how. I think the best way to come up with a startup idea is to do something that has already been done, but do it better. That way a market already exists. It is pretty hard to create a market even if the idea is great. There are a lot of factors beyond whether the program is good and useful.
Cool, validation! I’m already working on #2.
#2 is being worked on by a bunch of companies. I wrote about it at ReadWriteWeb last year: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/location_based_mobile_ads.php
#5 exists at http://www.weavemet.com and http://www.contxts.com
#8 … doesn’t Craigslist already do rentals?
Sorry, but this list reads more like what *you* would like to have/see, or a very specific wishlist, not necessarily great business ideas…
For #8, I’m curious how you would plan on monetizing the idea. I think it’s widely accepted that the current crop of businesses who were relying on online marketing revenue as a business model are having to rethink the strategy (even Google with some of their services). I’m much more interested in an idea that meets an essential business need, namely one that a business would be eager to pay for. Counting on the public to pay “eventually” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
What was the name of your attempt at #8?
My project Speeka is exactly inteded to fit #1 item on your list: a micro version of forum (or, alternatively, a group twitter). It’s still unpolished and doesn’t do embeds well, but actually bigger problem is getting people to Get It (it’s a side project of a tech guy and marketing/biz side is still nonexistent).
In general I agree with Joel; it’s easier to jump into an existing (hopefully not well developed) niche that someone’s already carved out and get a “free ride” on their marketing efforts, than make people (want to) learn a new concept..
I very much like the virtual business card idea, and the freemium potential it has. It could give real value to business people (who aren’t afraid for paying a service to get what they need, as opposed to casual user/visitor).
Well, they are ideas that came out of *my* head, based on what I’ve seen and thought would be cool. I don’t think I called any of them “great,” but that’s not the point. Ideas are free. It’s getting them to work that’s the trick.
Thanks for the link on the mobile ads. That’s a something that people really think can work and make money like contextual ads do on the web now, hence a lot of dollars chasing the idea. Thanks for the link on the business card sites. I know of one more place trying it: http://www.spartx.com/
Craigslist does rentals, but many places are trying to beat them out with better features and better vetting of posts. There are also lots of paid rental sites, such as rent.com that play the game. It’s a *very* crowded playing field.
Cool! I wish you luck because (I believe) riches await those who crack that code.
Sorry dude, I really enjoy your ideas, many of them to be honesty, but don’t expect people to think the same, usually the ideas we think are great, the other people don’t agree, and that is our chance, to start first
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This idea was based in a post about stealth mode in your business from http://www.mixergy.com