| Business idea: Social intranet community-building |
Green |
5 - First sale! |
Enterprises with social business platforms such as IBM Connections or Jive |
"Build it and they will come" definitely doesn't work; also, many platforms have limited analytics |
Community prototyping services and analytics tools |
b2b, consulting, social business |
| Writing e-books and other information products |
Green |
8 - Ongoing |
Curious people who like reading (probably fellow geeks), possibly visual thinkers too |
Not that many books about the things I'm interested in, and even fewer with lots of fun illustrations |
E-books and maybe even printed books! |
information product, writing |
| Emacs resources |
Green |
1 - Inkling |
Emacs newcomers and enthusiasts |
Want more interesting, engaging, approachable ideas/lessons on Emacs |
Illustrated guides to Emacs, blog posts with Emacs highlights, occasional low-cost e-books |
development, emacs, information product, writing |
| Quantified coaching |
Green |
1 - Inkling |
Quantified Self enthusiasts and self-trackers who might not be developers or spreadsheet wizards |
Difficult to get started, especially outside health/fitness |
Coaching on how to frame questions, collect data, stick with the habit, and analyze the results |
coaching, quantified, services |
| Introvert-focused networking tips |
Green |
1 - Inkling |
Introverted professionals, especially freelancers |
Difficult to connect with people; lots of advice is geared towards extroverts or people who can pretend to be one |
Introvert-friendly lifehacks |
connecting, information product, introverts |
| Stamp calculator |
Green |
1 - Inkling |
People who write and mail letters |
Making up stamp values given rising stamp prices |
Stamp calculator (given the denominations of the stamps you have and the denominations you want, minimize waste and number of stamps) |
advertising, development |
| Business idea: Tweetchat summary service |
Off |
2 - Sketched |
corporate Tweetchat organizers |
Difficult to analyze tweetchats or summarize them for later reading |
Conversation tree visualizer given a hashtag |
concierge, saas, writing |
| Business idea: Hand-drawn web designs |
Off |
1 - Inkling |
Freelancers and small business owners in creative industries who are not web designers |
Websites feel mechanical; it's hard to imagine how to fit handwriting into a website |
Wordpress themes and theming services focused on hand-drawn interfaces |
drawing |
| Business idea: Content marketing for conferences and events |
Off |
2 - Sketched |
Conference and event organizers |
Missing out on opportunities to repurpose content for marketing and audience-building |
Content marketing - we process and transcribe the recordings, set up tweets, write blog posts, etc. |
marketing, social media, writing |
| Business idea: Delegation coaching |
Off |
2 - Sketched |
Busy freelancers and consultants who are struggling with multi-tasking |
People don't have the time to learn how to delegate or imagine how they could do so |
I can walk them through setting up an arrangement with trained staff using my library of processes, and I can help them document their own processes |
coaching, delegation |
| Business idea: Technical writing |
Off |
2 - Sketched |
Software companies with application screencasts |
Documentation can be difficult to put together clearly |
We'll transcribe and format the instructions for easier searching/reading, and we'll set up a series of content marketing blog posts as well |
transcription, writing |
| Business idea: Visual book reviews |
Off |
2 - Sketched |
Busy executives who are visual thinkers and who want to stay up to date on business books |
No time to read even executive summaries |
Visual summaries to help people decide which books to read further or review key points from books |
drawing, information product, reading |
| Business idea: Self-tracking tools |
Off |
3 - Prototyped |
Quantified Self enthusiasts and other self-trackers who may not be developers |
Most QS startups focus on health and lock in data; people want to track other things |
Flexible tracker with no data lock-in |
b2c, development, quantified, saas |
| Business idea: Presentation design |
Off |
2 - Sketched |
Technology businesses that give presentations but don't have in-house presentation designers, and who want to make their presentations more approachable |
Technology presentations can be nosebleedingly overwhelming and ugly |
Beautiful presentation design (both in terms of information as well as layout), presentation coaching |
design, drawing, presentation |
| Business idea: Visual communication coaching |
Off |
2 - Sketched |
People who would like to sketchnote or do graphic recording/facilitation more |
People sometimes don't know where to start or how to push themselves |
Coaching and workshops |
coaching, drawing |
| Business idea: Hand-drawn vector microstock images |
Off |
1 - Inkling |
Web designers and presentation designers |
Want hand-drawn images to give presentations and websites a friendlier feel |
Hand-drawn stock images sold on popular stock photo sites |
commission, drawing, product |
| Math resources for grade school and high school students |
Off |
1 - Inkling |
Parents of middle school and high school kids in Toronto |
Math education is spotty; parents may not be comfortable with math, either |
Educational resources |
education, teaching |
| Wardrobe organizer and tracker |
Off |
1 - Inkling |
People who have lots of items and want to make better decisions about them |
Not fun to track frequency and cost per use |
App for tracking your clothes / stuff |
development, quantified, saas |
| Task and time trackers |
Off |
1 - Inkling |
Freelancers and small businesses working on a time basis; Quantified Self enthusiasts |
Granular time-tracking is difficult |
Simple tracker |
b2b, development, quantified, saas |