Why a ZipCar when you can have a ZipTaxi?

[Update: January 2013]

After the recent announcement of AVIS acquiring ZipCar,  I have to assume that management thought that the best outcome for the company was to sell itself to a bigger company and not to continue to open cities around the world. Why is that?

[Originally Published: July 2012]

Need

Some developing countries are considering implementing the ZipCar model to improve mobility in big cities. I believe that in certain cities like Bogota, implementing a ZipCar model could be too complex and costly for the investor. Nevertheless there is still a need to move around the city for periods of time that can be more than just a ride in a taxi.

Description

What about if we create a subscription model for taxis? Instead of paying for a ride you pay a subscription a months for certain amount of time. There has to be some capabilities that the model needs to provide to be successful in a city like Bogota:

1. Security: the start-up has to provide secure rides for passengers. The model will need a system that provides this features (e.g. like a code or something)

2. Reliability: the start-up needs to make sure that taxis are always available even at peak hours. I believe you can achieve this if the system relies in technology to be more efficient in terms of number of taxis available in a specific zone and trying to match previous historical patterns. I believe that if you take a set of passengers and analyze their taxi usage you are going to find that the majority of their trip were to/from the same locations.

3. Simplicity:  the subscription model has to be pretty simple and you should be able to manage everything from your smartphone. The subscription model will probably have two parts to the equation: One that covers the "taxi base" (i.e. amount of money that you need to pay the taxi driver to have him/her participate in the program and connect to the system) and the other that covers the actual system (i.e. you probably need to develop an app and maintain some type of system or platform, that will cost you money).

Potential:

Let me just calculate the potential only for Bogota (then you can assume that there are X cities like Bogota and just get the overall world number for this idea). In Bogota there are 8M people. Lets assume that the same wealth distribution exist in Bogota than in the country. Following government data 1% of the population in Colombia makes between US$1000 and US$3500 a month. I believe this group will be our core group (plus students) given that they do not have enough money to purchase a second car (to avoid "pico y placa"). That means that there is a potential customer base of 80,000 people.

Lets assume that this people have to taxi every other day (because of the "pico y placa") and that they pay for a round trip. In average cab fares should be around US$5 per trip. That means that this people will spend around US$1,560 a year (52 wks x $30 -assuming that some weeks you have more than 2 days of "pico y placa")

80K x US$1.5K = US$120M a year

An Armored Car for Developing Countries

Need:

Recently I have been thinking that the solution that we have arrived in cities like Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Bogota, etc., of transforming a normal car into an armored car is suboptimal. First, I am not talking about the armored trucks banks use to move money, nor the hummer-like cars used by the military. I am talking about your usual car used by diplomats around the world.

The need is simple, people with security concerns (e.g. the wealthy or the political class) need an armored car in these type of cities in developing countries. The current supply of armored cars is basic: Take a normal car and put on armor of different caliber.

Description:

Instead of transforming a normal car into an armored car why not design an armored car from scratch? I am sure you can design a better armored car if you start without any restriction and knowing exactly what are the essentials. There are some features of a normal car that are not aligned with the functionality of an armor car (e.g. windows that do not go down). Why be bound by this misalignment? Why not design and create the perfect armor car with the style of a BMW, optimizing for performance and weight.

The same way Miguel Caballero developed bullet proof fashion and created an entire company around high quality/top design bulletproof clothes, there is an opportunity to design and manufacture new armored cars. If this ever happens I think it will come from a country like Mexico, Brazil or Colombia. Or maybe Miguel Caballero reads this post and starts a new line of "products".

Potential:

I am thinking there is two ways of measuring the potential of this market. Lets assume that 0.1% of the population in countries like Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have an armored car. That means around of the 350M people living on those 3 countries you may have 350K people or maybe 100K households. At a price point of US$100K per car the market for armored cars in those 3 countries is US$10B. Assuming a purchasing cycle of 5 years, the market is US$2B a year. 

Another way of thinking about this is that Miguel Caballero can have around US$10M in revenue per year in bulletproof clothes. Lets assume for simplicity that each item has an average price of US$1K that means he is selling 10K items per year. Lets assume that each person buying at his store purchases 2 items. That means he has 5K customers that could purchase an armored car. Again, at US$100K per car that means US$500M a year. 

So my market size is around US$500-$2B a year. Pretty good.

The App that helps parents educate their children

[Update: April 2013]

I should have updated this post long time ago. Just a month after my post Agnitus launched its App Trailer. I recently found out about this App (currently on the Apple AppStore) and I am thrilled about its capabilities. My 2-year old daughter is using it every other day and I can see her progress on the scorecard.

Another game studio that has a promising product is Mapache Studios. Mapache Studios is an Edutainment Media Company that develops games for mobile education. They use the game mechanics of the most popular games such as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope to make extremely fun and engaging games.

[Originally Posted: May 2012]

Need:

Parents nowadays do not have the time to learn how to educate their children. In the best cases they may have the time but are sometime clueless about the latest tools or techniques to educate their children. In the worse scenario (and in most cases) do not have the time to research or be efficient about where to focus on their children education. Parents leave a lot of the education to the daycare or school.

Description:

Similar to the market that you can find in Brazil with the famous learning systems (or Sistemas de Encino), we can create a Sistema de encino for parents in an app for all tablets. This learning system will have different parts. It will have the level of detail for the parent to understand what are the key milestone for children of different ages. It will have what type of exercises is (or should be) doing his/her child at school given age (and maybe other variables). It will have what type of exercises should be doing at home given the previous information (how long the child should do the exercise and ways to make it fun and engaging). Finally, it will recommend other apps that can help with engaging the child into doing the exercises. The idea is that the app makes the parent a better teacher, depending on the type of child and the type of parent.

Potential:

Probably do not charge for the app, give some content for free and then start charging for extensive or additional content. Let's assume that the parents ends up finding the app so useful that they buys the content for every age stage. Let assume that the app provides stages from 1-5 years old (and maybe older) and charges for each stage $20 (less than a good textbook). That means that a parent may spent $100. Multiply that by the number of parents that can be millions depending on the success of the app. This easily can become a billion dollar market.

The Perfect Car Seats

Need:

Some parents nowadays have the big dilemma of having two young kids and one normal (i.e. not a van) car. The problem is when you have to put two car seats in your normal car. You will fit them fine but the middle seat would become useless for any normal-sized adult. 

Description:

Create an option of two car seats that will fit in a way that will allow for a third passenger on the second-row seat. These car seats have to follow the security standards (of course) of other car seats. They also need to be useful for the different age stages of a kid (i.e. convertible).

Potential:

I believe Evenflo has revenues of $300M selling car seats and strollers. Maybe expect a $10M company with only this product?

Ranking Your Favorite Actor for a Book Character

Need:

I will love to be able to match book characters to movie artist and have everyone due the same. That way everyone that has read a book and love a character can tell their perspective about which movie artist should play that role if the book becomes a movie.

Description:

This will be a simple website that lists all the best sellers. You find the book and roll down to the characters that you want. When clicking on the character you can type the artist that you find more appealing to play that specific role if the book becomes a movie. The website accumulates the votes and shows the most voted artist for each character.

Potential:

Not sure about the business model here. Maybe only show the top 3 so the website can sell the entire list to movie producers? Hmm... Maybe IMDB should just do this themselves.

UrGift.In is Born

Need:

Who is not tired of getting gifts that they do not want for their birthdays or special occasions (e.g. Xmas)? I have had some embarrassed moments in my life when I have regifted something to the same person that gave me the present in the first time. Can we try to coordinate ourselves (i.e. friends and family) so we all know what each other wants for their bdays and special occassions like a wedding registry?

Description:

Connect friends a family through Facebook and share with all of them a wishlist. Have a website or app where people can be reminded of their friend´s special occasions. Through the same website or app people can buy whatever there is in the wishlist. Have a reliable logistic partner deliver the gift. Communicate the process so there is social benefits for both sides.

Potential:

The gift industry is $200B in the US. Just capturing a small % of this market would represent a big opportunity. Clearly I need to refine more my numbers for this one.

Ultralight Startup Tools

There are a couple of tools for those ultralight startups out there. Here is my list (as of now):


IDEATION AND BIZ PLANS

http://bit.ly/xuGwbN : How To NOT Write A Business Plan.


CREATING MOCKUPS

http://launchrock.com/ : LaunchRock helps you setup a social launching soon page in minutes.

http://www.mockupeverything.com/ : A lightweight app to make photorealistic mockups on real objects. Choose a template, upload your design, mock it up in 3D, save your image. Showcase what your design looks like in the real world! Everything from apparel, hats, posters, business cards, billboards, iphones, ipads, and just about everything else. Made by Go Media, so you know it will be good!


PRESENTING and COORDINATING

http://prezi.com/ : Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software that opens up a new world between whiteboards and slides. The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas and the connections between them. The result: visually captivating presentations that lead your audience down a path of discovery.

http://asana.com/ : Asana is an effort to re-imagine how teams get things done. We’re building the modern way to work together, through a web application that connects everyone with what’s going on, their shared priorities, and who owns each part of the effort.


FINANCING

http://angel.co/ : AngelList is a community of startups—started by the dudes who do Venture Hacks.

http://bit.ly/zXrrLP : Dividing Equity Between Founders and Investors


OUTSOURCING

https://www.elance.com/ : Hire expert programmers, designers, writers, translators, marketers, researchers and admin contractors with tested skills

http://www.stackmob.com/ : StackMob's mobile platform helps developers create a mobile business by letting them easily build, deploy and grow full-featured applications

http://www.heroku.com/ : Offers a solution to deploy and host rails applications with git

Useful VoiP Phone

Need:

I keep looking for a good VoiP phone and cannot find one. I want one that has the options that I need.

Description:

Very simple: Can use Skype or Google Voice (I do not need the other services that are NOT free), can import my full contact list from both services (and hopefully my smartphone too) without limit (I am tired to hear that I can only import 50 contacts), it is in color so I can easily distinguish my status and other stuff, it allows for multiple users, -of course- it does not requires a computer, it actually does not damage in any way my wi-fi connection, it does not cost more than $100, it has a speakerphone, it is wireless with good technology so it does not interfere with other devices in my home/office, provides the option to stay logged-in.

Potential:

Lets assume that of all Skype Users (600M) 10% uses Skype-In and need a Skype phone. That means there is a potential customer base of 60M x $100 per phone that is US$6B in a very rough (like always) market size.

Protest Network

[UpdateD: FEB 2013]

I recently remember this post. I want to complain about Avianca, the Colombian Airline, so much lately. Imagine that Avianca has prohibited the use of mobile devices in its flights even when the smartphone is on airplane mode. I understand this prohibition when you are taking off or landing but when you are cruising, it is illogical. I am sure Avianca´s business travelers are pretty upset about this rule (if they are actually following the rule). What seems illogical for me is how can Avianca survive with this rule if most airlines survive because of their business travelers. I am guessing that having a quasi-monopoly in the country helps somehow.

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: Nov 2011]

Need:

I feel that there is a need for a platform where you can collect complains about anything. I know there are bulletin boards and FB pages, but can we make something better. Something focus on just that (like Quora that launched last year)

Description:

Something that has been design so people can find different type of complains by theme, author, geography, company, etc. Probably it has to start by focusing on something so i will suggest starting with business complaints. Right now the way these type of complaints are communicated are through social media in a very disorganized way or in random discussion boards. I feel that there is a market for this platform after looking at several FB pages that are created just to complain or protest about something. Of course this platform will have a f-connect or other links to successful social networks to make it relevant.

Potential:

I feel that it can have the same potential that trip advisor but for other type of businesses. The business model would probably be a subscription fee charged to businesses to monitor the complaints in the website and create some type of dashboard for them. In terms of business model I am guessing some type of freemium model. Probably starting the paid subscription for large business at $2000 a year. I am thinking that each sales rep can manage 100 accounts so charging $2k will give us a margin of 50% after expenses. I may be off given that I truly door understand the willingness to pay of large businesses for this type of services but I feel that this amount may be reasonable if we offer true value.

Keyless Entry System App

[Update: Jan 2013]

Intellacase is trying to do this exactly. Hope you raise all the funds you need. Help them at Kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/intellacase/intellacase-the-worlds-smartest-phone-case

[Originally Posted: Oct 2011]

Need:

I have a smartphone and have a keyless entry system for my car. My wife keeps loosing the keys but (almost) never her iphone. Can we merge it in one?

Description:

Can we just include an App that works as my keyless entry system? How hard is that? Or maybe it is easier to have a case that includes the chip so it works.

Potential:

Again, cars 50M, maybe $20 for each system that will make it US$1B market.

Tablet Car Stereo

[Update: March 2012]

Clearly somebody is listening. Good luck Devium and Thank you Kickstarter for getting Devium up: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/devium/dash-the-smart-phone-car-stereo?ref=search

[Originally Posted: Sep 2011]

Need

I think we are all tired of not being able to use our smartphone or tablet as our car stereo. I have all my music in my mobile device, all my contact list, everything that I need. Now you are asking me to plug my mobile device to the car system through a simple cable? You are providing me with another screen on my car? Why? I already have a screen, a large screen -actually- if you look at my ipad. Why? I just want to be able to plug my iPad into the dash of my car. Plane and simple.

Description

Develop a box that can be installed in any car that would allow for mobile devices to be plug in. The end result is that the screen of the mobile device will be flat to the dashboard of the car. It is not a cable or something that holds my iPad. It ends up being my car stereo with ALOT more capabilities than my regular GPS/Car Stereo.

Potential

Let assume that you can charge individuals or car manufacturers something like $20 for each box. There are 50M cars sold a year. That is a US$1B market. Not bad.

Flash Sales Meet Door-To-Door SalesForce

Need:

In Latin America is very common for someone to travel to the US buy clothes and then sell them back to their friends in their home country. Clothes in the US are cheaper than in Latin America (in general). Sadly if you want to import a bunch of clothes to a Latin American country is not THAT easy. In certain cases there are tariffs but in most cases you find wholesalers that own the right to sell that brand in the country. Because most of this wholesalers sell their brands indirectly to small retailers the markups end up being outrageous compare to the price in the US. Even if the wholesalers have their own retail, those location cost a fortunes to maintain and again the markups needed to make some margin have to be outrageous.

In Latin America, women want to buy clothes that are less expensive from a source that they can trust. That is why they purchase clothes and accessories from their friends that travel to the US and bring stuff back to sell.

Description:

Initially we thought we can just bring a ideeli.com, gilt.com or a ruelala.com to Latin America and that would be enough. Sadly we saw that there were already several players trying to do exactly that in the largest Latin American markets (i.e. Mexico, Brazil and Argentina). Those players (Privalia, BrandsClub, Geelbe) where already fighting for the excess inventory of all the top brands in those countries. As the Groupon-like in this region, they were fighting to death. In this competitive market you want to be different.

Looking at what works in Latin America you cannot avoid looking at the cosmetic industry that has perfected Direct Selling. The Avon, Belcorp, Oriflame, Natura of this world have leveraged our personalities needs and drive to sell their products.

Combining Flash Sale with Direct Selling seems to be a perfect combination for women all over Latin America. Flash Sale provides discounts on top brands and Direct Selling provides trust in the transaction (something that lacks online transaction in Latin America). The idea is simple. Create a platform like ideeli, gilt and ruelala that can be downloaded to a tablet (i.e. offline capabilities). Provide an inexpensive tablet to your direct salesforce. Create a cost structure similar to avon, belcopr, oriflame and natura alikes. Build your company.

Potential:

Difficult to quantify but you can probably make more than Privalia today (EUR$168M). 

Post Mortem e-Services

Need: 

In this new era of emails, accounts and passwords, I feel that there is a need to share key account information with my family if something happens to me. A lot of my important posessions are in an internet account of some sort and not in my apartment. The vague idea that something could happen to me without being able to share the password to this 'memory' e-vault is daunting.

Description: 

It would be a very basic application that let you set up the account information (login and passwords) that you want to share with your love ones. It may be customizable so you can share certain information with some but not others. The service would be pretty simple, it would ask you every X number of weeks/months if you are still alive. If you don't respond in Y number of weeks/months, the application would run itself sharing the information that you wanted with the people that you wanted. The information could be anything from legal documents (will) to just random files/info (login/passwords, photos, etc).

Attractiveness: 

This would be a subscription model. The user would pay for it monthly until you not longer need the app (i.e. you are dead). I thought about 'death' as the logical milestone event but this could be use in other ways too (I just haven't thought about them... yet). You can probably charge $1 per month for this service (I would definitively pay $12 a year for it). Not sure about how many people would buy it but I'm sure it could become a very nice lifestyle business.

The Kickstarter for Kids Education

[UPDATE: JAN 2013]

Since I posted my idea I saw this very interesting commercial from Dodge trying to sell cars through something like a wedding registry (How to Change Buying Cars Forever). I thought that it was pretty innovative. If a car can be sold using this method, ANYTHING CAN. I like UrGift.in even more.

[Originally Posted: Jun 2011]

NEED: 

Parents keep getting too many toys for their children. So many toys that the children end up not playing with them because they are overwhelmed with choices. Friends and Family keep giving parents toys for their children because that is the best gift option (i.e. the chance of choosing a gift being that a toy that the children wont like is almost null). A solution that some parents have opted for is to keep some toys unwrapped so they can be re-gifted later.

Another incredible need that parents suffer from is the raising price of education. Parents have started to invest more and more on education funds to be able to afford higher education for their children when they grow up.

DESCRIPTION: 

Create a website for parents that can work like a wedding registry. Instead of being for a wedding this website would be for the child´s future education. Each parent can personalize what he/she wants to include in the wishlist but it would be divided in low ticket items (i.e. books for freshmen year) so any Family member or Friend can give whatever amount of money they want to. The money will go towards an account managed by an asset manager that would promise some type of return. The website can be tied to a mobile app that can make it more social so, for example, when grandma wants to give her grandson something, the app will remind her that there is a better option for her grandson: His future education. I am sure I can build on this idea by adding some gamification to the equation plus some incentives from the asset manager, etc., but I am sure you get the idea. It can even work like Kickstarter where there are very low ticket options (e.g. $1) so you can tap into the gift card industry and steal some share from that market too)

ATTRACTIVENESS: 

The business model is pretty simple. We will charge a fee to the asset manager for bringing money to the table. The Gifting Industry is difficult to size as people purchase stuff without necessarily telling you what would be the use for it. Some sources value the gift industry in the US as a whole at over $300 billion. I am sure even if we take a very small piece of this pie and multiply it by a 1% fee to the asset manager you still make several million dollars.

Community Wi-Fi Network

Update

Since I posted this idea I discovered that there are several projects trying to do exactly this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_community_network

[Originally posted on Dec 2010]

Need: 

The other day I thought about this idea of having a community wi-fi network. I am sure it has happened to you as you are traveling or driving somewhere your iPhone (or other device) will ask you if you want to join a random wi-fi. These random wi-fi networks will change as you continue traveling because you start losing some connections and gaining others.
Now, imagine if all these random connection were tied to each other. So you iPhone would jump from one network to the other like cellphone towers. The only thing that you would need is to (1) be able to standardized all network security and connection settings (2) avoid the free-rider.

Description:

The way I thought we could do this is by creating a community wi-fi. You would need to register your own Wi-Fi network to be able to access this community network. This would avoid the free-rider problem. The key problem that I haven't been able to resolve is how to avoid security problems.

Potential:

It can probably be a subscription model but I'm not sure how much people will pay for the service. It would be more probably something that is free or freemium.

Update [10/2011]: I just heard that there is several of these type of networks around the US. Not sure if they work exactly like I described but they are call similarly "community network".

A Great App for Renting a Car

[UPDATE: Oct 10th, 2012]

Since I posted this idea in 2011 I have discovered a startup that is trying to do something similar: SILVERCAR (www.silvercar.com). I believe Silvercar was founded in early 2012 as its website in April 26th, 2012 looked like this: http://web.archive.org/web/20120426215703/http://silvercar.com/. Since then they have raised $11.5M from CrunchFund, Dave Morin and Others (http://techcrunch.com/tag/silvercar/). Silvercar is the airport car rental experience reimagined for you, the connected business traveler. They put the power back in your hands, enabling you to bypass lines, avoid complexity and frustration, and drive away in a world-class car at a great price (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/silvercar). @SilverCar is based in Austin, Texas. I hope they do great and revolutionize the (airport) car rental industry. Finally something new in that boring industry!... I cannot wait to see it at LAX and NYC.

[ORIGINALLY POSTED: April 1, 2011]

NEED: 

Would love to have an app in my iPhone or iPad that would help me choose the car at my rent-a-car. Imagine if you are on the plane (and it has wi-fi) and you can browse the cars available in your iPad before landing. The need is simple, lets make renting a car much simpler than it is right now. You normally need to stop by the counter to get your car assign. You normally need to get whatever the person at the counter wants to assign you. In the best cases when you have some type of status you walk to the car without stopping at the counter but you don't have any saying to which car is assigned to you.

DESCRIPTION: 

What we need is a iPhone/iPad/name-your-device App that would allow you to browse the cars available at your rental car company at that moment in a specific location. Needless to say that the customer wants to see pictures of the actual car in the parking spot so you would need to figure that out. Maybe you start with standard photos (inside and outside pics) and later move to a video camera for the outside view. This would help also with the need to check for availability. We will also need a system similar to the ZipCar system that allows you to use your CARD as the key to any vehicle. You would also need a system that confirms what car is in what parking spot to make sure it is available. This can get complicated in location with a lot of traffic. My take on this is simply have (a) a GPS locator in each car (similar to an iPhone) to guarantee the car hasn’t left the lot and (b) a check-in point that matches each car that enters the lot to a parking spot (this can be done when the person at the rent-a-car is receiving the car).

POTENTIAL: 

This could probably revolutionize the rental car industry. You can play it as unique proposition from one rental car company or you can develop the technology/system and sell it to all rental cars.

Working Remotely

Need: 

As online post-secondary degrees further penetrate the education market, there is a need for graduates of these degrees to find jobs outside their city of residence.  Most of them are not going to be able to afford (or want) to move to another city. There is a need for a solution that would allow these graduates and potential “national” employers to work something out.

Description: 

The big problem here is that the employer needs different types of control. A software package can solve these issues partially but there is a need for something else. Maybe there is an opportunity for very basic office locations that can be rented and monitored by the employer. A LA-based employer with an employee working in Phoenix could rent a cubicle in the Phoenix location and have access not only to the software his/her employee is using but to the monitoring system in that location.

Potential: 

There are currently 2MM people enrolled in online degrees in the United States. This number is expected to grow in the future at a rate of ~10% per year.

.

The New Facebook

Need:

People are being overwhelmed by emails and marketing from different sites and companies about brand-related communications. You have the groupon and gilt-a-likes sending you discount and promotions every day. At the beginning people liked the idea and open and read every email. After a while people started to feel overwhelmed and aggregating sites started to become popular. Nevertheless there is no real solution today for the need of the people to communicate with their favorite brands.

Description: 

The idea here is to create an application or portal that can provide some solution to this need. It could be a facebook app or several facebook apps too. I am more incline that it has to be something different. Something not related to facebook. 

Potential:

The size of this opportunity is relatively large. If successful it can become the sole communication channel for brands, avoiding any other type of new media communication. Everything would be centralized in one location where consumer know they can find what they are looking for. From information, to product and services.

Changing Directions

I have trouble tracking business ideas that I come up with. I forget to write them down or share them with someone. I believe that as you share your ideas with someone they either get better or just discarded. This is a very useful process for any entrepreneur.

For that reason I have decided that I’m going to track my ideas via my blog. From now on, I’m going to transform this blog into a collection of business ideas. Some of them will be really promising; some would be just a basic idea. Given that I’m a consultant I’m going to use a simple framework to organize these ideas.

The framework is as following:

Need: Description of the need that the business idea is trying to satisfy.

Description: How is the business idea satisfying the need?

Potential: A very rough approximation for market potential (customer base, size, or something else)

Let’s see how it goes.

.

U.S. Strains to Stop Arms Flow

American officials say they have been frustrated in their efforts to block Syria, Iran, North Korea and other countries from selling arms to militants.

 

I wonder if American officials are equally frustrated in their efforts to block the Southern U.S. states from selling arms to Mexican Drug cartels and militia.

 

Wouldn’t you think that is equally important?

 

Read More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world/07wikileaks-weapons.html?emc=na