Joe Ganley

Entrepreneurs (and wannabes) often talk about the value of ideas. I'm firmly in the camp that good business ideas are a dime a dozen, and that execution is the hard part. Here are a few ideas for businesses (or just little projects) that I don't expect to ever get around to executing.

A web site for managing emergency contact information. Every time my kids go on a field trip, I have to fill out a form with all of our emergency contact information, the kids' allergies and medications, etc. I'd like to see a web site where I can enter this information once. Then, I can point the field trip leaders to that site. They would request access, and I would get an email letting me allow that access (or not). There are obviously some minor security concerns here, but it's not as if my phone numbers and my kids' allergies require Fort-Knox-level security.
Similarly, a web site for managing immunization records. Doctors would be able to add to the records when the kids get their shots, and schools would be able to access the records; again, with a similar access mechanism that would allow me to grant one-at-a-time access. Same security concerns, but again, this isn't terribly sensitive data.
Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress) used to have a business card that just said "(1) Go to Google, (2) Enter 'Matt', (3) Hit 'I'm Feeling Lucky'." It would be cool for those of us who aren't the first return (or even in the first thousand) to have a widget that, when you enter a term, tells you where a given term would rank in Google's search results. I'm not sure if this could be done by scraping, or if you'd need direct access to Google's indices (i.e. you would have to be Google).
I just love the vibe of little paper-goods stores like Dandelion Patch, but such places always seem very (forgive me) girl-oriented. I'd love to run a store that is sort of a brick-and-mortar version of LifeHacker. It would stock high-end and niche office supplies, planners and other organizational tools, and the like. I'd want sort of a coffeehouse vibe - one of my local Barnes and Nobles has an attached Starbucks, right next to the section with all of the planners, pens, and the like. Like that, except smaller and with a much larger inventory of supplies and only a very small section of books relevant to organization, life management, Getting Things Done, and so forth. I'd love for it to provide an inventory of what are currently mostly "print it yourself" or "have Kinko's make this for you" supplies, such as those from David Seah. They might also offer custom printing services, and classes on GTD and similar organizational skills. Sort of a hybrid of coffeehouse, Barnes and Noble, Dandelion Patch, Office Depot/Staples, Levenger, the Franklin-Covey store, and The Container Store. My best idea for the store's name: Index.
I'd love to have a news reader that learns from what articles you find interesting, and over time shows you more like them. It seems hard to believe that this doesn't already exist. It would also have functionality to allow you to explicitly tag specific subjects for which you'd like to see subsequent articles.
I'd love to see a web-2.0 project management solution. Sort of MS Project, except web-based and dead simple in a 37Signals sort of way.
I'd love to have a single-serving site for "what should I do this weekend?" It would obviously be localized, probably fed by users, and would just dump a few ideas for fun things to do in your area - both specific things that are happening this weekend and interesting destinations in your area that aren't tied to a specific date.

These, like many business ideas, are all things that I wish existed. If anyone is motivated to make them real, please do.

Labels: business, ideas

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Joe Ganley	I make software and sometimes other things.

Due to Blogger's termination of support for FTP, this blog is no longer active. It is possible that some links from here, particularly those within the site, are now broken. If you encounter one of those, your best bet is to go to the new front page and hunt for it from there. Most, but not all, of the blog's posts are on this page; the archives are here.
Ideas
Entrepreneurs (and wannabes) often talk about the value of ideas. I'm firmly in the camp that good business ideas are a dime a dozen, and that execution is the hard part. Here are a few ideas for businesses (or just little projects) that I don't expect to ever get around to executing. A web site for managing emergency contact information. Every time my kids go on a field trip, I have to fill out a form with all of our emergency contact information, the kids' allergies and medications, etc. I'd like to see a web site where I can enter this information once. Then, I can point the field trip leaders to that site. They would request access, and I would get an email letting me allow that access (or not). There are obviously some minor security concerns here, but it's not as if my phone numbers and my kids' allergies require Fort-Knox-level security. Similarly, a web site for managing immunization records. Doctors would be able to add to the records when the kids get their shots, and schools would be able to access the records; again, with a similar access mechanism that would allow me to grant one-at-a-time access. Same security concerns, but again, this isn't terribly sensitive data. Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress) used to have a business card that just said "(1) Go to Google, (2) Enter 'Matt', (3) Hit 'I'm Feeling Lucky'." It would be cool for those of us who aren't the first return (or even in the first thousand) to have a widget that, when you enter a term, tells you where a given term would rank in Google's search results. I'm not sure if this could be done by scraping, or if you'd need direct access to Google's indices (i.e. you would have to be Google). I just love the vibe of little paper-goods stores like Dandelion Patch, but such places always seem very (forgive me) girl-oriented. I'd love to run a store that is sort of a brick-and-mortar version of LifeHacker. It would stock high-end and niche office supplies, planners and other organizational tools, and the like. I'd want sort of a coffeehouse vibe - one of my local Barnes and Nobles has an attached Starbucks, right next to the section with all of the planners, pens, and the like. Like that, except smaller and with a much larger inventory of supplies and only a very small section of books relevant to organization, life management, Getting Things Done, and so forth. I'd love for it to provide an inventory of what are currently mostly "print it yourself" or "have Kinko's make this for you" supplies, such as those from David Seah. They might also offer custom printing services, and classes on GTD and similar organizational skills. Sort of a hybrid of coffeehouse, Barnes and Noble, Dandelion Patch, Office Depot/Staples, Levenger, the Franklin-Covey store, and The Container Store. My best idea for the store's name: Index. I'd love to have a news reader that learns from what articles you find interesting, and over time shows you more like them. It seems hard to believe that this doesn't already exist. It would also have functionality to allow you to explicitly tag specific subjects for which you'd like to see subsequent articles. I'd love to see a web-2.0 project management solution. Sort of MS Project, except web-based and dead simple in a 37Signals sort of way. I'd love to have a single-serving site for "what should I do this weekend?" It would obviously be localized, probably fed by users, and would just dump a few ideas for fun things to do in your area - both specific things that are happening this weekend and interesting destinations in your area that aren't tied to a specific date. These, like many business ideas, are all things that I wish existed. If anyone is motivated to make them real, please do. Labels: business, ideas Comments (0)
Cleaning house
A while ago an idea for a TV ad popped into my head. It was so vivid that I feel like it must be a real ad that I just don't remember having seen, but I can find no evidence that is true. The ad opens with a wife leaving the house and telling her husband to remember that he is supposed to clean the house while she is gone. Then a montage of him goofing off. Finally he gets up, goes to the garage and gets a leaf blower, and proceeds to clean the house with it, just blowing everything loose into a pile, out the door, and into the trash. Maybe the wife comes home and thanks him for doing such a great job. It sounds like an ad for Home Depot. Labels: advertising, ideas, tv Comments (0)
We want information
Paul Graham lists startup ideas that he would like to fund, but the one I'd most like to see isn't on the list: personal information management. I'd like a service that puts all of my info in one place - contacts, bookmarks, notes, photos, etc. There would be a wide variety of ways to get information into the system: By email, as bookmarks, by phone, as paper, etc. It would be indexed by content, and also optionally by tagging it manually. There would be a (login-protected) search engine that I could use to find my information, and it would also be mirrored onto my local machine so that I could access it when offline. It would also serve me, via an email or RSS digest, changes to my information that it finds elsewhere, and content it finds on the web that might be interesting based on similarity to my own info. One could cobble together something that does most of this from various bits and pieces already available, but if someone consolidated all of that functionality into a simple, unified user experience, I'd pay for it. Related story Labels: ideas, pim Comments (0)