Have you ever had a 'million dollar idea' which paid off for someone else?
I retired in 2000 from work and had plenty of time on my hands. We were living in Hong Kong and traveling to different countries was easy to do. I visited many places by myself. I liked to take photos and record my travels. As a single traveler, I could have brought along a tripod but that was very cumbersome. I could have asked other people to help me out and take a picture of me but that was an imposition. I really wanted to find a way to take pictures of myself in various situation without trouble or imposing on others.This posed a problem to be solved and I took up the challenge as an engineer would. Wouldn’t it be great if I could extend the camera a few feet from my face, pointing at me, and take a picture? The cameras already had time release to click the shutter 10 seconds after I press the button. I could put the camera on a stick but a long stick would be unwieldy when I travel. Then I thought about the collapsible umbrellas and thought a collapsible pole could be conveniently carried around. Camera tripods already had a standard mounting bracket that could attach the camera to the pole.Putting these items together, I created the traveler’s friend to take pictures of myself. I named it “PhotoSolo”. I made several prototypes to try out various collapsible poles, brackets and layouts.I settled on one design and started using it on my many travels starting in 2004. I took many interesting photos of myself in isolated places or in impossible perspectives.People who saw me whipping out PhotoSolo and took my own pictures were all curious and fascinated, as were these folks in a long distance bus in China.I did not think about getting a patent for this invention. It was just one of my many inventions and this PhotoSolo was just a simple utilitarian item that helped me meet a need of a lone traveler. Many people saw this as I traveled extensively. This was a picture of us taken in India by another traveler in 2009. The long collapsible pole used in this Photo Solo was the leg of an old tripod.Apparently, somebody saw my invention and made a business out of it. The selfie stick started to become commercially available in about 2010. The selfie stick has become popular and ubiquitous as every traveler carries one nowadays as these tourists do. I could have made lots of money.
Is there anyone having a million dollar idea?
I give out one for as this not may area.Universal tagging host:Imaging some sort of very universal website, lets call it “Y-label” something dot com.If anyone manufacturing literally anything, particularly something worth being traceable he can apply and get set of codes which van be shown as strip codes, programmed as RFID tag or simply shown as number-letter combination (something like plane booking number).If you manufacture and sell some items you can assign two parts of code to represent exactly the model/version (good if someone needs to be one more article).For example, I may really like some shoes and when they are warn out I may want to get just exactly the same. If I try to do it now, I will need to identify manufacturer, somehow exactly identify model/size. Ideally, I would really happy if I can type this number into some website and click buy.There are might be some variant of this idea.Human readable GPS location reference:Have you been in situation explaining to your friend how to get to some place? - Yes, one can use GPS numbers but something like 51.898060, -8.471758 is hard to get over phone. One can make some software to convert into some set of common easy-to-hear words.
What is your 'million-dollar' idea or invention?
I have had many. I am sure many readers have "million dollar" ideas regularly. Ideas are cheap. They don't cost much to create, they don't self validate their worth, and anyone can have them. Some friends of mine started a company that collected ideas submitted from anyone online, and they had a game called "idea wars" where people could vote for ideas (two at a time). The hope was the game would bubble up the "good ideas" and then the people who had the winning idea would build a company around the idea with the support of the idea wars company. After 2 years and $4.3 million the "idea wars" company was sold for about $200k, and none of the "ideas" became successful companies through this effort.Ideas are cheap, execution is hard. Also the most successful entrepreneurs will tell you luck and timing are responsible for at least 50% of their success. Bill Gates was in the right place at the right time when he sold DOS to IBM and kept the rights... except he didn't have DOS, he went out a bought it from another programmer.Smart venture capitalists would much rather invest in a top quality team with a second rate idea then a second rate team with a top quality idea, because it is easier to change the idea then the team.Technologists often over value their idea and under value the effort to build a successful business. If you want to be successful in business, the first thing to do is find a customer, and figure out with them what they want to buy from you, and start there.
What is the closest thing to a million dollar idea you have had?
Several! And most have become multi-million dollar ventures. Back in 1969 I suggested to a CEO of a major (at the time) company that shopping, banking and other normal (today) functions could be done over his cable TV system. Guess what! High speed data and the use of the internet is reality even though at the time the internet wasn’t fully developed.Another idea I had was to take analog video TV signals, digitize them and and transmit them over the coaxial systems that the CATV industry already owned. I didn’t have the engineering knowledge of how to do it but the idea caught on!Those ideas were embraced and developed and I retired some 10 years ago with the “coin” you are talking about!
How do I generate a million dollar business idea?
REMEMBER…!!! it is not what you do, it is HOW you do to generate a million dollar business.There are people making a lot of money using YouTube, and…There are people also making NO MONEY using YouTube.For a Billion dollar business, I believe that people will never, ever buy on what you like to sell or what you are good at…People will always buy what they want.So, first… learn the things that people really want to buy.And, it should not be a short term product… It should be a long term business.The game is not to GET RICH, rather the game is to STAY RICH.Never ever say that this business can create a million dollar.It is 100% true that only YOU can generate that million dollar.If there is such business, everyone would have started that business and everyone would have been a millionaire.“It is not what you do, it’s how you do”Add more and more value to your things that you do.Best of luck,Content Creationz (you have a problem that you don’t want, and we have the solution).
I have a multi-million dollar idea. It's an app/website that will change the world. How do I start?
You find someone who has done it before, successfully, who is looking for a new startup idea. You should, if you can, get a provisional patent first. You have to be really focused on what's your idea.You have to know what to ask for, do you want a job, if so, doing what, if not a job do you want a royalty or a piece of the company. Can you invest?Who will use it?Who is doing something similar?How will you get customers?Where is the wow?What do you bring to the table besides your idea?Your best opportunity is to find someone who is C level or near that level in a company for a few years, where there has been a liquidity event and they are open to new ideas, have money which follows them, and hop on their train.
Would you rather have a million dollars or a million-dollar idea?
A million dollars. Because then I have cash to execute on billion dollar ideas. I have million dollar ideas all the time, but they are not in my focus point and I dont have the resources or skill set to pull it off. execution is the key.Even based on the time value of money, this question is asking “would you rather have 1 million dollars right now, or a million dollars at some point in the future after executing correctly, sinking time energy and other resources into getting that million dollars.”
Why do people believe that the right idea is all you need, to launch a million dollar startup?
Because people see the end result of the startup process and draw the wrong conclusion. People see a fabulously succesful company or product and think the idea propelled the success.How often have you thought yourself or heard someone say “I had that same idea!” The inference to the comment was that they (you) could have been as succesful as whoever had the idea.What people miss or don’t understand is that the idea isn’t the most important aspect of success. Execution is the most important driver of success. Turning an idea into a succesful business is hard. And risky.Also, in many instances the idea that drives the success of a company is not the idea they started with. Most people fail in the execution phase.We all have ideas born out of our daily existence. We encounter pain points and we have ideas on how to solve them.Here is a simple one that may have occurred to you one night years ago when hanging out with friends having a good time. Your hungry but too lazy or impaired to go out for food. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get food, other than pizza, delivered using an app from our phone!” Then you ordered a pizza and forgot about it.But…Great idea! A lot of people had this idea. But what does it take to make that idea into a succesful company? Let’s assume you have a great initial plan. You probably need to leave your job to devote full time to the effort. Maybe take a job driving Uber for some income but between that and your startup your working all the time. You need to convince people to join you in a high risk and initially low pay venture. You need to raise capital for your startup costs from friends/family and/or run up your credit card debt or get a second mortgage. You need to convince restaurants to go on your platform. Need to get drivers. Navigate insurance. You have to develop the app. Market the app/service, Raise more capital because your company is starting to sign up users but not at a scale to be profitable. Continue to scale. Continue to raise capital…..Anyone can have a great idea. Execution is the hard part!
What do/did you do when you have a million dollar business idea?
Million dollar business idea is a myth.I often came across people who are so concern about possible theft of their business idea or concept. But in today's world we need to understand that no idea is truly unique or million dollar as an idea. Any business idea gets converted in million dollar because of its promoters, selected core team and the way they are working. If idea itself is a strong enough then for example, we knows that restaurant business is a high return business with good opportunities because of increased disposable income of upper middle class Indians. Despite this strength in idea itself, we have witnessed many restaurants opened and closed. Why? Here is the difference. The doer are making all the difference.