Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
What are some crazy (or risky) business ideas that you had that actually ended up working/being successful..or even if they weren't successful , what is something you learned from them?
It's pretty interesting as he talks about a bunch of different business ideas he tried out. He seems to be quite the 'serial entrepreneur'.
Interestingly he makes a point that even though many of his ideas 'failed' (didn't make money) he still learned quite a bit from the experience and new skills that helped him in the future.
Also not just interested in specific ideas for entire businesses , but perhaps marketing ideas too or different business strategies.
It started as a company called Odeo and then they changed course. They actually bought out their original investors when they changed course and that was considered really generous at the time , but then the value of course went up like crazy if you look at what twitter is worth today.
I have a successful business, in the past however I've probably had 20+ failed businesses.
As far as interesting or risky, its all about finding something you think may be a potential opportunity and exploiting it. here's a perfect example below. This guy heard Zimbabwe was getting rid of their currency. He bought up basically all of it at $1 per note. A few years later he had a successful ebay business selling notes for $6 a note, so not a bad return. The article is a bit outdated, since then these notes are selling for as much as $90 a note but min $40 or so.
Paypal is another interesting story. Not really risky in terms of being an off the wall product but kind of new to the payment/merchant processing industry. Not manypeople know this but currency and transaction processing is a nightmare in terms of licensing and laws. Paypal up until after their IPO did not even have licenses to operate in all 50 states. Heck, even square payments currently has cease and desists against htem in several states for not having proper licensing setup before coordinating business
I have a successful business, in the past however I've probably had 20+ failed businesses.
As far as interesting or risky, its all about finding something you think may be a potential opportunity and exploiting it. here's a perfect example below. This guy heard Zimbabwe was getting rid of their currency. He bought up basically all of it at $1 per note. A few years later he had a successful ebay business selling notes for $6 a note, so not a bad return. The article is a bit outdated, since then these notes are selling for as much as $90 a note but min $40 or so.
Paypal is another interesting story. Not really risky in terms of being an off the wall product but kind of new to the payment/merchant processing industry. Not manypeople know this but currency and transaction processing is a nightmare in terms of licensing and laws. Paypal up until after their IPO did not even have licenses to operate in all 50 states. Heck, even square payments currently has cease and desists against htem in several states for not having proper licensing setup before coordinating business
Wow thats interesting...read that article. I remember during the Iraq war some years back people were talking about buying Iraqi money in hopes it would go up a lot in value..not sure what did happen with that.
I could see how it could be risky as you never really know what people will pay for it out of novelty.
Interesting you mention PayPal, few days ago I was actually watching an interview with Elon Musk , one of the cofounders of paypal and of course now founder of Tesla and SpaceX and other companies.
He was saying that when PayPal started out they would give users incentives to sign up..like $20 , then it went down to $10. The interviewer asked him how much they spent on these incentives and he said "Oh about $60million or so" ...the interviewer was pretty surprised it was such a high number, and I was too.
Then Musk said something like ,'Well its all relative in the scheme of things it's not much if you look at how much Google is worth or Apple"
He also talks about Tesla and SpaceX , I think he's one of the most inspiring business guys out there these days. He also seems like a pretty down to earth guy too.
Wow thats interesting...read that article. I remember during the Iraq war some years back people were talking about buying Iraqi money in hopes it would go up a lot in value..not sure what did happen with that.
I could see how it could be risky as you never really know what people will pay for it out of novelty.
Interesting you mention PayPal, few days ago I was actually watching an interview with Elon Musk , one of the cofounders of paypal and of course now founder of Tesla and SpaceX and other companies.
He was saying that when PayPal started out they would give users incentives to sign up..like $20 , then it went down to $10. The interviewer asked him how much they spent on these incentives and he said "Oh about $60million or so" ...the interviewer was pretty surprised it was such a high number, and I was too.
Then Musk said something like ,'Well its all relative in the scheme of things it's not much if you look at how much Google is worth or Apple"
He also talks about Tesla and SpaceX , I think he's one of the most inspiring business guys out there these days. He also seems like a pretty down to earth guy too.
Interesting you mention the Iraqi Dinar thing. There was a lawsuit a while back involvling a web design and marketing company and a Dinar company. Because court dockets are public you can see alot of info about the company. Basicaly the Dinar company was paying the web company 2% of profits to manage the website, do seo, etc. They were suing for basically 2 Mill a month saying that the company was making 20 mill selling Dinar. I totally forgot about that but a grreat example of a wierd and probably high risk business
If we start getting into products and not companies there's a million and one examples of crazy ideas. I think on tv sometimes they'll do specials on hte wierdest infomercials and stuff like I think there was a dad saddle and a lot of wierd and stupid products
Just read this pretty interesting article on Uber.
Looks like Uber wasn't always viewed as such a great idea. Even the CEO/Cofounder had to be convinced by his friend to actually push forward with the idea.
"Back in their shared apartment on the outskirts of Paris, in a session that Kalanick had called the JamPad, they got to talking with some other entrepreneurs about start-up ideas. Among the many schemes bandied about was the notion for an on-demand car-service app, inspired by their frustration in the snow. Those who were in the room, however, said the concept that would become Uber did not stand out over other ideas discussed that evening."
"After getting back to San Francisco, Kalanick(uber CEO) pretty much moved on from the idea. But Camp did not, obsessing over the concept of a car service, so much so that he bought the domain name UberCab.com."
It's interesting when you look back, it would of been easy for them to just forget about the idea and move onto something else.
Thought this was interesting too:
"Mark Cuban, an investor in Kalanick’s Red Swoosh, who had an opportunity to invest in UberCab early on and passed. He explains his decision, which he now regrets, "
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
