Free Business Ideas

Like, I'm sure most of us, I think of new business ideas very often - it seems like daily!
Some are fantastic and will fix important problems, whilst others are just, rubbish. :(

It's great I can come up with ideas but obviously, I can't create a business out of all of them (I have my hands full trying to manage Jumping Giraffe and its projects as it is).

Even though I don't have time to create them, I would be the first customer if someone else did.
So, I thought I would create a list of business ideas and inventions in case one of my readers - that's you! - needs an idea, so, help yourself!

Why am I so busy?

At the time of writing, I have 5 projects on the go, which, is a lot. Most of my time is working on just two of them and the rest are smaller side projects.
So to help me decide if a new project should get my attention I created a list of requirements it must first meet. If the idea doesn't tick all these requirements then it doesn't get built by me and gets added to this list.

If you are interested in my Business Idea Requirements they are just below, feel free to use to base for your own requirements checklist.

Business Idea Requirements

Here is my list of requirements that any new business idea/website idea/invention needs to meet, if it doesn't tick all these boxes then it's a no no for me.

1. Solve a problem, not create for creating sake.
2. I must want to use myself.
3. Customers, is there a market for this?
4. Is anyone else in control of this business?

Let me expand on each of these requirements.

1. The idea doesn't have to fix global warming or other huge challenges, but, it does need to fix or make something better.
   I have read about many failed businesses whose products didn't have a solution to fix, guess what? Nobody bought it.
   
   Tip: A good way I find these type of business ideas is to become lazy, even just for a short time it works wonders. It is an idea I picked up when I used to work in automation.
   If there is a task you regularly perform that takes too many steps, become lazy and try and combine those steps.
   
2. I think this is the most important requirement of them all. To me, if you don't use your product every day then how can you find improvements?
   
   Getting feedback from your customers is very useful - thanks by the way! - but as the creator, you will spot so many more bugs and opportunities for improvement.
   
   One idea I came up with - see VOZ below - would have been really useful but, as the target customer isn't me I just wouldn't use it. So, no go with me
   
3. Money! Let's be honest here the main reason we build businesses is to make money. Therefore, if there isn't a market for the idea it just isn't going to work.
   
   I watched an episode of Dragon's Den the other day - Dragons Den is a UK business idea pitch TV program - whereby this couple pitched a new social media platform purely for musicians. They assumed because they thought it was a good idea it would take off and they didn't need to perform market research. Wrong!
   The Dragons soon pointed this out to them in their blunt style. 😀
   
4. What I mean by this is, could another company make a decision that could affect your business or worse still, make it obsolete.
   Before I created these requirements - in fact, this is the reason I did create them - I built a social media management tool called GOYakka. this was back in 2013 So right at the forefront of these types of apps becoming popular.
   After building the app - which had/has some unique features - both Twitter and Facebook changed their processing procedure which affect several of my functions within the app. I had to remove these functions that I spent months creating, a real shame.
   From that point on I wasn't going to waste time creating an App which someone else could just pull the rug from underneath.
   Incidentally, GOYakka developed into a very useful Twitter app if you would like a test drive!

OK, let's get down to the business end - sigh - of this post, business ideas you can use and make your millions from, good luck!

Business Ideas

As mentioned above this is a list of business ideas or inventions which anyone can take and create free of charge - although I do like freebees hint hint :).

Here are some ideas I have thought of which, sadly do not fit my now strict criteria below:

Voice Presentations

Working title: VOZ

Idea: I watch a lot of presentations whereby someone is presenting slides behind - often - on a large screen. These slides are loaded up to sites like Slideshare for us to re-read or gather info from.
This App would record the presenter's voice and automatically split up their voice to coincide with each slide on playback.

What it fixes: When playing back the slideshow you understand more about that slide. For example, if the slide had a picture of a graph without axis titles you wouldn't know what the graph was about unless you had the voice telling you.

How far I got: I created a proof of concept. It created the end product but had to run several programs one after each other to do so. But, it worked!

Reason not to create: Number 2 on my list. I do not present so I wouldn't use the product. Although I would use as the end-user to watch the presentation, but this just wasn't enough.

Extra bits: I have all the code if anyone is interested?

The Alert Engine

Working title: ZOGG

Idea: After failing to find the product you want using a search engine, add your search to this App and it will continue searching until it finds it for you. Once found you are Alerted.
You submit the sitemap of your website and the App matches your product to the searcher.

How far I got: Planning file and database structure. Business plan.

Reason not to create: This should be provided by a search engine already. I know Google have their alert system but it's not that good. But, they could if they wanted to.
The only way I could think of making money was in advertising in a similar way search engines do, I just don't like that way of income.

Extra bits: You could charge a subscription fee for the website owner if they have lots of products or get lots of clicks from the App as another way to make money.
I still like this one, it's tempting….

Syncing Multiple Ecommerce Sites

Working title: Syncy

Idea: Sync stock level, product pricing and other data for the same products on different sites on different platforms.
Many eCommerce site owners have more than one site selling some of the same products, this App will sync the stock levels, price, etc.

How far I got: File and database structure. Market research. Competitor research.

Reason not to create: There are a few - not many though - people doing this already. Although I would add the extra level of syncing over different platforms it wasn't enough for me to commit.

Extra bits: The competitors do not look like they are adding more features, so, low competition = money opportunities.

Automatic Content Writing

Working title: n/a

Idea: Using the content already on your website automatically create new content from them.
For example, if you have an eCommerce website the App will highlight a number of products in the new content as well as sections of content from other blog posts you have already written - not including these automatic posts though.

How far I got: Market research, competitor research. Customer flow.

Reason not to create: With the birth of AI this might become old hat. You could use this to start with whilst your create an AI version and increase your customer base.

Extra bits: SEO considerations, duplicate content etc. Careful planning needed.

That's it for now!
As I said before I will be adding more as I think of them so bookmark the page or follow us on Twitter.