88 - Brainstorming IV 🌙
Hey there, !
It’s time for some new brainstorming! Previous posts:
- here (initial idea post),
- here (businesses I want to see that don’t exist yet),
- here (absurd products bought in pairs) and
- here (businesses that take advantage of things you don’t use at home).
Also, it’s my 88th post - what a lucky number! In Chinese, 88 kinda sounds like ‘make a lot of money’ so…it’s an excellent number overall.
On that note, today’s theme is extremely stupid businesses that will help you get…kinda rich? (maybe) (no guarantees) (don’t sue me if these don’t make you rich):
-
Sell lord and lady-ships of other planets (like Mars), like they do with Scotland. Who’s gonna check? Nearly as good as selling virtual properties in online games, or selling pixels online :D If NASA hasn’t thought of doing this yet the capitalist in me might decide to do so.
-
Personal carbon emissions trading scheme: I’ll give up eating meat, and sell you my meat carbon emissions for $X so you feel less bad about eating meat. To actually make hella money on this you’d have to own the platform that checks on this (don’t really know how) and takes a fee per transaction.
-
Personalised art subscription service - tap into a person’s Instagram account and send them stylised versions of good posts, framed, so they can gift them / hang them as art. Probably a monthly subscription for #influencers and #artists? Honestly could couple this with an NFT (gag) so they can own it in real life as well as digitally.
-
Gambling on Literally Everything - provide the ability to bet on anything with an AI bookie. Can I kick this can into that bin over there? What’s the bet that I can eat an entire pizza in 10 minutes? This requires, pretty much, a generalised AI to be able to accurately calculate odds of any request that is submitted…but that’ll come soon, right? D E E P M I N D
-
Is it worth it? - link up risk-averse rich people with uni students / young people, who will be asked to try certain things and give their review. Should I watch Nomadland? Is bungee jumping a good idea? How is the pad kee mao at the cool Thai place that just popped up on my insta? Probably would be done in batches as it’s essentially asking / paying for reviews, but might still work if rich people want a way to de-risk their decision-making. (Rich people shout out - ya boi is ready to try things).
-
People NFTs / stocks - based on last week’s link: invest in someone’s future and take a cut of their future earnings. It’s slavery, but new, exciting, and capitalist! I think this kind of already existed back in ‘13 (looks like there are a few still around like Lumni) but we’ve got better tech now :D Twitch streamers do shit like this all the time, we just wanna formalise it.
-
Soylent, but for every food ever - so, really, you just blend foods and sell it in a smoothie or powder form. Really niche market here (crazy tech first adopters) but if they got enough money to make Soylent, then they got money to buy my lasagne powder food replacement drink paired / mixed with red wine. Or maybe they’re feeling like our Asian line of replacement food - har gao and cheung fun powder that is mixed with jasmine tea to create your drink/food hybrid. (I hate this idea the most)
-
Procedurally generated fashion design - randomised, crazy designs for tops / pants / shoes / bags / hats / whatever - these could potentially be made into filters / augmented reality on to people, who can see what it might look like on their body, and then put in a request to have it created. Influencers get free clout for “wearing” cool shit, rich people get actual clout for owning the pieces. I’m sure you’d get funky, weird outfits, but with some curation I reckon this could work really well.
8 ideas on the 88th post - can it get any more lucky? ;)
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
-
Asado - an Argentinian BBQ restaurant on Southbank - a lovely vibe that I walked past many many times without know what it was about. Having work pay for a dinner is much nicer 👀 and you get to find out that the set menu is absolutely BANGIN’- not many crap dishes, just a lot of really great ones. A zinger of a spiced chorizo, coupled with a lovely provolone cheese dish together that created an absolutely delectable experience - the pork and steak were as expected at a high-end BBQ joint (perfection) and even the dulce de leche flan at the end was divine. Only questionable thing was trying a Negroni for the first time which was…not my drink. But at least I tried it? Anyway - highly recommend Asado for some lovely vibes and beaut food.
-
School of Rock - honestly such a vibe - I watched it again recently and thought I would recommend it if you haven’t watched it. The story of a washed out band dude who steals his friend’s job as a substitute schoolteacher, saving the private school lives of the kids with the power of ROCK AND ROLL. Many great moments (including the chinese kid saying “I’m not cool enough for the band” which was too relatable as a kid), and I found out it was directed by Richard Linklater who also did my favourite set of movies (the Before trilogy). Heartwarming af - go for it (it’s on Netflix I think!).
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
-
Yayagram - I freakin’ LOVE this shit. Someone made a device for their grandma to send voice messages to her kids and grandkids, and it’s the coolest device I’ve seen recently. It helps her record voice messages, and then prints out the replies for her (even pictures!). My heart ❤️!!
-
Students took more risk when goaded by a robot - humans are still so freakin’ manipulatable. Simple messages like “Why not try one more time?” and “I think you’ve got time” for an exercise from a robot related to pumping a balloon until it pops made them 20% more likely to keep pumping, and 40% more likely to pop the balloon. DO BETTER HUMANITY.
-
Tamagotchi Cemetery - digital pets need final resting place as well, y’know. In the 90’s a few cemeteries opened up digital burials, and there are many Geocities and Angelfire sites still open that memorialise these deaths. The ability for humans to connect with things is weird sometimes.