I was starting to think I was ******ed for how difficult of a time I have using AdWords, glad I'm not the only one.

This sounds kind of similar to an idea I've tossed around for months. Very small chance I ever get around to it but I have yet to see a Web 2.0 social website that is politically-focused. I do think something like this could be successful though.

I have spent an awful lot of time tweaking my campaigns over 7 years and have helped some friends along the way. And no matter how much I tweak it, there's always much more than can be done. One of these days I'll post a thread on adwords here.

Background: Live in Texas, 25 years old, near rich suburbia, have a 50hr/week job

Idea: I would like to offer a car cleaning/detailing service at the local country club (there are at least 8 clubs in a 15 mile radius) or any other venue that has an extended stay where people park their cars. While playing 18 holes, a professional can have his $90k car cleaned and ready to go when he is done. I know this idea has been done before, but I am not looking for a cash cow here. Just to make a step in the right direction towards becoming a full time entrepreneur and creating cash flows. Initially, $1k profit/month would meet my expectations.

Issues I forsee:

1. I am unsure how I would approach the clubs. Do I offer a kickback/% of revenue or is the fact that I am offering an extra service at their club enough?

2. Because of the full time job I would need to hire help. I want to be as hands off as possible. Ideally, I would like to hire a manager to do this and some workers. Labor is cheap here, and I have friends that are fluent in Spanish and could help in this search. Is immediately searching for a manager too unrealistic? I could do this myself starting on on Sat. & Sun. (busiest days) to develop a reputation.

Startup costs: Van, Tent, Clean Supplies, Payroll Let's say $7K?

Comments are much appreciated. Is this feasible?

Tent?

Wait a sec you're expecting someone who has a $90K + car to bring it to a sketchy wash with some potentially underpaid/non english speaking employees and not even be inside a building? Whats going to happen when one of the employees scratches a vehicle or damages something...

Not gonna happen.

Ouch, but thanks for the input. I guess I could be the face of the business as long as needed. I certainly wouldn't be paying less than min wage, and the workers would probably get tips too. All these clubs have huge lots where at max 50% of spaces are utilized.

I am envisioning a large white tent, maybe 3 spots to park under it, and a decent looking van that has decals and looks professional. Unsure of its relevance, but I know a lot of members of these clubs, and my father is very well known in the golf circles here so I can see word spreading that his kid has a decent wash at the clubs.

And for the last question, I would hope a LLC would mitigate those issues.

How would the workers get tips? Wouldn't the drivers be playing the golf course? You'd have to have someone drive the car back over... you'd leave a 90K+ Car in the hands of a min wage employee who just sweated their balls off for a tip? Or would the manager drive the car back?

What happens if it does get busy.. someones not able to drive the car back as usual and gets a non regular person to do it.. said person crashes car.... boom. There goes all your profits.. for like.. ever.

Just doesnt seem feasible to me... I mean maybe if it was a place where the pros or wealthy people could get brought to in like a golf cart or something that was close by.

Just seems like too many things could go wrong for a measly 1k/month profit. Would suck to have your name tarnished for an accident or damages caused by one of your employees. Water on leather interrior, wrong type of soap//brush used, mess up paint job. Etc etc...


EDIT: **I misread the part about using the clubs parking lots** so it being potentially close to the course would be ok for tips etc I guess... You'd probably have to pay the club something though... plus the employees salaries//materials, and for a car wash I really dont see it making that much money. What are you going to charge them.. like 20$? Rich people are pretty stingy about their money. I don't think they'd pay much more for a wash.

IMO thats why the car washes are mostly mechanical now adays (at least around where I live)

Now since you mentionned there's alot of golf clubs around... Have you looked into Custom golf carts?

Could be big.. You could rent out fancy looking carts to people or sell them to the clubhouses. Rich people always want some extra flash.

I saw this one golf cart at a course i go to and it was like a convertable thing.. it looked ***** sweet.

Last thing people want to see when they park at their golf course is a bunch of Home Depot Mexicans milling around washing cars. That's the last thing golf courses want also. Have you ever played golf or hung out at any club houses?

Obviously the wash station wouldn't be set up in the circle driveway at the front door, probably somewhere around back. The members and guests would already be comfortable with the service since they already trust the club who ostensibly has endorsed the detailing service. Not to mention

And not sure where you live, but at least in Dallas the majority of laborers are HDM types. If you take your Bentley to a car wash or detailing shop (the latter of which which operate mostly under parking lot tents so the car polish doesn't bake into the paint), you leave the keys in the ignition and a HDM hops in and gets to work while resisting the urge to head to Tijuana in your car.

Old money people here are pretty comfortable with non-english speaking laborers. Maybe not the case in MANE, though?

Plenty of rich people here have their cars detailed (aka "super-duper-car-wash" service that takes a couple hours to perform) semiregularly for maybe $200 a pop. Probably even more commonplace in car-loving regions like Southern California. And I'm sure the numerous detailing and car wash companies have insurance for accidents. Probably little different than mitigating liability for a car valet service where people toss their car keys to HDMs in front of Les Pantalones Fancie restaurant without a second thought.

does a club really have any incentive at all to let you do this though? i think as far as profit you can offer the club, it is going to be pretty minimal. to me, having this service at a club is a negative, and if even one member quits or a new member goes elsewhere because of you, you're insta -EV. I guess you can argue you'd be a positive presence, but i don't think i see it. nobody is going to join the club because you're there, but someone could possibly leave because of you.

This car wash tent won't be set up next to the 18th green with shirtless tattooed ex-cons lifting weights and drinking tall boys while whistling at the doctors' daughters FFS. It's just an additional service offered by the club. And even at nice golf/country clubs the maintenance areas usually aren't very pretty where they take care of the golf carts and all the landscaping equipment.

A lot of clubs here will occasionally have a portrait photographer set up shot inside the club to shoot members, and it's generally a plastic folding table with a white cloth on top and a laptop and a backdrop. So there's precedent for clubs allowing outside businesses to offer services in-house to members.

I'm sure a lot of members would occasionally get a car wash or detailing, just like they already bring in their street shoes to be shined. And for every super posh Augusta or Riviera out there, there are 1,000 normal clubs with random doctors/lawyers/bankers driving their Mercedes SL there a couple times a week to play a round of golf or maybe some cards and a few drinks and a cigar. Not everyone who plays at a private club is like Lois' father in Family Guy.

I'm not saying it has to be super sketchy. Just that it opens the club up to a small risk of angering the stuffy members, a larger risk of something going wrong with the detailing and them angering a member through no fault of their own, and a small possibility of being sued over car damage, all for next to no profit or customer attraction. I'm just not seeing why clubs would want to offer this.

The problem is the golf clubs have no incentive to accommodate you. If they think it's a good idea, they'll just implement themselves.

I have an idea for a new feature for online dating sites.

In the first moment you will think something like this exist already but read to the end.


This is how it works:

Person A can anonymously declare interest in Person B. But only if Person B also anonymously declares interest in Person A, both Person A and Person B will be informed about each others interest.


So every user would have a button on their profile. something like "i would like to date you" and if you are interested in this user you can click the button on their profile. Yes, this kind of option does exist already as far as i know. But not anonymously and in a way that only if both parties are interested in each other they will know about each others interest.

There can be 100 people clicking the button on your profile. you will not know about them as long as you dont click the button on their profile.


This way there will basicaly be no rejection at all. Because if you click "i would like to date you" on a hot chicks profile and she is not interested in you, then she will never know that you clicked "i would like to date you" on her profile.

And the best thing is, even hot chicks have to become avtive on their own. you can have 10.000 people click "i would like to date you" on your profile, but as long as you dont click "i would like to date you" on peoples profiles you will never know about them. Both sides need to become active.

It makes everything less complicated. no rejection, no slimy hook up lines, just simple: you want to date me, i want to date you, so lets go on a date.


I guess you can see the important part is that you have to do it seperate for each city or area. Because when you are from LA and click the date you button on a profile from someone in new york this person will probably never even see your profile.

So you type in your age, where you live, click go and will see only profiles from singles from your city.

And of cause the smartest thing to do is to click the "i would like to date you" button on the profile of every chick you find hot, even the ones where you dont think you have good chances. Because the thing is you have nothing to lose. Only the ones interested in you will know that you clicked the date you button on their profile.

And i also came up with a way to get out of the cities. There would be an option "partner city".

So lets say mark from new york logs into his account and there comes a pop up "hey mark, this week new yorks partner city is new jersey. here is a list with single women from new jersey."

And when Lisa from new jersey logs in there will be a pop up "hey lisa, this week new jerseys partner city is new york. here is a list with singles from new york."

So this way you could always connect different cities with each other.


I think this strategy could increase the succses rate in online dating extremly. Both quality and quantity of dates will improve.

I think the most important here would be that your reputation on the site is very improtant so people can rate each other etc. Because you dont want people to abuse the system by just clicking "i would like to date you" on everyones profile to see who clicked "i would like to date you" on their own profile.

So there would have to be a straight policy against this.

limit the number of "i would like to date you" submissions to a certain number. This seems like it has some potential.

Yet country clubs already let independent photographers come in to take portraits of members to sell to them.

The point of dating sites is to give you hope as they get $30 monthly from you.

Probably top 10% want to actually date each other and the other 90% is just watching and shooting off a barrage of bullets to see what sticks. That's why all these dating sites churn accounts like crazy. People get disillusioned, move to the next site, and cycle continues.

The real key to success for a dating site is to provide the best illusion of having tons of available dates and stringing people along - not actually doing proper matching. Internet is even worse than real life, probably - no one wants to date down and everyone wants to date up.

My idea for a dating site would be to somehow pay the top 10% decent/normal looking people to engage the other 90%... incentivise them somehow for replying to PMs, whatever. Gamify the experience and somehow make the sites more sticky...

thanks for you respeonses. would love to hear more opinions on my idea.

There are a lot of stock market competitions in colleges and online and they seem to be quite popular. Although they are real time simulations, they do not emulate the real world that well since they usually pay all the money to the winner, giving a big incentive for risk taking. Why not make a website with SNG type competitions where people can enter day trading competitions lasting from a few hours to a few months. The payout structure could be similar to the ones on Stars MTTs and maybe make the fictive trades commission free to make it more of a 'skill' game.

I not sure I fully understand this idea. Can you explain the financial model here a little more?

Is this all play money trading with a real money buy-in?

I like it a lot. One of the best ideas in this thread.

I'd like to open a chain of clinics that promote elective ostomys to the wealthy so they won't have to go to use bathroom "like everybody else." We could try to get the Queen of England as our spokesperson.

How are they blocking the data connections. If I have 4g and they block it don't they get in a heap of trouble with the FCC? USA based obv.