Thanks that's basically what I have in mind.

Why not? I already have websites that I've automated that way. They work fine and it isn't very hard to set up.

I'm not sure you understand what the word automated means. How is someone sending you an e-mail automating the process?

The automated part would be figuring out what to do with their ticket notes and then actually doing it. You're not going to get that for free magically, someone needs to code in that functionality because it doesn't just happen by itself when someone sends you an e-mail.

Good luck making automated calls to 911.

I have no desire to automate 911 calls, or any interaction once there is a possible problem.

I'll be automating the deadman switch portion. A customer can set up their switch via an automated form. They then get a link they have to click to cancel their switch by a certain time or it will trigger human interaction.

Now I understand, you don't really get what automated means. Automated means there's no user interaction at all, as in it would be automated to handle problems as well.

Having the ticket setup/manual destruction being automated is expected and painfully obvious but that also means you need someone capable of instantly responding to a ticket that has not been manually decommissioned.

That means you will need people on call all the time and they need to be at a location where their connection is reliable. Cell phone service is horrendous and expecting to trust it with the life of someone using your service must be some type of sick joke.

Even residential land lines are pretty bad, my ISP occasionally reboots my connection without notice or maybe someone has an accident and hits a pole, then I'm in the dark for 7 hours.

Top notch reliability only happens when you control as much as the infrastructure as possible and like I said adding .9s of reliability costs way more than you think. Let's ignore the cost of hiring someone who isn't a random elance tard working for like $7/hour building wordpress sites.

Im surprised there isn't more love for this idea. A poker training marketplace of sorts. Coaches could add videos for free to build up a reputation if they don't already have one, or release shorter videos for free and then longer videos that require payment. You could also add a rating system for people who have viewed/purchased videos so eventually the best coaches would come out on top.

Do you think there are enough coaches that don't coach already that would make videos, or enough coaches that make videos elsewhere that would jump ship, to make this a viable business? Do you think guys like Durrr who haven't made videos before would make them? Guys like Durrr could even make videos no higher than $2/$4NLHE and people would still buy them because its from Durrr.

Also does anyone know what coaches get paid now per video they make for a site for one 60 minutes live session video?

Negative feedback is usually the most valuable feedback. It forces one to address tougher questions that will be coming sooner or later anyway.

Those pre-launch site pages only work for people who somehow magically get coverage for their non-existing products, or have established web properties to drive traffic to that empty page. It works for Kevin Rose because when Kevin Rose puts up a cryptic pre-launch page TechCrunch will still cover it and people will still sign up to see what he may be up to. It's pretty much a waste of time for everyone else. I haven't seen it work. Behind every "successful" pre-launch page there was something else at play: famous dev team, strong media connections, $ spent on adwords, traffic from your existing web businesses, etc.

I think you should be able to get it developed on 3K. You just need to be very clear in your job description on oDesk/Freelancer. You should go with some Eastern European as they are a lot easier to work with in terms of expectations and common sense. I have seen a handful of people self-teach themselves some pretty techie stuff but chances are heavily against you.

You should reach out to the Betapunch guy as this is basically what he has been doing; outsource development, then try to run with it. Maybe he can send you to his developer.

dc,
I understand I'd have to drive traffic to the pre launch page. I have a couple of ways to do that plus I wouldn't mind throwing $500- 1k on traffic just as a test.

I'm just wondering if people would sign up pre launch if the site looked good and the concept was well explained and whether the sign ups are actually any indicator of demand?

If you start testing adwords and trying to drive traffic you will get some traffic and you will get some signups. But essentially you are doing all the work without having a product that generates revenue.

My concern right now is that launch pages have been around for a few years now. Whereas 4 years ago people may have been receptive to signing up for something that gets a story mention somewhere, I have a feeling that fewer and fewer people are willing to do this anymore.

So I guess the question is how does one validate your idea without doing the site. People always have ideas on this, but unless you're getting financial commitments from people it's usually hard to say if people will be all that interested in paying for something in the future. It's probably easier to discount really weak ideas than to validate good ideas. If it's really bad, people will just say that they're not that interested. But if it's decent, they may say some positive things but never sign up when you launch.

As someone who spends a ton of time in wilderness areas (~100 days/year), often times solo, I just don't see the value in de capitan's service. Before any sort of big trip I will have told multiple people what I am doing, probably in much more detail than I would write out in a form, in the course of normal conversation. If I decide to go explore somewhere remote on a whim, I shoot my girlfriend a text telling her. It takes two seconds and does not charge me if I forget to take the step of cancelling a ticket when I get back tired and hungry.

Also, many wilderness areas already have a permit system in place that does exactly this. When I go big wall rock climbing in Zion or backpacking in Yosemite I have to get a permit which involves giving directly to the park servicve all of the information that de capitan would be collecting.

As far as land rescues go (I know nothing about open water) the vast majority of operations are for people who are in little to no real danger. SAR teams spend most of their time picking up hikers with sprained ankles, lazy/incompetent climbers, or looking for people who don't need a rescue at all but are overdue for some reason. A parlay of being alive but unable to self rescue, with no one else around to assist, is actually pretty hard to hit.

The service would work for technophiles who like the tech and impersonal nature of setting up an alert system, but that is pretty much the least likely demographic to actually go out and do stuff like this. Not to be a downer but my friends and I would have no use for a service like this.

edit: Actually I could see a potential customer base of people who do not frequently do high risk activities. Someone who rarely goes hiking will have trouble judging the risk of a trip when they do take one and might want a service like this as a backup. The problem with experienced travelers is that they know pretty well in advance the risks they are taking and when to discuss plans with others. There might be a niche here with people breaking in to backpacking or climbing though, honestly, this seems like a long shot.

Joss,
thanks for the feedback

What could you do as well to get students to use the site? At the moment forums are everywhere and so are skype chats, is there a way you could provide something on top of that? Run it once has the ability to upload your own videos coming soon which I think is important.

I was also thinking you could give coaches the ability to sell commentary on other people videos. Say coach 1 uploads a video and sells it. You could give other coaches the ability to come in, watch that video, provide their own commentary and sell that. Coach 1 would also get a cut as its his video.

@ Captain.
Imo you can't make it free/too cheap. People will just make fake profiles and abuse your system (declare you friend death etc)

I like the idea, but I simply don't see a large market for it. To be honest, maybe you can best focus on just one target group (and then the Hookers are maybe your best pick).

I've pondered this idea for some time.

An investing website designed similarly to a real life investment club. People contribute a set amount of money every month, and together invest it based on votes.

The site would incorporate investment club accounting software, tie into a broker to execute trades, have a user generated learn centre, etc. The site would operate similar to fantasy football. You can setup private "clubs", or join larger public ones.

Obvious obstacles such as provincial or state and national laws regarding this would need to be explored. To start, maybe find a jurisdiction that had favorable laws, and restrict sign up. Once site grows, expand.

Would require significant startup capital. Monetization could come from several avenues.. Club fees, trading commissions (because you might partner with an online stock brokerage) advertising, etc.

Thoughts?

Is my nutfeeder a reality yet? I'd like to sue someone for prior art.

Regulation in the US would make this impossible. I think the same will be true for nearly all developed countries.

There are legal documents that investment clubs use.. You really think it would be impossible to implement that online?

You'll be taking custody of the funds, correct?

I'm not an expert in financial regulation, but I'm pretty sure that will make things difficult for you.

I was thinking you could partner with a broker, and they would handle that. I'm no expert either, but way back when I signed up for a trading account, I recall there being an option to register as an investment club. With all the proper paperwork completed, ppl acknowledging the risks etc, I would hope this can be done.

There's a company called biznessapps that licenses their app building cloud service to design agencies for something like 200$ a month + a per app sale fee of like 20$.

I'm seriously interested in getting busy with it, in combination with other small business technologies like mobile websites, websites, and NFC and QR code advertisements.

The business, imo to be valuable, needs to be to a certain degree a complete online marketing solution. Which means, aside from the design of the website pages, the apps, and the advertisements, i wouldn't go forward unless I was to also educate small business owners (primarily restaurant owners) on content strategy and the use of apps as a medium for communication. Which makes this business a marketing company, which i have no formal education to back me up.

It would go something like this...

For 40$ a month and a fee of 1000$, a restaurant gets a native mobile application for android and iphone devices that can take orders, push through notifications on demand, make reservations, offer coupons and generally make the experience of communication on a mobile phone a lot more pleasant. A new website, mobile website, and custom advertisements with nfc chips and QR codes. And lastly, and the most difficult, consultation on content strategy and mobile apps for restaurants.


Since I'm 24, there's the credence issue with business owners to deal with. How am I to adjust my sales pitch to different types of business owners? Should I mimic their character, and be assertive with the assertive etc?

Two words: A strip club that serves free apples

At that point you're just selling a software add-on to brokerages. Your software would have to access customer data and work with the brokerage's systems. I don't really see that happening if you remain independent.

I don't think that's a bad thing though. You'd probably have your best luck with some smaller discount brokerage who wants to start getting noticed. Tradeking already has a community section on their site with forums and might be interested in something like this that might come off as a bit "gimmicky" to the likes of eTrade or TD Ameritrade.

My invention is for baseball.

It is a home plate.

It calls perfect balls and strikes. It can be used in games or at home, maybe even MLB.

What about a paid forum for poker advice? One of the problems these days is its tough to know who's advice is good and who's isn't when you are new. It's also next to impossible to get replies to posts from high stakes regs. What if you could post and then send invites to known regs at higher stakes and pay them to reply. I'm not sure if only the person who paid for the advice could see it, or if other people could then pay to see the coaches response as well, but something like this could work with the site / forum taking a cut.

Guys, I've built a few iOS apps and I want to build more mobile apps as entrepreneurial side projects. I'm currently at an MS CS program at a school with a pretty good industrial design program, and I'm going to look for a designer to partner with. Assuming we split profits, what would be a fair split? I believe, although correct me if I'm wrong, that in general iOS devs earn more/have any easier time finding jobs than designers, however I'm not sure whether entrepreneurial splits tend to reflect that in these cases. Any thoughts from people with experience in these kinds of things would be appreciated.

Also, I have some experience doing marketing so that could play a role.