5 Business You Can Start in 2012

[zekecamusio]

I always come up with business ideas, but it would be impossible for me to start a new business every time I have an idea. These are some of the ideas I’ve had in the last few months. Feel free to take any one you like. And, if you start a business, please let me know; I’ll be your first customer.

International Souvenir Shipping
I travel a lot around the world and see a lot of products I’d love to buy but can’t carry with me. This is my business idea:

You sign up with the souvenir shipping company. You give them your address and they give you an ID.
Every time you see something you like at a shop, you pay for the item and give them your ID.
The shop calls the shipping company so they pick up your order.
At the end of your trip, the shipping company consolidates all your orders at a central location and ships you everything you bought to your home or office.

Wireless Charger
There’s Wi-Fi for Internet, so when is someone going to come up with wireless electricity? I’d love to have a gadget that charges my phone while it’s in my pocket and makes sure my computer never runs out of battery power.

Dog- and House-Sitting Community
A lot of people leave their homes to go on vacations and business trips. Some of them have dogs and cats that need to be taken care of. I would love to see a community of people who need sitters for their homes and pets and people who can provide those services in exchange for free accommodation. All my friends with dogs admitted that they’d use this service if it existed.

A Video game that Teaches Money and Business Skills
I find it shocking that kids graduate from high school with zero knowledge on how to make money, save money and stay away from debt. The challenge, of course, is to make this fun. Kids love video games, so this would be an amazing opportunity for them to learn business and finances while having fun.

Social Media Research
It would be really useful if you could type someone’s name and could see all their social media activity and accounts in one central location. Every time I want to reach out to someone, I go on their Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to learn what kind of things they share, their vacation photos, whom they follow on Twitter, etc. Imagine if when someone switches jobs I get an email saying “John D. just got a new job. Click here to congratulate him.”

[atownag]

I especially like your first idea. I'm thinking you can have an accompanying iPhone/Android app to scan a special QR code on the item to identify it. It syncs with the shop to give a list of items to ship and where. You get a small percentage of the sale.

I may be interested in tackling the tech side of this system...

Maybe the service could be called Packmule? VacationCaddy?

[DigitalPalette]

I especially like your first idea.

Except this would only work with very unique location specific items. Your both thinking to much into what you CAN do with technology and now what people may WANT to do. There is a difference. I would hope you consider the fact that buying an item on vacation just to have it shipped is almost no different to if they had just bought the item from an online souvenier shop. Plus you will have much more pickup/drop off and seperate shipping charges then if they had just done that in the first place.

[Yup]

A few nice ideas! Thank you for the post

[atownag]

The reason I like the idea is that it works in a closed system, Disney World (2011 Memories Vacation Package | Vacation Packages | Walt Disney World Resort). They pay a lot less for shipping since the item goes to your room instead of your home, so the cost of shipping is definitely a major factor in an open system.

You strike me as a good devil's advocate, DigitalPalette. That's definitely an attribute that a forum like this needs. Is there any chance I can bounce ideas off of you some time?

[amranloudi45]

I like your shipping company idea I am also start business of drop ship and want to increase it in all over the world.

[daveb1]

Hi Zeke,

I like your business ideas. I will throw this one into the mix. Would it be possible to invent a toothbrush for parents that could digitally track use and send it to an iPhone App. Now that would be cool. Probably pretty hard to build though. I would also hope you could make the toothbrush interchangeable with the actual tracking device. Hopefully I remember some of my other ideas here shortly.