Start-Up Ideas

There are a million new ideas but only a handful of people that can make them work. At BumbleBee Garage we believe there is no such thing as a bad idea, only bad people. Any idea can make a million dollars with the right person in charge.

Here are some of the ideas we have had and seen during our web endeavours. Some of these simple ideas may spark so new ideas in your search for a unique new business. It is unlikely that you will think of something that has not been tried, so for step one, you will need to do as much research as possible to find out what has failed in the past and why.

#1 Beat Google - There is always room and an expanding need for an alternative to google and yahoo. With little competition there is more than enough room in this multi billion dollar market. Unfortunately, the price tag of this one requires deep pockets. Microsoft spend over $100 million on their live.com search before conceding and making a bid to buy yahoo.com. This is the holy grail of internet prizes and is still the number one idea for any new start up.

#2 Localized Searches - With a major budget to index the entire internet, there is still a need for more localized searches. Either by geographic location or industry. For example a search dedicated to sports would be considerably smaller and still have a big impact if successful.

#3 Saleable Content - There are many websites that sell access to data. If you have data or can accumulate data you can sell it. You can charge for each file downloaded or give access by hour, day, month or year. Information could range from legal documents to the worlds best fishing spots. One spin on the idea would be to allow the users to upload the content and charge other users to access it or get a percentage of the overall gross based on what percenetage of people downloaded their content.

#4 Just for Fun - Not every website has to be about business. We all know there is no business at myspace or youtube but they still make a bundle of cash. Sites that can generate traffic will make money. If you have a reason for someone to show up and look at pages whether it is for dating advice or reviews of the newest movies people will have an interest in it. Forums and classifies can spruce up sites of this type and the programming is relatively simple.

#5 Industry Classifieds - We have had moderate success in this market with sites like buzztrader.com reaching over 100,000 visitors a day in 2008. Having a basic classified free or paid can generate loads of content and attract large audiences. This trick is to keep it simple and clean. There are hoards of people saying that there is an opening to compete with craigslist and as craigslist tightens the restraints and becomes more difficult to use, that opening gets wider daily. You can't compete with craigslist today with a clone, but if you can tweak the idea and expand on it, the opportunity may be there to hit it big.