meta-ideas

[loop101]

I'm still new to the FastLane way of thinking, so I have been writing down ideas to determine which ones I am best suited for. After two weeks of thinking, I wasn't much closer, so I decided to just push all the ideas out of my head. I gave myself one week to write down 10 ideas a day, and at the end of the week - I would pick one of the 70. The first day (yesterday), I wrote down 30 ideas. Today I've done 15, so I am ahead of schedule. Something I noticed is that the patterns in the business ideas, which I am calling "meta-ideas".

Since I am focused on websites and/or iPhone development, a lot of my ideas were related to "information gathering". Tasks where someone had to leave their office and go do something, this came about because while "desktop apps" have been being done since Lotus 1-2-3, iPhone/Android apps are still relatively new. The "Paperless Pipeline" company has an iPad/Website solution for realtors. The realtors go out and examine houses, take pictures on the iPad, and transmit the data to their home office. At the home office, they have a Web app they use to centralize the data and do reports. I think they signed up 40 Remax franchises after developing the software with the help of one franchise.

I wrote down a lot of "information gathering" jobs, such as building inspector, land surveyor, crime scene analyst, etc. One thing I noticed, was they were mostly government jobs. This was a downer, because I heard it was notoriously hard to sell software to government agencies.

My "ah-ha" moment was when I realized the government agencies could be given the software for free, and be given the iPads for free also. These inspectors inspect businesses, and businesses are much more willing to spend money to make money - or in this case, keep money.

So the whole meta-idea is to give inspection software to the government agencies for free, and then charge the people being inspected for access to the same software. I could call a building management company and tell the owner, "You might be interested in using my software to help you check the safety of your building because I know for a fact that building inspectors in your town are using it to remind them of what to check." It would be like giving teachers free tests to use in schools, and selling the students the study materials. The bigger our government gets, the more demand for the software.

This idea would work for any relationship where one person is using the software for gathering information about something, and someone else has to prepare for it.

I noticed another meta-idea for my pure iPhone apps, basically it was "video-morphing". All my app ideas were based on video analysis at their core.

I still don't know what my project will be, but I feel like I'm making some progress!

 

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[fastlaneCoder]

Learn to identify needs and problems in general. Not just in "information gathering" and iphone apps or government work. You'll NEVER know where you next fastlane idea will come from! And to put it bluntly if you don't yet know what your project will be you may not yet be making much "progress". These "ideas" aren't worth much without execution. MJ talks about this in The Millionaire Fastlane if memory serves me correctly.

P.S. If it's hard to sell to gov't agencies this could be your "barrier to entry". Oh and I've done work with gov't agencies (Sheriff's Offices and Boards of Education) the trick to this is: You have to talk to people who are authorized to spend the money. No one else can help you. This is also true of working with private corporations. There's no point in boring that 7.25 and hour cashier/clerk with your sales pitch. She doesn't care, and if you leave any packet/pamphlet/brochure with here she'll just throw it away and she won't relay your messages. Trust me. I made the mistake of leaving a bill with the dispatcher at a Sheriff's office down here. It sat on her desk next to her big gulp soda for over two weeks. I wound up taking another copy directly to the county accounting office.

^^ My eyes were opened to the fact by Alan Weiss' books on consulting and raw experiences. I've started to ramble so it's time that I quit!

 

[DrkSide]

I currently work for a government entity and I can give you a little insight into the workings. Fastlanecoder is exactly right, unless you can talk to the people that can spend the money (or those that are next to them) you are wasting your time. In fact we recently purchased a software for (what I consider) a ridiculous amount of money that could have been developed in less than a month by someone that is not even familiar with coding.

Go interview people that matter in the agency that you are looking at and see what software they are currently using and what it doesn't do that they need it to do. This will be very hard to get with the people that matter but i can tell you that it is possible.

Just the other day we contacted one of the software companies that we use and requested a feature (iphone/iPad compatibility) and they said no. Not we will look into it but just no. The fact of the matter is that they don't have a good competitor and they don't need to develop a mobile application. In fact they don't do any requests.

Just remember that ideas are worthless without execution.

 

[MCD]

Getting a government agency to use your free software could be just as hard as getting them to pay for it. It will probably still need to have the same people sign off, get the same approvals etc. I doubt giving it out for free will really be to your benefit. There is so much red tape in bureaucracy that if you are going to navigate through it, you might as well charge as much as you can.

 

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