Ideas are cheap. It’s the execution that matters. I have tons of ideas that I’m currently working on executing, but here are some extra ones that I just don’t think I’ll get around to. None are probably fully original, and a bunch are just things on my wish list. Feel free to steal and use any of these. If they really take off, I’m happy to advise and/or sit on the board. And if you make millions, feel free to buy me a house and/or make a huge donation to my charity.
Hormone cocktails
Hear me out. I’d love a daily three-to-five shot regime that balances all those dang hormones that make you fat and foggy: leptin, cortisol, insulin, ghrelin, testosterone, serotonin, plus ketones, etc. This is probably a very unsafe idea.
Tacos El Norte in the actual north
For those who’ve read my list of favorite things, you’ll know that Tacos El Norte, a Chicagoland-based chain of a dozen Tex-Mex restaurants, is my absolute favorite MX food in the world… and I’ve lived in Mexico. I’d love someone with restaurant franchise experience to bring them to Canada, starting with Guelph and Hamilton. I will 100% invest in this and donate the proceeds to charity.
DIYphysiotherapy.com
I’ve spent thousands of dollars on physio. They basically put you in a room with a sheet of printed instructions and you have to do the exercises and then you get to leave. Why not save the commute and the corporate overhead and let me do it all at home?
Inexpensive high-quality orthotics
My last pair cost $625. For a piece of plastic. Online glasses are killing Lenscrafters, and there’s an opportunity to really bring down the insane margins on footcare.
CryptoCheckout
A super elegant, easy-t0-use WordPress plugin that allows users to accept donations and payments in 100+ cryptocurrencies.
Kombucha cocktails
Because who wouldn’t want a Ginger Booch martini?
Are You Smarter Than a Really Smart Person?
A game show that pits everyday people against geniuses with IQs over, say, 180. The catch is that the questions/tasks are all really simple, everyday, mundane, pedestrian, plebeian tasks. Just imagine watching Sheldon Cooper try to do laundry.
HaveAnAbortion.com
A website that connects teens with unwanted pregnancies with couples looking to adopt. While obviously fraught with challenges to overcome for the site’s creator, I’d rather avoid exorbitant adoption fees and put a young woman through university instead.
Actual affordable housing
Not the ghetto/commie-block kind. Well-built, super clean, brilliantly laid-out micro-apartments and eco tiny homes. Alternately, we could just have some courageous, long-term thinking politicians stabilize the market by increasing interest rates, putting the screws to banks, upping the down payment and income requirements, banning foreign ownership of residential property, limiting domestic ownership of residential property, driving out Airbnb, and upping the rental standards so high that scum lords flee the market. I would vote for you.
Actual ethical investing
Let’s face it: most SRIs are still very dirty – I’m shocked when I dig into most of their portfolios. Would love to see a platform that allows people to invest in seriously ethical and meaningful not-for-profit projects like Indwell.
A new type of legal corporation
A not-for-profit investment fund/holding trust. As CEO I can make (hopefully always ethical) investment decisions and grow the fund tax-free for as long as I desire, but I have to give away at least 10% of corporate profits each year, and 100% of the corporate profits have to go to charity in the end. (Governments won’t make any tax revenue on such an entity, but the common good could benefit far greater.)
Book pubs
Let’s face it: physical bookshops are doomed… without alcohol. Why not fill the shelves of every bar, inn, and pub with books? Bare walls become both decoration and income stream.
www.Mentor.Me
A website/app that connects qualified/experienced elders with hungry young folk. Tagline: “Affordable advice to 10X your life.”
Basic apparel
I don’t need fashion, I just want form and function. I don’t want to buy brand names or pay shareholder profits. I just want 100% organic, ethical, sustainable clothing, ideally made by a non-profit, that doesn’t break my bank account. Blue jeans. White tees. Black boxers. White socks. No logos, no brand names, no nothing.
Match.me
A website where people can raise funds for their favorite causes/charities by challenging their friends. (IE, I’ll match any amount you give up to $1000.)
Bits of Legislation
-Every country needs a right to roam act like the U.K. We humans have been hiking for millennia, and no private landowner should have the right to close up a 5000-year-old piece of common good. Give us three feet, it’s all we ask.
-Wales has a coastal walking path around its entire ocean frontage. Let’s think globally. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
-A global ban on plastics, fracking, GMOs, polluting rivers, etc. Obviously, it’s too late for any of these, so perhaps just allocating extra funding for orbital settlement might be prudent.
Direct Democracy
An encrypted online/on-phone tool that uses the blockchain to allow citizens to directly vote in elections, referendums, etc. (No more need to pay the salaries of politicians who ignore us anyway/only listen to their corporate sponsors.) Tagline: “Real democracy is just a click away.” Campaigns would inevitably include “Swipe left on Trump.”
Working on one of these? Have a solution to anything on this list that works for you? Please let me know.