Business ideas that fall flat.

D

Dreamer

Senior member
I dont know about you lot but almost weekly i get a brain wave for a product or business idea that gets me into a frenzy of excitement :o :D .
This is always followed by a realisation thats its not profitable or has more commonly been done before :( :| .

My latest was to revolutionise the cost of estate agents photos/videos that are provided on the websites to show you round the property.

Heres how it went yesterday; you know those 360 view photos? The camera they setup on a tripod that slowly rotates round while they leave the room?

I thought: Well couldnt you fabricate a small tripod attachment that has a wind up motor from a toy that holds an iphone that would cost peanuts? Imagine selling these to every estate agent. A solution that your taiwanese factory could produce for a couple of quid and you sell for a 20 quid or whatever?! Brilliant i thought!!

First bubble burst: A quick google brings up this.. Its already been done to a degree, and pretty cool results from the time capture app to!

http://philipbloom.net/2010/06/30/eggtimer/

Damn.

Then further googling and FULL bubble burst: A full 360 lense for your iphone that means you can capture and pan a whole video and its only 50 quid.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dot/dot-360o-video-capture-for-the-iphone-4

Double damn.

Just taking you on a thought journey there, but is there any idea out there that hasnt already been done :headbang: :D

I would LOVE to invent something that takes of!! In the mean time, i do enjoy dreaming up these things and the momentary euraka moments :D :D
 
I hate to burst the bubble for both those other product but it's been a piece of cake to achieve this result for the last decade using any regular photograph and stitching software to create a QTVR file. It's old technology now but it did the exact same thing without the need of an over complicated tripod attachment or a special lens. I created a number of projects using it when I was at uni over 10 years ago. Besides, doesn't iOS6 include this now?

Anyway. Start thinking about apps my man. Boat has left the dock but not left the harbour just yet on those You could be the next Angry Birds :D . I have a massive list of ideas for apps which I will never get round to producing I dare say some of them have been done by now but the trick is making a better one.
 
Thankyou for the encouragement Mowflow!

I dont know if you watched the video but the 360 lense with the app for the iphone means propper panning of moving videos! Not just the stitched photos. its very impressive for the money.
I mean bloody hell how good is that and only 50 quid! Wish i had invented that :x :D
I dont know why estate agents aren't using it so you could watch an entire walk through video of a property and pause at any point to pan at something. They are still, even foxtons, just using those static 360 sweep cameras.

Im nearly, just nearly accepting that everything has been doen before, its just as you say trying to do something better. On this i was just trying to think of how to do it cheaper.

Back to the drawing board :roll:
 
The best ideas come from things that piss you off day to day. You'd be amazed at what people will pay to avoid life's little embuggerences
 
Stuart Truman said:
The best ideas come from things that piss you off day to day.
Click to expand...

Hmm, what sort of invention would deal with my IT outsourcing problems :D
 
Before the advent of smart phones, and when Voda charged £15 for the pleasure of backing up your SIM card, I came up with the idea of having a small flash device that you put your sim in and connect to a PC. Idea being to save all your contacts in case you lost your phone, which at the time was a regular occurrence. Reckoned it would retail at about a fiver and cost way less to make. It was a pub idea, no intent behind it at all. About a year later I saw exactly that on the market - could've made a small fortune briefly before smart phones and blackberrys came along... More me falling flat than the idea :(
 
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