I have ideas constantly.
This would be useful if I had unlimited time, money and attention. I do not. I already have enough businesses, projects and half-finished thoughts competing for space in my brain, and I am trying very hard to practise the increasingly important skill of not turning every good idea into a job for myself.
So I’m giving them away instead.
These aren’t fully formed business plans. I haven’t built the financial models, spoken to 50 customers or discovered the fatal regulatory hurdle lurking on page 73 of some government website.
They’re observations. Little pockets of friction or whitespace that make me think: why hasn’t someone properly solved this yet?
Please steal them. And if you build the next billion-dollar company from one, at least send me some merch.
1. Off-Market
I recently bought a house, which reminded me how strange the property market is.
At any given moment, there are houses people desperately want to buy that aren’t for sale, and homeowners who aren’t actively looking to move but absolutely have a number at which things might get interesting.
I want a marketplace for that middle ground.
As an owner, I could quietly indicate: I’m not selling, but above $X, I’ll have a conversation.
As a buyer, I could create an incredibly specific brief: these streets, this many bedrooms, north-facing backyard, pool, architectural style, budget.
Then the platform looks for matches between latent supply and explicit demand.
Perhaps the owner’s number isn’t even visible. The platform simply knows their fuck-it price and only wakes them up when genuine demand reaches it.
The marketplace dynamics would be horrendous. Trust, privacy, liquidity, circumvention, agents, stale listings. All the fun stuff.
But property transactions are enormously valuable, and I can’t shake the feeling that there is a gigantic invisible property market sitting behind the visible one.
Someone please unlock it.
2. The Collaboration Company
Some of the most interesting products happen when two completely different worlds collide. Pamela Anderson × Flamingo Estate. Kelly Wearstler × H&M. The kind of pairing that makes you think: Oh. Of course.
But collaborations are much easier when both parties already know how to make the thing.
(Four more ideas I have absolutely no business pursuing below…)
