Apparently giving away five business ideas did not stop me having business ideas.
Unfortunate.
So here are another five from the increasingly overcrowded Notes folder in my brain.
Same disclaimer: these are not investment recommendations or polished startup theses. Some probably contain enormous structural problems I haven’t considered. That’s almost beside the point.
I’m interested in the observation underneath them.
One thing I know to be true, is that good business ideas often begin with noticing something slightly ridiculous that everyone else has agreed to treat as normal.
1. Unused Capacity
Businesses own an extraordinary amount of expensive stuff that spends large portions of its life doing absolutely nothing.
Commercial kitchens. Warehouse space. Manufacturing lines. Machinery. Studios. Vehicles. Specialist equipment.
Even skilled staff capacity.
Meanwhile, another business desperately needs exactly that resource but can’t justify buying or building it.
There has to be something enormous hiding in that mismatch.
I wouldn’t build a giant marketplace for “business stuff”. I’d pick one vertical where unused capacity is common, expensive and relatively easy to standardise.
Manufacturing capacity particularly interests me.
A factory unexpectedly has three days open next month. A smaller brand desperately needs a short production run. Could those two things find each other?
It’s basically Airbnb for an underutilised B2B asset class.
The question I’d be hunting:
Where are businesses paying enormous amounts to own something that sits empty?
Find the right answer and the marketplace almost writes itself.
2. Kids' Circular Commerce
If you’re a parent, you know what sort of drain children are on your bank account. And I’m not talking about sports, daycare or nannies. I’m talking about the shit that seems to fill your house exponentially from the moment you pee on the stick.
They grow constantly. Change interests constantly. Need different equipment constantly.
And yet we keep buying them brand-new bikes, sporting equipment, toys, clothes and gear that might be useful for approximately fourteen minutes.
Resale solves part of this, but then I have to become a reseller.
Photograph it. List it. Answer “is this available?” seventeen times. Negotiate with someone called Bec. Arrange collection. Discover Bec has disintegrated into thin air..
No.
I want…
(Four more ideas I have absolutely no business pursuing below…)
