19.1 Free Stuff Repurposed

Description: Free stuff business. Look at your local “free stuff” online listings (Facebook, Craigslist) and see what patterns there are. What is commonly given away and could you re-purpose it? Pick an item and specialize in it. Chances are someone is repurposing free items of this type in another location. Google search for examples and bring this to your location if it fits your marketplace.

Often heavy things (pool tables, pianos, hot tubs, boats) and good things in hard to get to towns, villages.

Pros: : the initial cost is delivery and the materials to convert the object, low overhead.

Cons: the market for this may be a niche, meaning limited sales. Someone could copy your idea and create a price for previously free objects.

19.2 Everything Else Contracting

Description: : In a local area ask the contractors what job do they dislike doing and/or refuse to do. Learn these skills and advertise. Focus initially on jobs that don’t have a barrier to entry that is education/licensing that isn’t easy to get. Possible jobs

· Chimney cleaning

· Hazardous material removal

· Heavy landscaping (hardscaping)

· Gutter cleaning

· Power-washing

Pros: Filling a niche, margins could be excellent with little competition

Cons: The reasons for these jobs being avoided may be that these tasks are hard, dirty, heavy and/or people don’t want to pay for it.

19.3 Tarped In

Description: Tarp set up for rain and wind that uses cranks, wire rope and quality tarps. You can adjust the tension as needed for wind, release it for overnight bundled up. Has to fit on top of scaffold connectors and be safely accessible from inside the scaffold.

Pros: a good system that works in coastal conditions doesn’t exist. Current set-ups can work in rain but not wind and rain and are slow to set up.

Cons: construction companies may not want to pay for this, rather do it the old way of ropes and tarps.

19.4 Door to Door Sales

Description: A salesperson who contracts out to sell everything in a certain neighborhood. He/She gets paid commission usually but can be paid hourly, by unit etc if that fits the sales model of the item. Commission makes the salesperson more likely to learn the object being sold in depth. Examples could be

• Gutter cleaning

• Renovations

• Wholesaling property

• House cleaning

• Lawn care

• Snow removal

• Flier and newspaper delivery

• Package Deliveries

Pros: reduces the cost of advertising/lead generation by fractioning it off. Allows the salesperson to build rapport with a community, increasing trust and sales

Cons: if the salesperson is disliked, kills the leads for multiple companies at once

19.5 Low Vibration Jack Hammer

Description: a jack hammer, rotary hammer drill and/or rivet buster stand that takes all the impact of the hammer instead of the worker. You set it up and control it with a joystick, angle, pressure forward. The adjusters need mechanical locks to hold the hammer in place, must have a electrical option and a pneumatic option for high combustion areas. The stand is held in place by removable weights, clamps or bolted to a surface, choose whatever fits the situation. It has to operate at multiple angles including overhead.

This prevents the vibration of the hammer from travelling through the body of the worker, causing fatigue and often injury.

Pros: Prevents the injury of the worker, allows a smaller, lighter and/or weaker worker to use a hammer in demolition

Cons: there are some tight areas where this wouldn’t work, a stand couldn’t fit. Employers possibly wouldn’t care about the wear on their employees.

19.6 Anti Conspiracy

Description: A business that fights back against conspiracy websites. The family or friends can hire them to go after the source legally. Also sells books and references techniques on how to deal with the family member. Could spam the affected person with counter evidence, block sites. Sells books, articles on the psychology of this phenomenon and how you can help your loved ones. Identifies legal cases, groups, lawsuits related to specific conspiracies and conspiracy peddlers. Investigates and posts news on conspiracy peddling companies and personalities, how they are paid, how much they make, legal cases, where are they located.

This has to be focused on conspiracies that are obvious and easily proven to be fake, not ones that are hard or impossible to prove or have some possibility of being true. Examples of obvious targets are Flat Earth, anti Polio vaccine and sovereign citizen.

Pros: there is a real want/need of family members and friends to help their loved ones get away from this toxic thinking.

Cons: this could be taken too far, targeting beliefs about things that can’t easily be proven either way, groups that qualify as religions. Another difficulty is how do make money at this? How do you ensure advertisers don’t try to corrupt this.

19.7 Choose Your Accent

Description: : A language leaning service facilitated through video chat that allows learners choose which accent they want to learn a language in. It would start with English and give the learner samples of various English accents. Examples are Manchester UK, rural Ontario Canada, rural Queensland Australia, County Cork Ireland, North Island Maori New Zealand, Zimbabwe Harare, rural Tennessee. The examples have to be from places where English is the first language or a widely spoken official language. Once you pick the accent you want the service connects you with a teacher who has that accent naturally. The teachers will be vetted to weed out voice actors and others who are simply faking the accent. Recruitment for teachers would have to be accent first, education level secondary. Local recruitment would be essential to find accents that are very localized.

A network of teachers would have to be set up early to avoid another language teaching firm from copying this idea.

Pros: people like the variety of ways languages are spoken, if they have to/want to learn another language, why not pick how you want to sound. This will employ folks who never would’ve considered themselves to be teachers before, it would create employment in some economically depressed areas

Cons: some may see this as mockery or not like the idea of a non-local sounding like one. The margins may be tight for language learning services, other services may try to copy this model.

19.8 Reactive Dogs With Jobs

Description: A security company that takes reactive dogs and trains them as guard dogs for businesses and construction sites. The dogs live either at the reactive dog training center (a farm) or with their owners. Trainers pick up the dogs in the evening and deliver them to their postings. When more than one dog is required (large construction site, yard) dogs that have shown they can work together are used. The dogs are then picked up each morning when the site or business opens.

Pros: This gives reactive dogs something to spend their energy on. It helps pay for the training needed for them as well. Petty thieves are more likely to go somewhere else than risk a dog biting them. This avoids human security guards getting in confrontations with criminals. The human guards can only call the police so the crime may still occur before the police show up.

Cons: The possibility of a criminal getting bitten or worse and then trying to sue the company. Neighbours could complain about dogs barking at night.

19.9 Self Cleaning Mobile Toilet

Description: Self cleaning tow behind toilet trailers. Designed to be cleaned automatically using robotic sprayers and driers. It can be cleaning itself as it’s being delivered to a location. The design of the toilets and stalls needs to be made easy for robots to clean, no complex surfaces. This avoids the labour of a human cleaning the toilets and allows for faster turn around.

This can be used at festivals, construction sites, campsites, weddings, etc.

Pros: would be cheaper and faster at scale than other temporary toilets.

Cons: the cost of developing robots or using existing technology may make this uncompetitive on price.