Startup Idea: Work and Workout Space
Vinay Patankar · 12 Mar, 2013 · Business · Technology
I learned so much from my recent journey to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I've traveled all around the world and I have to say, the Bay Area is easily one of my favorite places. Nowhere else do you get that magical blend of cutting edge technology, brilliant ambitious people, amazing food and a truly international culture. While I was in the bay area I worked out of a few different "Shared Work Spaces". There are a tons of them in San Francisco, through Silicon Valley all the way to San Jose. Probably more than anywhere else on earth, obviously fueled by the startup community. Shared work spaces are offices where you can rent a space for your team, an individual desk or pay to just hot desk (sit wherever you can find space). The office is stocked with everything you need including security, printing and scanning, conference and meeting rooms and kitchen space. Many of the spaces also hold events targeted at the startup world and have relationships with mentors, investors and service providers. While these spaces are awesome, I think we can do better ;) IDEA - "Work and Workout Space" I envision a shared working space which is half office, half gym, half health kitchen (and yes, I know 3 halves don't make a whole). Companies would pay a premium for access to this space, but would get a whole lot more than a simple work space. The premium cost would also be off set by the fact that employees don't have to pay for food or gym costs. Imagine a large warehouse type space with a cross fit gym, fully stocked kitchen with fresh organic foods (you could even bring in a chef if you so wanted) and a complete locker/change room for both guys and gals. Companies could rent out spaces or hot desk - just like a standard collaborative working space - but also gain access to all gym facilities and eat free from the kitchen. This kind of set up would make it almost impossible to not be healthy. Since you are working in this space with a bunch of other people who are all working out and you only have access to healthy foods. The space could bring in instructors for specific sessions and run competitions between the community members. Regular exercise and a healthy diet is proven to increase productivity, so there will be genuine returns to business owners. Plus having the gym and kitchen in the same space will increase the amount of time employees spend in the office. A tactic that some of the big dogs already employ (Google/Facebook). Plus it can't hurt to have a team of happy, health and good looking staff ;) Additional ideas for the Work and Workout Space - Standing and treadmill desks - Ergonomic desks and chairs - Smoothie bar fully loaded with protein and supplements - Training on exercise, nutrition and supplements - Cooking classes so you can keep up your diet for dinner and on weekends I am about to move to Costa Rica and want to create a similar environment except its going to be a "Work, Live and Workout Space on the Beach". Would you want to work in a space like this? A strong follow-up in Business is Startup Idea: Evernote for Spreadsheets.
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How to get Asana (and other web apps) onto your Taskbar
Vinay Patankar · 16 Feb, 2013 · Business · Technology
I was so happy when I found this I just had to share it. I LOVE this trick. Basically, it allows you to add browser based web apps to your task bar when using chrome. This is what it looks like: Below is a YouTube video that shows you how to do it. Takes 2 seconds and is built into chrome. This has already save me hours browsing through tabs and opening multiple chrome windows. A strong follow-up in Business is Idea: Create Separate Instances of Browsers for Separate Web Apps.
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How Much Money Does the Facebook Ecosystem Produce?
Vinay Patankar · 12 Dec, 2012 · Business · Technology
Facebook went down the other day for the first time I can remember. Got me thinking about how much money is being lost every minute they are down. I know individuals who spend upwards of $50,000 each day on Facebook advertising, which is actually nothing compared to the big brands. If you take into consideration: - All the revenue being lost by Facebook themselves - The opportunity cost of a large portion of Facebook's employees not being able to do their jobs properly - All the hundreds of thousands of advertisers who's ads are not being displayed - Hundreds of thousands of brands who's posts are not being read of their fanpage walls - All the apps that have gone down, including massive platforms such as Zynga - All the third party Fabook developers who cant work right now cause Facebook is down - Social media managers who cant do their jobs - Loss of data from 3rd party analytics companies - Probably many other things I cant think of. Facebook is SO massive that anything it does has a massive ripple effect. I once read a while back that the Facebook ecosystem had created over 220,000 jobs, that number is probably much larger now. Crazy to think about. For another Business angle, read Venturebeat on Facebook Blacklist!?.
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Ingredients of a Successful Bootstrapped Startup?
Vinay Patankar · 09 Dec, 2012 · Business · Technology
I've been meeting lots of people and getting lots of feedback here in San Francisco. Here are some of the consistent ingredients of successful startups I have collected from observation and feedback. Note, these elements will probably not leave you with the next Facebok, but just know, for every Facebook, there are 1001 companies who tried to be Facebook and failed. - Solve a problem - A focused product of which the core feature set can be built relatively fast and cheap - Recurring payment model - The core feature set (MVP) should be good enough that you can actually charge people for it - There is the ability to grow out to different markets/features to increase your customer base and how much you charge (aka scale potential) This is similar to what 37 Signals teaches. Basically this will remove the NEED for funding, but you can still take it if you want. It will allow you to grow based on revenues of your company, and the fact that it is recurring will create a more stable model. Vitoto - has almost none of these ingredients. But then again, we want to be the next Facebook :D Quite the conundrum.... For another Business angle, read Looking for a Co-Founder for New Startup - UI/UX.
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Idea: Create Separate Instances of Browsers for Separate Web Apps
Vinay Patankar · 08 Dec, 2012 · Business · Technology
I always get lost in my browser tabs. I am a heavy heavy internet user and often find myself with 20-40 tabs open at a time in Chrome. Many of them running web apps that I like to keep open all the time: - Multiple gmail accounts - Google Calendar - Google Docs (Drive) - Asana - HasOffers - Cacoo The annoying thing about tabs, compared to icons on the bottom of the screen (applies to mac and PCs - I use both) is they its very easy for them to change position. For example when you open links from a web app, it opens a new tab and pushes all the other tabs over. Meaning your reaction to go back to the 3rd tab to check calendar, is no longer there caus its been pushed along. What if there were a way to create browser tabs that broke off and could be pinned as an icon to the bottom of the screen. All they did was launch a new Chrome window, but that window was mapped to that icon in the task bar and made it easy to navigate between different chrome "instances" or "apps". I know it would make me more productive... UPDATE: Turns out this feature is already built into chrome :P - Click here to see how to do it. For another Business angle, read How to get Asana (and other web apps) onto your Taskbar.
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Google Apps Removes Free Version Completely
Vinay Patankar · 07 Dec, 2012 · Business · Technology
I just got an email from Google stating that they are removing the free version of Google Apps completely. This is not going to effect existing accounts but new users will not be able to sign up for the free version. I am a heavy user of Google apps and use it on 20+ domains. This is a sad, sad day... > | Hello from Google,Here's some important news about Google Apps—but don't worry, there's no need for you to take any action. We just want you to know that we're making a change to the packages we offer. Starting today, we're no longer accepting new sign-ups for the free version of Google Apps (the version you're currently using). Because you're already a customer, this change has no impact on your service, and you can continue to use Google Apps for free. Should you ever want to upgrade to Google Apps for Business, you'll enjoy benefits such as 24/7 customer support, a 25 GB inbox, business controls, our 99.9% uptime guarantee, unlimited users and more for just $5 per user, per month. You can learn more about this change in our Help Center or on the Enterprise Blog. Thank you for using Google Apps. Clay Bavor Director, Google Apps | | > | --- | --- | If this Business topic resonated, continue with How to get Asana (and other web apps) onto your Taskbar.
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Live Bidding for Drinks in a Bar
Vinay Patankar · 02 Dec, 2012 · Business · People
Imagine a bar that had a live bidding system for the price of drinks. The bar could purchase a whole bunch of discount alcohol and start the prices really low. Every time a customer makes a purchase, the price of that particular drink goes up for the next person. The price could go down if that drink isn't purchased for a certain period of time. There wouldn't really be any tangible benefit to this system, it's more a gimmick for the bar to use to give people something to talk about. Plus some days you might be lucky enough to grab a discounted beer. A strong follow-up in Business is Vitoto Editing Features Launched.
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App Idea - Turn iPhone's into Public Hot-spots
Vinay Patankar · 25 Nov, 2012 · Business · Technology
So you already know that you can turn your iPhone into a hotspot, but a PUBLIC one? that anyone can use? Here is the idea. Its an app that allows you to create a public hotspot that anyone can access with NO password. But for the user to access the hotspot, they need to watch a 10 second video advertisement. Video ads pay anywhere form $30-80 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). The app provider can organize rev share with its users, so that they get a percentage of the advertisement revenue (say 50/50). This could be a great additional revenue stream for cab or bus drivers, or just a great way to offset your phone bill costs. A strong follow-up in Business is Idea - Thoughts to Extend the iPhones Battery Life.
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Email Optimization
Vinay Patankar · 23 Nov, 2012 · Business · Technology
I've been working on email optimization lately. Here are three plugins I have found that are awesome: Snooze your Emails - allows you to set a reminder to re-visit that email at a later date, instead of just losing it in your inbox. Yesware - allows you to track who is opening your emails, and create templates that you can fill in with just the click of a button. Boomerang - allows you to schedule emails to be sent at a later date. Check em. Oh, and make sure you are logged into Chrome with your Google Account, so that your plugins and settings are synced across all your computers. For another Business angle, read Emailing Awesomely – The Definitive Guide to Email Structure.
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Vitoto Editing Features Launched
Vinay Patankar · 23 Nov, 2012 · Business · Technology
We just released an update to Vitoto which includes the ability to edit your videos, its bad ass. Check it out at Vitoto.com Or on the iTunes App Store. For another Business angle, read Vitoto Officially Shutting Down.
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Idea - Thoughts to Extend the iPhones Battery Life
Vinay Patankar · 14 Oct, 2012 · Business · Technology
iPhone battery life is a huge problem that I hear people all around the world bitch about. Here are my ideas to solve it: 1\. Put a solar panel on the back of the phone. This will give you the ability to charge anywhere there is light. 2\. Implement kinetic and heat inductors. This will be the phone charges when it moves and when its in your pocket. 3\. Have lock screen access to turn off and on the biggest battery drainers. Including 3g/4g/LTE/WiFi. If this Business topic resonated, continue with Start-Up Idea: TailSearch - Search for Retail Stores.
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The Future of Video Storage
Vinay Patankar · 21 May, 2012 · Business · Technology
Imagine free, unlimited, unmetered video storage service for all your video needs. A service where you could quickly upload, download and watch all your own private videos for free with no restriction on size, quality or content. And a service that was 100% redundant meaning that you could never lose your data, an important factor because there is no way to get back those home movies of little Timmy as a toddler if the house burns down. - For the father who has all those CDs he doesn’t know what to do with - The professional video editor who has hundreds of hard disks full of data from old projects - The local convenience store owner who has to erase his CCTV footage every month due to lack of space - All the way up to big corporations who might have thousands of cameras running at once. Is it really such an unrealistic service? YouTube already hosts hundreds of millions of videos for free, not to mention the plethora of other free video hosting sites out there. Dropbox is giving 10gb+ away for free to its users. The costs of data storage are reducing while the capacity is increasing all at an exponential rate. That being said, it’s still not cheap. Building a service like this would likely set you back in the hundreds of millions of dollars. So how could you afford to build such a service? Since the data is not for public viewing and you won’t have large amounts of traffic you can't sell advertising. The one asset you are building up is all the data you are storing. Data is information, if you can turn that information into knowledge, into usable data, you may be able to turn a profit from it. I could guess that most people reading this post probably have either a Google, iTunes or Facebook account. If you have any of these, you've probably accepted a privacy agreement that allows these companies to use all of your personal information. To analyse your browsing activities, monitor your interests, what you talk about, what you read and who your friends are. Many speculate these companies already sell your information to other corporations and even the government including intelligence divisions like the CIA and FBI. I personally don't think there is anything wrong with this. If you don't want your information shared, don't use the service. Nobody is forcing you to. So assuming you create a privacy policy drafted in a way that allows you to do analysis on the videos that you are storing for free, here are a few ways I think you could use that data. There is probably thousands more I haven't thought of. 1\. You could use the data from cameras in certain locations to collect and analyze data about the real world. For example how many cars drive down a road per month or how many people pass a shop front each day. You could even go deeper and use it to analyze demographics. How many men vs women vs children pass a particular shop each day. How many cars above $50,000 drive down this road each day etc... Many companies can use this kind of data. 2\. You could use it to find people around the world. Easy examples would be for agencies to use. Maybe to find a kidnapped child or a wanted terrorist. 3\. You could sell the data to universities for human behavioural analysis 4\. You could sell (some) footage to MTV/Funnies Home Videos - this may cause issues but I'm sure you would capture a bunch of hilarious shit. 5\. You could provide video data analysis for your individual clients as an upsell service. Companies who want to know the behaviours of their staff or customers in their stores. Of course all the above would be done by an autmated software product that was able to find results in near realtime. Outside of monetizing the actual data, you could also: 6\. Create a Freemium model where the higher users pay for more bandwidth 7\. Create a Freemium model where users can pay so that their data is kept private and cannot be used for analysis Many companies collect a large amount of data but don't monetize it correctly. This is a crying shame because in today's information age there are so many different ways to monetize data at generally little to no cost. If this Business topic resonated, continue with Video Failure and a New Future - Niche Site Duel 04.
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