I tried a bunch of framework and other language and I usually feel overwhelm when its time to do something real with what I've learned. So that why I created this site, to write my progress and help some noob like me that stumble into the sames problems.
For those who know me, my significant other actually has a different mother tongue than I do. So like a good boyfriend, I’ve tried to learn some of it. At the beginning it’s easy to learn the basics. She taught me some words when we were going out, her friends told me some bad words too when I met them. However, after a while everybody stops showing you the basics and you’re a bit on your own.
At the time, I’m not sure that Duolingo existed, but I’ve read about someone who learned a new language using a set of index cards.
Nowadays you have a plethora of options to learn, but why not make a bit of money with the process.
How to learn a new language and maybe help other people while doing it.
Find people to learn with and set up a group.
Taking a course is the default option when it comes to learning a new language. However, there is a cheaper way to do it, why not make a group where you meet up (online or offline) and learn the language. You could charge a small few to pay for the props (material) or for a part-time teacher or an online service. You could record the session and, with the help of the group, create something to help all of you or even offer it online for free or few bucks.
Connect with native speakers and help them learn something in exchange to learning their mother tongue.
Not sure how you can make money with that part except maybe by providing the connection. However, by using that method you’re definitely saving money. The main problem with that option though is you’re not guaranteed of the quality of the teacher.
Be accountable for your learning
Build in your process should be an accountability component that helps you track and force you to take the time to learn everyday. A site like beeminder or stickK or an accountability partner can help you follow through. That is why a teacher helps because they can see if you progressed or not. Another way to be accountable is to make it public. Every day write a post about what you learn. Perhaps create a twitter (or tiktok) account to track your learning and tweet every time you learn a new word or fancy saying in the language you’re learning.
Check out the app out there and maybe create a apps that suit your need if you can’t find anything
There are dozens of apps and services that are designed to help you learn a new language. Maybe try a bunch of them to see what sticks. Duolingo, Babbel, Memrise, Rosetta stone, Mauril, etc.
If you can’t find something that works for you, you could try to create your own tailored to your needs and only to the language you’re trying to learn.
Maybe you’re advanced enough that what you need is to permeate the language you’re trying to learn, like using blinkist if you’re trying to learn German or a similar service that gives you book reviews in the language of your choice.
Wrap this all up in an offering
The main problem with all this when learning a new language is that sometimes it’s not enough or we get distracted by our daily lives. Sure the best way to learn is probably to live in the country and interact with the locals to learn, but if you can’t do that maybe you can create an environment with all the previous tips to help you succeed. If it works well for you perhaps that could be wrapped in a service to help others and sell it for a fee.
Conclusion
You may notice that I’m a bit all over the place. While some of the tips are useful to learn a new language, others are more useful to make money teaching or helping others learn a new language. Perhaps I will split both with more in deep analysis of both subjects. The mountain of apps to learn means that there are definitely a lot of options when learning, but it’s probably profitable to build those kinds of apps..
In the mid 2010s I worked on a social game and everything looked like it could be a social game. Managing a cafe, a hotel, a pet shop, a hot dog stand, etc. You had an idea, it could probably be turned into a social game.
While it was all the rage I thought: “Hey! There is a lot of planning going into a wedding; it could probably be made in a game”. A game could be built around dating from meeting your significant other to the big days which there are some games already doing that.
If you look closely there’s a wedding planner game in there with 10M players.
However, a game about planning weddings should be about the wedding planner since the average bride and groom will probably only have one wedding. An argument could be made that a game around a venue owner could be made, but that would look a lot like a hotel manager, which already exists.
Some game play idea
This game could have two modes: a story one and an online infinite one. The gameplay is similar between modes. The main difference is that the clients are scripted in the story mode and in the online mode you can share client and contact.
The main game play is to find clients and make them visit contacts and venues. You meet the clients and they tell you what they want for what budget and you try to bring it to them. You then go around and shop for them, calling venues, calling your contact to find the right photographer, videographer, florist, etc. You can then strike a deals with them. You then book the couple to meet all these amazing people.
As the game progresses you get more clients and you manage your business. You could probably use your money to buy traditional social game items like decoration for your office, perks like an assistant to make more calls, etc.
Then each client has their wedding ceremony that you can assist, in the story mode there could be some event that you need to fix (the wrong flower were given, the cake is not on time because the baker’s truck broke down, etc)
To have flavor each client has their personality and not all couples will make it to the wedding. We could draw some inspiration from wedding reality shows here to find some crazy scenarios played out. We could probably have a puzzle or roleplay between each step toward the big day.
Monetization
The basics could be ads and cross promotion with another game. Sprinkle some items you can buy for your office and a special currency to speed up the process to the key point of the wedding. If you include some puzzle in between we could have them use the external currency when they fail the puzzle to retry or continue (like Candy Crush Saga). There could be special limited time events each month or week where there is an unexpected couple that wants to get married and you have to fix them up.
Hope it gives you an idea to build the next big free to play game or at least give you ideas for other projects.
This idea is part of a group of ideas related to weddings I had back when I got married and the following years. Not sure if they are still relevant, but I hope it can help you find new ones.
A while ago I was listening to an episode of SPI and the couple that Pat Flynn interviewed did something really interesting for their wedding, they sponsored it.
I’ve tried to find the episode to find out who it was, but at this time of writing I haven’t found it. For context they didn’t go crazy and have a logo on the wedding dress or something like it (note that a couple tried that), but they manage to have sponsor for almost everything else. From the venue, the photographer and the caterer, they managed to either get it free or a lower price in exchange for being advertised to their clients.
Given they were well connected and that some of their guests were probably affluent, their provider probably saw an opportunity to woo future potential clients.
Can it be done even if you’re not famous or well-connected? According to bride-party.com you might be able to sponsor some part of the wedding for some key part of it if you can show a plus value for your sponsor. Maybe a new florist wants to get his name out in your community or perhaps one of your friends is a photographer and it’s their gift to you.
With all that set up this isn’t really a business idea it’s just a way to afford a bigger wedding for those who have the means and connection to do so. But wait, why couldn’t you connect the bride and groom to those willing to give those kinds of deals? Perhaps their wedding can be paid if they do it in Cancun and all their family fly use the same agency. Then, you get a cut to set up the couple with the travel agency.
This idea is part of a group of ideas related to weddings I had back when I got married and the following years. Not sure if they are at all relevant in 2022, but I hope it can help you find new ones.
When we were planning our wedding, I thought of the idea to make a blog about the process and of the actual wedding. However, once you’re in the motion of planning the big day and the actual day of the wedding, you have some much more to think about than this. That’s why I wasn’t sure about posting this idea. Probably because I find it boring, generic and if we are thinking of a side project, how can you make money with it? Even looking at my initial ideas list it was struck out.
But when writing about the three previous ideas (Ideas #14, #15 & #16) made me think about it a little more. There was still something there and I had some friends who did blog for their wedding. This process makes your friend and family more involved and it can be useful to future couples what to expect when planning. It gives you a time capsule of this moment forever on the internet. (or until you decide to stop paying your hosting fees).
It could go with a previous idea like when user are crowdsourcing their wedding (idea #16), the platform could offer a place for the user to host their blog to let users share about what they’ve found, decide, give pictures of the results, etc.
While the main point of this idea is to share your experience and help others in their process, there still are ways to make money or at least maybe reduce the cost of your wedding. The platform lets users have ads on their blog. Another way, users could have used affiliate links or referral to the service they’ve used and receive a commission for the referral.
This idea is part of a group of ideas related to weddings I had back when I got married and the following years. Not sure if they are at all relevant in 2022, but I hope it can help you find new ones.
After reading Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe, in a year we had a lot of weddings to attend, I was wondering why nobody tried to crowdsource this information. This is similar to the previous idea and could probably be mixed with it. However, the main difference is that you let your user enter the data similar to what Glassdoor does with salaries or yelp for restaurants.
For the site it could use google map (or another map api) to show potential venues, places, contacts, stores, etc. Once a place is selected, the user can see the rating, the comment and the price other users have entered. They could also enter their price, rating and comment anonymously. Rating and comment could probably be public though to prevent haters. It could use facebook connect or something like that for login and having a verification mechanism like twitter & facebook. This could help to track that the user is real and give valid info.
How to entice users to participate and give valid information?
It could probably be gamified and have rewards like google guide. Users could have points, entering data and valid prices give more points, moderators could rise from those who have more points and are active in the community. Points could give privileges and could be redeemed.
How does that kind of site/app make money?
Well the easy one would be with ads. Real stores could pay to have their name on the site, but that could corrupt the whole idea though. Couples who need help could pay a small fee to have users do tasks for them, find the three best venues for a wedding of 200 people in this price range and book a meeting with each of them to visit.
This idea is part of a group of ideas related to weddings I had back when I got married and the following years. Not sure if they still relevant, but I hope it can help you find new ones.
Create a platform to connect soon to be wed couple to a wedding planner (or facilitate the planning for those who can’t afford one)
This idea and the next probably are pretty similar (and probably exist now) but you tell me if it is the case. The next idea I had was a platform that helps couples to find wedding planners, wedding photographers, dj, venues, caterers, florists, and more depending on their need.
Let’s be honest, I was the groom, so it was mostly my wife who did all the research to find all this. And my god it is a lot of work. It was almost a full-time job on top of her regular job. Sure you can cut the work by hiring a wedding planner, but if you don’t you will have a lot of work to do. That is why at the time I thought of a place where to find all of the things.
A place that aggregates all services you need with a link to their website, apps or portfolio. It could even include their price range. It may be a bit naive of me to think that everything could be in one place and that showing the price wouldn’t create a race to the bottom. However, you know what they say artists sell a good story not just a price range. If a videographer makes an epic video with your favorite songvs someone who makes a cheesy DVD only your grandma would like, maybe the first one is worth 6-10k vs the 2k for the second one.
I think a site like this is a great starting point and helps couples get a feel of what is out there and what they can do on their budget.
How could the site or app make money?
Ads and placement like kijiji or craigslist could be great. Perhaps have a premium service where couples pay a fee to have someone make all the first calls for them and book them meeting with caterers, photographers and dj.
This idea is part of a group of ideas related to weddings I had back when I got married and the following years. Not sure if they still relevant, but I hope it can help you find new ones.
Let your wedding guest share their pictures and build their own wedding book.
When we got married we noticed that other than the wedding photographer, others brought their expensive camera and took pictures of the ceremony and party. When we met with our photographer we were not happy with the wedding book he made for us and ended up building our own with his picture instead. We wanted to include some pictures from the guest and it was very hard to get pictures from everybody.
This gave me this idea, why not make it easier for the guest to share their pictures. Maybe they would want the wedding book we built with them too or even make their own like we did.
Why not give the guest a disposable camera to take impromptu pictures of their experience. Then, they give back when they leave and the couple can use the picture for their book and/or site. Or apps that let them do this from their phone (less expensive than the camera) and let the app automatically share the picture or let them choose the picture to share.
I know there are already apps like this. A few years after our wedding a couple of friends got married and they sent us a link to an app for their wedding. It was kind of doing that and added a part to notify user of the wedding before the wedding. However, it didn’t have the part where you make your own wedding book. They went bankrupt, so I’m not sure it’s easy to find a way to make money out of it.
How could it make money ?
Why this app was more a convenience that I saw from firsthand experience here how it could make money. The couple and the guest could pay for the souvenir for the wedding book created after, they could buy prints of the picture. Perhaps couple the app with a gift directory where the guest can send gifts to the couple.
I know it’s a bit late, but here is the list of books I’ve read in 2021. If you’ve read some of them let me know what you thought of them. If you have any suggestions let me know via comment or a reply to my tweet.
Dune
I don’t know why I waited so long to read that book, but with the new Dune movie coming (now released) I had to read it first.
If you check my previous entry you can probably guess the kind of fiction I like and Dune hit that spot. It’s a bit long (800+ pages) and can drag at times, but the world building and characters are amazing.
We follow the journey of Paul Atreid, son of Duke Leto and Bene Gesserit Jessica, on the desert planet Arrakis. The planet where water is more precious than gold, home of giant sand worms and the only place where a substance knows has spice can be found. Spice is used to create drugs that enhance human capabilities, increasing their lifespan, power to read minds, enable faster than light space travel, etc.
If you love sci-fi this one is a must read. I loved Hebertworld building and characters. I’ve read some reviews that said it was hard to follow, but I didn’t have a problem with that.
This book could save your life
I’ve started this book at the end of 2020, and it took me a while to finish. The author Graham Lawton goes through each facet of health and analyzes the scientific study done on each topic.
Is Exercise good for you (yes), can it make you lose weight (depends, but fixing your diet is better). Is avocado a superfood? No more than other vegetables. He lays down claims then attacks them with scientific study after study and lays down the benefits and cons of each statement. If you care about your health, you should definitely give it a read. However, I felt the book was a bit cumbersome to read at times. He sometimes really goes deep in the data to explain a point and I found this a bit boring to read.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
I love astronomy even though I don’t have a working telescope. If you’re curious about anything happening in astrophysics, from the big gang, to exoplanets and dark matter. This book is a great read to put you up to speed. If you read astronomy and space blogs every day you probably know much of what is in it.
I think it’s a great book to give or lend to friends or family who may not be passionate about the subject, but are curious about it.
Note: I’ve read the French translation ”L’univers expliqué aux gens pressés” so I can give it the friends and family that don’t read much in English.
Atomic Habits
I really liked the “Power Of Habit” by Charles Duhigg so when my wife gave me that book for Christmas I was pretty stoked.
After reading it here my two cents, half the book is a refresher of the power of habit by Charles Duhigg. What makes it interesting is that it feels less academic than Duhigg’s book.
The basics are there like: how habits are formed, how to use this knowledge to stop bad habits and form new good one, use cues of things you like to do, etc.
If you don’t read much on the subject, I think it’s a good read. However, if you read a lot of self-help you might find there is not much new in it.
Unleash the Ideavirus
I was listening to one of Seth Godin interviews and the interviewer mentioned that book which Godin published in 2001 just before the dot com crash.
There is a free pdf which you can find online. Since it’s from 2001 many of the examples in the book feel very outdated for anyone reading it now.
Many concepts in the book are still valuable today and it does show that Godin was ahead of the times and on trend even way back when. Some of the ideas here are still applicable in terms of working with “sneezers” – which we now call “influencers“.
The book explains how to turn a good business idea into an infectious “ideavirus” that spreads like wildfire.
Early adopters, customers and key influencers, which he called “sneezers”, spread an ideavirus far more effectively than traditional, interruption-based marketing methods.
If you only want to read one book on marketing, check “This is marketing” instead it’s more in depth and more recent. However, if you’re looking for a free book with outdated examples, but timeless advice perhaps you can give Unleash the Ideavirus a chance.
The practice
Another Seth Godin book. It inspired me to write a bunch of articles for this blog in the mid 2021, so it did inspire me.
Here some of the key points:
You have a unique contribution to make – work that only you can do, work that matters for people who need you. Not everyone though, you don’t want to dumb it down to the masses, making it generic and average. You need to find who you seek to serve and do work that makes an impact for them. Change, by definition, means doing something that has never been done before, so it’s not guaranteed to work. Doesn’t matter; do it anyway – take the leap and embrace the practice, not the outcome.
The practice is not the means to the output, the practice is the output because the practice is all we can control.
There are some parts about making a habit that made me think of the book the atomic habit, like finding your streak and maintaining it (Like Seinfield steak). Other parts of the book discuss the resistance and ‘suffering from a writer’s block’ reminds me of the book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield.
Note that it sometimes feels more of a collection of insight than a book focusing on one point. It could be read in a daily format, reading a passage a day instead of trying to read the whole book in one sitting.
If you’re doing anything remotely creative, you should give that book a chance. If you find just a passage that hits you, it will be worth your time.
Le livre perdu de Léonard De Vinci
This is a fiction book I’ve read in French (translated from Italian) that follows Leonardo Da Vinci from his time in Milan to when he is back in Florence.
I bought it for my parents thinking it was another Da Vinci code, but it’s nothing like that.
It’s about inquisition by Leonardo and his Dominican friend, the famous mathematician Luca Pocioli, to find a rare and invaluable byzantine book stolen following a mysterious murder. They need to decrypt a code to access it (using math).
I like it, it is short and love how the other brought the setting and time period to life. Showing the struggle between the Italian city state and the french king making is moved in the background of the main story.
This is marketing
I’m not a marketing guy, but I was curious about it and since I follow Seth’s work and already read two of his books this year.
This is not a book about tactics, it won’t tell you should have a newsletter, or write a blog post every days, or that Instagram ads work better than FB.
It’s more about how you should think about marketing in a broader term. Who are you trying to serve, where are they hanging out and serve them for the better.
This book seems to be more about the fundamentals that will help you see the assumptions that are behind the techniques.
Here a TL;DR for you:
The relentless pursuit of mass will make you boring because mass means average, it means the center of the curve, it requires you to offend no one and satisfy everyone. It will lead to compromises and generalizations. Begin instead with the smallest viable market. What’s the minimum number of people you would need to influence to make it worth the effort.
If you’ve read some of them let me know what you thought of them. If you have any suggestions let me know via comment or a reply to my tweet.
When we sold our first property I was surprised how many websites they were to submit your property. Even after hiring a real estate agent, he suggested adding the house to all the free sites we know. This is to increase the number of people that will see that the property is on the market.
At the time, I even knew somebody who recently built a site where you can put your house for sale. He implemented an option to migrate your listing from one of the more well-known site to his site. That got me thinking, why not do the reverse? Basically the user fills his house information on one site and your service exports it to multiple services.
You could have many tiers, a free tier for free service, a paid tier for paid service and you make a cut through affiliation. Example: our local newspaper had a web form to post your property on the weekend editions for 40$. This service could do it for the same price from our own listing and get a cut through an affiliate link.
Sure nowadays most people zillow, but you want more eyeballs on your property if you want people to know it exists. What better place than a new paper with limited listing than a place where you compete against all listings.
Back when we were trying to sell our condo, I was surprised how many sites they were to sell it on and how inefficient most were. We were trying to sell the condo ourselves and non-Realtor didn’t have access to MLS or sites like Zillow & Realtor.com at the time. Because of that we were left to use a site where users entered their own sale data. Where we were trying to sell was near a hotspot with a shopping mall and a direct bus line to our city downtown so it was well located. However, there were a lot of other condo for sale in that area, and the price fluctuated greatly. So, I thought maybe I should make a mailing list tailored to that hotspot.
How to get subscribers? Created a landing page that focus on that niche hot area (condo near NAME OF THE SHOPPING MALL for sale or condo for sale near NAME OF THE BUS TERMINAL). How to get data? We were living there so that was not too hard. We could go around and enter them by hand. Probably doing some sort of aggregation of other services would be more sustainable. How to keep subscribers interested? When they first sign in, send them a survey to know what they are looking for and prioritize those types of properties. Send weekly tips post on what to look for, how to do better search, etc. How to make money? Well if we sold our condo with that we would have made more money than if we used a real estate agent. Just for a 200k condo, the agent commission will be 10k, you need to do a lot of ads word to reach 10k. You can do a subscription where user selling their property can pay to be promoted or to stay on the list after X days. In the end, we ended up using a real estate agent, but if I created this earlier I think it would have worked. And if it works for one hotspot you can expand it to multiple spots.
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