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.
Finding a daycare center that has some space left can be a pain. Sometimes you have to clinch a spot months before the baby is even born. So, I thought of a service or app that could do that. Note that most government sponsored daycare have that kind of service, but they don’t usually include private daycare centers or family daycare.
How to make it?
The main problem is getting where the daycare centers are in a region and how to know if they’re good or not. The simplest way is to crowdsource the information and allow users to enter daycare centers they know of and let them review them. Getting users to fill in the missing information can be tricky, gamifying the site so users can get points and badges to motivate them to fill in more information. It will need a forum where parents can discuss and ask questions.
The remaining part of the site or app is pretty straightforward. It needs a search engine to search daycare centers based on zip code, address, city or name and a map to show where they are.
The site could link to kids and baby products for some advertising and affiliate marketing revenue.
Making Money with the app or service
There is probably not a lot of money to be made. One source could be kids and baby products ads and affiliate offers where the parents search and on the result page.
Another option is to let daycare services advertise on the site.
These type of site already exist, you can check some example here:
You are probably noticing a thread by now, it seems that these ideas come from past periods of my life. By this logic, by the end of this project the ideas will be about people in retirement homes and I will reveal that I’m a 100 year old guy who blogged to fight dementia. Spoiler alert… I’m not! (Yet…)
So after apartment hunting, buying a house and tying the knots what next? Yes, you guessed it! Getting a dog! No, I mean having kids.
When we were expecting our first child, we kind of knew what name we wanted to give, but we tried to have more options for our little one.
There were some sites and books at the time, but no app so I thought making an app could be a good idea. Note that now there are dozens of sites and apps that have that service which means that was not a bad idea.
It’s quite an easy app to implement. You need the data of the most popular name of the past year, the dataset of the list of baby names and options in your app for the user to choose if they want a girl name,a boy name or gender neutral name, name similar to the parent, etc.
If you have the date, making the apps should be straightforward; you don’t even need to make it yourself, just hire someone on freelance.com or fiver and you can probably have the app under 100$.
Making money
This is probably the tricky part, except for ads there is no way to make money. Most other baby apps’ names are free so making your user pay for the apps is ridiculous.
You could do affiliate marketing of products for expecting parents or a baby names book. Create a widget that other sites (mom or baby blogs) can add to theirs and make them pay or show ads.
As you can see this one is pretty easy to do, but usually easy doesn’t have that much option in terms of making money.
This is not an idea, more a concept. After reading ‘Nudge‘, ‘Predictably Irrational‘ or ‘The Now Habit‘ (not sure which) and meetings with a friend who was struggling with his bills made me realize that some don’t have the financial literacy to accumulate wealth.
Everything about making money online is about making money quickly, buying bitcoin and waiting for it to go to the moon, but most of the people I know who made a lot of money they made it through unsexy ways. It’s about investing, spending less than you earn and studying to have a well-paid job or train to grow your career.
For most, saying they need to spend less than they earn is pretty boring and cutting their 200$+ a month on cable and their 100$+ a month phone bills is thought to be an aberration. Reframe spending less to win one million in XX years (20, 25, 30 years), then saving is not about cutting pleasure today but about putting enough money in your savings today to have a significant nest egg in the future.
Sure one million nowadays doesn’t look like a lot of money like it did before, but you need to make your first million to make another one. Since with a X% you should make another million again in X year, the first step should be getting it.
Most money conscious people either read blog related to where they are with their money there the getRichSlowly&simpleDollar if you’re thinking more about saving (paying dept, cutting cable, making your own soap) or Iwillteachyoutoberich which focus more on making more money (side hustle, getting a better job, creating income) or the stock bro with motley fool, morning brew, etc.
At least getting people to find their money niche by making them aware they have a problem and be more conscious about this. Perhaps a newsletter, Youtube series (or channel), a blog. This is, however, a lot of work, having to write all this article and getting people interested.
Making money?
This idea is not really geared towards making money, it’s more about making people more conscious of their problems and taking action to fix it. Sure affiliate link to other blogs, newsletter or information products would help but the core should be helping people out.
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.
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.
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