Thursday, July 14, 2005

The Elusive Idea

The Million Dollar idea. That one project that can net me a load of cash to set me up for further investments and wealth. I've been dwelling on this for the last couple of days. I have no money to my name, I have no assets I can sell, I have no investors to back any plans and most importantly.. I have no idea.

The focus has been on a cheap and creative way to provide a service that the Bahraini people require. A friend of mine has launched FeedMe, an online food ordering service (check it out!) and is slowly but surely building up a solid customer base. It caters to Bahraini (and Arabic, in general) people's love of food by providing another way to get the good stuff delivered to your doorstep. Integrating the Internet was meant to speed up the process for office workers with no time to pick up a phone, but it has also proven to be a hit with the younger generation (particularly teenagers), since ordering off a website is infinitely cooler than doing it the old-fashioned way. If you're reading this Fady then I expect a decent amount of free food vouchers delivered to my mailbox in return for all of this free advertising.

So I've been trying to come up with something similar, even simpler. Something that requires little start-up cash and yields instantaneous returns. The problem is, the market is quite small which means that to get the profits I'm looking for I have two options:

1. Target a large demographic and have a cheap and affordable service.
2. Provide the service to a niche market and charge a lot of money.

I'm also not in Bahrain for a good 8 months of the year, so running and propagating the service is also an issue. This is why the idea has to be spectacular, something that only needs to be introduced for the customers to flock to it. I have no time to start small and utilize word of mouth publicity.. I need instant impact. Its a get-rich-quick scheme/dream. I want to do the least amount of work possible and get the most out of it.

We were given a talk once about how doctors are notorious for their poor money-management and investment skills. Most medical practitioners earn a decent wage and could be much wealthier and have more free time to dedicate to their families/pro-bono work/social lives if only they invested wisely. Maybe in the future when I've got some greenback to my name I'll actually sit down and think up a proper way to start a profitable business. Until then, I'm just going to keep dreaming about my Million Dollar Idea.

2 Comments:

At 12:24 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

FeedMe is nothing new. I have constantly proposed this to many friends of mine who are now working in Bahrain.

The biggest problem to actually having that work is the prevalence of cheap wage drivers that the more upscale community has. And the upscale community is the one that is more likely to be using the internet to order food. Why pay for such a service? When you can actually send your driver to bring foods, dvds and anything else you may want at all hours of the night.

Thus, lies the biggest problem with actually offering a service in Bahrain. You will always be up against cheap wage labor.

 
At 1:17 PM , Blogger Mo said...

Yes, FeedMe migh not be an entirely original idea, but it still needed some execution.

As for paying for the service, its absolutely free. Its like picking up the phone and ordering for delivery, except through a computer terminal. Sending your driver costs you gas money and the headache of explaining to him how to order, while with FeedMe you make sure you recieve what you want.

I do agree with you that most businesses in Bahrain face problems competing with cheap wage labour. However, my million dollar idea is to provide a service that can't be emulated or replaced by the aforementioned workers. Until I find that idea, this post was an indication of what I'll keep on doing.. dreaming.

 

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