Startup Idea #19: Recommendation 2.0: scenario based recommendation for fashion

Current fashion discovery sites oriented toward searching based on concrete attributes of the product (e.g. price, color) or the user (as in Collaborative Filtering). Such orientation completely ignores the scenario of where the clothings will be displayed, the overall fit of the clothing as well as the current items owned by the user. In reality however, users do consider such factors in making purchase decisions.

The idea here is to design an online fashion site that incorporates these factors in its product recommendation system. We will surround this site with game like mechanisms to make it sticky.

Updated: 20 Nov 2007
Why is this idea powerful. It represents a new class of reconstuctor. As mentioned in bubblegen, the ability to rebundle objects create more value because it reduce transactional cost for consumers.

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Startup Idea #18: Information intermediaries for new emerging market (tickets, sports)

The technology of the digital age is driving an unprecedented explosion in the ability to create markets in anything. Trade anything. Not just physical goods. Not just financial instruments. But ideas. Events. Outcomes.

The emergence of these kinds of markets will -over time - impact how we view and interact with the world in all aspects of our personal and professional lives. They will fundamentally alter the current world economic and social paradigm.

With the emergence of a market-like system in traditional closed industries, there is a need for information intermediaries that help to make the markets more transparent, more . Think of how the financial markets have spawned innovative research services like research recap, monitor 110

The current emerging markets in my radar are: tickets for events, sports, digital media, online advertising, lead generation and mostly interesting, human talent. The examples of services you can built for say a sports market include:

- blog aggregation: smart aggregation of research oriented blogs with tabs for different types of information (research recap). For sports, this will be blogs that cover player and game statistics, manager strategies et al. We can combine this with the Techmeme model to allow users to read the conversations in addition to the blog posts. See here for a list of such blogs.

- extraction of information from unstructured date i.e. blogs, forums, messaging boards etc: to surface actionable trading ideas (monitor101) from the mountain of untamed data in the web.

- last.fmm model to marry implicit data collection with recommendation services. For sports, this will allow users to find people with similar club/player interests, what they are betting on, et al.

- distribution platform: distribute exisiting aggregated information to different delivery channels i.e. RSS, email, twitter, instant messaging, social feeds et al. This idea differs from the first by focusing on the unbundling and rebundling of aggregated content from channels, rather than on the unbundling and rebundling of content from sources.

- panel forecast (Comscore model): create a large enough userbase to divine outcomes and sell that information.

- blogging platform: the typepad of investment blogging. Come with analytics, market data, and whatever information the blogger needs to do his work. Ad supported of course.

The possibilities are ming boggling.

Updated: 23 Feb 2008
My first idea is to create a reuters for virtual item trading market. See this article

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Startup Idea #17: Arbitrage selling through via live video

Even with ecommerce taking off, there are still many items that require a local presence for purchase. Paintings by local artists is one example. We see many independent artists, especially in the Asia where their paintings are not available online.

A business can be built by using Justin.TV style of service to serve buyers. We can arrange for a virtual shopping session where live video will be stream and broadcast to buyers on the products they are otherwise unable to purchase. For example, we can arrange for a video session to visit painting galleries or roadside stalls where buyers can make their purchase of paintings via telecommunications.All videos will be made available online for buyers who are unable to attend the live sessions.

Updated: 5th Nov
As an extension to this idea, we will build a platform that allows other people to create their live 'shopping channel'. Think how Ebay enables the creation of numerous sell side business and you will have an idea of how this platform can enable many individual businesses to arise. Our own channel just serves as an example of how such a business can be run. The opportunity comes when other users join in the fun.

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Startup Idea #16: Brands sponsored widgets

Updated: 30 Nov 2007
Cleared the previous idea on last.fm for micro learning since I could not figure out how that is different from having a personalised or 'branded' RSS feed.

Create a marketplace for brands to sponsor widgets on social profiles. Users can to choose which widgets they prefer. No advertisement here. The interaction of the user with the brand sponsored widget IS the advertisement.

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Startup Idea#15: Last.fm for stock picks

Updated: 27 Dec 2007
This idea takes the lastfm approach of utilizing "web 2.0" technologies to deliver insights to stock picking. The idea is to collect and analyse stock investment among social groups, communities et al.

Examples of benefits include:
- seeing all the stock investments by your friends in an aggregated and structured way?
- seeing all the people with the same investment style as the user? and to compare which potential stock investments can lead to the most reward?
- seeing the stock related news that your friends/groups are reading?
- seeing the most common route about the level of risk/returns that that I really want? What do people invest to achieve that level


Now imagine you layer on even more interesting data, especially with job boards. For example, once you have determined the career path to follow, our service will recommend, similar to how Lastfm works, the set of jobs that will start you on this path.

The important thing is to get the structure and presentation down, which means we would have a pretty valuable asset on your hands--a kind of "last.fm for stock investment".

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Startup Idea #14: Virtual currency in real world enterprise solutions

A lot of business efforts have been focused on using real world currency on virtual world items or actions. However, the reverse of using virtual currency on real world actions might also offer business ideas. One such opportunity is in the enterprise space. I can imagine, for example, using virtual currencies in a staff reward system. There are a few companies that employ instant rewards to employees for well accomplished jobs. A virtual currency system can be implemented to let managers give out such rewards in a more timely manner. Employees can then redeem these currencies for real financial gains at the end of financial year. The advantages of such a system is that virtual currencies relieve HR of the complications of financial administration and at the same time provide timely motivation incentives.

Beyond HR systems, virtual currencies can be used where there is a need to allocate resources. These resources can be physical i.e. conference rooms, contract staff or virtual such as employees' attention i.e. emails, meetings. There is definitely much room to explore here.

Updated: 24 Nov 2007
What we are doing is introducing economic efficiency into an otherwise inefficient market i.e. the firm. If we frame our thinking in this way, we can actually do a lot with the idea here.

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Startup Idea#13: Open source CAD

Provide an open source CAD. Autodesk, the market leader in 3D CAD, commands over a billion in revenue. If we change the model of the industry, similar to what MySQL did for the database industry, we can potentially disrupt the entire CAD market.

See article for related thoughts

http://cofes.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/272/EntryID/116/Default.aspx


Updated: 26 Feb 2008
See this link for the most pirated software. Signals the pent up demand for an open source CAD system.

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