What Do I Do With All My Ideas?
Someone left a comment on one of my tweets the other day. I asked the question “what is the hardest part of business building?”
Someone respond with … “knowing what to build.”
It shocked me, because I have exactly the opposite problem. Every day I have business ideas. The worst part about my ideas is that I’m blindly confident enough to believe that all of them could work.
I’ve decided to write about all the ideas I have. Maybe it will help me decide which are worth pursuing.
This will get messy. Here we go.
1. The Bootstrapper - Ever since I discovered James Altucher, the idea of a paid newsletter has always been so intriguing to me.
I am building a strong email list over at TimStodz.com. I will always have my free business newsletter, but then there is an upsell to people who want premier content that teaches them how to bootstrap.
I would write a weekly column that gives insight, news, and advice for anyone who wants to build a business without taking any venture capital. I have the sales page written and I even bought the domain name.
I’ve made a few calls and created a few partnerships, and this project will be on it’s way very soon.
2. Rainmaker.FM (The Podcast Networks For Digital Business and Sales) - When I bought Copyblogger, I actually bought ownership of a few things. To be exact, I bought …
Copyblogger.com
Digitalcommerce.com
Rainmaker.FM
Obviously Copyblogger is the main prize. I have been rebuilding the site and building the product base.
In addition, I partnered with Jonny Nastor and we turned DigitalCommerce.com into a high level content marketing agency. We use Copyblogger to drive leads to the site and within a year we already hit $40k + in MRR. (We just closed a big deal and come Monday it will be $52k).
That leaves Rainmaker.FM.
This website is special, it’s a prebuilt podcast network that promotes different types of podcasts and creates a revenue model for all the podcasters in the network.
My idea is this.
I’ll start with The Copyblogger Podcast, then I’ll add The Tim Stodz Podcast, then I’ll pitch other podcasters to join the network.
The only thing you need to do to be part of the network is promote the other shows on the network and run a short promo for DigitalCommerce.com.
I’ll pay them $15 CMP (meaning $15 for every thousands downloads their podcast gets).
In addition, I’ll collect the emails from the network and use them to promote Digital Commerce.
I know this can work, the problem is I would need someone to manage the entire thing because writing show notes for podcasts totally sucks.
3. Alumni Assistant - I am about 3/4 of the way through building the pilot of this product.
Here’s how it works.
When people graduate from addiction treatment, the first year after they leave treatment is very important. The best treatment centers have robust alumni programs, which mean they call their alumni to check in on them, provide them resources for their sobriety, support them, etc.
The problem is that alumni coordinators are left on their own to manage all of this, because the position for “alumni coordinator” only exists in addiction treatment.
So I built a software that does 4 things …
It keeps track of all the graduated patients.
It sets a reminder to the alumni coordinator to call back each patient.
It has a “notepad” for each patient, so the alumni coordinator can get a quick recap on the previous phone call and what the patient is struggling with.
It API’s in ConvertKit so you can easily send the patient specific email automations in one click.
Here’s a demo of it. It’s hard to know what all the fields do without content, but you get the idea. It’s very simple and believe me, this will be a hit.
The List Goes On …
No really, these ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. Instead of describing everything in detail, let me go through the rest.
A media site for mental health resources
A child care center (We could open that up tomorrow and be completely full it’s insane the lack of child care in Nashville. Also, this is actually my wife’s idea lol)
A coffee shop
A stand outside of the Home Depot that serves small cups of coffee for a dollar. We would call it “buck a cup.”
A billing company for our clients at Stodzy (this is probably a next logical step for us but one thing at a time)
A Tim Stodz consulting firm that takes equity in businesses as opposed to charging a fee
A daily newsletter about the business of esports and online gaming. I’m gonna call it “The Cheese.”
Eye on the Prize
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how to more effectively manage my squirrel brain. I’ve learned that it’s okay for me to do more than one thing at once while also learning that it’s not okay for me to do many things poorly.
I know I will bring some of these ideas to reality. What I need is focus and patience.