During Startup Weekend Athens I decided I wanted to try out Mechanical Turk, Amazon’s interesting service. It relies on the concept of Human Intelligence Tasks (small tasks that are easy for humans to do, but hard for machines).
I would love to use it for creative projects, like the Sheep Project or the Dollar Bill Project.
Late Friday night, I decided I wanted to hear some more startup idea pitches (really, I didn’t, but I did, in a sick way). I farmed it out to turk, and got some interesting responses. Humorous, random, and if you read into the themes, very educational.
Here are 12 that I got within the first day, at .08 a piece (I was just testing it out, would offer more if I did it again).
The Greek Letter would make letter shirts for greek organizations and make money by joining with greek organizations such as sororities and fraternities to make their letter shirts.
Peanut butter slices – they would look like Kraft cheese slices, except they would be two thin layers of peanut butter encasing a layer of jelly. A non-sticky coating (similar to the coating found on M&M’s) would prevent the PB&J slices from sticking. You could more easily construct a PB&J sandwich quickly with little mess.
Saturday Spouse would be a golf school for non-playing spouses of golf addicts, who want to learn how to play so that they can join their husbands/wives on the course.
A social network for men whose wives are addicted to thenest.com, they would make money by providing ideas and suggestions on how to get their wives off of the site and with them.
Being a yard sale planner. I would meet with whomever wanted to have a yardsale. She/He could tell me in general terms what they have in mind and how to price items. The only work they would have to do is to give me the items they want to sell. I would handle advertising, and put up signs around the neighbor. The morning of I’d go to their home, put price stickers on items, set up tables and clothes racks, and put out the items. I’d staff the sale and then take down everything after the yard sale ended. Any leftovers would go back to the owner, or I’d take them to Goodwill for them. Payment could be a set amount up front or a percentage of the sales.
A combination coffee shop and music teaching studio which would provide lessons for adults and children and also a place for them to play as they improve and would make money through selling coffee while people wait for family members to take lessons and through the lessons themselves.
A book baby sitter who would read books for customers so the books would not feel so lonely because of not being read.
A nightclub called “Club Seals” with arctic decor, frozen drinks and ice ice baby everywhere you look. Controversial title.
Low pay drivers would deliver Mcdonald’s breakfast for lazy/blind/customers and make money by charging heavily inflated fees.
Youth assistants would provide online personalities for busy people who don’t want to spend their time online.
I would have a Robin Hood inspired company that would take from the unappreciative rich, give to the deserving poor, and customers would make money from the gifts if eligible.
Portaped would be a mobile pedicure service for business customers in urban areas, and make money by charging a fee to come to the offices of busy people (mostly women, probably) and give them pedicure treatments while they work.
This proved interesting to me. I wonder if it can be used for usability testing, random crowdsourcing, design choices, or copywriting decisions.
Interesting to say the least.
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