The Problem:
Companies everywhere are making money from the material things that are being redefined all around us. But I can’t find it memorialized in one place.
The Business
A blog that highlights change in our life and who makes money from it.
On first blush, it may seem that many news organizations do this. Some do, some times. But most news organizations allow this concept to sprawl and don’t stay focused on this one issue. What’s new, who makes money from it? What’s the revolutionary product(s)? Who profits?
This business idea is best defined by a story of my day. I was driving to Annapolis and noticing that yet another billboard is being digitized. I thought to myself, “Of course another billboard is being digitized. Every single billboard everywhere will be digitized and it’s still relatively early in that game. Who makes those billboards?” The digital billboard is a perfect example of something that is changing in our lives. It’s slow, but it’s steady. Twenty years from now you will see an old style billboard on some deserted highway and say, “Remember when?”
Between here and there, someone makes a lot of money. This caused me to do 20 minutes worth of research and put a company called Daktronics back on my radar screen.
The business idea is a blog that always has these products and who makes money form them. Would this blog have had a big feature about tablets a couple of years ago? Of course it would. And it would always tell you who makes money from it. But more importantly, it would have had the IPod ten years ago. Everyone knew the ipod was revolutionary when it came out. You couldn’t know that Apple would go on just about the greatest run any stock has ever seen. But the blog would have said something like, “If this ipod continues this rise to popularity, Apple could certainly stand to benefit.”
Sidebar: I bought 30 shares of Apple in 1998ish. I’m reasonably certain it was a few billion dollar market cap company. I sold it a few years later at a tiny profit because I needed the money during law school. It went something like 80 fold since. Whoops.
Doableness
A blog is the easiest thing in the world to start. Then read Godin, Hubspot, Copyblogger, and SEOMoz for lessons on how to promote it. The difficult part here is to see the world from this lens, repeatedly put up your ideas, and be right enough to be called a visionary. Technically, the idea is as easy as they come. But it’s far less doable than most.
My Thoughts
I would read the shit out of this blog. If you start it, make sure to let me know.