$25,000 at stake! Advice needed

Hello BHW friends!

I'm a 3rd year university student at one of the bigger schools here in Canada, and the school has this contest going on. Each year, they have donations from various sources and form a seed fund. This seed fund is then divided and given as a grant to students that have an idea and want to form a start-up. This year, it's $100,000 divided into 4 start-ups. Along with the grant, start-ups will get mentorship, office space, and legal support. I really want to apply and hopefully, get chosen.

I have a couple of ideas, and since IM is my passion - I would love to start a company that offers a product/service that caters to internet marketers' needs. Now, a question to all - is there a tool or a service that you wish was available that would make any aspect in internet marketing easier? or not even in IM, could be anything under the internet that you wish was there. I would appreciate it if you could share your thoughts and opinions with me - even if it's just a general statement of the "need". I ask here at BHW because I really respect what y'all say, and value all your opinions.

Another thing, I have the possibility of forming a team. If there's anyone that's really passionate about entrepreneurship with the necessary skills - we'll definitely talk about working with each other. Because there's an interview process involved, I think it would look better from the panel's perspective if I had an awesome team ready to perform.

Application deadline's on the 15th.

can you start an affiliate for that?

You could easily start up a website if you have any ideas. (I'm thinkin big like a yell.com or something)

Nothing wrong with offline businesses though - the 'judges' are more likely to understand these so your going to have a better chance with this

Is it U of T?

Anyway,if you choose an online business,be as creative as possible,and don't forget to give a lot of examples of people doing related things and making millions.If you don't remove all doubts they will most likely think like (Marcus haves a simple idea,but i know it will work because I saw that type of business) or w/e and reject you.

Good luck mate,hope you succeed!

youngmoney7 said:

Dude, As soon as I read this I new what I was going to post.

I am from the UK and heavily involved and keep track on all the new business start ups over here. There is one in particular that stands out from the crowd.

Please PM me and I am willing to show you everything, Dont want to post it public as Im SURE there will be lots of copy cats.

The business is 3months old and turning over nearly 150k a month, Its offline and a killer of an idea. I guarantee that it will be unheard of in the USA.

PM me and we can colaborate.

Click to expand...

Interesting. Sent you a PM.

acotut said:

Anyway,if you choose an online business,be as creative as possible,and don't forget to give a lot of examples of people doing related things and making millions.If you don't remove all doubts they will most likely think like (Marcus haves a simple idea,but i know it will work because I saw that type of business) or w/e and reject you.

Good luck mate,hope you succeed!

Click to expand...

Good advice! I agree, definitely if you don't have confidence in your own business, then who will?

BENNY8877 said:

Is it U of T?

Click to expand...

UW

Ste Hughes said:

can you start an affiliate for that?

You could easily start up a website if you have any ideas. (I'm thinkin big like a yell.com or something)

Nothing wrong with offline businesses though - the 'judges' are more likely to understand these so your going to have a better chance with this

Click to expand...

What do you mean start an affiliate?

Yup. Dropbox, yelp, foursquare and many others all started as start-ups that needed venture capital. After that, they just took off

Anyone got more ideas?

start a cleaning company

only hire sexy lesbian cleaners that clean with not many clothes

enjoy

Ste Hughes said:

start a cleaning company

only hire sexy lesbian cleaners that clean with not many clothes

enjoy

Click to expand...

I know someone who did this with CL and was quite successful doing it.

At the end of the day, he would sleep with one of dem girls

Ste Hughes said:

start a cleaning company

only hire sexy lesbian cleaners that clean with not many clothes

enjoy

Click to expand...

If I pitch that to the panel I might get expelled from my university lol

Instead of spending forever trying to think of something really unique, which is so hard to do, usually you will just suddenly think of something randomly, just look at what is easy to do and whats working for other people.

For example, you can easily start 10 websites for hardly anything, all service related sites. Things like Twitter followers, facebook fans, reputation management, seo services, etc.

Look on flippa at sites that are making around $1000 a month or something. Then just start 10, 20, 50 or even 100 of these style sites. You will have to outsource a lot of stuff though, like completing orders, responding to emails, processing refunds, writing content, web design, seo etc. You can hire your mates who you know will be reliable, hard working and know actual english to do emails and support. If they are like most students they will have no money and no job, and will easily do work for you.

Just do what others are doing, and make it unique, offer something extra!

i believe a "one stp shop" for the social networking services typically found on fiverr could succeed

What would be great is a compact portable wifi antenna of some type that amplified wireless internet connection for laptops and desktops in relatively inaccessible areas.

The advantages would be options:

1) The option to not be relegated to having to work in a coffee shop or library for laptop wifi.
2) The option of a premium wifi signal for laptops and desktops (with a wireless adapter) that get reliable signals where ever they are even when their area is has a
natural disaster for instance.
3) The option of a number of options when one bandwidth is slow and the user can switch to a faster lane.

If this can be done for smart phones it can be done for internet and the technology is obviously being held back by the ISP industry.

After all some countries and cities have free internet and wireless ready subways.

Nothing comes to mind, but good luck. I'll check back up on this thread.

I used to live in Ontario, and my friend actually goes to UW as well.

You would probably have a bigger chance to get the grant if you do a offline/online hybrid. Selling online ventures to banks and such is a pain.

But if you're set with your idea then just check what sells in the sales forum, and check what was popular in the past, maybe you can add a twist to something that's dead now / find another source.
Or obviously see whats popular today and do it better.

Just pick a successful web 2.0 business model your examiners don't know about yet and pitch.