I need some views on this

[Stallion]

Hey I had a few muse ideas rolling around my head and I just needed to spit ball with them a bit and hear people's views on one of them. The other, I'm not sure if I'm going to need to speak to a lawyer, but anyway first one.

This is something my dad did about 5-7 years ago. It's a service business, which sort of goes out of the range of what Tim suggested. Basically it was a local niche travel agent/planner. So you can insert any niche. If you live by mountains, it could be sking, or golf, or hunting, etc. You get the idea. He basically booked people's vacations, set them up, totaled the cost, charged 10% commission and sent them the bill.
Now I know what you're thinking, if he doesn't do the work, he doesn't get payed. The thing was my dad worked his normal job and when he came home, he'd do an hour or two of work setting up these "vacations". Most people that called ended up on voice mail and he'd call them back.
I'm not sure if it was Tim that said it, but VA's should be able to do party planning, wedding planning, so why not vacation planning? Return emails, make the calls and plan it out. I could set a credit card payment thing online.

Before I read 4HWW, I always thought of that business as one with no exit for me. I'd have to work to make money and if I didn't, I didn't make a cent. But a VA should be able to do it. What do you guys think?


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Second idea. This one I'm not going to go into so much detail. But let me give you some background. I graduated from university with a degree in electrical engineering. When I took a long hard look at myself, I realized it wasn't what I wanted. It was something my parents and teachers wanted. I think the most thought I put into my post secondary education was "I'm good at math" "how much does it pay?"

Anyway, my product I was thinking of would be an ebook. I always hated the idea of ebooks, but I guess there are good ones that aren't on getting rich blogging. This would be on building some electrical device. It's a popular thing and I think there would be a market for people that are sort of into these homemade building projects, there are a few more markets I think I could squeeze it into as well that I don't want to go into detail about.

Anyway, the legal side point is this. To build an electrical device like this and sell it you need to be a licensed "professional" engineer. To be a licensed one, I need to have my degree(which I have) and 4 years of fulltime work experience under a professional engineer(which I don't have).

Now in this case I'm not building this product to sell for profit, I'm selling a guide on how average joe can make it. I'm not sure if I'm legally obligated to have a professional engineer's name on the engineering aspect of it. But I guess that should be left for a lawyer. If you have any opinion on the legality please chip in on it.

I guess in retrospect I could outsource the design to some engineer to do.

I'd probably sell this ebook for $150 roughly. If you're curious I couldn't manufacture the product, it's just too complicated and would cost a fortune to ship, as well as people looking for support after they got it.

When I get my hand on some doe I'm going to give it a market test to see if there is any interest.

Hmmm, I actually feel better after writing this.

[Sven]

1
Well, there are a few things going for it. You have seen how this business should be run in order for it to work. That's a BIG advantage. And I do believe that quite a lot could be automated if it were to become to much work and as you said, a VA can do a lot too. It won't cost a lot to set up and it relies on local knowlege so it is not too easy to copy. Why not give it a shot and see where it gets you?

2
As a supplier of a problem solver in kit form I am not to sure about giving people just a guide on how to build stuff. I think that solving as big a part of the customers problem as possible is the way to go. I don't know the cost of this problem but I think that 150.00 is a lot of money for a bit of e paper... If you are able to provide materials and drawings too the barrier to become a customer comes down a lot!

Hope this helps!
Sven

[Stallion]

Thanks for the reply. The first one I think I'll just give it a try. The worst I probably could do is break even.

The second one, I'll try to think of a problem, but it really isn't a problem in the first place. I'll have to think about it. It's in a very new market that most consumers aren't in yet. Most people that do this now are hobbyists and I've yet to find a good put together ebook on it. But it's not like it's a completely useless product, it can be used to save money. The reason I want to charge a lot for it is because people want something of quality. I don't think anyone would pay $50 for it and believe the information would be legit. I think I really need to do some testing before I start getting into it.

Just now while writing this I just thought of another item I could manufacture. Hmmm, I guess just writing stuff and spit balling really helps get the muse muscles going.

Thanks again.

[Stallion]

Last night I got a piece of melancholy hit me, just to realize I was doing nothing. I actually thought of a third muse.

I actually thought of the market first, rather then a product.

I'd like to market this product (even though it's not made and I haven't figured out how to make it yet lol).

So two questions. Do I have to buy a domain name for tests or is it fine to put it in a subdirectory of a domain I already have? An upside is that the domain is in the same area of interest(the domain is just my blog on the subject).

Number two, sales page. This is where I'm going to struggle like hell. Like Brainquicken and that pxmethod(sp?). I really don't know how to do those. In fact for me, I don't personally like them(the pxmethod one, brainquicken is fine), but I know research shows they do sell.

Any articles on the subject that anyone is willing to pass along?

[Stallion]

Well, I'm going to assume it's alright for testing purposes to set it up as a subdomain or in a directory.

product.domain.com
domain.com/product

I was doing searches to make sure there was no other companies making this product and well there doesn't appear to be. In fact the first search result I got back was on a forum, a person asking if anyone knows of a product that I want to develop. There was absolutely no replies on the thread(and this is a busy forum).

I'm pretty excited.

[FrozenCanuck]

Stallion - I'm an engineer also ... I think you just discovered that one muse leads to many more ideas, that is what happened for me in my area of expertise. Now I'm working to launch the tests.

I would just buy the domains that you want to use. They are like $7 for a year, very cheap.

As for your product design ebook, you can go talk to a lawyer about the design, and see if you need to be a licensed engineer to sell plans. Maybe, but you can always incorporate elsewhere, where rules are not in your way?

PM me if you want to share more on the idea - I have always been a hobbyist, and I'd be happy to help you brianstorm. One idea might be to actually sell a physical kit of instructions PLUS some of the key components to save the customer time shopping.

I think charging high and then justifying is the way to go. $150 is good. You will get smarter customers with more incentive to succeed, and less returns. You need to generate 1/3 of the sales as compared to a $50 price.

Just make sure that the total cost to build the project is well over $150. If you look at the e-manual cost : components cost ratio, you'd want it to be at least 1:1 if not much LOWER, I think it would be hard to sell a $150 manual for a project costing $100. But on a $500 project, not such a problem.

Sell the benefits of it ...

[Stallion]

I would just buy the domains that you want to use. They are like $7 for a year, very cheap.
Well, I don't really have a problem buying one or two. I just want to do different testing on a product name first to find a name people respond to. I don't really want to buy a bunch of them when I'm sort of strapped for cash.

PM me if you want to share more on the idea - I have always been a hobbyist, and I'd be happy to help you brianstorm. One idea might be to actually sell a physical kit of instructions PLUS some of the key components to save the customer time shopping.
Great idea. That would probably work out great with an Ebook. I've also thought about upselling them components that are a little harder to make.

I think it would be hard to sell a $150 manual for a project costing $100. But on a $500 project, not such a problem.
Yeah the project will cost $500 or more depending on how much a builder shops around on material. So those that thought $150 was a little steep, it's steep because the project is expensive and people will want to know how to build it right the first time.

I'll hit you up with a PM when I get a little more time and we can throw some ideas around.

[FrozenCanuck]

Yeah, so for a project that will cost at least $500, I would think of your 30% premium as something that does two things.

1) improves chances of a successful project, and hobbyists love to succeed. So this is a form of insurance.
2) Probably speeds up the pace of the project.

When hobbyists get excited by a project, an extra $150 on a $500+ project isn't that big a deal. Definitely stay at or above $100 is my advice. Don't go down to some crazy $50 level.

For sure, upselling on key components is a great idea. Particularly if you can electronically deliver the ebook and drop-ship the components.

[KerriK]

Hmmm. Just curious if you know about "Make" magazine. There target market is crazy do it yourself-ers. They have an extensive website and even do fairs- their is one coming up in San Francisco. Might get some ideas/strategies/advice there.

Kerri