Million Dollar Ideas: Lesson 3 - If you want to succeed, you need passion

If you want to succeed, you need passion

Once Alex Tew decided to run with his idea, he ran all the way. There were people who thought it was a joke, and there were people who called him a silly goose. But he ran with his idea no matter what. He believed in his idea and did not let anyone tell him otherwise. He marketed himself on radio and he sent press releases to local news papers. He risked making a very public ass out of himself by standing for his idea, no matter how silly it is, and pushing it. Its easy to hail him as an "entrepreneur" now that we know he is successful, but can you imagine what it must have been like in the early days? To make an idea successful, you need passion!

Million Dollar Ideas: Lesson 2 - Implement your idea

Ok, so you have an idea. If you want it to go from just an idea in your head to THE million dollar idea everyone is talking about, you have to implement it first. If it is a huge success like the MDH, great! If it’s a modest success, that’s good too. Heck, even if it’s a total failure, you still learn from it. It will be great experience to help you in the future endeavors!

Million Dollar Ideas: Lesson 1 - No idea is too silly

No idea is too silly

Who would have thought that someone could make money by selling ads on a website that had nothing but ads on it??!! When phrased that way, can you see how silly that sounds? But if one thing this success story teaches us, it is that no idea is too silly. Now some ideas click and some don’t, but don’t ever give up because someone else tells you your idea is too silly.

MIllion Dollar Idea Right Here

Here’s your million dollars right here: it’s called Splittr (or perhaps something else, but let’s just say).

The Creative Commons by-nc license is great for non-commercial collaboration - tag your content with this license and you indicate to everyone that you’re happy for other people to use it in derivative works as long as it’s non-commercial and as long as they credit you. You’re both protected (maybe: some would argue this) by the boilerplate legalese that license represents. Creativity is lubricated, stuff gets made, everybody’s happy.

But what about the commercial end of things? How do you sell that stuff? For instance, let’s just say a guy named Spiff makes a bunch of music videos using my music. Then maybe Spiff and I want to put those videos on Revver and share in the profits. Or maybe I want to invite fans to create T-shirt designs that I then sell on CafePress, giving them a cut. Or maybe Len wants to create and sell a JoCo coloring book on Lulu. All this stuff is possible (and some of it has happened), but there’s too much friction - the creators involved need to agree on a split and handle all the accounting, paypal-ing money around as it comes in. Sometimes there’s a legal document involved that comes from the Revver or the Lulu or the CafePress, but it’s usually not made for content that has multiple owners. And to be safe and smart, the collaborators might want to be protected by some kind of legalese as well, maybe codify their collaborative relationship so they can enter into these kinds of agreements.

This is where Splittr comes in. Spiff and I both sign up and create individual profiles, to which we can upload CC-licensed content. If we create some CC-licensed collaboration that we’d like to sell, we then use Splittr to create a JocoSpiff entity, a little micro-partnership that just applies to this specific content. We can then sign up (and enter into agreements) with Revver as JocoSpiff. Big bucks flow into the JocoSpiff account and Splittr distributes those moneys to Spiff and Joco (keeping a cut). Other sites that want to use this content in a commercial way can find and contact us through Splittr, make us an offer, and Spiff and I can opt-in if we like. Now the commercial side of all this Creative Commons content is just as lubricated as the non-commercial side. Stuff gets made, MONEY gets made, everybody’s happy.

This already exists, right? Someone’s working on this?

Jonathan Coulton

Major Formats to Create Million Dollar Idea

There are 3 major formats you can use to create million dollar idea:

1. Find something that already exists, the presence of which has never been known before.

2. Invent something. Most inventions are merely new arrangements of things that have already been invented.

3. Alter or improve in any number of different ways something that already exists.

As you "Create" ideas, write them down. What you dream up can be your key to great wealth. Keep your mind "open" as you go through each day. What did you notice in the department store that would reduce costs, save money or increase sales if some simple procedure were added or something changed?

Ideas for improvements are one of the most valuable things you can contribute to society and at the same time add to your bank account. To create ideas for improvements, consider every possibility and alternative for the thing you want to improve.

Learn to create ideas by evaluating all the different aspects of the product, method or concept you are interested in. Put your imagination and subconscious to work and write down your thoughts pertaining to each of the things you expect to improve