“Coworking plus cat hotel.”
This is the fruit of several months’ worth of daily brainstorming. 😊
James Altucher got me started. His posts about becoming an idea machine and how to be the luckiest person on earth each came back to this common refrain: He came up with 5–10 ludicrous ideas every day in order to help strengthen his idea muscle.
Every day I write down ideas. I write down so many ideas that it hurts my head to come up with one more. Then I try to write down five more …
The “idea muscle” atrophies within days if you don’t use it. Just like walking. If you don’t use your legs for a week, they atrophy. You need to exercise the idea muscle. It takes about 3–6 months to build up once it atrophies. Trust me on this.
Hearing that others, like Chris Winfield, had tried this out and loved it, I was sold.
So for the past several months, I have come up with 5–10 ludicrous ideas every day.
- It’s hard at first.
- It gets easier.
- Not all of the ideas are very good, in fact the vast majority are bad (see below). Leaning into these bad, weird, dumb ideas was what paved the way for the occasional worthwhile idea to peek through.
- It works! My idea muscle is stronger, and I can brainstorm quicker and more confidently than before.
There’ve been some wonderful stories written about the daily idea regimen. The advice there is top-notch. Instead of advising, I’d love to encourage. Here are all the ideas I came up with during my weeks and weeks of brainstorming, listed here so that hopefully you can see that ideas don’t all have to be good, make sense, or change the world.
Ideas breed ideas, regardless of where they start.
I’ve bolded the ones that still kinda made sense to me.
Feel free to highlight any that catch your eye!
Product ideas
Software
Baremetrics for transactional emails
Baremetrics dashboard/leaderboard for blog posts
News Feeds that go oldest (unread) to newest, rather than chronologically
Buzzfeed’s Lift dashboard, but for everyone
Analytics that show if you’re on pace & your next milestone
Upworthy headline test tool (automated)
Blog plus Twitter feed
Google Analytics for the radio
Automated visitor list, from IPs of unique visitors
Change 1password and it updates everywhere
Google Reader for Twitter
Automatic social media waterfall goal tracker/alerts
Social media schedule auto-refills
Buffer for Snapchat (just tips and strategies, no automation)
Instant CRM for all your customers (happiness CRM + proactive engage)
Apps
Build a Yaniv app
“book of hoyle” app
“buffet” poker app
Nertz
Just Madden’s owner mode
Custom Rook app
Love Letter
Acquire
Fireball Island
Goods
Whole Foods drive thru
Formal sweatpants
Self-melting roads in winter
See-through toasters
Earbuds that retract into the phone
Fruit ripening indicator
Dirty dishes sensor so you know when the dishwasher is clean or dirty
Roomba for the kitchen sink
Universal sizes for tupperware, regulated by the government
Adjustable measuring cups
Marketing ideas
Start something (an agency) in order to learn about something (how agencies work)
Profile photo booth at social media conventions
Chartbeat embed on each page of your blog (real-time visits, overall, etc.)
A Twitter strategy that posts the same picture every day w/ a link back to the main website
Twitter is your blog
Medium is your e-commerce site
Instagram everything of one color
IRL snapchat filters
Twitter accounts for everything (a la ProductHunt)
Transparent customer support
Blogging ideas
Multimedia blogs — like espn.com
Run a blog but totally through Facebook
Only 10 blog posts per blog, the rest on Medium
blogpost: “Is” isn’t good enough (labels, fixed vs growth mindset)
A blog as a phonebook — alphabetical entries, A to Z
A blog with an expiration date
A blog in seasons — like a TV show or similar
blogpost: 16 Social Media Experiments And Their (Surprising) Results
blogpost: How to Live Life with No Solutions
blogpost: How to Learn Everything
blogpost: The Inboxes of Busy People // And You Thought 100 Emails Per Day Was Lots!
blogpost: Everything I Learned About Myself From Writing This Facebook Ads Guide
blogpost: The Tyranny of Data
blogpost: I’ve Got 99 Experiments, But a Winner Ain’t One
blogpost: Here’s the Thing: 95% of a Growth Marketer’s Output Doesn’t Lead to Growth
blogpost: The Only Difference Between a Growth Marketer and a Regular Marketer is Volume of Fails
blogpost: Time on Page: 9 Minutes
blogpost: Pages Per Visit: 15
New blog theme/redesign every year
Tags as commentary
Manifesto in footer
Gold Club (blog monetization strategy)
Weekly takeovers (blog monetization strategy)
blogpost: “Finger Exercises for People Who Type All Day”
blogpost: “What Content Marketing Looked Like 10 Years Ago”
blogpost: “Here’s What No One Told You About Your Smartphone”
Comments section as uservoice forum
Podcast ideas
“I know nothing” podcast — guests teach me things I don’t know
Podcast segment with my 4-year-old son every episode
Create a podcast network — with Buffer community, Buffer teammates
A podcast for every Buffer value
Podcast seasons — validate each podcast in a lean way
Just games podcast — a podcast with just the games from radio shows
Football show podcast — with call-ins
Recording a SaaS team’s daily standup and making it a podcast
Me and my friend Nick talking on the phone
Pizza ideas
Breakfast pizza
Birchbox for pizza
Pizza-by-the-slice delivery
Pizza swag giveaway for startups
Pizza art
Vertical pizza
Two-sided pizza
Parenting / Kid ideas
Gymnastics flooring for kids bedrooms
Twist-off cups with lids
Montessori fridge
Chore calendars
Visual budget for kids
Lego shop for individual pieces that lost/broke
Lego framed art sets (Mona Lisa, Starry Night)
Lego cereal (cereal shaped like Legos)
360-degree Lego video
Book ideas
Book: Everyone/everything is debt-free all at once
Book: Guy who thinks world is ending then it doesn’t
Book: Four friends try to get The Force, only one actually has it
TV show ideas
Script: anthropomorphic kitchen appliances; what happens when the fridget gets replaced
Friends but with an Air-bnb guest each episode
CSI but in a small town and a comedy
Coworking ideas
Coworking plus event space
Coworking plus pizza
Coworking plus bakery
Coworking plus maker space
Coworking plus gym
Coworking plus daycare
Coworking plus doggy daycare
Coworking plus cat hotel
Co-branded coworking spaces (Buffer + ConvertKit)
Food trucks
Toast
Chili
Smoothies
Paleo
Soda
Different kinds of potato chips
Cereal
Misc. ideas
Yearly video games as updates, not full games
DIY blood test results
Side project accelerator
SimGolf for Steam
Venture firm, funding mostly my own ideas (“Think Tank,” “Know Tank”)
20% time for reactive job roles
Christmas tree for birthdays
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