How Yo Will Make Money

On Friday, the team behind the simple smartphone app Yo raised $1.5 million, from investors including Betaworks and Mashable founder Pete Cashmore.

You might be wondering how Yo — an app which is free to download, and can only send the word “Yo” from one smartphone to another — can possibly make money for these investors.

Well, off the top of my head, I thought of 18 ways that Yo and its founders will be able to make money. It’s simple, really — as simple as the Yo app.

Really, all the inventors of Yo have to do is:

1. Use the $1.5 million to invest in smaller, more monetizable companies
2. Send Yos to Warren Buffet every second of every day until he gives in and writes a check for $1 billion
3. Announce a retroactive $1 charge for every Yo that’s been sent
4. Convince nerds who are into Bitcoin that Yo is also a “cryptocurrency”
5. Three words: Yo For Business. (These words don’t mean anything. YET! Or ever.)
6. Put $1.5 million in briefcase, retire in Fiji, never code anything again
7. Work with bars to implement a system where thirsty patrons could send a “Yo” to the bartender when they need a drink. Then, when the bartender walks over to help that patron and isn’t looking, steal all the tips left on the bar.
8. Re-frame Yo as a conceptual art piece to be sold alongside Jeff Koons balloon animals at Sotheby’s
9. Figure out a way to monetize Internet outrage surrounding the Yo app
10. Sell service to investment banks and hedge funds that guarantees they will get a Yo notification the second the tech bubble bursts
11. The Yankees need a fifth starter and that Yo app can’t be any worse than the losers that Girardi’s been trotting out there this season, am I right, boys?
12. YoPhone, YoPad, YoPod Touch.
13. Launch nationwide commercial campaign featuring Michael Ian Black voicing an adorable sock puppet dog
14. Sue every writer who has penned a nasty or snarky article about Yo for defamatory damages
15. Transform Yo into a real-time SAAS big-data analytics Hadoop platform for publishers
16. Make potato salad, advertise potato salad on Kickstarter
17. Partner with Kim Kardashian on a Kim Kardashian version of Yo
18. Realize that there are more important things in life than money