Business Ideas 101

[wynn]

1. Lets look at electricity and energy.
The problem is that we look at this incorrectly. We turn energy into electricity and then we turn it into someting else i.e. light, heat, etc. I think that we need to focus on generating energy and storing energy in more appropriate forms. So the question is this: If we need light at night, how do we gather light during the day, store it and then set it free at night. Same goes with heat. Ok, light. One could store light directly via lumenescent materials. Heat, one could store it by heating stones and trapping the heat then realising it slowly at night. The point that I am making is that we are trying to solve the wrong problem; the problem is not how to store electricity; the problem is how to store appropriate energy and release it over time.

There is a system that uses PV cells to electrolyze hydrogen from water.
In a twenty four hour period with a given amount of daylight (not necessarily sunlight) the system creates enough hydrogen to drive a turbine that will supply all the electricity a household would need.

Problem is that the PV cells will cover the roof of the average house (pricey)

[vieome]

@Adrian Well to get to good ideas one just has to throw around ideas and keep going. Like what Ian said Edison played and played with an idea that led to light for homes. This is really about bouncing around business ideas.

I understand critics, many of the ideas that are making people money in the world today are ideas that people say would never work. When I was living in England I went to soho china town, and the place is full of chinese restaurants, how does one then open a another chineses restarant in a place full of chinese restaurants and make a sucess. One owner starts a restaurant called Wonkys, the theme of the chinese restuarant is that the waiters and chefs are very rude to clients, the restaurant is famous for that. What happens in Vagas people still open casinos.

Water Purification
I actually ran a small water purification business and there is money to be made, bottled water is just Reverse Osmosis purified water, one could hire out water dispensers and supply companies with water refils, good money in that. Or better yet sell the water dispensers and supply the water. The water companies need a revamp though, in Reverse Osmosis there is 6 stages of purification, the problem is that in selling the fillters you can buy a single stage filtration but you cant then just upgrade your single to double and so on till you get to the RO stage, if that is done plenty can be made. It does not matter if there is a cheap way of purifying water and there are many. People still buy expensive products.

The Ideas I was putting forth are looking at the downward direction South Africa is taking and where the future of making money is. But this thread is about any ideas and how to make them work.

On education and that I think one could start a time bank. This have been very succesful in many places.

On the Rasbery Pi, I am desperatly looking for one, and I know quite a few others that are, so already I see a market for that, it maybe money to be made in the short run but it is money to be made.

[Justloadit]

2 Points I would like to address as problems.

1. Storage of petrol has another problem, Petrol goes off if stored for long periods. In fact it start deteriorating at about 3 months. So storage is not a solution.

2. Charging passengers in your vehicle, requires that you have a public drovers license, which requires you to do a driver test every year, and secondly your vehicle insurance will climb dramatically because the vehicle is now used for public transport.

[cyppok]

Dried foods is good money wise, most of dried foods in USA is either local, South American, or Turkish/Mid-East/Central-Asia.

I buy raisins and uruk(dried apricots) my guess is both are from Turkey since the stores I get em at are Russian and simply speaking without local retailers buying your stuff in bulk and at low prices you have no shot.

I have been thinking about this:

1) bullet proof vests to SA how much are they there and who sells em? or does Denel make their own.

2) plexy glass? for bulletproof windows and motion sensors or IR sensors for area security. Ergo if someone between the weght of 100-300lbs walks over it it alerts you but otherwise not really. perhaps bear traps for people lol.

3) adrianh you might be interested in energy storage something like gyros. I mean flywheels. "Beacon power"(went bk but got bought out, so still alive) had interesting technology for flywheel energy storage. Not a new technology but hardly ever talked about. I don't think its' effective for us small users or even small commercial users.

Then you have micro trubines which is somewhat interesting like capstone, but there are diesel and gas generators by big firms like Briggs and Stratton and Yamaha I think, and little guys like Hardy Diesel generators. If their cost and operation is cheaper than Eskom+Municipal overhead charges it might make sense.

Theoretically if you spend more than 63 cents per 1kw an hour it might make sense to get a generator. Assuming diesel cost per gallon is around $7.5 and it takes .84 gallons per 1kw generated as it says in calculations. Most of these above in the states can work on Nat Gas cause we have a lot of it so for some it makes sense.

4/5th) Idea is to figure out what has some energy demands but is not economic on the grid, but is economic off the grid, get grants from own government for part of it, and exploit the niche between grid/non-grid parity. Automate it to compete on labor interruptibility etc...
[Looked at Zhauns, not it in my mind]. Small sugar processing plant might make sense if you actually produce a diesel out of it or an ethalnol aspect. Ergo make it for yourself in essence and distribute to gas station. Granted all of this is already in the multi-million dollar world.

Perhaps fertilizer, or coffee roasting and packaging.

[IanF]

Alex instead of posting the same link in several threads, tell us about the website you are trying to point us to and why we should look at it. Or is this just a link building exercise?

[Dave A]

Alex was dis-missed.

Yet another "social media SEO expert" that doesn't understand the forum medium

[vieome]

This was my design for a t-shirt .

What you will be saying if you wear the t-shirt that you acknowledge that something is just not right with South Africa. Anyone is free to use the design, in any way shape or form

[Pap_sak]

I understand critics, many of the ideas that are making people money in the world today are ideas that people say would never work. When I was living in England I went to soho china town, and the place is full of chinese restaurants, how does one then open a another chineses restarant in a place full of chinese restaurants and make a sucess. One owner starts a restaurant called Wonkys, the theme of the chinese restuarant is that the waiters and chefs are very rude to clients, the restaurant is famous for that.

Thats funny. Not only did I frequent Wonkys I also got the T shirt! My wife and I still miss their chilli pork chop.

[vieome]

Thats funny. Not only did I frequent Wonkys I also got the T shirt! My wife and I still miss their chilli pork chop.

me too and visit to Intrepid Fox! Pub.

[Ouman]

Here is a business idea free of charge. I just do not have the facilities to make it productively.

Spinning Exercise equipment that generates electricity.

Many years ago when we first got TV a friend of mine built a prototype of this and connected it via a car battery and inverter to power his TV. The law in his house became: "No power in battery no watchee TV"

Many modern urban people spend hours at exercise Running, Cycling, Walking, Rowing. With equipment such as this their physical effort can be put to use.