You could offer supplements, fresh baked treats or organic turkey with carrots, etc during Thanksgiving. The meals could be made right in the kiosk or pre-packaged fresh meals to last a week for the pets. It could revolutionize how pets eat.

Personally, I am very conscious of what I spend on myself. But I’ll spend anything on my french bulldog, Tyson. People just forget about money when they buy stuff for their pets. That makes it an amazing market to tap, so try it with this innovative idea.

-Craig Sharkton

Most people date/marry someone who is within a 1-2 point difference of beauty on a scale of 1-10. Why not create a site like beautiful people/plentyoffish.com that rates people’s attractiveness, doesn’t advertise it and then just shows matches that are 1-2 points away.

For example if you’re rated a 7 by everyone, then you only get to see profiles of people that are from 5-8. Let me know what you think.

-Craig Sharkton

-Craig Sharkton

Now lets be serious, when he set up the site he was working a job and building the site at night a few hours at a time. So there was more work at the start. But now he literally works very few hours. Sometimes 10-15 minutes a day to make sure nothing serious is going wrong. Peak work is 20 hours a week. So you must be thinking he has a ton of employees. Nope. Just three. And they pretty much just make sure there’s no spam or nude photo’s.

All of this comes down to business model design. He didn’t focus on high powered high feature sites that charge fees. In fact he did the exact opposite. Took a service that usually charged a fee, the dating website, and created an easy site for free. Then he put on adsense (google advertising – available to anyone) and bang he’s making money.

There’s very few sites that make it this big, but I have to say the business model is very appealing. Start a simple site while working, earn ad revenue instantly and see if it grows to the point where you can work on it full time. Or in Markus’ case, a few minutes a day.

So take a book from Markus Frind’s library and build a rock solid business model. More time and hard work doesn’t always mean the best payoff.

-Craig Sharkton

Basically the business would entail building a community of music lovers who would vote on songs by “tipping them.” A maximum of $10 to keep out the wealthy people who want to promote music and then 70% of the revenues would go to the artist and the remaining 30% to the business.

I think this is an interesting business model because of what you could do with it. You could sell music on the site, have video interviews and once a year have a blow out show with awards being handed out. It’s a great idea because of the passion people have for music, the only question would be how many people would actually give tips to place a vote.

Nonetheless it’s an interesting online business model that doesn’t use ads as the main source of revenue. I’d say someone should start something like this and quick. For more ideas and online/mobile community business models check out his book.

-Craig Sharkton

He started the business by taking 200 samples of an Argentinian shoe back with him to the US and started going door to door. He made it in a few botique shops in LA, but the real break came when he made the weekend edition of the LA Times. By the end of the weekend he had $88,000 in orders.

From there the company has exploded. It’s such a good story that it’s been covered by Time, Elle, Vogue and even Oprah. This has led them to sell over 60,000 shoes since May 2006 and they’re looking at selling 200,000 shoes this year. At about $48/shoe that’s $9.6 million in revenue in their second full year of business. Great growth and it’s all based on a model that will give back to the world indefinitely.

They’re now selling t-shirts and even a tote bag that if you buy will support a child to go to school and eat for a year. And they’re making money doing this. And having a great time. So this all brings up the question can you build a profitable business while helping the world. Absolutely. I’ve been trying to think of ways you could mimic this model, but it’s difficult.

Originally, I thought you could replicate it by selling LED lights. They’re low powered and last for years so they are being used in location rife with poverty so people can study at night. However, they are expensive and you can’t differentiate them enough. That’s the key I’m sure to this model. You need a product that you can differentiate. Toms Shoes are similar to a lot of shoes made out there, but they’re branded and come in different styles so people will spend a lot more to buy them.

If you have any ideas on products that could support this model leave an idea, or let us know what your experiences have been with social entrepreneurs. I can’t think of a better mark to leave on the world than an organization that supports itself and helps the world.

-Craig Sharkton

Amazing. Think of what Blockbuster missed out on because they weren’t willing to believe in a new business model. Even if they didn’t buy the large chunk of Netflix, they could have easily worked out a partnership with them. Netflix’s business model is so effective because they have less employees and fixed assets. Back in the old days you wanted a ton of stores so you could get economies of scale. Nowadays that’s not always a competitive advantage. It’s a perfect environment for small business.

Neftlix earns about $1 million in revenue per employee because they don’t have tens of thousands of locations, Blockbuster earns about $100,000 per employee. So when you’re looking at your business look at adjustments to the business model and challenge the status quo. People thought Netflix wouldn’t work because no one would wait days for a DVD. People did. And now Netflix has become so good at distribution that they can guarantee one day delivery to 95% of the US. So Blockbusters main “strength” – locations everywhere – has quickly turned into its weakness. Too many locations tying up too much capital.

A great business model can make the business. For another great one check out our Threadless.com post.

-Craig Sharkton

Since consumers are voting on the t-shirts, you know which ones will be popular, ensuring everything sells out. The designers get a modest $2,500 if their shirt is chosen and they even get people to send in pictures of themselves so they don’t need to hire models (they’ll give you a $1.50 credit on your next purchase per picture). They don’t spend any money on external advertising, since the designers word of mouth brings in people much more effectively.

This all leads to a growing business that made a profit of $6 million on $18 million in sales. Margins that would make most companies the envy of their competitors. If you can create a company that has its consumers: create, advertise and sell your wares, you’ll be in the money before you know it.

-Craig Sharkton