College entrepreneur looking for something new. Plz read.

[GordonJ]

Know Groupon dot com?

www.groupon.com

Twist the idea (as Phil might say) and add Don Alm's in...and you may be onto something.

At Groupon, you can get a discount IF enough people BUY...if not, you don't get the discount and it costs nothing.

Imagine a college town pizza shop, where, perhaps on an "off" day, like Tuesday, you got them to give a HUGE discount, IF you were able to get enough students to buy that day? The revenue you could make would come from your efforts or your hosting or your texting...you would be the toll booth between the supply and demand.

I've been trying to get Groupon to set up shop in West Palm Beach, FL and we may get it soon.

SELLING ADVERTISING is never going away, and when you catch the early wave, you can ride it to tsunami like profits.

Twist and turn it like a Shaun White snowboarding exhibit.

Gordon

Gordon,

Good Find on Groupon...

Let's put a few more little Spins on the overall Concept!

Get your Brainstorming and Thinking Caps on...

Bet we'll be seeing Many more up and coming related ideas...

Best of Luck Negotiating and setting up shop in West Palm Beach, FL...

8Coupons, Yipit, Peanut Labs, Tippr, Scoop St, BuyWithMe, LivingSocial...
http://news.google.com/news/search?a...l=en&q=groupon
http://news.google.com/news/search?a...q=Group-Buying

http://www.8coupons.com/
http://yipit.com/
http://peanutlabs.com/
http://www.tippr.com/
http://www.scoopst.com/
http://www.buywithme.com/
http://livingsocial.com/
http://www.dealon.com/
http://springwise.com/retail/crowdsprout/

The Chinese term for group buying is Tuángòu...
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...eamBuying.aspx

Phil

Yup....the BIG boys are in this one. However, from my years of experience there is ALWAYS ROOM for people who want to operate in "small towns".

For ex: Here's 2 guys who own a Book Store in a college town. They started up a Text coupon dealee last year and have 58 advertisers and over 11,000 subscribers (probably mostlu college kids)
http://www.textbux.com I don't think they're charging enough for their program though. Heck, this thing should be worth at least $50 a week to ANY business. Just MO.

Now....here's 2 operations that offer "SMS Text Service".

http://www.textmarks.com
and
http://www.adking.com

The last one is by "Brandel" who've been in the Biz-Op thingee for years. They run full page ads in the Opportunity Mags and get many people paying their monthly fees. Could be a good place to start.

I've found 2 sms services that are free, as of now.

Thus....if you could get this going in a college town, you could practically name your own price. Just 1,000 college kids as subscribers could command a BIG weekly or monthly fee.

Get on this one quick. Consumers are looking for the best deals and biz owners are looking for customers.

Don Alm

Hey Don Alm, I sent you an email, if you could maybe help me get the ball rolling on this. Im very interested in this, and think this could work out for me in my city.

Also, with the curb painting, im going to start filling out business permits and such again to get this started as well. I think I can do pretty well with this one.

Thank you for all the responses! I appreciate the help! Anyways, a few questions:

How much is a good price to charge a week for this service. $50 seems a bit steep for a new business, especially one run by college kids.

How do I go about getting phone numbers from students (subscription)? Maybe set a booth up on campus? Flyers? Signs? I think a website is simply not enough. I guess anything would really work.

I really think I could get a good business in my city if I really plan and go about this the right way the first time, to get some credibility.

Also, how do those text messaging services work? Are they simple to work with?

Thanks for the help guys.


I have a few ideas on our business name and website address.

^Kudos for you to have the courage to be an entrepreneur at a very young age.

Hi All,

I like the idea of a booth on campus. How about giving a $1.00 bill to each student that gives you their phone number? It would be easy enough to confirm you aren't getting duplicate numbers and you'd have a line a block long. And maybe offer 50-cents to each additional number they convince to sign up?

My question would be how to go about convincing businesses to sign up for the service. Would this be done in-person? What about a letter to each business - and who would you address this to?

- John Meyers

Originally Posted by prodigy1290

Thank you for all the responses! I appreciate the help! Anyways, a few questions:

How much is a good price to charge a week for this service. $50 seems a bit steep for a new business, especially one run by college kids.

How do I go about getting phone numbers from students (subscription)? Maybe set a booth up on campus? Flyers? Signs? I think a website is simply not enough. I guess anything would really work.

I really think I could get a good business in my city if I really plan and go about this the right way the first time, to get some credibility.

Also, how do those text messaging services work? Are they simple to work with?

Thanks for the help guys.


I have a few ideas on our business name and website address.