Technological Business Ideas

[rawlo5660]

I created this thread for African Americans that have good, innovative, business ideas

Does anyone have any business ideas that African Americans can use to market to a wide audience? For example: creating online businesses similar to devianart.com-site that helps art dealers sell and promote art, yelp.com-a site that allows users to rate businesses they like, or hotornot.com-a site that allows people to rate online users.

I just got my Businessweek magazine and some of these business owners are making large profits. I fugure the people on this board have all the right ingredients to create ideas that are as or more successful. This is because:

1. Most members here are African American(key for starting African American businesses)
2. Have a diverse collective of ideas(always good for brianstorming)
3. Have the tools needed(access to people on this site who are all African American website developers, producers, and business owners).
4. Have the knowledge to build a solid infrastructure that would be marketable to outside buyers.

I will start if off. Me and my partners at one time were going to create a website like deviantart.com mixed with myspace called madmusic.com or something like that. We were going to create a website were users could basically
1. upload their musical productions and sell them for a small monthly fee.
2. If the user wanted, we could create a custom made website for them and their artists if need be for low cost.
3. Help artists both license and distribute their music
4. The list of possibilities go on.

Basically we would be a one stop for musical artists and companies looking to avoid the shady music industry. And as you guessed it most employees would be African American(you might want to get a couple of "white friends" to help secure capitol).

To this day I have not seen anything like this for the hip hop community or at least specifcally focused on the hip hip community, or electronic music for that matter. This creates a huge untapped market for African Americans to take advantage of. Key words being African Americans.
Now before you go saying no to electronic music I have a story.

I met an African American DJ (Marques Wyatt) and he told me that he used to only play hip hop music. Someone told him to start playing electronic music. He was reluctant at first but started playing electronic music. As a result, today he is now a very well known and well paid dj in the electronic music house scene

Moral of the story: Sometimes changing your product to appeal to a different market puts cash in your pocket and back in the African American community. Marques Wyatt did this by putting his partner onto the house music scene and helping him become a dj.


Hotornot.com is not to terribly innovative. African Americans have come up with much better ideas in the past.

So what are some good web-based ideas that African Americans could create to potentially market to a broader audience?

 

[Slim Cutty]

You are a very innovative brother ... I'm creative with madd ideas but never can really put a team together on the same page. We've done business already ... get at me and we can throw some ideas out there that could possibly work..

you already have my e-mail

1

 

[Temujin]

Your ideas on the music distribution website are very good. I have been brainstorming for a while now about the best way to distribute music in this new technology age where CD's will probably soon be obsolete.

There are so many independent record companies, artists, producers etc that make good music that never gets to the people because the corporate distribution structure is tailored so only a few artists sell a whole lot of records. Many of these artists would make a decent living if they had a vehicle to promote and distribute their music but still remain independent. It would free the artform of hip from corporate control and it would give the power back to the artist.

To me this is the face of music in the future. All the major records stores are doing horrible right now because people don't want to spend 16dollars for a cd when they are just going to transfer it to their Ipod anyway. The digital transfer of music and the manner in which it takes form is the next step. And as you mentioned the internet has no face. We could take back control of hip-hop through technology. We have all the power since we african americans create the art. Once we control how we get paid for the art our artist will no longer be exploited.

Keep on pushing I know I am.

 

[Slim Cutty]

Your ideas on the music distribution website are very good. I have been brainstorming for a while now about the best way to distribute music in this new technology age where CD's will probably soon be obsolete.

There are so many independent record companies, artists, producers etc that make good music that never gets to the people because the corporate distribution structure is tailored so only a few artists sell a whole lot of records. Many of these artists would make a decent living if they had a vehicle to promote and distribute their music but still remain independent. It would free the artform of hip from corporate control and it would give the power back to the artist.

To me this is the face of music in the future. All the major records stores are doing horrible right now because people don't want to spend 16dollars for a cd when they are just going to transfer it to their Ipod anyway. The digital transfer of music and the manner in which it takes form is the next step. And as you mentioned the internet has no face. We could take back control of hip-hop through technology. We have all the power since we african americans create the art. Once we control how we get paid for the art our artist will no longer be exploited.

Keep on pushing I know I am.

Co-Sign ... I'm down get at me...

http://66.49.132.220/nwc/
http://www.famnice-online.com

1

 

[Temujin]

Co-Sign ... I'm down get at me...

http://66.49.132.220/nwc/
http://www.famnice-online.com

1

I see you slim. That's what I'm talking about.

 

[rawlo5660]

What I envision for African Americans deals with being able to duplicate an idea, make it better, and market it to a larger audience. Many African Americans are innovative without knowing it. Many African Americans that may be labeled as thugs have strong leadership abilities, focus, and drive which given the proper direction could certainly rival many existing CEO's. Therefore as we see changes in our local and global economy, we must take the steps to use our greatest strengths to overcome our greatest weaknesses. With that being said, I have some ideas that I believe could have significant positive impact for the African American community. The first plan was outlined in the Gameplan for Overcoming Racism, but I want to break it down a little further.

Imagine you have a group of six African American people: Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, Mike, Johnny, and Brian. All six people live within the African American community and make moderate incomes. Suppose you take these same six people and form a financial team that is for the sole purpose to help one another. Every member must open a simple joint bank account at any given Bank. Legal papers are created that stipulate that no one member can withdraw any funds for his own purposes. Each member must make $100 contributions each month. So below is what each member would contribute yearly:

Ronny-$1200
Bobby-$1200
Ricky-$1200
Mike-$1200
Johnny-$1200
Brian-$1200

Combined, this would make a yearly contribution of $7200. Now let’s suppose the criteria for withdrawing the money is that each member purchases new computers for their family. This would mean that every year every member could get a new computer to help their children study, for business, for work, etc..,

Now imagine there are eight teams that contributed $7200 yearly. The total contribution yearly would be $57,600. $57,600 is enough to make significant investments into the African American community whether it be franchise purchases, real estate investments, school tuition etc..., As a manner of fact if groups continued to contribute money into the bank account for the sole purpose of education, the $57,600 yearly contribution, compounded over eight or so years would create tremendous savings that would offset the costs of college.

Now imagine if all eight teams contributed $57,000 to a high yield Vanguard, T.Rowe Price, or Charles Schwab accounts. Now each team would make even more money on their yearly contribution. Compounded over 8, 5, even 3 years would create a good rate of return. Now imagine that there are 16 teams contributing, 24 teams, 40 teams, etc….

My idea therefore is to create a website that easily facilitates team savings in the African American community. The online business would help teams set up accounts with African American owned banks, and high yield brokerage accounts with Vanguard, T.Rowe Price, or Charles Schwab. Members could monitor how many contributions have been made and network with other team members. The website would resemble a financial myspace with online user ability internet banking. The best part about this idea is that in the beginning it would be simple to implement and observe its viability. Meaning I could take $100 a month, split it by five, create 5 accounts to mimic five team members contributing, see if I could monitor every different account, and find ways to improve the process.

Now on a larger scale, this business model could be applied to help families, friends, and business partners, more easily invest with one another. The benefits for this idea are endless.

 

[Diplomat]

What I envision for African Americans deals with being able to duplicate an idea, make it better, and market it to a larger audience. Many African Americans are innovative without knowing it. Many African Americans that may be labeled as thugs have strong leadership abilities, focus, and drive which given the proper direction could certainly rival many existing CEO's. Therefore as we see changes in our local and global economy, we must take the steps to use our greatest strengths to overcome our greatest weaknesses. With that being said, I have some ideas that I believe could have significant positive impact for the African American community. The first plan was outlined in the Gameplan for Overcoming Racism, but I want to break it down a little further.

Imagine you have a group of six African American people: Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, Mike, Johnny, and Brian. All six people live within the African American community and make moderate incomes. Suppose you take these same six people and form a financial team that is for the sole purpose to help one another. Every member must open a simple joint bank account at any given Bank. Legal papers are created that stipulate that no one member can withdraw any funds for his own purposes. Each member must make $100 contributions each month. So below is what each member would contribute yearly:

Ronny-$1200
Bobby-$1200
Ricky-$1200
Mike-$1200
Johnny-$1200
Brian-$1200

Combined, this would make a yearly contribution of $7200. Now let’s suppose the criteria for withdrawing the money is that each member purchases new computers for their family. This would mean that every year every member could get a new computer to help their children study, for business, for work, etc..,

Now imagine there are eight teams that contributed $7200 yearly. The total contribution yearly would be $57,600. $57,600 is enough to make significant investments into the African American community whether it be franchise purchases, real estate investments, school tuition etc..., As a manner of fact if groups continued to contribute money into the bank account for the sole purpose of education, the $57,600 yearly contribution, compounded over eight or so years would create tremendous savings that would offset the costs of college.

Now imagine if all eight teams contributed $57,000 to a high yield Vanguard, T.Rowe Price, or Charles Schwab accounts. Now each team would make even more money on their yearly contribution. Compounded over 8, 5, even 3 years would create a good rate of return. Now imagine that there are 16 teams contributing, 24 teams, 40 teams, etc….

My idea therefore is to create a website that easily facilitates team savings in the African American community. The online business would help teams set up accounts with African American owned banks, and high yield brokerage accounts with Vanguard, T.Rowe Price, or Charles Schwab. Members could monitor how many contributions have been made and network with other team members. The website would resemble a financial myspace with online user ability internet banking. The best part about this idea is that in the beginning it would be simple to implement and observe its viability. Meaning I could take $100 a month, split it by five, create 5 accounts to mimic five team members contributing, see if I could monitor every different account, and find ways to improve the process.

Now on a larger scale, this business model could be applied to help families, friends, and business partners, more easily invest with one another. The benefits for this idea are endless.

sounds like a great idea rawlo.

It seems you know exactly who your ideal customer is, and that goes a long way in making your idea a success.

over time i'm sure you'll have many interested prospects as long as you do, do, do.

good luck

let me know if you have any questions on website promotion, i'll be able to help or at least point you in the right direction.

 

[neo_cacos]

Actually, I have an idea that might be easily integrated with the above-mentioned. I'd like to discuss it a little bit more.

 

[kjxxxx]

What became of this project here? It seem like a good idea. At least the fact that folks are willing to network. Something should come out of it.

I am interested.

I created this thread for African Americans that have good, innovative, business ideas

Does anyone have any business ideas that African Americans can use to market to a wide audience? For example: creating online businesses similar to devianart.com-site that helps art dealers sell and promote art, yelp.com-a site that allows users to rate businesses they like, or hotornot.com-a site that allows people to rate online users.

I just got my Businessweek magazine and some of these business owners are making large profits. I fugure the people on this board have all the right ingredients to create ideas that are as or more successful. This is because:

1. Most members here are African American(key for starting African American businesses)
2. Have a diverse collective of ideas(always good for brianstorming)
3. Have the tools needed(access to people on this site who are all African American website developers, producers, and business owners).
4. Have the knowledge to build a solid infrastructure that would be marketable to outside buyers.

I will start if off. Me and my partners at one time were going to create a website like deviantart.com mixed with myspace called madmusic.com or something like that. We were going to create a website were users could basically
1. upload their musical productions and sell them for a small monthly fee.
2. If the user wanted, we could create a custom made website for them and their artists if need be for low cost.
3. Help artists both license and distribute their music
4. The list of possibilities go on.

Basically we would be a one stop for musical artists and companies looking to avoid the shady music industry. And as you guessed it most employees would be African American(you might want to get a couple of "white friends" to help secure capitol).

To this day I have not seen anything like this for the hip hop community or at least specifcally focused on the hip hip community, or electronic music for that matter. This creates a huge untapped market for African Americans to take advantage of. Key words being African Americans.
Now before you go saying no to electronic music I have a story.

I met an African American DJ (Marques Wyatt) and he told me that he used to only play hip hop music. Someone told him to start playing electronic music. He was reluctant at first but started playing electronic music. As a result, today he is now a very well known and well paid dj in the electronic music house scene

Moral of the story: Sometimes changing your product to appeal to a different market puts cash in your pocket and back in the African American community. Marques Wyatt did this by putting his partner onto the house music scene and helping him become a dj.


Hotornot.com is not to terribly innovative. African Americans have come up with much better ideas in the past.

So what are some good web-based ideas that African Americans could create to potentially market to a broader audience?

 

[rawlo5660]

I am ready to hear everyones thoughts about the idea.

 

[Chase Bannon]

What I envision for African Americans deals with being able to duplicate an idea, make it better, and market it to a larger audience. Many African Americans are innovative without knowing it. Many African Americans that may be labeled as thugs have strong leadership abilities, focus, and drive which given the proper direction could certainly rival many existing CEO's. Therefore as we see changes in our local and global economy, we must take the steps to use our greatest strengths to overcome our greatest weaknesses. With that being said, I have some ideas that I believe could have significant positive impact for the African American community. The first plan was outlined in the Gameplan for Overcoming Racism, but I want to break it down a little further.

Imagine you have a group of six African American people: Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, Mike, Johnny, and Brian. All six people live within the African American community and make moderate incomes. Suppose you take these same six people and form a financial team that is for the sole purpose to help one another. Every member must open a simple joint bank account at any given Bank. Legal papers are created that stipulate that no one member can withdraw any funds for his own purposes. Each member must make $100 contributions each month. So below is what each member would contribute yearly:

Ronny-$1200
Bobby-$1200
Ricky-$1200
Mike-$1200
Johnny-$1200
Brian-$1200

Combined, this would make a yearly contribution of $7200. Now let’s suppose the criteria for withdrawing the money is that each member purchases new computers for their family. This would mean that every year every member could get a new computer to help their children study, for business, for work, etc..,

Now imagine there are eight teams that contributed $7200 yearly. The total contribution yearly would be $57,600. $57,600 is enough to make significant investments into the African American community whether it be franchise purchases, real estate investments, school tuition etc..., As a manner of fact if groups continued to contribute money into the bank account for the sole purpose of education, the $57,600 yearly contribution, compounded over eight or so years would create tremendous savings that would offset the costs of college.

Now imagine if all eight teams contributed $57,000 to a high yield Vanguard, T.Rowe Price, or Charles Schwab accounts. Now each team would make even more money on their yearly contribution. Compounded over 8, 5, even 3 years would create a good rate of return. Now imagine that there are 16 teams contributing, 24 teams, 40 teams, etc….

My idea therefore is to create a website that easily facilitates team savings in the African American community. The online business would help teams set up accounts with African American owned banks, and high yield brokerage accounts with Vanguard, T.Rowe Price, or Charles Schwab. Members could monitor how many contributions have been made and network with other team members. The website would resemble a financial myspace with online user ability internet banking. The best part about this idea is that in the beginning it would be simple to implement and observe its viability. Meaning I could take $100 a month, split it by five, create 5 accounts to mimic five team members contributing, see if I could monitor every different account, and find ways to improve the process.

Now on a larger scale, this business model could be applied to help families, friends, and business partners, more easily invest with one another. The benefits for this idea are endless.

I've actually started something along the same lines with the same vision.

 

[CybaCipha]

I've actually started something along the same lines with the same vision.

Yah Chase!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!