This could as easily have been entitled the €1,000 or $1,000 startup…

Time rich and cash strapped? What unique online business could you start for 1000 big ones?

1. The Usage Policy Store
A friend of mine who owns a small business asked me just last week if I had a standard Social Media Usage Policy, Computer Network Usage Policy and Mobile Usage Policy he could add into his company handbook. He understood that his organisation needed social media, but didn’t really know what the parameters should be.

Gavin understands that the usage policy will simply act as guidance for his staff but he didn’t want to invest in a consultant, legal professional or HR professional to make minor adjustments to his working practices. What Gavin wants is an easily edited template that he can pick and choose terms from and insert into his company handbook.

The policy store can extend to cover obscure chapters dispensing advice on tattoos, online gaming and using the company greenhouse (if working in Sciences). The more obscure, the higher the price.

The startup entrepreneur will need to have:

• Legal background
• HR experience
• Be IT savvy

The Model
The 10 most popular usage policies give a light version for free. Sell the full popular usage policies @ £50 each. Add in a videoconference appointment for 15 minutes to discuss @ £50. Sell custom usage policies for around £500, depending on complexity and research required.

The Cost

2. An Online Reputational Risk Analyst
The Financial Services Authority has warned Banks to keep on top of social media sites as they suspect another run on a bank could be triggered by tweets.

Many PR firms offer their customers crisis management services but their contracts are built to react to the local press or television and not the Internet. They work in the same time zones and react at the speed of old media. They need a service capable of alerting them of client problems at the same speed as new media.

Many Marketers’ worst nightmare is that something big happens at a branch or franchise and starts to go viral and the first time they hear about it is 8am the next morning when their CEO calls to ask what the response should be.

A 24-hour social media monitor and reaction task force will soon be a service that banks, PR firms and larger marketing departments will pay for. A professional company with really detailed crisis management procedures will soon be in demand. This firm will not just identify the problem as it happens but assess threat levels, have escalation procedures, dark websites ready to go live in response to pre-planed crises and know when it is time to make that 3am call to the brand owner.

The start up entrepreneur will need to have:

• An eye for detail and a love of procedure
• An understanding of, and ability to use free alert services to keep you on your toes
• A convincing gravitas
• Round the clock availability – no kids, no booze, no social life until established

Cost and Returns

3. Hyper-local Postcode Mashup Paper

This idea is in desperate need of an acronym!

The UK Government, like many western governments are starting to publish non-personal information that traditionally sat in information silos. The content includes topics around allotments, recycling, crime figures, education, healthcare etc. The content is indexed around post-codes and is easy to sort and search.

The Government has kindly created an API (a method to query this data in real time). This means that it is possible to automatically query this changing data and publish it on your own website or print publication. This link is to a little project that experimented with such an idea.

Statistics show that extremely local publications are still in high demand. So what would happen if you created a website for your postcode area that automatically updated with this government data feed? To give the site personality and engage the audience, you make it your business to video interview different residents around the topics published and post them to your website via YouTube.

Next, create a series of social media hot topic forums using Twitter and Facebook designed to stimulate debate and community spirit. Mash these technologies together and finally show leadership and lead the debate around the hot topics that affect your community.

If you manage to get 5,000 avid community contributors and readers you have the ability to mobilize and affect change. Your ability to influence is powerful and this will reveal revenue opportunities. Crack this model, make it a franchise, and find a willing, engaging and enthusiastic entrepreneur for the next postcode over and repeat!

Talents needed include:

• A skill for journalism and finding the story that resonates with the community
• Web development skills including XML parser experience
• Web design skills
• An ability to lead and take the inevitable criticism that will follow
• An entrepreneurial ability to turn your following into cold cash. This may not necessarily be by advertising. It could be by online PR and Google juice value you gain.

If you take up any of these ideas let me know. I’m sure with a little more thought there could be the start of something profitable.

1. Online PR Consultancy
2. Twitter/Facebook CPC Exchange
3. A Hyper-Focused Publication
4. Become a website failure/improvement expert
5. Online Marketing Dashboard

1. Online PR Consultancy

As mentioned in my last blog, Always the Tools Never the Content many marketers are going straight for the selection of free tools to try and enhance their web presence. “Lets Tweet, Facebook and YouTube it” is often the starting point of a marketing strategy. Rarely do you hear the cry “Lets think what we are going to say, understand what our customers need and understand the best channel to communicate with them”.

Eventually, disappointed marketers will turn to PR professionals for communication strategy advice. Online PR is a very different animal to traditional PR and requires a completely different set of skills. Knowing the editor of a publication isn’t as important as getting readers to digg or retweet the article, for example. The new marketer is the PR Agency that understands online culture not the Design Agency that understands CMYK and HTML.

2. Twitter/Facebook CPC Exchange

We trust recommendations from other consumers over ads. As Google PPC AdWords become increasingly expensive the cost of consumer recommendations stand a chance of becoming a currency. The purchase of retweets, Facebook posts or third party endorsements carry a monetary value to the charity, product or service company needing attention. Realizing this value is a challenge but it could be the new celebrity endorsement.

The successful facilitation of this service is a money-spinner!

3. A Hyper-Focused Publication

My Geneticly Modified Pig Grass Experiment

Deep and thin is better than shallow and wide. A publication that is hyper focused with a limited readership may seem like a bad business model but imagine you had the readership and trust of 400 top Biologists researching genetically modified grass within their universities and research laboratories in the UK and Ireland. What would a supplier of products to this market pay for their attention? This is a deep and thin slice of wealthy influential people.

What if you had the readership of those getting married in the next two years in your region? The average Bride is in charge of €20,000 and is looking to spend. What would a hotel pay for a really hot opportunity to talk to someone like this?

Newspapers are shallow and wide in terms of readership. They don’t hold the attention of those with a passion for niche subject or pastime. Their advertising model is ineffective. Set up your hyper-focused thin and deep publication, work hard and gain trust and then understand the value of good PR with an ad model together and you have revenues for a lifestyle business that exceeds most normal salaries.

4. Become a website failure/improvement expert

Recently the owner of a great company called IQcontent.ie explained to me that their customer was a walking boot manufacturer. The website was well designed in the sense that it looked pretty and had great photographs of the boot with loads of user recommendations.

The site got lots of traffic but visits that were not converting to sales. With limited market research they found that customers were put off because they couldn’t view the sole of the boot to understand how the grip worked in the wet. When new photos addressed the issue sales soared!

Many business owners can get so absorbed in perfecting their product/service, they often assume that the customer assumes the obvious. Sometimes it just takes a different approach to understanding what makes a website work. Your inquisitive and logical approach can be of massive financial value to your customer. Get a few case study stories and start to tell them to everyone you meet! The work will roll in.

5. Marketing Dashboard

I’ll come clean – this is my latest project. In the days of old marketing we had a good idea of what worked but didn’t have the evidence to properly measure where our marketing spend was actually working.

Today we have data in the form of analytics, open rates, click rates, unsubscribes, followers, retweets, SEO, PPC….etc. We have now inverted the problem of old marketing to the point that we can’t digest all of the statistics coming from all of our marketing channels.

Our latest product reports on each channel by way of a handy widget. More importantly it understands the connection between your email marketing campaign and the increase in traffic to your website and delivers holistic advice and analysis.

This business better take off! It’s a great time to start an internet business.  What’s your idea?