How To Think Of The Next Google

In: Business Ideas By: Brian Armstrong

15 Sep 2009

I’ve been in sort of a holding pattern the last few weeks since I’m between projects and the ones I have are all running on auto-pilot. For the most part I am well rested with nothing especially urgent to do and this has given me some great time to think.

Some people call this taking time to “sharpen the saw”. I’ve been talking and meeting with other entrepreneurs, doing lots of reading, finding new sources of inspiration, and today I did some brainstorming.

This is one of the real benefits of not having a job: you can take time in the middle of the day to be creative, think about the future, and develop your long term goals and skills.

Thinking
Image source

By the way, brainstorming seems to work better with a blank sheet of paper and a pen. There is something about doing this by hand which is important. It separates you from the computer and distractions, and there is something about moving your hand that makes you more creative. And it’s harder to focus if you try this while driving through traffic or something. Writing it really helps.

Anyway, here are some interesting questions I came up with:

What’s going to be the next thing to go online?
The internet has disrupted so many old businesses, it’s safe to assume this trend will continue. Dating went online, along with music, project management, plane tickets, telephone calls, television, and movies. Sure these things take time, but from an entrepreneurial point of view, internet has already killed television. It’s too late to jump on that ship. I wish I had invented Skype, but someone else already did it. So what is going to be the next thing to move online? Maybe it will be buying real estate (the whole transaction from start to finish), sending physical objects to each other by email attachment (imagine hitting print and getting a 3D object like a toaster out somehow), running scientific experiments through the internet (test tubes in the cloud?), or – and I hesitate to mention this – people having virtual sex through the internet with some kind of robots? Who knows…all of those could happen in our lifetime, and somebody is going to make a killing off it.
What technology do I want to make obsolete? What’s inefficient?
This is another way to look at it. What is old and broken. Why isn’t there a startup doing health insurance that would cover you for life? Man…I would sign up for that, if I knew they could never drop me for a pre-existing condition or too many illnesses. That would be a great feature to attract new business. Sure, they could probably only take young people right now to be profitable over time (and wouldn’t be a solution for people who currently can’t get coverage), but it could be great in the long term. The real estate buying process is still light years behind the rest of the world, why hasn’t anyone fixed that? What about the DMV, and doing your taxes. Sadly, it is no coincidence that when you start thinking about inefficient businesses they seem to be all be affected by government in some way. This makes them less attractive to entrepreneurs, and I don’t blame them, but there is still some opportunity there.
What are people currently paying for that I can make free somehow?
I call this the “PlentyOfFish” model. Basically, they took a product that everyone was paying for (online dating) and made a free, ad-supported, alternative. Ad-supported is sort of a bad word these days, but it could still work. What’s too expensive? Paypal, internet access, international calls…not sure.
What is life going to be like 10 years from now in 2019?
It’s so easy to get caught up in thinking “shoot! if I had only thought of Amazon.com (or Twitter, Google, Basecamp, etc.) in 1999 I could have beat them!” But that’s not productive because back in 1999 those guys were sitting around NOT thinking about what they could have done in 1989, they were thinking about what the world was going to be like in 2009 and then they got to work on making it happen. So the question we need to be asking today is what the world is going to be like in 2019, and what businesses is that world going to make possible that aren’t possible today? I don’t know about you but I envision every movie we see being in 3D, there being dirt cheap projectors and flat screens showing up everywhere (kind of like minority report where the walls of our house are built out of these things and they’re on cereal boxes, etc). Everyone will probably be zipping around in electric vehicles. I hope they do something with airlines too, where they are much faster and easier to board and you can get anywhere in the world in a few hours. There will probably be a lot more robots too that we start interacting with. What kind of businesses will this enable? Probably lots, but I for one would like to see some innovative art come out of this. Why not have new (digital) paintings on our walls every day that we can give a thumbs up or thumbs down to so it learns our preferences over time. Maybe we can make some of those painting like in the Harry Potter movies where the portraits of people move and their eyes follow you. Maybe we can digitize people’s brains and keep their memories on flash drives, or even run their brains in a human simulator on our computers so can still ask them questions after they pass away. Creepy, but probably useful somehow.
How can I empower people to get all the basic stuff they need in life?
Charity is cool too, but I’m more for enabling people to help themselves (the fishing pole, not the fish). What can you do that would make people richer? This is where I started thinking about how to eliminate taxes, but I’ll save that for another post, haha.

The next Google is hidden in exercises like this; one of us need to implement it. I’m curious to hear your take on these questions as well in the comments.

22 Responses

Daniel

September 16th, 2009 at 5:40 am

Toughtful piece, Brian.

Brenda

September 16th, 2009 at 9:48 am

While reading this thoughtful piece, I would have loved for my bath to be run and my coffee made – black with 2 sugars. Where do I click?

Great brainstorm!

Mar

September 16th, 2009 at 10:15 am

Cloud computing. I think in future anything that accelerates or facilitates this service is going to be a profitable venture.

Eg. Netbooks. Who knew these low-powered, miserably tiny screens and keyboards and what-have-yous would ‘explode’? I think many users of netbook appreciate the portability and accessibility it gives — but In my case (of which I own 2 myself) I appreciate their compactness and lightness, compared to my desktops. In this case also, thanks to online services for example docs.google.com or wix.com, Netbooks appeal to me a lot, over a normal Laptop.

Yup, just my 2cents here.

Brian Armstrong

September 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

Great thoughts folks, thanks!

Chris

September 17th, 2009 at 1:34 am

Hi Brian – was thinking the other day about Ebay’s user interface – how it’s inefficient, not very user friendly, not very visually appealing.

Maybe an opportunity there.

Cool that you take time out to “predict the future”. Brainstorming can be a lot of fun.

Brian Armstrong

September 17th, 2009 at 11:56 am

Agreed, eBay’s interface is a nightmare. They squandered a huge opportunity with that company, and this is part of the reason I think we’ve seen it decline in value and popularity over the years.

I don’t think it would be a good time to make an eBay competitor though. There is a huge network effect bonus to that business, meaning that the value of your site is function of how many people are using it. This is a huge barrier to entry to new comers, and eBay, no matter how bad it is, will probably always be #1 in the U.S. for this reason.

Moe

September 17th, 2009 at 6:21 pm

With the costs of software reaching rediculously high dollars I thing cloud computing is going to be the way we do all our computing in the not too distant future. I mean come on! it costs you over $5000 dollars to recieve a licence to use AutoCad and after you’ve spent your money a couple of years later you get to spend it again!?! There are too many software products like that these days. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just enter the cloud design your house or your new concept engine save to a flash drive print and pay your $50 dollar tab for your uplink? Auto Desk .@#*^&^$@(

Brian Armstrong

September 18th, 2009 at 1:27 am

Interesting Moe, I always love to hear people say things like that because it means there is an opportunity! Do you know of anyone doing CAD software in the browser? I seem to remember a Google product with this in mind. Not sure if became full featured.

-EC

September 18th, 2009 at 3:05 am

New to this blog, I like it. But I wonder if with this particular subject, are you trying to bite off a bit too much? I think this site is for entrepreneurs, but let’s face it, we aren’t all cut out for building the next great platform (PC, chip, google, iphone). Along with the creative thought, it can take an incredible amount of money. I like dreaming big too, but reality and the concept of earning a living get in the way. Personally, I’m embracing #2, what technology do I want to make obsolete? I think if we all look hard we can find problems in our lives that need solving. If you are having that problem, someone else probably is too, and an incredible number of successful businesses were begun this way (ebay, facebook). We can’t all be Steve Jobs, there has to be the Stanley Steamer Carpet Cleaner guys too. Think creatively about what issues you are just living with, and set out to improve one of them. My wife and I identified one a few months ago; technologies for improvement exist, they just haven’t been put together this way before. We’re eager to get the concept market in the next month or two. What I’m really concerned about is thwarting the copy-cat competition that’s bound to show up.

Brian Armstrong

September 18th, 2009 at 3:44 pm

Hi EC, you’re definitely right…these are big picture ideas. All my businesses so far have been focused on solving much more down to earth (and frankly boring) problem like how to find a tutor, getting email delivered, etc. (More on the about page for anyone interested http://www.startbreakingfree.com/about/)

You’re right for making a living a smaller business can work just solving a simple problem people are having. That great you are getting one started, be sure to let us know when you launch so we can send some eyeballs your way. There will always be copy-cats, but I’m sure you’ll beat them by being first or better. Good luck!
Brian

-EC

September 20th, 2009 at 2:28 am

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Will do!

Chris

September 18th, 2009 at 4:29 am

Hi Brian – what do you mean when you say that, “The real estate buying process is still light years behind the rest of the world”.

My thoughts are that the bottleneck point is in the loan approval process. All the stuff w/ the brokers, bringing the buyer/seller together can be done w/ technology, but the buyer has to be approved for the loan, which can be a big hassle.

Brian Armstrong

September 18th, 2009 at 3:55 pm

I agree, the loan market is a disaster and is probably the biggest hurdle. The reason it’s a disaster is that the government regulates it so it’s slow to innovate, and makes all sorts of bad decisions. Private companies have their hands tied by lending guidelines in this case.

Small example: lending guidelines require borrowers to show W2 proof of income or tax returns. Sounds totally logical right? There are a few situations where it doesn’t work though:

1. Self employed people like myself. I don’t get W2’s. In addition to the real estate I own (which offers huge depreciation expenses and other tax benefits) I also take lots of business deductions since I have a home office. The result is that I show very little taxable income to the IRS. Therefore I can’t get loans right now.

2. For investment property it actually make no sense to look at the borrowers income. They won’t be living there themselves. It makes much more sense to look at properties ability to generate income (rent) to pay back the mortgage. Sure, the property may be vacant for a while in which case the borrower would still have to pay the mortgage. But this is more a factor of cash reserves, not their income. The result is that every loan I’ve ever gotten for an investment property made a huge deal of looking at my income and not the properties ability to generate rent. (If you get into multi family the government starts to get it right, but not in single family).

If private industry was allowed to use their own lending guidelines there would be people all across the board on risk tolerance, interest rates, etc. And there would be a lender for every market. But as it is now, everyone follows what the government says all at once (including lending to people who aren’t qualified a few years ago, triggering the housing crisis).

Anyway, I could probably write a whole blog post on this, but it’s a great example of government regulation backfiring and introducing inefficiencies into the market.

Chris

September 18th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

Hi Brian – totally agree. I tried going through the banks to get a loan on this investment property & was denied even though my credit score was good, W2’s, etc. I ended up partnering up with a private investor.

Private is the way to go, in my opinion, but there has to be integrity on both sides, which is sometimes hard to come by in this day & age.

Avinash

September 19th, 2009 at 12:37 am

wow,that’s a good brainstorm ..
i think in 2019 user authorization will change from passwords to fingerprint or may be our data would be on USB drive ,just plug the usb drive and u will be authenticated

Brian Armstrong

September 19th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

Agreed I could see that happening!

Denzil

September 22nd, 2009 at 7:58 pm

The next Googles will be in the field of education, by making information more understandable, efficient, and relevant. For example, this news article is about a computer scientist, Maneesh Agrawala, who is making instructions more understandable, by using 3-D graphics.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/22/BAQ019QG0Q.DTL&tsp=1

Brian Armstrong

September 22nd, 2009 at 9:27 pm

Agreed I think education will be huge!

James Kennedy

September 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

Hi Brian –

Myself and my partner have moved down to Argentina in the last 3 months having ‘freed up our time’ by working on our online businesses. Its funny that you should mention ‘bigger picture’ ideas as that is exactly what we’ve been confronted with. We’ve got a modest but sufficient cash-flow from our radio voiceover directory, based in Ireland, and we’re having a fine old time in Mendoza. The question then becomes – what next?

The way I look at it, there are different ‘levels’ of ideas. Some are aimed at freeing up your time and avoiding a day job while others are about world domination and something bigger. I went to a Tony Robbins seminar a few years ago they explained it this way.

There are three ‘levels’ of being ‘rich’ (sorry for all the quotation marks!).

1 – you have more money coming in every month than is going out without selling time. That might not be a huge amount of money but as long as it is more than is going out, you are ‘free’. This is pretty much where we are now. I think that ideas that get you to this level are normally pretty grounded. Your businesses seem typical. It doesn’t need to be world changing, all it needs to do is to free up your time so you can start to think about the next level.

2 – Next up is having enough money to live your ‘dream life’. That means you have enough money to do whatever it is you want without having to worry about it. For example, we would like to fly up to the states for a seminar this November but we’ll have to put some extra work in to make it affordable. If we were at this level we could just reach into the bank account and go. On this level you can own all the ‘toys’ your little heart can desire without selling time. I’m guessing that you can still achieve this level of financial freedom which pretty standard ideas. I’m not sure you need to worry about the next big thing. There are still plenty of established ideas which can be moved to a new industry or outright competed with that will help to generate the cash. In fact, it might be a handicap to come up with something too wild and woolly since new ideas are inherently more risky. In fact, maybe it is all about just creating enough multiple streams of income, made up of ’small’ or ‘established’ ways of creating cashflows.

3 – World domination. This level is really some people that already have all the money they can handle. It now becomes about making a lasting impact or legacy on the world. This is where you need to think of something ‘big’. These ideas are the type of ideas that the Silicon Valley investors look for. They are a lot more risky but I’m guessing that if you managed to get past level 2 it’ll help you a lot more than going straight for gold all at once.

Of course just dreaming about big new ideas is fun. Its motivating and its good to let the creative juices flow once in a while.

I’m delighted to have found your blog. Keep up the great work and maybe we can go for a pint next time I’m in BsAs.

James

Brian Armstrong

September 26th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

Hey James,

I totally agree with these ideas. Most of the businesses I’ve started so far have aimed at #1 – building something practical and achievable to generate income. BuyersVote.com was my first real attempt to move higher up that scale, whether it will be successful hard to say. But I feel like once you have a baseline income that covers anything you need to buy you can really start thinking about those big goals. It’s a great place to be. Something on the order of Magnitutde like “cure malaria” which Bill Gates is working on, and things like that.

Anyway, always up for a pint next time you’re down here. I can tell we are thinking alike. Thanks for the comment and keep in touch!
Brian

Henriettak

October 4th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

“I don’t know about you but I envision every movie we see being in 3D, there being dirt cheap projectors and flat screens showing up everywhere (kind of like minority report where the walls of our house are built out of these things and they’re on cereal boxes, etc). ”

Have you seen the “sixth sense” device in this TED talk by Pattie Maes’ from her MIT lab?

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

So cool.

Brian Armstrong

October 4th, 2009 at 2:31 pm

OH yeah, very cool! Thanks Henriettak.

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How To Think Of The Next Google

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