10th
Ebay/Craigslist Opportunity
My full time job is running SimulScribe. I have very strong beliefs at how a entrepreneur has to focus his/her energy on a single company while it is in the hatching stage in order to guarantee success. That said, it does not mean that I do not constantly think about other businesses.
Every time I go on Craigslist and Ebay my entrepreneurial juices start flowing. While both businesses do a incredible job, I think that I might have figured out their flaws and therefore the opportunity.
Ebay- There are many positives about the business but to me the main one is the amount of trusted buyers and sellers that can transact without fraud. While of course there still is fraud, it is preventable on Ebay if you only work with trusted buyers and sellers. The negative is the price they charge. While it is not totally prohibitive it is very high compared to the cost behind running the system.
Craigslist- The plus is that it is free and easy. The negative is that it is freaking drenched in fraud. In the last few weeks I have had 3-4 extremely fraudulent experiences with Craigslist and they were all with professionals.
So I think that the opportunity is to hijack Ebay’s system of trust (I think I have figured out how to do that) and run the company like Craigslist (25 employees). Even though I think this is an incredible opportunity, it will have to wait as SimulScribe is still in need of my full time attention. But luckily I have learned the opportunities and ideas are the commodity, execution of the business by a team is the art.
