The Business of You: What's It To Ya? - Pay Attention To These Opportunities.

by Kenneth J. Weiss
April 4, 2006

Think of this page as a virtual trench coat. Hear in your mind a voice quipping, "Psssst. Hey, buddy." Because, what follows are some tips for once in a lifetime opportunities. Sure, you've heard of most of these, but are you doing anything with any of them? Assess your skills and ambitions. Then ask yourself what these mean to you.

Space
Virgin Galactic, space elevators and Burt Rutan are changing the future of space. While the government wrestles with Katrina, Iraq and an aging shuttle fleet, the private sector is looking up, literally. If you've got some brains and guts, research contracts, technology prizes, private partnerships and the never-ending quest for lower costs payloads can make you a very wealthy person. You may even make a buck or two by sending the Griswolds into space for an interstellar vacation.

China
Q: How can 1.3 billion people screw up your economy? A: Any way they want. Okay, it's a stupid joke, and not that funny, but... it's probably true. Horrible working conditions and few if any environmental regulations make it cheap to produce goods in China. Ideally those things change and the Chinese middle class becomes consumers. For now, it's a gold mine. It's a land mine. It's a huge opportunity.

Nanotechnology
Vibrations from people walking down the street are turned into electric. Disease fighting machines embedded within cell tissue spring to life when they sense a chemical compound. Microscopic robots swim through a city's water system and encapsulate pollutants. People are making big money thinking small. The possibilities are endless, and when you are envisioning machines and technologies on a molecular scale, there is a lot of room in the marketplace.

Global Warming
"Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody is making money on it." - Weiss circa 2000. Not any more. Land speculators are buying arctic deep-sea ports in northern Canada because they believe a thawing polar ice cap will soon make it possible for ships to sail over the top of the world. Great Lakes States are firming up their water rights so they can get their cut of liquidy sales to the parched Southwest. Other companies are taking a more passive role and have built their organization around monitoring the problem, er, ah, opportunity.

Mashups
Want to know the best way to power a business with world-class technology? Just use somebody else's. That's the concept behind mashups. This business model relies on combining open technologies from companies like Google and Amazon with new data sources and experiences. That's a great way to keep the reigns on your investment while building a business with lucrative exit opportunities.

Media Models
"Oh the times, they are a'changing." It's really too bad the music industry was only willing to make money from the phrase rather than embrace it. While the world was being digitized and pirated all around them, it was the funky computer company that changed the game with a thing called iTunes. The industry laughed, Jobs and Co. sold a million songs. The industry watched, and iTunes passed the BILLION mark. The entire entertainment industry is now getting on board. TV shows can be purchased by the episode and Google is launching its Pay Pal-like system to let people buy small clips for a few cents each. Old media models are blending with new, and completely different models have yet to be developed.

Alternative Energy
Did President Bush say, "switchgrass?" Yep, switchgrass. It's a fast growing renewable source for ethanol. Chatted with a John Deere dealer lately? They can set you up with wind turbines, so you can make your own wind farm. That battery in your laptop? Look for it to man-up and make an appearance in your hybrid car. Almost any business plan with reasonable grammar and a kernel of an idea with a cover that say "alternative energy" can get funded.

Have you noticed some others? Drop me an email and let me know. Just type, "Pssst. Hey, Buddy." in the subject line.