1.1 Fitness measure clothing

Description: clothing that you put on periodically that records your measurements to see if your weight loss or toning goals are being met. App based in conjunction with clothes

Pros: gives you accuracy of where you’re gaining or losing. Helps see what is and isn’t working to sculp certain areas of yourself. If good enough big tech could buy you out. More accurate and useful than a scale or clothing that stretches and shrinks when washed.

Cons: could be copied by big tech, bought and used to data mine. Measurements of a person could be used as an identifier by government/police?

1.2 Build Your Own Slum Lord

Description: look for property to be used for low income rentals in areas you expect will be worth more in the future. Buy the place and reno it into rental sized units (look at what the local market has lots of (ft2, configurations) and what it has none of (why none? Untapped market? Or no demand). Reno using durable materials focusing on low maintenance for many years.

Cheap, strong materials, save money on future labour for repairs but pay more up front. Use heavy duty appliances, mechanical pieces (hinges etc) to avoid repairs in future. Hold the property and make money off the rental income, providing good housing for poor people in the meantime. A sell decision is determined by the renter (don’t tell them). When they choose to move out, house is completely empty, you could sell, but only then. No evicting people to make money opportunistically.

Buy up properties that have noise/vibration issues (near a train, airport). Build/extend a house covering Max of lot (why go outside with noise) and sound deaden the structure, rent as apartments.

Take references not to screen out credit risk but to give them a chance to be honest. Make sure what questions you ask are legal.

Pros: you amass property while receiving rent payments. Less chance of angry tenants or turnover due to functioning units for lower-than-average rental cost. You’re housing the working poor with a durable, safe place to live. Insurance may be cheaper considering the durability of the units.

Cons: Bad tenants who wreck things and don’t appreciate the place, math has to work, profit has to be enough. Initial cost higher than other rental units. Working poor tenants may miss rent more often, be a bigger headache. If you sell these one day, the wrong person would renovict the tenants and raise rents substantially. The materials and labour cost could be higher than average stick frame reno.

1.3 Investing for the poor

Description:

do this in quarters, 25% domestic charity, 25% foreign charity, 25% domestic investment, 25% foreign investment

buy and hold stock of companies that benefit the poor in some way, reinvest the dividends back into more stock. If a change happens where the firm no longer benefits the poor (McDonalds stops letting homeless people sleep at the tables) sell the stock. Periodically fund charities? Watch it grow, fund later? Some or many of these may be high risk, expect to lose investment, this is an alternative to charity

This helps the poor indirectly, may not be as effective as direct to charity but could create more money

In Canada:

The poor are poor from disfunction/mental illness/personality/addictions and/or structural poverty (isolated reservations/communities). Who helps them?

Food: No frills, other discount grocery stores, grocery stores in far north, fast food in far north/isolated areas, are there farming/hunting corporations for reserves and isolated communities?

Housing: large contractors, lumber yards, hardware stores in isolated places. Who supplies the most goods to habitat for humanity? Native building materials purchasing organizations.

Medical/Therapy services: who provides this to reservation communities? Zoom/skype style facilitators?

Transportation: ice road builders, trucking companies that deliver to isolated reserves, artic airlines, snowmobile companies, parts suppliers in north, car leasing/selling firms in the north

Banking: who gives banking services for the north, reserves? Which payday loan company takes the least advantage? Pidgeon park savings? Micro loans/finance in Canada?

Fuel: which gas stations partner most with reserves? Owned by natives? Who supplies the north with fuel?

Employment: who employs reserve people the most? Mining in north, oil and gas? Who are major employers in the north?

International:

You could buy index funds in the stock markets of poor countries/regions. This may be the best way, giving cash into a stock market that needs it/is neglected by the richer investors of the world to focus on US, East Asia and Europe.

Food: are there local food corps/grocery stores you could buy stock in? stock of corporations responsible for the export of these foods to Canada? Do these export companies just screw over the locals?

Housing: likely govt corruption/inadequacy stopping people from having good homes, monetizing homes, having title deeds etc. likely charity is the only way here

Medical/Therapy services: govt problems again here, not paying to give this to the poor

Transportation: govt neglect likely, possibly local vehicle manufacturers? (Tata in India) Giving people jobs

Banking/Investment: buying stock in Grameen bank, major banks that are even willing to operate in unstable countries (Barclays in Zimbabwe), cryptos? How much access do the poor have for Bitcoins? Transferring cash into bits and vise versa?

Fuel: local fuel company likely taking fuel out of country and not giving any to the poor

Employment: stock markets locally? Helps new local firms access capital in their area. Are in country corporations worth it? Do they actually help the poor? Give them jobs?

Pros: helps put money into the hands of disadvantaged business people in poor nations/areas, also makes money off their success

Cons: could be high risk of losing investment, never growing into a distinct fund. These corporations that sell to disadvantaged people may be taking advantage of the poverty more than helping anyone. In that case, you would be extending the misery. It’s difficult to judge “good works” that a corporation does in a community you live far from, how do you get accurate information? A charity may be a much better use of funds than stock in many cases.

1.4 Ultimate Hardware store

Description:

Loyalty discount based on years of buying at the location giving a better discount on prices, tied to competitor pricing.

Truck and van repair service on site

Free coffee, tea and quick food takeaway on property, only that food is allowed in the store

Contractor card (optional to use an app, not mandatory) gets discounts on everything

Hands-on "construction university" for all staff to train them on what they're selling

Staff treated well, full time hours locked in. when slow more training given (forklifts, tools etc). beer money, store closed for big sports games

Product board is digital like a stock market screen

Goal is to capture all commercial and contractor sales in your region, at any margin. Sales relationships key, poach the best people from other stores.

Hours must be later than any competitor

Instead of installs we vet, monitor and recommend contractors. Can offer project insurance and work guarantees on “our” contractor’s work (products as well? Quality standards?)

Mostly yard based with small pieces section in store

Could staff with red seal trades, pay them going rates (part-time?) full time? Or paid consultation service: pay by minute/hour/30 min chunks and red seal trades answer your questions in an office. They aren’t staff but come in for blocks of time, pre-arranged and paid by store.

Allow payment and contractor accounts by cryptocurrency?

Drop manufacturers that give no/bad customer service for their products

Pros: operationally could blow everyone else out of the water, clean up sales locally.

Cons: high initial costs could make unprofitable, competition has deep pockets, could take losses to sink you. A lot of moving parts, complex system to build ground up

1.5 Pet Toilet

Description: A long drop style toilet for pets. The bowl is on the floor and motion sensor operated. It also is programmed to understand when something is messing with it (it won’t do 20 flushes in a row). The toilet is plumbed into your bathroom. Can come with training manual or trainer package.

We will ask pet owners to upload video of how their pet has outsmarted the toilet. Helps for next generation fixes, changes in design

Can be incorporated/sold to new builds, apartment buildings to reduce installation costs.

Pros: people don’t like cleaning pet poop, this avoids most of this. No more litter, walks for pee, poop bags, picking up crap, messes

Cons: pets are smart, they’ll find a way to break it, mess with it. Need a plumber to set it up, extra cost

1.6 Short Term Investing

Description: real time calculator for best short term investment option. You input your dollar amount, time frame and data about your qualifications and the programs tells you what instrument to use and what the risk would be, expected rate of return. This is for short term savings for goals like car, mortgage down-payment etc.

Linked to a broker, likely a product sold to brokers for their use

Pros: useful for short term savings of people, takes the comparison work out of this. Can be a tool to teach people the opportunity cost of money.

Cons: may exist or similar does exist. Or not needed as a good broker/robo advisor can do this

1.7 Winter Beaters

Description: buy/fix and sell/lease/rent turn-key winter beater cars. If its RWD/front engine provide weight in the rear. All cars come with winter tires all round. Focus on some that could be insured as classics, possibly reducing insurance costs. Upgrade heater/insulation on convertibles (have a Youtube video showing this). Offer underbody coatings spray or panels. You can install a diesel heater (Van life style) for extra heat.

Convertibles: soft tops are hard to insulate better and still fold back in. the materials used often rip in cold weather as well. The soft top may not be able to support the weight of snow on it.

Offer a maintenance package and storage for summer months. Offer a delivery service for freak winter storms, the car can be brought to your house.

Pros: needed in most Canadian and northern US cities, most people would rather not have to own/maintain a winter beater

Cons: other cheap cars on the road for sale, mechanical issues after sold. Winter is becoming less predictable, storage times would need to be flexible.

1.8 Rural to Urban Vehicle Flip

Description: look for and buy up vehicles that you want to flip that are advertised in rural areas. Looking for less than 200,000km, less than 10 year old vehicles. Reasoning is the market is bigger for these daily drivers/work vehicles. Examples could be sporty versions of Japanese cars (Civic Si, Celica, 350Z), 3 series BMWs, diesel trucks, small trucks, jeeps, hybrids. Trucks are big in rural places. Something that people want that isn’t super rare (smaller market, expect parts match). Buy them up for cheap (country people have a small market, hard to sell some vehicles) and bring them to urban center. Fix them up and flip, stay within province/state/region to keep costs down. Buy a few at once using a trailer to keep costs of trip lower.

Could focus on one model/type to streamline parts sourcing, knowledge etc. example only less than 10 year old ford rangers

Pros: take advantage of urban/rural vehicle market inefficiencies

Cons: worth it profit wise? Cost of trailer/truck/gas/fixing cost worth the price you’ll get at the end. country people not willing to sell, can keep a used car on their land indefinitely.

1.9 Canada’s Best Ice Cream

Description: have an ice cream shop starting in a sunny city (Victoria, Calgary, Toronto) that sells the most popular local ice cream from each city. You can vote on the best ones.

Pros: easy to sell product, people love fancy ice cream

Cons: shipping cold products cross country, would the costs kill this? Some of the best ice cream places not wanting to do this, they make enough money on a small scale without expansion need.