18.1 Preservation Tenants

Description: Maintenance/security tenants. A service that helps developers, real estate investors and anyone with a vacant property avoid squatters, vandalism, empty homes fines and lost rental revenue. The tenants rent vacant property for a reduced rent and take have to do their own maintenance and security. They are caretaking until the next stage of the property (tear down, reno, etc) and move out with very short notice.

The tenants apply to the company and are thoroughly vetted and must have some construction skills and be willing to move out quickly. Owning a large protective dog will be preferred. The tenants need to have a plan and give notice if they will be away for any length of time greater than a weekend.

Pros: The absolves the owner of the headache of property in transition. It avoids squatters, reduces the risk of vandalism and lost rent due to vacancy.

Cons: Bad tenants could try to lie their way into this program and then abuse it. Quality, vetted tenants could experience a tragedy and become bad tenants.

18.2 Polotik Bar

Description: Bar called Politik that uses old political lawn signs and fliers as decor, also drinks themed as well. Voting boxes, electronic voting machines and historical versions of these can be used as furniture/décor.

They could offer to host local debates during elections, the space would be designed to facilitate this as well.

Pros: This may lead to greater voter turnout during elections, keeps the drinking public thinking about politics.

Cons: political arguments between patrons turning into fistfights

18.3 Root Mapping

Description: : A service that scans and maps out all the tree roots on a property. It makes recommendations based on a proposed building and location on site about what trees can be kept, which will need cutting and what roots can be cut without killing the tree. This allows a builder to keep mature trees while building. The service can provide long term monitoring contracts to check for new roots near foundations. They can be cut before foundation issues emerge.

Pros: The property value of a house with old, large beautiful trees on it is higher to most buyers than one without these. Public buildings (schools, government) have the incentive to keep local voting public happy buy not cutting down old trees.

Cons: Developers often cut down all the trees before building, this is simpler and easier for them and utility contractors. Due to this common practice, they may not adopt this technology.

18.4 Van Life Campground

Description: A campground specific to the needs to van life, bus life and RV life people. There would be a construction/living section and a purely living section. In the construction/living section there is very long (sunrise to sunset) noisy hours and people are allowed to live in the vehicles they are working on.

There will be a mechanic shop and/or junkyard located nearby with a large tow truck. The mechanic and junkyard would have to rely on the local town/city for most of their business as van-life people are largely DIY.

Showers, toilets, water, septic hookups and ample power for construction required for this.

There can be a drive through section that has clothes-washer and driers, dishwashers for when Van life people need to clean everything. Similar layout to a pit lane in F1.

Pros: There is a demand for this as home built RVs, vans and Skoolies are rejected from traditional RV parks. RV parks won’t allow you to work on the vehicle at the pad. This is an untapped market everywhere there is a lack of affordable housing.

Cons: Some people living out of vehicles may not have much money, they may not want to pay for this campground.

18.5 Lifestyle Change Apprenticeship

Description: A service that allows you to try out a different lifestyle than the one you have without the commitment and cost of jumping in with both feet. For a period of weeks or months you can try a different lifestyle. Examples can be living in a van, living in a skoolie, living and working abroad, living in a float house, living in a sailboat, living in a major city center, living in another city in your country, living off grid, subsistence farming/homesteading ect.

The service takes the risk by owning the housing unit (van, float home, apartment in city center) and connects you with temporary work that fits that lifestyle. This allows you to try out the lifestyle with an on-call “coach” or “mentor” who has lived like this before and can help. For example, how and where to dump the grey water tank on your skoolie. There would be different layers of “help” available at different price points.

This idea has the potential for a reality TV show as well.

Pros: people in an uncertain, increasingly expensive world wonder if they would be better off living life differently. What stops most from trying is the risks, namely cost.

Cons: Pricing this would be difficult as people would only pay less than it would cost to simply jump into this situation. This model would need a long timeframe to make the purchases worth it.

18.6 Unique El Caminos

Description: Create custom pickup trucks that come with warranties. Target vehicles can be station wagons, SUVs, minivans, short school busses and SUVs. The goal is to create a functional work truck that is better than a comparable pickup truck of a similar year.

Another possible option is importing right hand drive Toyota Hilux’s (and other competing trucks) and converting them to left hand drive.

These will be eye-catching trucks, making them useful to businesses that want to stand out with their fleet vehicles as an advertising pitch. The visual appeal makes for good social media content and selling to companies located far from the shop.

Pros: You’re repurposing a vehicle that is worth less as a car/van/bus into a work truck that may be worth more. These unique vehicles are great for advertising.

Cons: This will require trust in the build quality and warranty of the company to lead to continued sales.

18.7 Live Music Tokens

Description: Typically people keep a souvenir of a great live music show they were at. This used to be ticket stubs and is now just shirts. The business is a company that sells other forms of merchandise, licensed by the band to remember the show. You would have to give proof of your being at the show and have a limit of the merchandise you can order per show seen. Examples can be promotion posters, additional clothes, mugs, shot glasses, beer glasses, objects specific to that band’s style.

This could be done retroactively as well, bands you saw years ago but have proof of the show. Many shows were much bigger deals/ more iconic in hindsight.

Pros: without ticket stubs, shirts are the only real souvenir, but shirts wear out. There is a want for this.

Cons: people may try to game the system by re-selling merchandise to people who want to say they saw the show but really didn’t. Especially for historic live events that became culturally significant later

18.8 Condensation Roof Battery

Description: A roof that has sections that are designed to catch rain and snow and hold it. The sections raise up on hydraulics and lock into place. Essentially the design would replace and look like a flat roof. Solar power, a hand crank, wind power or power from the grid would raise the panels up. When the panels are full of snow, ice and /or rain a notification is sent to the owner and/or operator. They can choose to lower the panels and generate electricity now or wait until later. Or lower some panels now, and others can wait.

The panels are a battery of stored energy for buildings. Solar panels could be used in tandem with this.

The expense of design and install may require the company to install free of charge and make money on the electricity sales to homeowner and/or grid.

Pros: : uses a formerly unused flat roof to store and generate energy. Can be a secondary source of electricity savings and/or income.

Cons: direct alternatives that would be cheaper are solar panels. The initial install costs may be too high for consumers to want

18.9 Dog Power

Description: a vest that a dog wears when walking, running and playing. It generates power from the movement of the dogs back. The power is stored in a battery inside the vest. It can be used to charge cellphones, flashlights and other small items.

Can be sold to hikers and campers who need a source of power when out in the woods.

Pros: remote electricity generation that isn’t dependent on the sun is a need.

Cons: the cost to develop this may be too high to justify a sellable price