I tend to look around for new stuff that catches my interest and i found this store in Barcelona, its a watch place but you can customize the watches or the wrist band. I like the idea of choosing a wrist band color or having many that you can switch between.

The pic is kinda taken further away because the lady in the store said i should take a photo only from the outside.

Even in Spain i have found this bike rental terminals, they use an RFID technology to release the bikes. So this means that customers subscribe to the service and get a card that they swip on the terminal. Then the terminal unlocks the bike for use.

I have seen many sweet shops like the ones in Kuwait; the sweet factory but this one is a new idea. Happy Pills is a sweet store in Barcelona, Spain. It sells the exact sweets found in the sweet factory Kuwait but it presents the sweets as a gift. They have these small bottles for customer to fill them in with sweets and attach a sticker to them. The store placed its self differently not like ordinary sweet shops. Like Parker pen if you remember it, its still places its self as a gift to give someone and not a pen.

Walking in the beautiful gardens of paris, i have noticed a segaway tour. They even get a small training too. Now think where can we use them in Kuwait?haaa? maybe the avenues;P

Walking around in paris, i have found velib. A bike rental startup where you can rent biks from any designated location, bike then drop it off some where else. Its the Avis of bikes. With the nice parisain weather, i think its a great service. Remember this business can not happens unless the paris municipality works with the velib company. Thats why the Kuwaiti government cant support entrepreneurship unless it embraces change.

Redbox, movies for a dollor. See how the American business tries to make things more cheaper to the largets segment of consumers. Not like us here more and more luxuries services. Another nice thing to know is that Redbox is owned by McDonald.

Watch how Netflix operations runs, remember that this only works when the mail system runs efficiently.

Ok i know i have previously bashed Zain Great Idea but am gonna apply to them the car cover business plan (Areesh). Its a simple idea, a mobile car cover that you can install on the car, and by using a remote control you can open and close the car cover (its a motorized product) . The idea behind it that it must be clean and easy, you dont have to touch the product. Installing it should be done once or it can be easy removed and placed back in the car or over the car, and and that the ultimate test for the product is for a person wearing a traditional dishdasha to install it and uninstall it with out screwing his sab3a:p and am not kidding. There is more to the product but will keep it in the business plan that i will submit to Zain. I have even made a video explaining the product that i will provide in the Zain drop box. If all goes well, i will keep blogging about the experience and how things will go about the funding with Zain or Kuwait small projects to be exact.

A very niche business idea, but I like it very much. It’s a company called Common Craft run by a guy and his wife.

I like this idea because when you start a business you have to understand that every person has his own way of understanding something. So when explaining a service you have to make sure that you provide all the means, video, FAQ etc.

I say this because when your into your business day in day out, you tend to think that its easy to understand. I have made this mistake with Digumz.com. You have to explain your business to an audience with a mixture of slow and fast learners, some get it fast and some take a while and need other means to explain the service. Let’s take Digumz.com as an example, if you’re not familiar with a game queue, then when you read Digumz.com service you may get lost. What does it mean to add games to a queue? So you have to explain in many mediums. The rental concept is new by itself in Kuwait.

Anyways I have created a small video for Digumz.com customers to see with another company, but then Ahmad my partner told me about a site called CommonCraft. They just create “how its works: video, very interesting you should see there work. Im in contact with them to see if we can do something for Digumz.com.

After the Small to Big (Kings college London) class, I started getting interested in Social networking websites. From there onwards I always had an idea lingering in my mind to start a social networking site. I know many are saying it requires hundreds of thousands of KDs and many IT developers but that’s all achievable if you have the right working mix. I DON’T!

So after I wrote my idea on paper, I contacted the professor at Cranfield university who was teaching us in November 2011 about social network sites. Tazeem Rajwani is very interested in such projects and have worked with many social startups in the UK. He read my brief and thought it was good (Mark Zuckerberg watch out)!! Eshfeeeh I think it sucked like hell but he was worried about my feelings. Anyways I learned a lot from him again and I will give you the summary of his points:

1)      It has to target a niche market, examples like Human resources, football fans, food lovers etc etc

2)     Transaction value, I like this word: this means that the social site I create must provide some kind of value to the end user. Where he benefits when using it and it already makes a job even cheaper or less of a cost on the user, example LinkedIn where it’s cheaper for HR people to use than hiring a head hunter.

3)     Barriers of entry, how fast others can copy you, if you just started out with a budget and facebook comes and likes your idea, they can do it in days when it will take you months, its just a resources matter: he has many, I don’t.

4)     Revenue stream: how will you make money, somebody has to pay! There is no free lunch my friends.

I think I did not answer the 4 above questions. So am back on the drawing board.

Below is a pic from a company we have visited in central London, they recruit staff based on social networking methods, its called bravenewtalent.com