Sharing Music Live

NEED
The idea of listening music at the same time through a smartphone without being in the same place. Like doing FaceTime but instead with music.

DESCRIPTION
It will probably be an app on your phone that can synchronize what everyone is listening in a specific channel. It is like becoming your own radio station.

POTENTIAL
"Spotify launched just over a year ago in the United States (July 14, 2011) and during that time has garnered more than three million U.S. users, with roughly 20% of them paying subscribers." by Hisham Dahud 

LinkedU for University Alumni

NEED:
Am I the only one that is tired of the alumni pages in our universities sites? Why can´t I have this information on my smartphone?

DESCRIPTION
An app the connects to all universities and gives access to the alumni data base on the credentials from the users (aka you have to be an alum of the specific university) in an easy and secure way. Think Linkedin but with your alumni network. 

POTENTIAL
Hm! difficult to assess but I need it. Hehe.

Music Launchpad

NEED
In general most songs are not communicating the right message. We are wasting a mass communication channel. Imagine if we could have a platform that could help artist co-create songs with its users or fans. Similar to the ideas behind crowd sourcing but with the artist being the mastermind behind the creation.

DESCRIPTION
It will need to be a platform similar to a kickstarter but for artistic creation where the users will have to release all rights to the artist that is managing the process. I imagine having different groups of users trying to push certain messages through music.

POTENTIAL
In 2012 the global music market represented US$16B in retail sales.

Audiobook to Text App

NEED
Everytime I am listening to a good audiobook I have a great need to be able to save parts of the text in a format that I can revisit easily.

DESCRIPTION
An app that can connects to the audiobook apps (e.g. Audible) and can get transform part of the audio clip to text format.

POTENTIAL
Probably little. [Updated] "Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in publishing and everyone within the industry is very bullish about the future of the format.  There are a number of new start-ups that are making waves and retailers are beginning to release that audiobooks are worth investing in. The global audiobook industry is currently evaluated at 2.8 billion dollars and this is primarily due to the sheer amount of new titles that were produced in 2015. 43,000 new audiobooks were released this year, which is a slight increase from the 36,000 that came out in 2014 and a far cry from the 20,000 that were issued in 2013." by Michael Kozlowski 

Men Shirts in Volume

NEED
Everyone has a guy friend that loves to purchase two or three shirts of the exact same type and color. Others will like so much certain shoes that will buy two pairs and store one until the first pair gets ruined.

DESCRIPTION
A clothing company that targets men that purchase in bulk. So if a customer purchases one shirt it costs exactly as in other places but if he purchases more than one it gets volume discounts. Shirts that count for the volume discount have to be of the same type maybe even of the same color.  As I think about this it may not even need to be a clothing company but an aggregator that purchases in bulk to different brands.

POTENTIAL
Menswear Will Contribute US$40 Billion Sales in the Global Apparel Market by 2019 [Updated]

TV Streaming Device

[UPDATE: Chromecast was release days after this post. Probably this is exactly what I meant with my post]

NEED
I keep wondering when are we getting a small device that can help me project things from my phone to the TV. It could get connected to some input plug in my TV. Probably the HDMI or even the VGA. I would love to be able to stream videos or even movies from my laptop too. I know I have AppleTV and other but I want something more simple that I can take on my trips.

DESCRIPTION
Small device that hopefully does not need any electrical connection (i.e. it has a small battery included like the remote control of the AppleTV) and that serves as a bridge between computers/laptops/phones and TVs.

POTENTIAL
Apple TV sales surpass 13 million, 'about half' sold this year

Sports Video Content Aggregator

NEED
I have always had some difficult time finding quality videos of the highlights of the key soccer matches around the world. The best solution is to search on youtube. I am sure there are several hundred thousand (or even million) fans that would love to have a site that aggregates quality sports video clips.

DESCRIPTION
Probably something like VIMEO but for sports. It should be multi-platform with key features like easy to search. Revenue would come from advertising and a freemium model.  Probably start with one sport in specific that is relatively global: Soccer (aka Football).

POTENTIAL
2014 FIFA World Cup™ reached 3.2 billion viewers, one billion watched final. [Updated]

ZipCar Systems to Open Your Home

Need

Ok, if you have not seen my previous post, please check it out before reading this one because this idea is just a "sub-idea" to my previous post: http://www.marceloburbano.com/2013/08/zipcar-system-for-individuals.html

The need is similar to my previous post. I am tired of looking for my keys to open my home. Can we put the opening system in my wallet or anything that I am wearing (e.g. my watch)? Given that I only really know about the ZipCar system to open car doors I am going to follow my instinct that the first global/massive way to open home doors would look like a cardkey.

Description

Bla, bla, bla... you know how it is going to look like if you read my previous post. The only piece that is different is the third party installer. In this case I am thinking of two types: the security companies that install the alarms in every developing country (and some developed countries now that inequality is rising) or the companies that offer security doors (those doors that are not your regular "Joe Door" but made of steal and very very difficult to open if you do not have the key).

Potential

Again... bla, bla, bla... if this worked for cars... hmm let me think, is there more homes that cars?... yeap! ok so you see my point on "potential".

ZipCar System for Individuals

Need

Why do we keep using keys to enter cars? Isn´t there a better way? Wait! How long have ZipCar existed? Why haven´t we adopted ZipCar way of opening cars? Imagine having 2,3,4 cards to open the same car. In a family of 3+ this is a constant battle. In countries that have a lot of traffic and laws to limit the cars on the road (e.g. Mexico, Colombia, Chile, etc.), people have the additional problem that need to switch cars every other day, this is a very tedious task when you only have one key for each car.

Description

Get the ZipCar system of opening car doors. Create an "Initiating Kit" that local repair/garage shop can install pretty easily with some instructions. Probably consider signing up some local repair/garage shop at the beginning to guarantee the quality of the installation. 

Potential

Charge for the "Initiating Kit", for extra cards and configuration. I am thinking we can probably charge US$20 per "Initiating Kit" without the installation and US$5 per new keycard. Only in Bogota, Colombia, we have a million cars on the road. Assuming you can expand to 100 cities like Bogota in the world this is a US$2.5B market. At some point, we can make this system pretty competitive and good so we can sell it to car manufacturers directly.

UrGift Demo Day Video

I wanted to share with you the video of the presentation of UrGift at Wayra´s Demo Day (in Spanish):

Published on YouTube.com on Feb 27, 2013

UrGift.in es una aplicación móvil en la industria de "social gifting", que le permite a los usuarios compartir su Wish List, para que los amigos puedan escoger y enviar regalos deseados y útiles, de una forma muy sencilla y desde su Iphone. Los usuarios pueden regalar de formar individual o invitar a otros amigos a contribuir para un regalo de grupo. Inicialmente UrGift.In compartirá el Amazon Wish List pero en el futuro UrGift.In se conectará con otros online retailers y otros servicios de wish list. UrGift.In es una de las startups aceleradas por Wayra Colombia para la clase de 2012. También fue ganadora del INNPulsa_MassChallenge Pitch Competition en MassChallenge en Boston en Octubre de 2012, la aceleradora de negocios mas grande del mundo.

The Crunchbase for Colombia Startups and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Need

I have been talking with @vickyricaurte, InnPulsa, MinTic and Wayra Colombia about the critical need of understanding our tech-based entrepreneurial ecosystem in Colombia. We do not have a clear map of the entire system. We do not know:

1. Which are the STARTUPS in this space in Colombia
2. What are the ACCELERATOR programs that could potentially support these startups
3. Who are the INVESTORS interested in this space

Description

Basically we need a platform that is crowdsourced similar to a CrunchBase (CrunchBase is the free database of technology companies, people, and investors that anyone can edit.). Of course we need a platform in Spanish with certain traction at the beginning. 

I was hoping someone reading this blog will love to start this project with Vicky and I. We promise it won´t take too much time. It is probably something that we can start in our spare time. If you are interested please write a comment below.

Potential

Hmm... this one is probably for the good of humanity, unless we can build something like TechCrunch around it. We can use TechCrunch as a proxy adjusting for the fact that TechCrunch´s market is the US and our platform´s market would be Colombia. AOL purchased TechCrunch for US$30M and Colombia´s GDP is around 2% of the USA´s GDP, then our platform if it has a successful blog attached to it can be worth US$600K (Wow!). In conclusion, this one is probably for the good of Colombia. Uhh! maybe we can get some seed money from the government (¿?)...

Unified Seed Accelerator Application form

Finally a Consolidated Form

Accelerato.rs has created a Unified Seed Accelerator Application form that is accepted in several startup accelerators including TechStars. Check it out.

Hopefully Wayra.org will join this Unified Seed Accelerator Application form.