I’ve often wondered to myself if it would be possible to start a business that just sells business ideas.

I am in love with the thought process of our current market (whenever the market changes) and what types of businesses could succeed within it. I like to push the envelope with outrageous business ideas just to see if they would work, as well as solving solutions to common everyday problems.

I’ve started an idea list of possible businesses and possible products that could and help and/or entertain people. I don’t have enough minutes (or energy) in one day to accomplish all of these ideas at one time…so, they remain on the list.

Now here comes the questions:

• What if I could sell these ideas?
• What if I could provide a single person (that has time and money) with the ins and the outs of my business idea and the ways that they could attempt to make it successful?
• Could I sell these business ideas?
• How much could someone make on a business idea?
• Could I give the idea away and get royalties on any success that was made because of it?
• How would I build my reputation to the point where people who don’t even know me, know I have a money making idea that they would be willing to buy and run by themselves?
• Would it be more advantageous for me to hire my own team of people that would essentially facilitate and operate all of my ideas for me?
• If I sell an idea to someone with money, would they be capable of making it successful? After all, they couldn’t think of this idea…
• Is there a business model out there like this already that I don’t know about?
• If so, how did they get things started?
• Is it worth selling ideas? I mean if they benefit society they shouldn’t just be sitting on my notepad, should they?
• Could I give the ideas away (open source) and have them benefit others without myself getting any $$ or recognition?
• What should I do?

As you can see, I have a bunch of questions and would love to have answers for them, What are your thoughts?

Just a bit to think about…Let’s make something happen with unused ideas!

Keep pushing your mind to the limit, nothing is unattainable!
Have a Great Day!
~Chais Meyer

We finally sold our home…well, sort of. (This picture is of our ‘home purchasers’ and myself, my wife couldn’t attend the key hand off).

About 3 Months ago, we wrote a post about our home and how we couldn’t afford to own it anymore. We had the choice of finding some way to sell it or have our mortgage company foreclose on us. My wife and I didn’t want to go down without a fight, so we took the drastic measure of moving in with my ‘rents (that’s the cool term for parents), staying in their basement and out of our home that we loved so much.

We had to call our mortgagor and tell them that we were unable to make our mortgage payments and we needed some help. The gave us a 3 month break from payments so we had some time to try to solve our problem (come up with our unpaid mortgage amount or sell our home…or else). During that time, Shawna and I have been racking our brains to try and figure out a solution that would not only get us out of this mess, but hopefully put some money into our pocket as well (we did put tons of hours into our home, fixing it up from when we originally purchased it 3.5 years ago).

What we did (with the help of God) was have a lawyer draw up a ‘Lease to Own Contract’ (that we are giving to you for free at the bottom of the page) and found a married couple that was interested in having their monthly rent payments go towards the purchase of a home. Along the way I believe we found a short term market niche for real estate investments.

The Details (let’s call the person paying us the TENANT):

• the TENANT will pay a monthly payment to us, (which will include $ that will go towards the principal for them to purchase the house from us, the interest for us taking the risk and acting as their bank, homeowners insurance in case the house catches on fire and the property tax)
• When we receive that monthly payment, we will then pay the bank that we have our mortgage through, which will cover our principal, interest, homeowners insurance and property tax
• The official home ownership (the paperwork that says Shawna and I own the home) won’t change until the TENANT decides to pay us outright for the home or goes through the 20 years of payments as we’ve set up.
• Why would the TENANT want to do something like this? Well, first off there is no need for them to get a mortgage from a bank (which is nice if you currently don’t fit the criteria to get a mortgage). They don’t have to do anything different from paying rent like they normally would (it’s easy). It is their home unless they decide to move or not make their monthly payments (all the money that they’ve payed every month does not go back to them if they decide to terminate our contract).
• Why is this good for us? We make positive cash flow every month $60 a month extra we can apply towards our home principal. We can pay our bills. If the TENANT carries the payments to the full 20 years without paying the home off in advance, we will make $40,000 extra in interest (that’s a nice little investment). We don’t have to do any of the landlord responsibilities because it is their home and they are responsible for everything that breaks down, etc.
• We also had them pay a $3,000 (non refundable) down payment to start this process. This payment goes directly towards the principal of their home and we get enough up front money to pay off our past mortgage payments (the bank won’t foreclose)!

How is this a market niche? When our nation is going through home sale hardships (because it’s hard to get a mortgage), why not purchase 10-20 forclosed homes and duplicate this process? be a landlord without the responsibilities of fixing up and maintaining the property. And if you really wanted to protect yourself, you could create something about a pre-payment penalty in the contract. It could say, if the TENANT pays off the total home value before 50% of the contract term has been complete, there is a penalty of “BLANK” %. Something like that.

We just wanted to let you in on how we got ourselves out of a sticky situation. If you would like to download this contract in an editable (Microsoft Word) format, Please Click Here. Also, if you would like to use an Amortization Chart (like what we used to help create this contract) Please Click Here.

Please note, this document was designed and created specifically for our situation, so not everything will apply to you. We still recommend having a property lawyer look at this contract after you have edited it. It will still be considerably less expensive having them proof it than creating a new contract.

If you can benefit from our experiences, please take advantage of them.
We are thanking God and Enjoying the day! Have an Awesome day yourself.
~Chais & Shawna Meyer

PS. If you don’t have Microsoft Office which is needed to edit these document types, go to Open Office’s website and download their Open Source program for your computer. It’s free and does the same things Microsoft does.

When New Year’s Resolutions are created there’s a personal fear hidden inside every one. It seems that ’stereotypically’ whenever we create a resolution, more often than not it gets broken. It is almost with a superstitious attitude that If I really want to accomplish something I won’t call it a "resolution", I will call it a goal. Do you feel the same?

I’m going to give it a go this year, despite my previous experiences. I will accomplish my resolution goals! [Did you see what I did there, I used the word resolution and goal together, they're bound to get accomplished now!]

Why do I have a sudden change of heart about creating these resolutions, you might ask. Well, a few reasons:

1. I need a new challenge in my life (I feel bored and need to spice some stuff up).
2. I just watched Yes Man with Jim Carry and it was an Amazing Movie!
3. I just read an inspiring blog post by Thomas Hiatt that drives home my thoughts about what I need and want to accomplish.

So here is an incomplete list of what I want to accomplish this year (my New Year’s Resolutions)!

1. Have a 6 Pack in 6 months (no big sweat)
2. Condition myself to avoid High sugar foods (simple carbs)
3. Train to run a 10K
4. Get my clothes ready for the next day, the night before (I just want to do this for discipline)
5. Wake up and get out of bed the first time my alarm goes off (I have a love/hate relationship with my snooze button)
6. Have 100 Control Yours clients in 7 Months
7. Hire a book keeper to keep us in check financially, personally
8. Take 30% out of all income made for savings, tithing, and investments
9. Grow a True Savings account (no spending unless it is a true emergency) to $2000 in 6 months.
10. Move to Europe in 12-14 months.
11. Narrow down the top 3 places we would like to move in Europe
12. Start learning the language together with Shawna
13. Have our passive income exceed our monthly expenses in 6 months
14. Have our passive income double our monthly expenses in 12 months
15. Fill out and send in a patent application for my new Coffee Cup Lid design
16. Talk to SandHill plastics (a local plastic company in Kearney, NE) to see if they can create a mold for the design
17. Sell all of the ad spots to fill our first digital signage system for six months solid
18. Develop an automated distribution system for the Digital Signage System
19. Organize my iTunes audio books with correct album art and titles

What do you have planned for 2009? I’d love to hear.
~ Chais Meyer

I don’t remember the last time that I didn’t know what to talk about. Today is going to be one of those days. I’ve written posts in the pasts about rants, raves, love, hopes, dreams, religion, challenges, struggles, and solutions. I HAVE NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT!

Do I need a muse? What is my problem? I have thousands of new things happening in my life and I can’t put them together into a paragraph. It all comes out like vomit on a page.

Maybe I need to make a list, doesn’t that help people? OK…I’m going to make a list. A list of what?
Oh, screw it.

Goodnight,
~ Chais Meyer

Warning: This may sound kind of Geeky for those non business lovers out there!

In my spare time, I like to develop possible business models and brands as a hobby, and while some people might think this sounds like work, I really enjoy challenging myself and experimenting with what my mind can come up with. When I am working on and creating business models and fictitious brands, I try consider a few things to make sure my idea is even worth my time.

1) Does this business/brand have the possibility of having passive income from the beginning? If it doesn’t, how long will it take to create passive income (either through subscriptions, investments, services, etc.)? [Note: Passive income from the beginning is not a requirement, but there has to be an investment account or a way to create it later on. Why do I think it is so important? Because wealth is not measured in the amount of $$$$ a person has in one day, it is measured in time; if I stopped working today, how many days can I live forward (with my same lifestyle expenses) with my current income, liquid assets, savings, etc. - Example: I have $2,500 in monthly expenses, if I have subscriptions or memberships coming in from a service I provide of $4000 a month, than I am infinitely wealthy (as long as my passive income doesn't decrease or my expenses go up). Every month I would be netting a $1500 profit and I wouldn't every have to work again.]

2) What is the length of time it will take for me to get this business started? I ask myself this because I don’t want to spend 6 months on something if I could have done something else (with the same benefits) that would have only taken 2 weeks. (That is pretty much common sense, but I have to ask myself anyway so I don’t start on a rampage working on one project without thinking.)

3) How much upfront cash is required by myself or an investor to get this off the ground? I love the businesses that require my sweat equity (many bootstrappers have no other choice but to spend there own time and money in the beginning, Including me) and not much more. The only disadvantage of Sweat Equity is that time is precious and if you can’t make money right away than you need to divide your time up with something like my cash/growth items ratio (like what I talked about in a previous post “The Perfect Ratio, What is it?”).

4) Does this fit a niche or does this business fall into a huge market category? There is not a right or wrong answer here, I just prefer the niche Markets. For me the smaller markets are easier to access with advertising (more specific), and they take less time to get input from the consumers, as well as there are less products/services you need to create or develop (allowing us to become more of an expert in less amount of time).

5) Will this business/brand benefit who I want to sell to (my target market)? If it won’t, why spend the time (or you can change your target market)? Unfortunately, if I have an idea, decide on my target market, and then realize, “oh, I don’t think this will benefit them that much”, it is probably better to just drop the idea or put it on the back burner for future reference. Why try to force someone to spend money on something that they won’t utilize or love, It is a losing battle. Like Seth Godin Says in The Dip, Sometimes it is okay to quite. [My Soap Box: I don't want to become another company that sells Shit on an infomercial that no one needs. I might even make a little money right away from those out there that are addicted to buying, but are they going to tell their friends about my product if no one needs it? Probably Not. Are they going to shout to the world how great our product is if no one actually NEEDS it? NO! Okay, I'm done]

If anyone has a better start up question list, please let us know about it. Maybe we are missing something very crucial. Thanks for your time and have an awesome day. [By the way check out this great day to day blog I found by Angelo Bell]

~Chais