New here with business idea...

[Mochadelicious]

Hello. I'm new to this forum and would like to bounce an idea I have for a potential business. I just thought of this yesterday so obviously not a lot of thought has gone into this yet.

So a couple of days ago I decided to finally get around to taking pictures of all my personal possessions in and around my home for insurance purposes. I've been wanting to do this for some time but kept putting it off. I've always heard it was a good idea to take pictures of your personal items in case of fire, theft or some other disaster...mainly as proof that you owned the item and to also help jog your memory of all your possessions to submit claims for in case of a disaster. My plan is to put the pictures on a thumb drive and store it in my safe deposit box along with a copy of my insurance policy. I may even try and do a spreadsheet with pictures and more detailed information about each item (like make, model, purchase date, and replacement cost). Well, I ended up taking about 150 pictures...seriously (and I don't even have a very big house). It took me about 2 hours to take all the pictures. Then, I decided to go over to my parents house (who have also expressed wanting to do this for some time) and helped them do the same. They have a bigger house and a lot more possessions than myself, so they had about 250 pictures. My parents are in their 70's and although they know how to take pictures, they would have no idea how to put them on a thumb drive for storage. I think my business idea is probably becoming apparent now. I'm thinking I could do this as a small business, mainly targeting older people who are less tech savvy. I don't think I would be able to do a spreadsheet for them as it would be very difficult and time consuming to gather all the information needed, but I could do the detailed pictures and thumb drive.

Thoughts?

[Fulcrum]

You may be on to something with this. I'm not sure what a fair charge would be (that would be up to you to figure out), but I can see this being something useful in more than just the reasons you described.

[Freelancier]

Seems like a logical business with low start-up costs, but also low barrier to entry, so you won't have much pricing power if a lot of people get into the same business in your area.

My recommendation would be to see if you could partner with some independent insurance agents to offer the service to their clients.

[Freelancier]

if you team up with insurance agents they may get offended that you are trying to over take there positionWhat?!? Agents sell insurance. Requires licensing, testing, and regular education to maintain the license. What the OP wants to do is something that an agent could tell his clients about as a way to further help their clients protect their assets from loss. And the agent would likely want a piece of the amount the OP will charge for the service, which is reasonable.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'll bet you could do it with all kinds of stuff.

Homes
Businesses
Contractors
Autos
Kids

A camera and a laptop. You could document all kinds of things for all kinds of people, for all kinds of reasons.

I like it.

[Mochadelicious]

Hey thanks for the feedback guys. Obviously I'd still have to walk around taking pictures with the client present to point things out to me. I wouldn't want to walk around on my own taking pictures, especially for liability reasons (like getting blamed for something that went missing or broken). I'm assuming I'd have to be bonded to protect myself from that sort of scenario. I do like the idea of working along side of insurance companies. Maybe they would give some sort of break on their policies if clients had these thumb drives made and stored somewhere off the property. I would think that this service would help save a lot of headache for both the insurance company and the client if a disaster does strike. Seems like a win win for all of us really.

Next questions: What would you pay for a service like that and what would be the best avenue for marketing to my target audience?

[Harold Mansfield]

Next questions: What would you pay for a service like that and what would be the best avenue for marketing to my target audience?

Now that's a very big question. You're going to have to do some research to see what the need is, who your target demographic is, check out similar businesses, speak with potential partners and so on.

As far as marketing a new business goes, that's an even bigger question. Not sure we can lay it all out for you. Starting a business takes a lot of work, and marketing is a very big subject. How you do it it is going to be specific to who you are targeting and your industry.

[Mochadelicious]

Okay, thanks. I have never ran my own business before therefor I am very green at this. How do you do research to see what the need is and who my target demographics are? How do other businesses research this info?

[Fulcrum]

Okay, thanks. I have never ran my own business before therefor I am very green at this. How do you do research to see what the need is and who my target demographics are? How do other businesses research this info?

Start calling insurance agents to see if they'd be interested in a service such as you are proposing. Continue doing this for family/friends (hope for some word of mouth with this) and figure out how much you need to charge with their feedback.

[ActionMan]

I would create a mobile app that runs on phones and tablets. The app will allow you to take pictures, tag them and provide a description for each picture. You can take pics of receipts for the items and associate those with the item so that value may be established. You can organize the portfolio by room or floor, etc. Start off with a basic app with limited features and build on it. Charge $1 for the app.

The key to monetization is that you can provide them some space on your servers to upload the whole thing along with a scanned copy of the insurance contract for a monthly fee, say $2/mo. Let them export the data as an excel sheet too for a fee. This will create a recurring monthly income stream without you personally having to go out and take pictures for people. Keep the monthly fee low so that you attract volume business. Charge a setup fee for new accounts to recover the costs of customer acquisition.

[Harold Mansfield]

I would create a mobile app that runs on phones and tablets. The app will allow you to take pictures, tag them and provide a description for each picture. You can take pics of receipts for the items and associate those with the item so that value may be established. You can organize the portfolio by room or floor, etc. Start off with a basic app with limited features and build on it. Charge $1 for the app.

The key to monetization is that you can provide them some space on your servers to upload the whole thing along with a scanned copy of the insurance contract for a monthly fee, say $2/mo. Let them export the data as an excel sheet too for a fee. This will create a recurring monthly income stream without you personally having to go out and take pictures for people. Keep the monthly fee low so that you attract volume business. Charge a setup fee for new accounts to recover the costs of customer acquisition.

Taking this suggestion into account, your first move would be to see if this already exists. Not just the app, but the entire business model. I would see if insurance companies already have an app like this. Seems pretty reasonable that they would. I know all of the auto insurance companies have accident apps.

Just because it exists doesn't mean that you still can't do it, but the idea may need some tweaking if people can do this themselves.

[Mochadelicious]

Actually I have looked into it somewhat. The insurance institute has put out a free app (which coincidentally is recommended by my particular insurance company). I tried using it but found it to be pretty frustrating. If I click on a particular item to edit it, it tends to lose some of the information I had originally entered in. The app also doesn't allow you to add more than one picture per item. They do have a coordinating website which allows you to do a little more like add pictures of reciepts but is still pretty hokey. There are quite a few similar apps, some free and some you can pay for. I haven't looked too much into those yet.

I was originally thinking that my target customers would mainly be seniors who are less tech savy, but do you think this would go over well with the younger crowd too? I can't imagine an app would be anything most seniors would be interested in using.

[CallBettie]

Your niche is an older person who is not tech savvy so I would stick to targeting that area and I'd charge an hourly rate for the work. $20 - $25 per hour seems reasonable to me for this type of work. If you know that it consistently takes 4-5 hours for the work then perhaps offer a package option of $199 to photo, catalog and deliver the data on a disk and/or thumb drive.

[cdweaver333]

if you do validate your idea, you could always pay college students a low hourly wage to take the photos. That is a way to scale the business (instead of you taking all of the photos yourself)

[Harold Mansfield]

if you do validate your idea, you could always pay college students a low hourly wage to take the photos. That is a way to scale the business (instead of you taking all of the photos yourself)

Why does everyone always look to college students as if they are too dumb to know what a decent wage is? Especially when they want people with skills? I'm just sayin'.

[Mochadelicious]

Thanks everyone. I think I'd actually enjoy taking pictures so I think I'd want to just do it myself. Besides, for the sake of simplicity, I think I'd like to keep it a one (wo)man show.

I do think there may also be a niche for personal autos, RV's, boats, etc. along with businesses who should have photos of their equipment and inventory. I'm just wondering if they would pay for this service or just do it themselves. I'm betting that most people know they should do it but put it off (like I did).

[Blessed]

I think this is a great idea! We moved last fall and I've been meaning to do this since then for us, but it hasn't happened yet...

I like the suggestions of talking to insurance companies and seeing if they could help you pitch the idea to potential clients.

I see this as a "value-added"option for the insurance companies. You could also talk to realtors and see if their clients would like you to come through and photograph before they list a home or after they've moved. Once again - it's a value added thing.

Good luck with the idea! I think it has quite a bit of potential.

[Fulcrum]

Thanks everyone. I think I'd actually enjoy taking pictures so I think I'd want to just do it myself. Besides, for the sake of simplicity, I think I'd like to keep it a one (wo)man show.

I do think there may also be a niche for personal autos, RV's, boats, etc. along with businesses who should have photos of their equipment and inventory. I'm just wondering if they would pay for this service or just do it themselves. I'm betting that most people know they should do it but put it off (like I did).

Sounds to me like your on to something. Pick up your camera, hop in the car, and start beating the pavement. You can start cheapish and figure out your price on the fly. It's a low overhead business so start up costs will be minimal.

[Harold Mansfield]

How do you do research to see what the need is and who my target demographics are? How do other businesses research this info?

When I was thinking about starting up my business, I trolled the internet to see who else was out there providing the same services in the market that I wanted to tackle, which is pretty much anyone in the world who speaks and writes English. (Should be easier for you since this is probably just your local area).

I checked out who sucked, who looked professional, what they were charging, what kind of services they were offering, what kind of marketing they were doing (looked for ads and social media profiles including Linked In) and what kind of feed back they seemed to be getting. I even called a few or filled out their contact form to see who responded and how.

I did speak with a few friends, but that was pretty worthless. None of my friends work for themselves, know anything about the web, marketing or websites. All they know is what looks pretty or does something cool.

Once I decided that there was a market for my services and that I'd give it a shot, I sat down and tried to come up with a plan for pricing, branding, and so on...but more importantly how I would get my first customer and more after that. That's the hard part.

I'd like to wrap this up with, "..and then everything fell into place" but that would be a total lie. Over the next 2 years I struggled, learned, improved, learned, hit jobs boards, learned, tried ads, learned, tried social media, learned. Eventually I stopped making big mistakes, got my pricing in line, and figured out how to keep the thing going.

I started with nothing, didn't know anything, and had no additional income nor a "Plan B", so I probably struggled more than most out of the gate, but it's obviously doable because we're all doing it and many of us have been around this forum for years.

[Mochadelicious]

You all give me hope that this business could become a reality someday...so really, thank you. I'm thinking I will offer to do it for family and friends for free as long as they would be willing to give me a good reference. As much as I'd love to jump right in and start charging a fee, I'm thinking it would be best to wait until I'm licensed, bonded and perhaps working with insurance companies.

Harold: Thanks for your great example of how you got where you are today. It's kind of daunting to think about running my own business, especially when I really have no idea what I'm doing or where to begin. but your example shows me that it's not impossible. Perhaps I will look into taking a small business course at my local community college. I will definitely do some research online for other similar businesses to get an idea of what looks good, services offered and price points. Contacting them and picking their brain is also a great idea. I bet they would be a wealth of information.

I have wanted to run my own business for years, but my biggest hurdle has always been my own self doubt.

[Harold Mansfield]

I have wanted to run my own business for years, but my biggest hurdle has always been my own self doubt.

I was like that for years. Reading the books, subscribing to the magazines...hovering...waiting for some epiphany to hit me in the head so that it would all make sense. It never came. Eventually I had to leap. I considered all of the options and worst case scenarios and decided that no matter how bad things got, that I would stick it out and continue to learn and move forward no matter what until I made it work.

Most people can't deal with the hard times. On TV starting a business looks glamorous, and all the American Express commercials make it seem like all you need is a great idea and the next thing you know people are falling all over themselves to lend you money so that Grand Opening day you're wearing $5k suits in a downtown loft style office filled with all the latest gear and computer equipment. It's not like that for most people.



Harold: Thanks for your great example of how you got where you are today. It's kind of daunting to think about running my own business, especially when I really have no idea what I'm doing or where to begin. but your example shows me that it's not impossible. Perhaps I will look into taking a small business course at my local community college. I will definitely do some research online for other similar businesses to get an idea of what looks good, services offered and price points. Contacting them and picking their brain is also a great idea. I bet they would be a wealth of information.

Draw on your experiences. I spent 20 years in customer service as a Bartender and Limo driver. Service wasn't my hurdle. Sales and marketing was. During the recession I ended up working in a phone room for a time share company. I hated the job, but it taught me how to close over the phone, which today is pretty much 100% of how I make money. Phone skills.

That one job that I hate so much, taught me the one thing that I needed the most.