A couple of years ago we started something completely different. Just for the fun of it. And then we lost interest and simply let it freewheel to nowhere in particular.
It's was a bartering website. And we lost interest because other projects took over and we simply didn't have resourses to PR/market the site.
A couple of weeks ago my 18 year old brother-in-law called me to ask if I had any work for him to do. Last September he took a year out to help my father in law with his property business. After a few months he realised he had nothing much to do except run errands. Now he wants a real challenge. So I'm throwing him the bartering site, with a slight twist:
Take the website and turn it into a free iPhone App. Monetize it too. I want £3,000 a month revenue from it within 12 months.
We had an interesting conversation last night. He wants to do some research about bartering, what it means to people and how often they do it.
"I thought I'd go and ask people in London."
"Who in London?"
"Random people..."
"In the street?"
"Well, yes."
"How many Facebook friends have you got?"
"1600."
"Wait, you have one thousand six hundred friends??? Why don't you ask them?"
"Could do..."
"Download a polling application and poll them if you want to."
"OK."
I sent him a 3 page brief last night and am waiting for his proposal. I will keep you posted on his progress.