Idea #1
I'm reluctant to give the full details on all eight business ideas just yet, as I don't want to inspire competition before I even get off the ground. But I will reveal enough to give you a picture of where things stand.
An undisclosed Apartment Site (name protected to prevent competitors from getting extra info from this site) This was the first idea I came up with back in college. In 1998 my roommate and I began the initial concept development on the site. The idea was to provide a service to college students to help them find apartments. The concept was unlike other apartment search sites of the time because it was focused on students only. The Apartment Site was the prototype and the plan was still is to launch the site at other universities as well. To-date the site is functional, has a fair number of visitors and is ready to actually generate some revenue. The only problem is selling the advertising. Since I live in Houston, and the potential advertisers are in Indiana, in person selling is difficult. I've taken one trip to visit with potential advertisers, and they indicated a high level of interest, but I have yet to get a commitment. This leaves me with a couple of options.
1) Shut the site down and forget about the whole idea.
2) Find someone local to do some sales leg-work. It is a college campus, so there have got to be some students looking for experience.
3) Forget about the location for the current site and focus on a location closer to where I actually live and get myself out there to sell.
4) Find another revenue source that doesn't require face-to-face selling.

There are a few other lesser issues which I'll go over in the near future, but getting the revenue portion of the model is the biggest problem. Stay tuned for the details on idea #2 later today.
- posted by Drew @ 9:46 AM