In a tough economy it’s hard to get a new business going, but sometimes an idea comes along that is so powerful, you think to yourself, “How could this fail?” Still, you need more than a good idea to make a business viable. Someone has to draw up a business plan, and scout for investors, and do all the legwork to create the product and market it. In other words, put years of work into it. I’m not the person to do that. I’m just someone who sits around talking with others (mainly my husband, Bill), saying things like, “Yes! That product is just what we need! If only someone would start a business to sell it, they’d make a fortune!” So, if you’re feeling entrepreneurial, here are three ideas for businesses that we’d love to see someone take the ball and run with.
1. The Smarter Smoke Detector. Fire safety experts tell us that you should have a smoke detector on every level of your house and you should change the batteries when needed. You know that smoke detectors save lives. But you also know the annoying reality that when a smoke detector is beeping “low batt” it’s always the middle of the night. So you stumble out of bed and begin to wander around the house, going from smoke detector to smoke detector, listening for that damned beep. Why are they set to beep just once every other minute? What idiot came up with that design? The needed improvements seem so obvious: Design a smoke detector that has a smarter “low batt” warning, set so that it won’t start the warning beep in the dark. It could work on a timer, so that it waits until the next daytime cycle to start beeping. (The “low batt” indicator comes on when there’s at least 24 hours of battery life left, so there’s no worry that they battery will die before the next daytime cycle.) Or you could link the low batt indicator to a light detector so that the beeping starts only in the presence of light. And while you’re at it, eliminate that minute-plus gap between beeps. There’s no reason why you should have to wait so long to hear the beep that lets you locate the one that's losing power. Just make it give a steady stream of pips. If I could buy a product with a smarter battery indicator, I’d scrap all my smoke detectors right now and replace each one, before their batteries had a chance to go “low batt” on me in the middle of the night!
