Self-Employment Ideas in the Time of COVID

With 42 million Americans having lost their job because of the COVID pandemic, the competition for the small number of good job openings is fierce. 
So, many people are deciding to try their hand at self-employment. 

The self-employment ideas I offer in my Psychology Today article today cost little to start and run, and so entail less risk of running out of money before you succeed. Also, these self-employment ideas are COVID-compatible, that is, they can be done remotely. Plus, many of these ideas serve people who will be under COVID restrictions, which may tighten again if the predicted second wave occurs this fall.

Want to be Your Own Boss? Seven Self-Employment Ideas

Of course, it's not easy to be self-employed, to be your own boss.

My latest AOL article offers some of my favorite self-employment ideas that don't require you to be a born entrepreneur.

Shoestring Businesses: Low-Risk, High-Payoff Ideas

I thought you might enjoy an advance look at my next column in the Mensa publication, The Intelligencer.  

It is an adapted excerpt from my book, How to Do Life: What they didn't teach you in school.

Shoestring Businesses

No-Brainer Businesses that Can Make a Smart Person Rich

When I look back on all my clients, two things most often keep smart people from succeeding in business: the urge to innovate and the desire for status.

Don't innovate; replicate

Smart people love coming up with ideas. Alas, even Mensans' new ideas are more likely to fail than are proven ones because, for example:

• The market doesn't like it
• The market stops liking it before you've recouped your investment, let alone made enough money
• The new product or service works less well than you'd hoped
• The R&D costs of an innovation eat too much profit.

That's why guinea pigs so often die, why the leading edge so often turns out to be the bleeding edge. Deep-pocketed corporations can afford to risk innovations--they make profit even if only a fraction succeed. But last I checked, your pockets aren't that deep, so you need to maximize your chance of success on Try One. 

You're more likely to do that by replicating a proven business that costs little to start, what I call a shoestring business. That way, even if you fail, you may have money left for a second shot. It is an MBA-program-promulgated canard that you need money to make money. Below, I'll offer a half-dozen examples of proven shoestring businesses that require only a small investment.

But you protest, "When you replicate, you have lots of competitors!" That's okay. Take, for example, gourmet food trucks. There are a zillion already but here's how you could well succeed with number zillion and one: Play detective at a half-dozen that have long lines: Incorporate their best features into your truck, buy your equipment used, for less than half price, from one of the many failed food truck businesses, open up shop it in a great location, and your chances of success are far greater than if you try to come up with a winner out of thin air.

Note: In choosing a retail business, you accrue the advantage of being able to see which ones are successful and incorporate their best ideas into yours.

Status is the enemy of success

If you choose to start a high-status business, for example in high-tech, biotech, etc., you're competing with very capable people. In contrast, if you start what The Millionaire Next Door author Thomas Stanley calls a dull-normal business, your competition is more likely to have a two-digit IQ. That, of course, makes you more likely to succeed. 

Here are examples of low-cost, weak-competition businesses that also bear little risk of going out of style. Of course, you needn't do the low-level work yourself. These days, you can hire good people for $10-15 an hour.

• Diesel repair shop 
• Help singles write relationship ads. Photograph them for their profile.
• Mobile home park cleaning service
• Clean out basements and garages, then install shelves and cabinets. 
• Install and remove home-for-sale lawn signs
• Place and maintain laundry machines in apartment buildings
• Own well-located carts selling food, flowers, scarves, knockoff- designer purses, French soap, sandwiches, or coffee.

Let's flesh out the latter. Let's say I wanted to start a business selling soup from a cart emblazoned with a catchy name like Souper! I'd take the time to find a great location: next to a train station, stadium, big-box store, movie theater, office high-rise, or other high foot-traffic area. Or even better, I'd make it mobile, for example, park it in front of a high school or college at lunchtime, move it next to a movie theatre for the evening, and near a stadium on Game Days. A cart business requires minimal rent, offers high profit margin, is a simple business, and isn’t a fad--soup, nor soap, nor flowers, nor coffee, are going out of style. Worried about its lack of status? You can tell your status-impressed friends that you're the president and CEO of the California Cappuccino Corporation, with branches throughout the state.

The secret to wealth: cloning

You may be thinking, "But I can't make enough money from such a simple business." You certainly could. Key is to clone it. For example, the simplest business I can think of is a shoeshine stand. Of course, I'd locate the stand on a high-foot-traffic street where people wear lots of leather shoes, for example, San Francisco's financial district. The stand would have prominent signage with a catchy name like Dianne FineShine. Once I learned the art and business of shoeshining, I'd set up a trusted friend with a clone of that shoeshine stand, asking for a small percentage of sales. I'd keep cloning Dianne until I was making enough money. 

The Un-MBA: I teach the aspiring self-employed the opposite of what is taught in business school

Many of my clients aspire to self-employment, entrepreneurship. Much of what I teach them is the opposite of what's commonly taught in business school--and that's not surprising. I am most critical of universities' attempts to prepare people for a career.

For example, knowing that law schools, especially the prestigious ones, focus on theory not practice, good law firms have felt forced to create a comprehensive training program for their new lawyers.

Indeed, most law professors don't know how to practice law. Anthony Kronman, when he was the Dean of Yale Law School, received a frantic call from a friend who had just been jailed: "Please, Tony, get me bailed out of here!" Kronman was forced to admit, "I don't know how."

Same is true of education. I have a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in the evaluation of education and, along the way, had to take courses from professors who taught in Berkeley's K-12 teacher-education program. They may have been assiduous researchers of arcana but as teachers, most were mediocre or worse. Certainly, none were the master K-12 teachers who should be preparing our future teachers.

My physician says he learned most of how to be a good doctor after he finished medical school.

But it is in the field of business where I most personally see how badly universities prepare people for their career. I have helped many of my clients to become successfully self-employed, and also have clients, colleagues, and friends with MBAs. I see such a discordance between the principles of starting and running a business taught in business school and what I've seen work in the real world:

Biz schools say "Innovate." That is very risky advice. Sure, a large corporation can take risks. Its deep pockets allow it to stay in business even if many attempts at innovations fail. But individuals or small businesses are likely to run out of money. Indeed, there are so many reasons why an innovation might fail: development costs are high and subject to overruns, the product doesn't work, the public doesn't like it, the public too-quickly stops liking it, and/or a competitor comes up with a better or better-marketed product. That's why they say, "The leading edge often turns out to be the bleeding edge."

Sure it's fun to innovate and, sure, the world benefits from innovation, but if you don't have the deep pockets to afford the multiple failures that precede even most successful entrepreneurs' success, it's wiser to replicate a successful type of business than to innovate.

It's easiest to find a successful business to replicate in the small (therefore affordable) retail space: If a reasonable percentage of small retailers in a certain category are busy, it's a sign they're successful. So, for example, at lunchtime, there are lines in front of many food trucks. I'd simply watch the busy ones, incorporating their best practices plus consumer-tested recipes. I'd hire the owner of one of those food trucks as a consultant to help me prepare to open-up shop. (I'd agree to not locate mine near his.) In sum, my mantra: Don't innovate; replicate.

If I did want to innovate, I can reduce my risk by asking deep-pocketed business owners and executives, "What in your business is annoying you?" If my queries yield a simple, doable business idea, I'd ask similar businesses if they have the same problem. If so, I could create that innovative business with relatively little risk.

Biz schools urge you to quickly get big. "Scalable" is one of biz schools' favorite words. Alas, that too is dangerous advice for small businesses and especially for individuals wanting to be self-employed. True, even if the aforementioned food truck were successful, it probably wouldn't yield enough profit to earn me a sufficient living, so I would need to clone it in another good location. But I'd stop after just a few trucks--as soon I netted $200,000 a year. The more locations, the less control you have over quality and cost control, and the difficulty of operating it well tends to mushroom. So I teach my clients, "Don't be greedy. Get just big enough." (And live modestly so you'll always have enough money.)

Biz schools focus on high-status businesses: high tech, biotech, medical devices, environmental technology, multinational corporations, etc. I teach my clients the opposite: start a low-status business, the grungier the better. That way you're competing with less capable business owners. Few Stanford or Harvard graduates aspire to owning diesel repair shops, mobile home park cleaning services, installing and removing home-for-sale signs from lawns, shoeshine stands, cleaning out and installing cabinets in basements and garages, gourmet food trucks, rehabbing tenant-damaged apartment buildings, carts selling soup, scarves, knockoff designer purses, French soap, or coffee, or placing and maintaining laundry machines in apartment buildings. It's far easier to compete successfully in such low-status businesses. I teach my clients, "Status is the enemy of success."

Biz schools focus on intellectually meaty, complex businesses like the aforementioned high-tech, biotech, etc.. Alas, the more complex the business, the more that can go wrong. I teach my clients to choose a simple business, such as those I list in the previous paragraph. Each business location may yield insufficient profit to support a family but, once you've refined the concept, as I said, just clone your simple business in another location(s.) Yes, keep it simple, stupid.

Biz schools urge, "Choose a business with high barriers to entry;" that way it's tough for competitors to enter the market. That's valid advice if you're a deep-pocketed corporation but it's usually dead wrong if you're the typical cash-strapped entrepreneur. I recommend that most aspiring entrepreneurs start a business that requires little capital and then, as mentioned, use its profits to clone it.

Biz schools proceed on the principle, "It takes money to make money." I teach the opposite: You must constantly look for ways to get what you need for little or no money. For example, I urge that, where possible, you run your business out of your home, car, a Starbucks, a condo development's community room, or friend's apartment that's vacant during the day. When buying something, I urge such cost-effectiveness techniques as to ask yourself, "What must this cost to manufacture?" That enabled, for example, one of my clients to buy silk scarves wholesale for $1 a piece than from another "wholesaler" who wanted $10. Of course, I also encourage my clients to consider buying last year's model, used or cosmetically flawed items, and using the Internet for price shopping. In short, I teach my clients, "Start with 'How can I, without undue hassle, get this for free or very cheaply?'"

Biz schools urge entrepreneurs to delegate: "You can't do everything," they urge. In contrast, I encourage my clients to, when starting their business, to do as much as possible themselves. Of course, that conserves cash--the life blood you must preserve lest you go out of business before you become profitable. Also, spending time immersed in the business's weeds tends to build your psychological ownership in and enthusiasm for the business. Most important, being hands-on allows you to gain deep understanding of how to make the business work.

For example, if my goal were to make $200,000 a year from a chain of shoeshine stands, I'd run the first one myself, taking full shifts doing the shoeshines. That would enable me to truly understand the customers, the art of shoeshining, identify upsell opportunities, how to optimize the experience for the shoeshiner and the customer, theft and vandalism problems, disgruntled customer issues, everything. Only when I really knew the business and it was clearly becoming successful would I clone it and then delegate by hiring someone to run the two shoeshine stands. I would take all the time needed to find great employees and would treat them well, for ethical reasons and because I want them loyal to me. Even then, I would remain actively involved in the business: visiting, training, inspiring, and, where needed, setting limits. My rule: Don't delegate prematurely or too much.

As a way of summarizing, here's how I'd start the aforementioned shoeshine business to maximize my chance of ethically and relatively quickly, netting $200,000 a year:

1. I'd search Google and Amazon to find the best articles and books on running a shoeshine business.

2. Using service review sites such as Yelp, I'd identify a half-dozen shoeshine stands that had excellent reviews and many reviews. The latter would indicate that a business has many customers.

3. I'd visit each of those shoeshine stands and note everything: the characteristics of the location, signage, menu and prices, equipment, products used, procedure used, ergonomics, the shiner/customer interactions, how people who needed to wait were dealt with, amenities, everything. I'd buy a shoeshine at each stand and while getting the shine, ask such questions as, "What should I know about running a shoeshine business that might surprise me?"

4. I'd amalgamate into my shoeshine stand the best practices of the articles and books I've read and the half-dozen shoeshine stands I visited.

5. I would take the time to find an excellent location that I could get for free. (Remember, my rule: "Start with free.") For example, I'd ask the owner or manager of a large office building to let me run my stand for free in the lobby. My pitch: "That enables you to provide a useful service for your tenants without it costing you a dime."

6. I'd run the shoeshine stand myself for a week, a month, whatever it took for me to fully understood the business.

7. Then, because I don't want to make a career of shining people's shoes, I'd take all the time needed to find an excellent person to replace me.

8. Next, I'd turn my attention to finding another excellent location and an excellent person to staff it. I'd keep expanding only until I netted $200,000 a year, always staying actively involved to ensure the quality remained high, my shoeshiners happy, and my profit adequate.

9. Finally, I'd sell the business or keep it as a cash cow while I turned to my next project: entreprenurial, social entrepreneurial, or volunteer--like writing this blog.

As always, dear readers, comments are welcome.

How Would You Invest a Million Dollars?

Imagine you wanted to invest $1 million dollars so as to make the greatest positive difference in the world. How would you invest it?

The best I've been able to come up with is what I'm calling MentorMatch: the equivalent of match.com but for matching mentors with proteges.

Can you think of something more beneficial?

Self-Employment Idea: Personal Geek

Most people have technology they'd like to use more fully: their SmartPhone, DV-R, computer, etc. But they don't know how.

For example, their computer has slowed down, they're using only the basics of Microsoft Office, LinkedIn, or Facebook, and they're paying too much for phone service, Internet access, or web hosting.

Then there's the stuff people are afraid of buying because they're not sure how to set it up: big-screen TV, home security system, surround-sound audio system, home computer network, etc.

Plus there's technology the people don't even know about but could make their life better.

Enter the personal geek, who makes house calls: does an audit of the person's needs, buys the stuff cheap on the Internet, installs it, trains the person on their new and existing techno-items, and provides ongoing support, as needed.

I think it's a self-employment idea that, in the right hands, has a high probability of success.

A Business Idea: All-Natural, Organic Perfume

The ingredient list on perfumes scares the health-conscious, not to mention those with "chemical sensitivities."

Yet when I went to Sephora, which has an incredible collection of fragrances, I saw only a couple that were all-natural. And when I googled "All-natural fragrances," there were limited options. Example.

I believe a well-marketed, delicious-smelling, all-natural fragrance, made of carefully crafted blends of organic lemon, orange, tuberose, and other fragrant flowers and fruits could be a terrific seller, even a category killer. Not to worry that there are a few already out there--there are hundreds of non-natural fragrances out there that have millions of dollars in sales.

I'd call it: O. (evoking orgasm and The Story of O, as well as organic.)

Because it wouldn't include chemical preservatives, customers would need to replace it frequently, which, of course, would be good for sales.

Whaddya think?

A Variant on My Favorite Small Business Idea

Because rent is low or free, I've long advocated selling coffee, soup, gift baskets, scarves, desserts, etc. from carts or trucks placed in high-foot-traffic locations, for example, near a busy train station.

To learn the business, you run the first cart or truck yourself and then, because just one of them is unlikely to generate sufficient income, once you've got one running well, you keep cloning it until you've made as much money as you need. To minimize employee theft, hire your friends or empty nesters to run the subsequent carts/trucks, and treat them well.

The new variation? Gourmet food. How about sandwiches like organic turkey sandwiches with pesto and Danish havarti cheese and heirloom tomatoes on ciabatta bread? Or French crepes--the savories with imported ham and gruyere, the sweet with gourmet chocolate and whipped cream? Or baby lettuce salads with fresh pears, gorgonzola, and candied walnuts?

You can charge $2 to $3 more per item for food that will cost you just pennies more--and you'll be a cut above other fast-food operations, mobile or store-front.

Making a Living at Garage Sales, Yard Sales, Moving Sales, and Estate Sales

I predict that you could make a living from garage sales, yard sales, moving sales, and estate sales, as follows:

Every week, consult local newspapers and websites to find the upcoming garage, yard, moving, and estate sales. Especially note those in middle- to upper-class older neighborhoods. Why older? Because their residents are more likely to have been there for years and thus have more good stuff to sell. Use maps.google.com to print out a map of the area, and put an X on the locations of all the sales you plan to visit.

On the first morning of the sale, plan to arrive at your first stop at least 15 minutes before its scheduled start time. Bring your iPhone or other wireless internet device with you so you can check ebay.com to see what similar items sold for.

Generally, the professionally run sales are the worst for you because they charge high prices. If you see a professional sign, skip it or come back 1/2 hour before the sale ends--at that point, they may be willing to give you a real bargain. In any event, you must be a tough negotiator or you probably won't make enough money to make this endeavor worth your while.

To take advantage of auction fever, sell your lightweight items (jewelry, collectables, etc) on ebay. Sell heavier items, for example, furniture, at a consignment store, on craigslist.com, or a publication read by people likely to buy the product you're selling.

Keep track of what sort of products are yielding you the highest net profit and focus subsequent treasure hunts on those items.

Two Ideas for Career Websites

Despite the plethora of career-related websites, I believe that creating these could enable someone to do well by doing good:

APlayer.com.
Many sites attempt to match employee with employer but none use the most potent predictor of how well an employee will do on the job: simulation.

APlayer.com would make it easy for an employer to upload a simulation of a task(s) the employee must do well on that job.

Candidates whose resume and application match the job description would be invited to participate in that online simulation.

High-scoring candidates would be invited to in-person interviews.

InterviewFinder.com.
Nearly every job seeker hates looking for a job: networking, cold-calling prospective employers, creating resumes, filling out applications, getting letters of recommendation, etc.

Career counselors looking for more clients would, on interviewfinder.com, offer to handle the entire job search except for the interview, of course.

Success in a Box

Here's an entrepreneurial idea that my client, Miles Smith, and I cooked up. He asked me to post it here to get feedback from you.

It's called Success in a Box. The "box" is a wind-up-powered laptop computer (see photo) that has been developed to sell for $199 to poor people in developing nations. When the user presses the start button, a menu of courses like this will appear:

• How to start a successful business
• How to become a better reader
• how to become a better thinker and writer
  
• Learn English (perhaps the Rosetta Stone software.)

Success in a Box could be sold for profit to the consumer or as a non-profit item to governments, foundations, and other nonprofits. For example, Grameen Bank, a microlending nonprofit, could give one to grantees. Prisons could give one to inmates about to be released.

What do you think: Good idea? Bad idea? Suggestions for improving it?

My Favorite Business Idea

I come up with business ideas all the time but I've continued to like this one for ages. Indeed, I believe it may be the lowest-risk way to become financially independent: a chain of coffee carts. Succeed with one and keep cloning it in a different location until you're making all the money you need. Here's an article with some details:

Guide to Coffee Vending Carts
By Andrea Townsley

Making a living off coffee vending cart sales is relatively easy. You have little overhead and you don't even have to deal with advertising--your customers are purely from foot traffic. As you become better known, patrons will keep coming back when they're in your area.

You can set up your coffee vending cart in a number of places, including busy sidewalks, parks, malls and near special events. Select from a variety of mobile or stationary cants, and, if you have the desire and cash, customize the cart you choose to best fit your business.

Before you jump in and buy a cart to start your business, think about the following:

1. Do some research on what it takes to start up coffee cart businesses. Your most expensive cash outlay will be for the cart itself.

2. Determine the best locations for your coffee vending carts. You must choose places that have lots of foot traffic as well as customer bases that will take advantage of your services.

3. Start with a small, basic cart and then upgrade as you begin to see some profits. When buying a coffee cart, just start out with an affordable cart that fits your initial needs.

Action Steps

Find a quality mobile coffee cart for sale Portable coffee carts have to be able to stand up to the abuse caused by transporting them around on a regular basis. If you want to sell coffee on the streets, at concerts, art shows or special events, you'll need a sturdy cart that's made well.

I recommend: Check out the towable carts that Apollo Food and Beverage Carts offers. If you're interested in exploring coffee cart franchises, Cuppy's Coffee & More might be the right opportunity for you.

Set up a stationary coffee vending cart Many hospitals, airports, malls, theme parks and other gathering places have coffee carts and kiosks set up for their visitors. Stationary carts are better for these locations since it would be a real hassle to move a mobile cart each and every day.

I recommend: Choose from a wide array of coffee and espresso vending carts at Merchandising Frontiers. Take a look at the variety of coffee and beverage vending carts at AAA Commercial Products.

Consider custom coffee vending carts When you start a coffee cart business, it's beneficial to get your company's name and logo printed on your awning or your cart. This makes you look more professional and allows customers to spread your name when they talk to their friends about how good your coffee is.

I recommend: Compare the carts from AllStar Carts and Vehicles, which can be customized for your business. 21st Century Products also offers custom carts.

If you only need access to a cart for special occasions or if you only work seasonally, consider locating a coffee cart rental company in your area. That way, you're not paying to use the cart when you don't even need it.

My Latest Business Idea: FastShirt

There are eight buttons on a typical shirt, ten if it’s a button-down. As a result, you spend about a minute every time you put on a shirt. 

Say you wear a shirt four days a week. That’s four hours a year or 320 hours over a typical lifetime. That’s 320 hours that yields absolutely not a moment of pleasure nor a whit of productivity. 

But what if there was a shirt that could be donned in five seconds instead of sixty and would look better? Wouldn’t you prefer it? Enter FastShirt—a shirt that closes with Velcro. Not only does it close fast, it’s more attractive because there are no buttons to break the placket's clean line.

I believe one could sell enormous quantities of these. Most of the world’s seven billion people wear buttoned shirts. If even 1 in 10,000 people bought just one shirt, I would have sold 700,000 shirts—and as you’ll see, at a net profit of approximately $3 a shirt: a cool $2.1 million. 

Here’s how I’d develop the FastShirt concept: 

Step 1:  I’d create a prototype by having a local seamstress replace the buttons on a standard white business shirt with Velcro. 

Step 2: I know that Wal-Mart sells great-looking iron-free standard business shirts for $8.99. So, I estimate that Wal-Mart must pay no more than about $3 per shirt. I’d google "dress shirt manufacturer" to find one willing to make me a trial run of 1000 standard business white shirts with Velcro closures at $3 a shirt. I’d try to convince them to do so by letting them know that if the trial is successful, my goal is to eventually order shirts in quantities of 100,000+. 

Step 3: I’d try to convince the major retailers of shirts (Lands End, LL Bean, Macy’s, etc.,) to pilot test FastShirt—selling it to them at $9 per shirt, expecting to retail for $29.95 (the same price as their standard business shirt.)  If they all said no, I’d put samples in my car and drive from retailer to retailer trying to convince them to try selling my shirts. If necessary, I’d sell them on consignment—if they don’t sell, I’ll buy them back. 

Step 4. If I was turned down by the major chain retailers but then had a successful trial with a local retailer, I’d report that success to the majors and see if that would change their mind.  If my trial utterly failed, I’d sell the shirts on eBay and/or from a search-engine-optimized website. 

So this strikes me as a relatively simple business that has small risk and large potential.

What do you think? Any suggestions for the idea's improvement?

Capitalizing on China: Specific Suggestions

My radio show today included a 40-minute conversation with Jonathan Woetzel,who's in his 18th year living in China as head of McKinsey's Shanghai operation. In light of that plus the research I did in preparing for the show, I believe these are good bets for capitalizing on China's sunrise while the U.S.'s sun sets in the west. 

Buy raw land in the near suburbs of Beijing, Shanghai, or a slightly smaller but growing city.  Choose property that is slated for light-rail and other major infrastructure development. Hold it until most of the surrounding parcels are developed and then sell to the highest bidder--probably a major Chinese developer, the Chinese government, or a U.S. multinational.

Open a school for entrepreneurs. China is said to be a country of a billion entrepreneur  but because China is new at this capitalism thing, many of those entrepreneurs have a lot to learn. And they're smart enough to realize they can learn from Americans, a people that has been entrepreneuring for 250 years. 

Sell designer-label products (e.g., Calvin Klein) to the major retailers  in 50,000-100,000-person cities. The big U.S. corporations are still busy establishing their distribution chains in larger cities. The opportunity for a little guy is to go where the big.U.S. corps aren't (yet.)

Sell precision manufacturing parts and equipment to small Chinese manufacturers. 

The satisfactory execution of such ideas require one or more trips to China or taking residence there. It requires getting a translator and, critically, local expertise. Start with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce there, but that's just a starting place--you'll have to take the time to build local relationships.

The bad news is that Woetzel said that China is very China-centric. So Americans have one or two strikes against them. And the Chinese have a set of business tactics designed to weaken Americans--for example, they'll stall on agreeing to a deal until just before your return flight to the U.S, when you're most vulnerable to a lowball offer. 

But if you diligently  and intelligently execute on the above, people like Woetzel, the N.Y. Times' Tom Friedman, and a chorus of other folks, including me believe that China and smaller emerging Asian countries offer a far more fertile opportunity for success and wealth than does the U.S. 

If the above strategies seem too daunting, you might do what I'm doing: Buy shares in FXI: an exchange-traded fund consisting of 25 of China's largest companies--the equivalent of the Dow-Jones 30 or GXC, which consists of 150 of China's largest--the equivalent of the U.S.'s S&P 500.

My Favorite New Ways to Do Well by Doing Good

I have more worthy projects that I'd like to take on than I have time to, so I am giving them away to you here, dear reader. 

I hope that because they're free, you won't think they're worthless. I've given a lot of time to thinking of ideas that are viable and will do maximum good for the world. 

I am willing to offer a bit of free consultation time to anyone who wants to pursue one of these ideas. Just email me at mnemko@comcast.net and we'll schedule the time for a by-phone or in-person consult.

The ideas:

• Like match.com, but for matching high-ability kids with mentors.
• A book called America's Most Overrated Product: Higher Education. It would consist of statistics but more important, stories of people for whom higher education was not worth the direct and opportunity costs.
• A lawsuit on behalf of high-ability elementary school students, the kids with the greatest potential to solve society's problems. Today's public schools are controlled by anti-bright-student pressures, for example No Child Left Behind, which, in many schools, has resulted in almost all money and effort being diverted from high-ability to low-achieving students. The result is that bright kids are being denied their right to a basic education--education cannot occur unless students are learning what they don't already know. Their miseducation also violates equal protection statutes: they are receiving a far less appropriate education than are their average or below-average achieving peers. 
• Writer for the National Organization for Men, of which I am co-president. (My co-president is the eminent men's advocate, Dr. Warren Farrell.)  We need an excellent writer willing to regularly write compelling op-eds.