Unusual Business Ideas

On this blog I mainly write about unusual business ideas that were realized in US, UK or Russia as it’s nearly impossible to find something really peculiar in my little country. That’s how I’ve always thought. Turns out that I was totally wrong! There was one business project in Latvia that really deserves a separate post in this blog.

It all started a bit more then 1 year ago, when a company of 3 young and ambitious students launched their mega-project – the Wall of the world. Here’s a short description of their idea that was announced on their web-page: „This project intends to build a 47 hectare park with 272 granite walls on which will be engraved the data of 65 million people. People from all around the world can register their data for engraving by visiting www.walloftheworld.org. When each person registers they cast a vote for the Wall of the World to be the eighth wonder of the world. This way 65 million people from the 21st century will jointly create the eighth wonder of the world. The central idea of the Wall of the World is to join millions of people around a common objective - to create the eighth wonder of the world. “I believe that wonders are possible because I have experienced them. When built, the wall of the World will be a true wonder for all of us living in the 21st century, for our children and their children!” commented the director of the Latvian institute Ojars Kalnins.” Sound impressive, isn’t it?

Their business model is simple – one name on the Wall costs 5 EUR. The park construction will begin when after the project membership reaches 2 million people. All project membership money, will be transferred to a deposit account controlled by the Latvian Red Cross. The money will be kept on this account until 2 million people register for participation in the project, and upon reaching that registration benchmark it will be then transferred back to the Wall of the World in order to start the construction.
And here comes the most interesting part! If within the 3 years the project membership does not reach 2 million people, all money kept on the deposit account will become the property of the Red Cross as a charitable donation by the project members for solving global problems such as poverty, children’s rights, famine. In this case the project’s authors will not be entitled to the accrued money and project members will not be entitled to refunds. The trickiest part of the whole project is that during these 3 years a very significant part of money (around 50% of the total amount) will be spent on „current expenses”: competitive salaries for project’s organisers, as well as on laptops, office furniture and other useful things which, naturally, will be divided between these 3 guys after the project is closed.

During the previous year there were a lot of articles in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet about this „world’s 8th wonder” and 4909 people decided to immortalize their names on the Wall. So, by now, guys have already received 24 545 EUR and left half of it – 12 272.50 EUR for themselves. And there are still 2 more years to go although it’s already more then clear (actually it as more then clear right from the start) that this project will never get as many members as required to start constructions. So, this sum will simply stay in their pockets and Red Cross will receive same amount as a „thank you” for their support and help in promoting the project.

In other words – don’t be afraid to launch massive scope projects! If the idea seems tempting and the image of your company is reliable, then your chances for success are very high!

P.s. I wouldn’t call this business model honest and respectful, yet it helps to get high profit with low budget investments or even without it (free publicity is guaranteed if your idea is unusual enough).