YOUR WEEKLY FIX OF ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEAS

20-26 March 2014

Top 10 business ideas & opportunities for 2014

We’ve selected 15 new business ideas that will provide

entrepreneurs with plenty of inspiration. Spotted from

countries all around the world, these ideas offer a taste of

what’s to come.

YOUR WEEKLY FIX OF ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEAS

20-26 March 2014

This is part of a series of articles that looks at

entrepreneurs hoping to get their ideas off the

ground through crowdfunding. At the time of writing,

each of these innovations is currently seeking

funding.

Cycling in the city can be a dangerous

business, regardless of the experience

levels of the rider. We recently wrote

about Fly6, which has turned rear bike

lights into cameras to deter motorists from

making bad judgments, and now Lumen

is the world’s first commercially available

retro-reflective bicycle, offering greater

safety at night through a coating that

lights up in car headlights.

Read more about Lumen »

1. Reflective bike uses cat’s eyes technology to save lives

Almost everything we do or say on our

mobile and tablet devices is recorded and

archived, comprising a huge database of

moments in our lives. While futuristic

services such as Eterni.me intend to use

them to help recreate loved ones after

they’ve died, Tx.to is a startup that lets

anyone print their favorite text message

conversations onto decorative scrolls as a

memento.

Read more about Tx.to »

2. Service prints SMS histories onto miniature scrolls

The art market is a notoriously messy and

unpredictable one, but nevertheless a

cash cow for gallery owners and dealers.

In the past we have seen platforms such

as Artsy make the discovery and

purchase of famous and lesser-known

works a little bit easier, and now a new

service called ArtRank aims to quantify

the value of artists in the emerging fields

of net.art and street art.

Read more about ArtRank »

3. Site uses algorithms to tell collectors when to buy and sell

emerging art

Investing money in the right places isn’t

easy if you don’t have the know-how, and

especially if you don’t have the money in

the first place. However, even a small

amount of cash can be placed into

shares, and Acorns is a new app that

rounds up users’ purchases to the nearest

dollar and automatically invests the

difference in a stock of their choice.

Read more about Acorns »

4. App turns small change into an investment portfolio

Energy prices are rising thanks to the

scarcity of non-renewable resources, and

this is prompting consumers to look more

favorably on alternative solutions not

currently offered by major utilities firms,

such as Germany-based AOTERRA‘s

solution which places energy-intensive

cloud servers into customers’ homes and

harnesses the excess heat to warm the

properties. Another company now hoping

to win over dissatisfied consumers is the

Netherland’s Vandebron, which lets them

pick the type of green energy they’d like to

buy, as well as where it comes from.

Read more about Vandebron »

5. Energy marketplace lets customers choose their green power

source

Consumers are already using their tablets

and mobile devices in the kitchen in place

of their battered old cook books, so it’s not

too much of a leap to imagine appliances

that can sync with them to make cooking

a bit easier. In the past, we’ve seen the

Prep Pad measure the nutritional content

of the items being chopped on it, and now

Drop is another smart kitchen scale that

can adjust recipes on the fly if users put

too much of one ingredient in.

Read more about Drop »

6. iPad-integrated kitchen scale could turn an amateur into a pro

chef

Weird Of The Week: This is part of a series of

articles that looks at some of the most bizarre and

niche business ideas we see here at Springwise.

Baggage can be a contentious issue at

airports, with passengers often facing

extra fees if they go over the limit for any

checked-in luggage. Last year, Samoa Air

even became the first airline to introduce

a pay-by-weight system for its customers.

Offering a cheeky solution for consumers

hoping to avoid these fees, Bulgaria’s

Jaktogo is a lightweight jacket that can

help passengers ‘smuggle’ 10kg of extra

luggage into airplanes.

Read more about Jaktogo »

7. Jacket helps airline passengers dodge luggage fees

This is part of a series of articles that looks at

entrepreneurs hoping to get their ideas off the

ground through crowdfunding. At the time of writing,

each of these innovations is currently seeking

funding.

Parents often express concern over the

effect technology is having on their

children. As the thinking goes, kids these

days have replaced playing in the park

with Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto,

and their imaginations are being eroded

by tech that does all the thinking for them.

Springwise recently wrote about Loop —

a gaming system that aims to tackle the

first issue with gameplay that takes place

outdoors — and now Japanese innovators

have developed Moff, a smart bracelet

that lets kids use any object as a toy in a

number of imagination-based smartphone

games. Read more about Moff »

8. Smartband for kids turns any object into a toy

One way to motivate humans to do

anything is to provide rewards when they

achieve and punishment when they fail,

which has been the basis of apps such as

GymPact, the platform that uses money

as a tool for stimulus for keeping fit.

Reworking the model for students,

StudyPact gives students financial prizes

for completing a set amount of work each

week, with penalties for missed deadlines.

Read more about Studypact »

9. Service charges users when they don’t do their study, pays them

when they do

Locating items that are somewhere in one

of masses of boxes can often be like

trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Smart technologies are now making this

process easier, and self-storage startup

Boxbee is already enabling customers to

digitally inventorize their stored

belongings. Now Japanese stationery

company King Jim is letting homeowners

do the same thing at home with its

NeutralBOX, which comes with an app

that lets users keep a visual inventory or

scan boxes to easily see what’s in them.

Read more about NeutralBOX »

10. Smart cardboard boxes turn homes into a self-storage unit

Handing over money to charity is enough

for some to feel good about themselves,

but nonprofits and social good

organizations often find it difficult to elicit

donations without offering something in

return. We’ve already seen gaming site

GoodGames let users raise money

simply by playing ad-supported titles, and

now the UK’s Guilty Pledgers is hoping

to do something similar for music —

charging partygoers for adding an

embarrassing track to a Spotify playlist,

and then sending the cash to charity.

Read more about Guilty Pledgers »

11. App forces users to give to charity for playing cheesy tracks on

Spotify

When you’re ill, the last thing you want to

worry about is whether you’re taking the

right pills at the right time, or if you’re

about the run out. We recently saw

Walgreens and TaskRabbit take the pain

out of getting medicine for cold and flu

sufferers by delivering it to their door

within a couple of hours. Now online

pharmacy PillPack is mailing any

prescription direct to patients,

conveniently organized, dated and refilled

when necessary.

Read more about Athos »

12. Online pharmacy makes pill regimens less confusing

Being able to travel in a private jet is the

pipe dream of many, but the reality is that

its a luxury preserved for the moneyed

few. In the past we’ve seen platforms

such as JetSuite enable fractional

ownership of jets, but startup Flytenow is

making private air travel more affordable

with ride sharing for small planes.

Read more about Flytenow »

13. Uber for fliers lets anyone catch a ride in a small plane

The problem with most transport apps is

that they rely on fixed data from transport

company schedules and don’t truly reflect

exactly what’s going on with the city’s

trains and buses at any given moment.

Operating like a Waze for public transport,

Israel’s Ototo app crowdsources real-time

information from passengers to give users

the best suggestions for their commute.

Read more about Ototo »

14. Crowdsourced transit app shows what time the bus will really

come

Consumers in the West typically take for

granted the purchases they make every

day that are out of the reach of others in

poverty. The ‘buy one, give one’ model

aims to tackle this problem by matching

small purchases and donating them to

those in need, such as bus tickets through

Detroit’s WeRide program, or a pair of

shoes through the popular TOMS brand.

Operating on a much grander scale,

Canada’s World Housing is now using

the model to help build shelter for families

in the poorest parts of the world.

Read more about World Housing »

15. Buy a house, give one to a family in need

What is Springwise?

Springwise scans the globe for the most promising, unique and innovative business

ventures, ideas and concepts that are ready for regional or international adaptation,

expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation.

Springwise headquarters is in close contact with more than 17,000 Springspotters in over

150 countries worldwide, who provide us with details of the latest innovations in their

countries. These are compiled and assessed by our editorial team, and the best examples

are published to provide entrepreneurial inspiration to our readers around the world!

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Established in 2002, Springwise is headquartered in London, United Kingdom.

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