Smart Kitchens, Hospitality Preferences, Local Clothing Rentals, and Better Networking
The four business ideas I'm sitting on right now.
I have a curse or gift (whichever way you want to look at it!) where I go through each day identifying opportunity areas on how experiences/processes could’ve been better. It could be a small improvement or a huge progression, but I always look for ways to make life more accessible, personalized, and seamless.
The ideas listed below are ones I’ve been sitting on for a MINUTE that I see a huge opportunity for in the market these days.
An easily shareable hospitality preference profile. How might we create a platform, plug-in, or shareable profile that lets hotel staff, the Airbnb host, or anyone whose home you’re staying in know what your preferences are? Like knowing that you like to snack on Toasty Cheez-Its (me), prefer Peacock over other streaming platforms at the moment (me), and love a fuzzy bathrobe to lounge in (shocker - me)?
As a new-ish homeowner, I’m excited to host a few friends this summer and do an MVP version of this. A week or two before my visitors arrive, I’ll be sending them a Google Forms link with a few questions regarding their preferences. While I’m not going to go out and buy new and expensive bedding or anything ridiculous, I will have their favorite snacks/drinks on hand and make sure my guest room can suit their needs as much as possible. I see a big opportunity for hotels and other hospitality settings to leverage this concept to take their customer experience up a notch. The Global Ambassador Hotel in Scottsdale and Langham Chicago personalized the stay for @famousmisspeaches - why shouldn’t hospitality settings be doing this for you too?
Comment section on The Langham Chicago’s Instagram post with Miss Peaches after they personalized her experience.
A personalized, AI-driven networking platform for your professional life. Last fall, I invested in a mentorship cohort led by Musa Tariq. It is easily the best investment I’ve ever made in my career, so much so that I sound like I’m in a pyramid scheme talking about it. There’s now a large WhatsApp group with people from different cohorts and each month I prioritize introducing myself to a handful of people I don’t know. I have no idea when I hop on a Google Meet call if we will hit it off and become besties or if there will be more awkward silences than I’m able to fill. What if there was a way to know ahead of time who I should connect with, based on our compatibility? What if there was a platform that knew my personality and career goals well enough to make recommendations on who I should connect with to build a relationship with? What if we removed the awkward process of sliding in someone’s LinkedIn DMs and made it easier to connect with people outside of your network and build a relationship? I’m thinking of an updated Tinder/Hinge concept for career growth instead of dating with a better user interface.
A rental platform from the best closets in your area. I can’t tell you the amount of events I bought an outfit for that I wore to that event only. I know for a fact these clothes are hanging in my closet rolling their eyes when I reach for more practical items, but I don’t want to get rid of these back-row pieces (although I hear Allison Bornstein’s voice in the back of my head telling me to). I maintain hope that I’ll get to wear them again in the future. Like the Andie Anderson look-alike butter-colored floor-length dress I wore to a summer wedding and a hot pink two-piece set I wore in Miami on a bachelorette trip. Until the opportunity arises to deck myself out in these pieces, I’d gladly rent them out for someone else to rock them to their events. I believe a platform like this already exists in NYC, called Pickle, but it’s about time this type of experience is widespread across other cities in the U.S. (typing this from the Midwest).
A jacket on I would look to rent (amongst many other items from her) if she was on said platform.
A smart kitchen that recommends what I should make to eat based on the ingredients already in my kitchen and what my body needs. Cycle syncing, food sensitivity tests, and Huberman Lab superfans are on the rise (or maybe not after recent news, let me know your thoughts) so let’s call a spade a spade: wellness is the THING these days. It’s 2024, and I don’t think it’s ridiculous to assume we can’t get our smart devices to all talk to each other and provide personalized recommendations on what we should make for meals and snacks. Why can’t my smart fridge take into account all the ingredients I’ve got in my kitchen, and combine that information with the stage of my menstrual cycle, what kind of workout I did this morning, my food sensitivities, and other factors to spit out a recommendation for what and when (Glucose Goddess graphs flashing through my brain) I should make for lunch? How might we create a connected ecosystem of technology that communicates to provide me with a personalized diet with the ingredients I already have? What if it could make my grocery lists too, based on what it thinks I’ll want to eat that week? I'm going to start reading Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by
this weekend so I’ll challenge myself to think about how AI could play a large role in this.
I could ideate on these high-level ideas all day, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
I’m debating creating prototypes of 3/4 of these ideas to ease my life, but if you genuinely see a market fit with any of these concepts or know of someone working on these ideas, let me know. I’d love to connect!
you are so fricken cool. thanks for the peek into your impressively creative mind 😌
Loved this! I’m equally interested in all of the above, but I agree - I’d rent the overwhelming majority of things from Ilana’s closet. :)