Well, as you mentioned in my last post, I am running out of things to say about bitcoin. It may be time for me to expand this page to include new things. In the mean time, I did have a few product ideas regarding bitcoins that I submitted for my class, they are assuming enough that I thought I might share them on here as well. In marketing there are four ways to create new products, you can Solve everyday pain, Ride a wave of consumer interest, stretch an idea to the extreme, or cool huntings( ie taking an existing product in a foreign market and bringing it to your target market). Here I will show two of those:
Riding the way of interest
Currently there is a lot of buzz about bitcoins, and a lot of people want them. But, what a lot of people don’t want to do is put a lot of money into a pretty skeptical investment: in other words they don’t want to crank out 600 bucks for a bitcoin. They also don’t want to provide their driver’s license number and other personal information to somewhat sketchy exchanges in Slovenia. So there exists an unmet interest in bitcoins. This interest can be tapped into by my product idea, bitbottles. So the idea is simple: in fact it is basically how my Coke Rewards work with a twist. When you buy a bottle of bit bottle soda, under the cap is a code, you use this code online and you get a small portion of a bitcoin. Then you can also use these bitcoins online to buy other products from our site or anywhere you want: it’s your bitcoin. Fountain drinks sell with huge margins, thus it will be easy to give back a few cents of BTC a bottle. Also, the exchanges will be slightly favorable to the company, making a small amount of money on every transaction. This allows for people to get bitcoins small time without any scary foreign exchanges or any real risk. I found this idea by looking at an existing problem and interest of mine: bitcoins. I then looked at existing methods to distribute them, which lead me to the “my Coke Rewards” idea as a model.
Stretching or entertaining to the extreme
Similar to the issues above, when you want to buy a bitcoin or cryptocurrency, you have to go to an online foreign exchange. You are unable to simply exchange your money for them like you would at a bank. My product idea is to provide this service to customers with an extreme twist: its located in a restaurant. The restaurant holds two purposes: one it is a location to exchange money and cryptocurrencies and also it is a location to spend those coins as well. The décor will be zany and a bit off the wall. It is taking the idea of a currency exchange to a whole new level, becoming a cool hang out location in addition to its business purposes. This idea should also bring these crypto currencies to a new light, and promote their use. This idea is a fusion of some of my interests in life, one owning a restaurant, and two incorporating the financial sector into it. This service helps add value to the bitcoin and other crypto currencies.
While in my mind there exists some fundamental flaws with the Bitcoin, making it hard to use as a true currency. The idea behind it is interesting to say the least. I think it could be a forerunner in many ways to the currencies of the future. Maybe one day we will have a centralized digital currency, like a government issuing its currency in a digital format. Perhaps, not unlike the digital credits we see in many sci-fi movies. Alas, only time will tell.
