Crescendo.net - Ten Dollar Startups

Ten Dollar Startups

What was the last thing you spent $10 on? Lunch maybe? On a cheap day?

For me, sometimes the hardest problem I have with a business or project idea is getting it started.

Getting started means mentally investing myself in comitting to something. The shadow of the unknown looms large and is quickky aided by the little brothers of desapair and doubt. Desapir that you would be unable to complete anything and doubt that you have the time or ability. Quickly you dismiss the idea as worthless or you put it off to later.

I never realized how much not-starting was hurting me until one day I realized that when I did not start an idea, I would forget it. And to forget an idea is to lose my own creativity.

The mental escape from this problem is to realize that ideas are vaulable, and that often starting them on the internet, costs practically nothing. At wose, I've invested in a domain name: a whole ten dollars in cost.

So I now try to start all my ideas. I find that working on something is the best way to figure out if it is a good idea or not. So without further explanition, excuses, attributions, or expactorations, here are my $10 startups:

Yals.Net (http://www.yals.net/) - Probably my oldest $10 startup idea. A place where I dump good tech answers and hints as I find and use them. I think I was kicking around this idea as far back as 1996.

Harmony Clarinet Association (http://www.harmonyclarinet.org/) - A site that categorizes, reviews, and rates clarinet choir repitoire. Preferrably with scratch recordings of each piece. Reference library of harmony clarinet parts. Possible news and education. Fingering charts. Etc.

(Unnamed) Community Band Site - A site that helps community music groups create their own web site. Preferrably with the ability to accept new domains, do mailings, clean mailing lists, etc.

Artist Patronage Service (http://aps.crescendo.net/) - Probably my second oldest idea. Circa 2000. A site that allows artists to post work in progress over time to various levels of patrons.

(Unnamed) Address Cleaner - A website that does its best to let you upload and standardize postal mailing lists.

(Unnamed) Sound Effects - A site of freely recorded or near-free sound effects.