The Thinktank

Are you thinking of setting up a consultancy type business?

I would be quite interested in something like this but having looked into it before it is a lot of work to set up and organize.

One issue I can see is that this site is extremely popular and most people on these forums are happy to give advice for free (hence its popularity) if you tried to charge it would undermine the 'moneysaving' theme to the site? Unless you are thinking of operating it completely separately to these forums?

Happy to throw some ideas around though

simmian wrote: »

I have read a lot of get rich books and other guides etc.

If you mean get rich quick books/guides, the only ones getting rich are the ones selling them or asking for a membership fee to join a programme. They're scams.

Other get rich books will only get you so far and it's information that's free online online. The main advice is likely to be to find a product to sell or use your skills to create you're own business.

Anything other guides will be things like survey sites. You won't get rich from these sites, but you can gain a little extra.

There are plenty of intelligent people on here with great advice available. I would like to create a group or a collection of like-minded people with different skill-sets to create a group called the Thinktank with the objective of trying to be smart and dealing with problems and looking at providing a service to help each other. I would prefer to keep it loose and just bounce some ideas between us all? Anyone got any ideas or problems that need sorting. Any feedback would be appreciated or just tell me to !!!!!! off - Good night all

If people have something they want to share they'll generally do it on a platform where there is an audience, such as this site.

Anyone who is really smart will keep the idea to themselves so they have a chance to do it.

simmian wrote: »

I would operate it outside of these forums maybe as a website or a blog or even via good old email. It really is just a very small nugget of an idea at the moment. I would to run it as a collaboration of ideas and thoughts. Like my background is in IT. I am an IT manager so I know my way around servers and computers.

Sharing ideas on the internet means anyone can access it and steal ideas. Even if you password protect a blog or website there's still the chance of it being hacked.

There's also the risk of one of the group taking an idea and going ahead with it themselves, leaving you with nothing and them making money from your idea. You wouldn't know these people, they'd be strangers, and you'd be trusting them all with potentially mutli-million pound ideas.

If you did think of an idea together, which is the whole point, you'd be working as a group if you went ahead with it. Everyone would have to be prepared that "keeping it loose" would go out the window if you actually had a money making idea.

If you have ideas, the best thing to do would be to write down (on paper, or Word...somewhere only you can see it) the idea and go through all the details. Google for any similar things or similar issues if you run into any flaws in the idea.

For example, a website. What is its purpose? Can you create a user-friendly interface? Is there a payment system? How will it work if so? What other sites have that type of payment system and how do they work? Will it cost? How will you market it? Look at places similar sites market or companies within that industry market. Are you offering a product? Can it be downloaded, can they scan a code using mobiles, can you put it on an app store, does it need to be a physical item? Is anyone else offering similar? How are they doing it? And so on. You could even use social media or forums to create polls for research.

There's plenty of information online about setting up a business (including finance, trademarks, copyright, legal, taxes etc.).

Group discussion is not a bad thing, you just have to be very careful. You could quite easily give away a great idea. If you have ideas already it makes far more sense to try and work through them alone and research as much as you can before involving others (and, even then, you have to be careful).