[Nemencine]

i had this idea a month ago.(10th of august,2013 to be exact). I discussed it with one person(a RVF member) here...i look into monetizing it later with a group of friends...There are some technical/legal difficulties in the region of the world where i am currently located.

However, since i cannot make use of it, perhaps, somebody might find it useful here at RVF. So, it is free. Use it whichever way you want.

the IDEA is: MONETIZING SCHOOL MEAL PLANS.

In most universities/colleges, students generally pay in blocks for their meals. If you havent exhausted your meals by the end of the semester/quarter, there are no refund policies. The school simply absorb your money forever. I went through the meal plans of a list of american schools from MIT to UPENN to PRINCETON university, etc...pick any random schools...the price you pay for these block of meals are outrageous. $3,000 for 100 meals!!

I also noticed that the cash amount you pay per meal is roughly $10.00. if you show up at the cafeteria without a meal plan.

So, here is the breakdown:

#1. You can only purchase your meals in blocks which makes them expensive.
#2. You can pay for meals at the dining hall but this generally cost at least $10 per meal.
#3. You can swipe in other students at the dining hall--basically deducting their meals from the totality of your meal plan.

My idea?

Create an exchange site/app linked to facebook that allows students to swipe each other in for meals for roughly $2 to $3 per meal. Instead of students paying $10 per meal...they will only pay $2 to $3 per meal to a person with excess meal plans.

Instead of your extra-meals going to waste at the end of the quarter/semesters/year...by going back into the pocket of the school....you can find other students at your school that need meals...you can then exchange your unused, extra meals for cash through paypal or other paying sites for $2 or $3 per swipe at the dining hall. The buyer and seller belonging to the same school will meetup--through facebook app-- at specific time infront of the dining hall or whatever,... and the seller will swipe in the buyer into the dining hall. A student can swipe in another student at the dining hall/cafeteria.

The person with the excess will be able to get cash through paypal for their excess meals instead of it disappearing into the school's pocket. This happens when they decide to sell their excess meals to other students for $2 or $3 through the exchange website/app linked to facebook. The transaction goes through paypal or other such merchant site.

$2 or $3 from somebody at your school is better than zero from your school.(school do not refund unused meal plans). $2 to $3 is easily affordable for the cash-starved average uni students. Hence the price point. Multiply that number by tens of transactions = money for beer/weed/books/etc.

Take a look at the cheapest block 95 meal plan for PRINCETON. roughly 100meals for $3,000. That is ridiculous! However, with this website/app, instead of paying $3,000 for the cheapeast meal plan of 100 meals per semester, you will only 100 X $3 = $300 at most. Not $3,000. That is a 10:1 reduction in cost.

The APP/WEBSITE will have a chatroom and a listboard linked to facebook/school where people will communicate which dining hall or where/when they can meetup on campus to effect the transactions. Only students belonging to a specific schools will see what is going on in their school section. This is where facebook comes in handy. All transactions will be electronic once physical meetup has been acknowledged and verified face to face. There will be a rating system for both buyers and sellers, of course. No phone number will be exchanged, just AIM exchange of info to help locate each other.

You can swipe in other students into the dining hall ad infinitum as long as you have meals on your card. However, you can only swipe in non-students as guests.

The WEBSITE/APP will generate profit by charging a small fee of $0.25 per transactions. Download will be free of course. Website log in will be facebook dependent, of course.

There are roughly 2,500 colleges(4 years) in america. That is a lot of potential transactions per semester. Actually, about 6 to 8 million transactions per day. Let us be superconservative, let us say, 1 million per day. In fact, let us be even super-duper conservative, let us say, 500,000 transactions per day. that is 500k x $0.25 = $125,000 per day. I dont mind half of that = roughly $60,000 per day. In fact, i am happy with only $30,000 per day.

CONS/QUESTIONS:
(a)If it catches fire, and the apps/website starts generating 100s of thousands of transactions across unis/colleges, how long before schools started coming up with legal loopholes to block it?

(b)Can one use legal argument of rights of ownership(since it is your meal plan--you've paid for it-- you can take a shit on it, if you want)...can one use legal ownership argument to fight the school?

©How can one work out a contigency plan that will involve sharing a piece of the pie with the school to prevent them from attacking you with their legal phalanxes.

(d)On the supply and demand equation...as the app/website becomes popular, the number of students opting for the school plan will drop...the supply well will go dryer...and the demand will spike up....leaving scholarships/financial aid students and wealthy students as the supply well...will they be enough to meet increasing demand? should it be turn into an open barter system?

ANYWAYS, THAT IS THE IDEA. in a nutshell.
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[paninaro]

Interesting idea. Two comments:

1. That seems like a lot of work for students on both sides (buyers and sellers) all over a few bucks.

2. I'm not sure students are motivated for this, since the money often doesn't come out of their pocket. The meal plan is paid by their parents, financial aid, etc as part of the overall school funding. Yes, it's real money, but students don't think of it this way since it's not their own.

[Genghis Khan]

Most of these plans have a limit on how many guests you can swipe in. It's usually set to some nice number like 10 guest swipes per semester. So that limits how much money students can make off of it. I doubt kids would care for $20-30.

[Nemencine]

@ PANINARO
@GHENGHIS KHAN

thanks for the response. i will try and address your queries below.

Of course, the business idea depends on the local market. I merely use USA as a reference because a lot of members here are americans. If i am on a forum filled with swedish citizens, i will adapt the plan to them. How it will work in australia or Japan or France, i dont know.

Let me address PANINARO first, then GHENGHIS KHAN.
____

@PANINARO

(09-14-2013 11:58 PM)paninaro Wrote:  

Interesting idea. Two comments:

1. That seems like a lot of work for students on both sides (buyers and sellers) all over a few bucks.

Perhaps, i am mistaken, but i dont see it as any different from any meetups(party, social organization, political rallies, dating) that are organized over the internet. Buyer simply post the time when s/he wants to eat at dining hall. Available sellers post when they will be there. Buyers select when s/he will be there wearing a manchester united cap or whatever for identification. they meet. exchange some randomly generated code for reference and payment. then seller swipe buyer in. each goes there separate ways. doesnt take 2 minutes.

Students/People meet each other in front of the dining hall/restaurants/clubs to eat and party together all the time.

This is it basically: internet/facebook organized meetup + school meal plans.

(09-14-2013 11:58 PM)paninaro Wrote:  

2. I'm not sure students are motivated for this, since the money often doesn't come out of their pocket. The meal plan is paid by their parents, financial aid, etc as part of the overall school funding. Yes, it's real money, but students don't think of it this way since it's not their own.

You could be right. I was looking at it from the view point of people reselling their textbooks back to the school at the end of the quarter/semester. The money for the textbook doesnt come out of their pockets either, but they still resell those books back to the school at outrageously low prices. So, why not resell the unused extra meals to somebody that needs it, instead of just giving it to the school for free? 100meals X $3 = $300 = a month's rent for shared off-campus housing.

@ GENGHIS KHAN.

(09-15-2013 03:31 AM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

Most of these plans have a limit on how many guests you can swipe in. It's usually set to some nice number like 10 guest swipes per semester. So that limits how much money students can make off of it. I doubt kids would care for $20-30.

Thanks for the reply,
Unless i am mistaken, the way i understand it is that guest swipes are for situation where a student is swiping in a non-student(like parents, or friends from out of town, etc). If you are swiping in another student, that is not consider a guest. If i am wrong on this, then you will be completely right.

Option B: target schools with unlimited guest pass/swipes like Berkeley.

OPTION C: Also, to re-iterate, different countries will have different models. i merely use the USA as a model because most people here are from the USA. A different country will suffice.

OPTION D: Worst case scenario:if the idea doesnt work. in such a case, we will simply have to move on to other ideas. To quote westcoast, "keep grinding."

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[JayMillz]

Great idea! A couple of thoughts. First, I think PayPal would charge a fee. Second, a lot of the money students spend for lunch actually goes to for-profit corporations and sometimes ones with a vested interested in boosting funds for incarceration over education.
http://www.aramark.com/industries/colleg...versities/

[Nemencine]

@PANINARO and @GHENGHIS KHAN.

HERE IS AN ADDENDUM:

I know most of my ideas(exhibit "A" and exhibit "B") that i have posted here are not the usual "do a simple xyz and make 2k in four months categories"....instead, they are geared towards actually starting something that a person can turn around and sell in 3 to 5 years for (hopefully) a few million quid/bucks/dinero and high tail it from the decaying western world.

That is my focus/mentality.

This very idea about uni/college meal plans actually came to me when i was trying to find parking on a busy street...i was thinking: wont it be nice to have a means of updating and sharing free parking spaces instead of paying stupid amount for commercial parking spaces?....went home, searched and found that some bloody smart motherfucker already thought of this: parkingpanda.com

Those lads already cleared a couple of millions dollars. They started 2 or 3 years ago. they are only 26years old.

Then, i asked myself, is there something else i can apply the concept to?

The concept is deceptively simple: Basically, take a cheaper, already existing alternative and finds way to organize it to be competitive against an overpriced option(elasticity of supply through better organization.) using internet meetup. That is what it boils down to in a nutshell. That is the concept. In terms of parking: organized free parking vs overpriced commercial parking space. In terms of uni/college meal plans: organized cheaper alternatives vs overpriced college proposed meal plans using internet meetup.

The game plan is always the same:
#1. an inconvenience in real life.
#2. Think of a solution.
#3. do a search for the solution to see if others already came up with it.
#4. If nobody did, then run with it.
#5. If somebody already did, then reduce the solution to a conceptual structure/method and try to apply this conceptual structure to a bunch of other things and see which sticks out.
#6. See if you can then make money off it with one goal and only one goal in mind: To simply "fuck bitches, get money" and get the boody fuck out of the western world.
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Some of us with hard science or engineering background are probably familiar with these kinds of problem solving. Earlier this year when it was snowing heavily, i merely went to a cheap store and bought a couple of waterproof table covers and drape my car with it. It didnt cost me 3 quid. while everybody were busy scrapping stuck hail/ice pellets from their car getting read to go to work...On the other hand, i simply remove the table covers draped on my car, that is it. and i am ready to go to work. i didnt need to scrap/scrub anything. and i didnt have to remove sticky hail or ice pellets from my car due to the waterproof table covers. Did a search later and i found out that some some bloody motherfucker already patented a similar concept. Frack!

On to the next idea. I will hit it one of these days.
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[Nemencine]

(09-15-2013 11:05 AM)JayMillz Wrote:  

Great idea! A couple of thoughts. First, I think PayPal would charge a fee.

thanks jaymilz for the input.

Perhaps, one can simply do what every corporation does: pass the cost on to the consumers of the service. It doesnt have to be paypal. it can be any merchant service. i guess one has to find the cheapest merchant service possible. or treat it like a simple wire transfer. good comment, jaymilz.

(09-15-2013 11:05 AM)JayMillz Wrote:  

Second, a lot of the money students spend for lunch actually goes to for-profit corporations and sometimes ones with a vested interested in boosting funds for incarceration over education.
http://www.aramark.com/industries/colleg...versities/

holy shite! yikes! incarceration over education! You learn new things everyday.

[BLarsen]

Good idea, and good out-of-the-box thinking, but I don't think it'd work. Creating a website exchange for this would be suicide for these kids.

I don't know how they did meal plans 30 years ago, but I'm assuming they gave you tickets or stubs??? Your idea would work then because it wouldn't be traceable.

With swiping the ID card everything is recorded. I don't think they'd kick you out of school for doing this, but they'd do SOMETHING to you.

I did a quick Google search on "violations residence hall dining plan" and found quite a few universities with the rules spelled out

UCLA: "Meal plan holders may not pass, loan or sell meals or their ID card to anyone for any reason."

(09-15-2013 11:23 AM)Nemencine Wrote:  

@PANINARO and @GHENGHIS KHAN.

HERE IS AN ADDENDUM:

I know most of my ideas(exhibit "A" and exhibit "B") that i have posted here are not the usual "do a simple xyz and make 2k in four months categories"....instead, they are geared towards actually starting something that a person can turn around and sell in 3 to 5 years for (hopefully) a few million quid/bucks/dinero and high tail it from the decaying western world.

That is my focus/mentality.

This very idea about uni/college meal plans actually came to me when i was trying to find parking on a busy street...i was thinking: wont it be nice to have a means of updating and sharing free parking spaces instead of paying stupid amount for commercial parking spaces?....went home, searched and found that some bloody smart motherfucker already thought of this: parkingpanda.com

Those lads already cleared a couple of millions dollars. They started 2 or 3 years ago. they are only 26years old.

Then, i asked myself, is there something else i can apply the concept to?

The concept is deceptively simple: Basically, take a cheaper, already existing alternative and finds way to organize it to be competitive against an overpriced option(elasticity of supply through better organization.) using internet meetup. That is what it boils down to in a nutshell. That is the concept. In terms of parking: organized free parking vs overpriced commercial parking space. In terms of uni/college meal plans: organized cheaper alternatives vs overpriced college proposed meal plans using internet meetup.

The game plan is always the same:
#1. an inconvenience in real life.
#2. Think of a solution.
#3. do a search for the solution to see if others already came up with it.
#4. If nobody did, then run with it.
#5. If somebody already did, then reduce the solution to a conceptual structure/method and try to apply this conceptual structure to a bunch of other things and see which sticks out.
#6. See if you can then make money off it with one goal and only one goal in mind: To simply "fuck bitches, get money" and get the boody fuck out of the western world.
.
.
Some of us with hard science or engineering background are probably familiar with these kinds of problem solving. Earlier this year when it was snowing heavily, i merely went to a cheap store and bought a couple of waterproof table covers and drape my car with it. It didnt cost me 3 quid. while everybody were busy scrapping stuck hail/ice pellets from their car getting read to go to work...On the other hand, i simply remove the table covers draped on my car, that is it. and i am ready to go to work. i didnt need to scrap/scrub anything. and i didnt have to remove sticky hail or ice pellets from my car due to the waterproof table covers. Did a search later and i found out that some some bloody motherfucker already patented a similar concept. Frack!

On to the next idea. I will hit it one of these days.
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[paninaro]

(09-15-2013 10:50 AM)Nemencine Wrote:  

(09-14-2013 11:58 PM)paninaro Wrote:  

Interesting idea. Two comments:

1. That seems like a lot of work for students on both sides (buyers and sellers) all over a few bucks.

Perhaps, i am mistaken, but i dont see it as any different from any meetups(party, social organization, political rallies, dating) that are organized over the internet. Buyer simply post the time when s/he wants to eat at dining hall. Available sellers post when they will be there. Buyers select when s/he will be there wearing a manchester united cap or whatever for identification. they meet. exchange some randomly generated code for reference and payment. then seller swipe buyer in. each goes there separate ways. doesnt take 2 minutes.

Students/People meet each other in front of the dining hall/restaurants/clubs to eat and party together all the time.

I still see that as too much hassle for a couple bucks. At least when I was in university, I was never quite sure when I'd be eating and couldn't plan ahead much at all.

What if one of the parties is running 5 minutes late? The other has to stand around, delaying their own plans, waiting for the other person.

As a consumer, it seems your business idea is: "Instead of paying $10 for lunch, you can pay only $5 for lunch but you have to: a) use this website/app b) decide ahead of time when you will eat c) meet some random person and hope they will be there and you can find them"

All this to save $5 for lunch?

Then as someone else mentioned in the thread, dining services is usually outsourced and those major companies have something to lose with your business. So if you are successful, it would not be difficult for them to get the policies amended to make "selling" your meal a violation of school policy, and maybe even an offense that can go on your school record. No one will find it worth a few dollars for all that risk.

[Nemencine]

Thanks BLARSEN and PANINARO for the replies.

I like your concerns and the potential problems that you both raised. These kinds of critiques are the reasons why threads like these exist. To get inputs, pro and con, against whatever idea/situation, etc.

I appreciate it.

CONS:

#1. Schools can easily manufacture rules/regulations against whatever profit making schemes you came up with.

#2. Some students will consider internet arranged meetup to be too much of a hassle.

#3. Corporations working with schools on those meals will feel threatened, as such, will take steps in conjunction with the school to push you out of business.

Thanks.

Forum commenter "Wiscanada" suggested some solid political/networking angle to deal with some of these potential problems.

I appreciate all your inputs. thank you all very much. Cheers.

Sincerely,

Nemencine

[BecomingMachine]

(09-15-2013 10:50 AM)Nemencine Wrote:  

@ PANINARO
@GHENGHIS KHAN

thanks for the response. i will try and address your queries below.

Of course, the business idea depends on the local market. I merely use USA as a reference because a lot of members here are americans. If i am on a forum filled with swedish citizens, i will adapt the plan to them. How it will work in australia or Japan or France, i dont know.

Let me address PANINARO first, then GHENGHIS KHAN.
____

@PANINARO

(09-14-2013 11:58 PM)paninaro Wrote:  

Interesting idea. Two comments:

1. That seems like a lot of work for students on both sides (buyers and sellers) all over a few bucks.

Perhaps, i am mistaken, but i dont see it as any different from any meetups(party, social organization, political rallies, dating) that are organized over the internet. Buyer simply post the time when s/he wants to eat at dining hall. Available sellers post when they will be there. Buyers select when s/he will be there wearing a manchester united cap or whatever for identification. they meet. exchange some randomly generated code for reference and payment. then seller swipe buyer in. each goes there separate ways. doesnt take 2 minutes.

Students/People meet each other in front of the dining hall/restaurants/clubs to eat and party together all the time.

This is it basically: internet/facebook organized meetup + school meal plans.

(09-14-2013 11:58 PM)paninaro Wrote:  

2. I'm not sure students are motivated for this, since the money often doesn't come out of their pocket. The meal plan is paid by their parents, financial aid, etc as part of the overall school funding. Yes, it's real money, but students don't think of it this way since it's not their own.

You could be right. I was looking at it from the view point of people reselling their textbooks back to the school at the end of the quarter/semester. The money for the textbook doesnt come out of their pockets either, but they still resell those books back to the school at outrageously low prices. So, why not resell the unused extra meals to somebody that needs it, instead of just giving it to the school for free? 100meals X $3 = $300 = a month's rent for shared off-campus housing.

@ GENGHIS KHAN.

(09-15-2013 03:31 AM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

Most of these plans have a limit on how many guests you can swipe in. It's usually set to some nice number like 10 guest swipes per semester. So that limits how much money students can make off of it. I doubt kids would care for $20-30.

Thanks for the reply,
Unless i am mistaken, the way i understand it is that guest swipes are for situation where a student is swiping in a non-student(like parents, or friends from out of town, etc). If you are swiping in another student, that is not consider a guest. If i am wrong on this, then you will be completely right.

Option B: target schools with unlimited guest pass/swipes like Berkeley.

OPTION C: Also, to re-iterate, different countries will have different models. i merely use the USA as a model because most people here are from the USA. A different country will suffice.

OPTION D: Worst case scenario:if the idea doesnt work. in such a case, we will simply have to move on to other ideas. To quote westcoast, "keep grinding."

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I think enough people are forced to buy meal plans at most schools, that the value of meal swipes is too low for students to care. My friends swipe me in for free 3-4 times a week at my university and think nothing of it, while other schools (like UGA) have strict no-guest policies. My advice is target it to a mid-large sized school where you actually know people who would use this service, and use ads (Facebook and physical) that are targeted only to these kids.

This also requires the school's rules to be set up perfectly for such a loophole, and they may notice and change policy to close you down.

I like the style of thinking- it reminds me of other "hustles," aka business by arbitrage. Good luck if you decide to go through with this, and post results for the forum members (and feminist trolls and members of the NSA) to see!

[Dr. Howard]

This is also relevant that when I was in University I took some steps to get rules changed around other things. Ie. glass bottles in dormitories. The university complex is very bureaucratic so they will be upset if you take advantage of the rules.

I think you're going to need to anticipate that early and partner with the university and food service provider on the campus where you are going to test this out. You're going to have to share the wealth with them so that they have something to gain from this instead of just saying "no its against the rules"

The first example would be the food service provider at the cafeteria, they will see your meal exchange as somehow 'taking money away from them' because the student who is buying the meal could have been a full price walk in customer, which is ridiculous because no one is going to pay full walk in price for a cafeteria meal. If you are sharing 50 cents or a dollar of each transaction they may be more supportive of the sharing plan.

Make connections by finding out if there is some sort of student advocate or trustee position you can get into that would allow you better access to the people in charge of these programs.

[naswanji]

This is a promising idea, but I think you need to reconsider how you monetize it.

Once your customers meet up at the dining hall, what's to stop them from just exchanging cash rather then going through paypal so you can take your cut? And what good is having 3 bucks on paypal?

When I was in college, making $100 a week at a campus job seemed like a lot of money, so I can definitely see college kids going in for this kind of thing, but they'd really have to see cash in hand for them to think it's worth their while.

Also, this idea might work better as a geosocial networking app. Instead of people having to exchange messages and arrange a time to meet, make it so that the meal "sellers" can just turn it on to indicate that they're at a certain dining hall. Then they can just sit at the dining hall for an hour or two having lunch or studying, and swipe in several people during that time. Do this once a week and you have beer money for the weekend.

Meanwhile, from the buyer end, make it so they can turn on the app and see the dining halls in their area that have people looking to sell a meal. That way they can do it on the spur of the moment when they get hungry, rather than having to plan ahead.

But again, the question is how to monetize it. One way is to charge users for messages, the way some dating websites do. Or maybe charge a monthly subscription for meal "buyers." If you get enough users, you could also attract advertising revenue. I'm sure local restaurants would love to advertise to people they know are hungry and looking for a meal right that minute.

[Nemencine]

@WISCANADA
@NASWANJI

Thanks. What i like about your two posts is the solution-oriented nature of them. Of course, i appreciate constructive criticism(from everybody)...but the two of you take it one step further by suggesting potential solutions to foreseeable problems. I like and respect that.

#1. Try and partner up with school bureaucratic organization and the corporate entity that supplies the school meals.

#2. Lobby and formed deals with student or school committee or advocacy groups that you can use as positive leverage for your business.

#3. Make it a geosocial app which will eliminates the hassle/headache of trying to arrange a meetup between students.

#4. See if you can get local restaurants tie-in with regards to advertisements, promotions, etc. as revenues source

#5. Charge "buyers" per message or structure a monthly subscription plan as continuous revenue stream.

#6. Go with really large schools...the larger the better.

"Poosywrecker" suggested focusing on immigrants-heavy, large schools...due to higher cost of out-of-country tuition for immigrants, they may appreciate these "money pinching" scheme because (a) uni/college is more expensive for immigrants (2) especially, immigrants from non-western countries are, relatively speaking, inherent money-savers; so they will gravitate towards this more than non-immgrants.


All these potential solutions address these potential problems:

#1. Schools can easily manufacture rules/regulations against whatever profit making schemes you came up with.

#2. Some students will consider internet arranged meetup to be too much of a hassle.

#3. Corporations working with schools on those meals will feel threatened, as such, will take steps in conjunction with the school to push you out of business.


I like all these suggestions. a big thank you to everybody.

regards,

--Nemencine.

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