Potential business opportunity for a computer/internet savvy pilot

azblackbird

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azblackbird
Due to the inspiration of some of the posts I’ve read here, I came up with a quick concept for a pilot who wants to fly for business and have some fun doing it. I recently registered 3 domain names that could very easily become a profitable business venture for the right individual, or a husband/wife team who have the entrepreneurial spirit and are not afraid to do a little work.

Here’s the domains: pilotmatcher.com - mypilotsearch.com - pilotgopher.com. All names are easily brand-able. You choose which domain you would want to use for the main site. The others can be geared towards your local/regional market and as a soft re-direct to the main site.

Without revealing too much, here’s a quick synopsis of the revenue models and associated “off-the-cuff” pitches, which obviously would be fine tuned as site development progresses. The following elements would all be integrated into an easy to use, and easy to navigate mobile friendly web site.

Tag line:
If you’re searching for a pilot for romance, employment, charitable contributions, or are just plane looking for a ride... you’ve landed in the right place.

Dating - Are you a pilot searching for love... or are you a lover searching for a pilot? For $19.95 per mo. not only will you receive a comprehensive personal profile page, but we’ll match you with that special person from our database of 1000’s of single men and women, who are looking to “fly away” with that special soulmate in their lives.

Employment - Are you a pilot seeking employment? For $9.95 per mo. you may submit your resume to us in total confidentiality, and we’ll send you matches of non-advertised job postings from the many employers we have who are looking for a pilot with your special talents. Are you a national employer searching for a professional pilot? For $199 per mo. we’ll save you time by using our proven algorithms and psychographic profiling to do all of your initial candidate screening. We’ll match your business with those pilots who we feel would be a perfect fit for your company, culture, and business philosophies. Regional employers would be charged $99 per mo. Local employers/FBO would be charged $29 per month. Basically it all depends on how large their HR dept. is.

Charity - Are you a charity? At no cost to you, we’ll you match you with pilots who are willing to help support your charitable cause or mission. Are you a pilot looking to contribute your services to a charity? Sign up for free and we’ll match you with nationwide charities who would appreciate and benefit from your skills and services.

FlySharing - are you an Uber, Lyft, or a Sidecar superuser? Are you tired of being fondled by TSA goons, or being packed into a plane like sardines? For $9.95 per mo. you can expand your travel horizons by letting us match you with our 1000’s of private pilots who are willing to share (on a pro rata basis), their expenses with those who may be traveling to the same destination for a common interest or purpose.

Stats:
There are approx. 500,000+ pilots in the CONUS. An estimated 37% of them are single.
There are approx. 40,000+ commercial pilots employed at any one time in the CONUS
There are approx. 16,000+ aviation related employers in the CONUS
There are approx. 15.8 million americans who have used or currently use a rideshare service

The following conservative estimates of potential monthly revenue should easily be achievable within a years time frame.

1000 single pilots or single people who are looking for a pilot or that special someone to be their soulmate = $19,950 per mo.
200 pilots looking for employment = $1,990 per mo.
50 national employers looking for pilots to employ = $9,950 per mo.
25 regional employers looking for pilots to employ = $2,475 per mo.
25 local/FBO employers looking for pilots to employ = $725 per mo.
1000 users who are looking to FlyShare = $9,950 per mo.
Google adsense/MS pubcenter revenue = $1000 per mo.

Total (estimated) gross monthly revenue: $46,040

There are several options available on how we can structure the business to best benefit your circumstances or budget. Look at it as like building a house.

#1: I sell you the domains (the land) for an agreed upon price and you run your own show (build your own home)

#2: I give you the domains, provide you with the site blueprints/foundation/framework (LAMP servers, hosting, CC processing, etc,) along with consulting services. You provide your own development and marketing team (the finishers). I will guide them.

#3: I give you the domains and provide you with full support, infrastructure, and a total turn-key solution. (I build the house, hand you the keys, and walk you through all the features) All you need to do is run the day to day operations. (I will not be living in your house)

Due to other ongoing projects, I would prefer option #1 or #2, but can make room for option #3 within the year.

Once the sites are up and running, this is an easy individual or husband/wife team operation for those who are business and computer/internet savvy. No matter which option you choose, be prepared to work your butt off for at least a good year building up your client base. Most of what I’ve referenced can easily be handled through FB/Google/Bing ads, e-mail campaigns, regular mail campaigns, and press releases to get the ball rolling. However, there will still be tons of phone work, trade shows, fly-ins, and personal/social interaction before you establish a solid client base and can sit back and relax. After about a year, then you can start paring your work schedule down to two or three hours a day, and can work from anywhere you have an internet connection. You’ll still want to keep up with your ad buys, social media contacts, and do your booths at the fly-ins and major aviation related events to keep your name out there, but to me that’s all part of the fun.

If this is something you’d be interested in, PM me off board with your contact information and a good time to call and we’ll have a chat.
 
Yep, there are 500,000 pilots and 17% might be single, but 95% of them are men. If you want a successful dating site, it is like any good bar, you got to have women.
 
Yep, there are 500,000 pilots and 17% might be single, but 95% of them are men. If you want a successful dating site, it is like any good bar, you got to have women.

For Mr AZ claiming to do his research, he seems to have missed a significant demographics problem with most of his ideas, and one of them is flat illegal, has already been tried, and already lost in Federal court.

LOL. Popcorn indeed.

The new .fun TLD is active now.

How about "incrediblystupidaviationbusinessideas.fun"?
 
Hi Dave... just lining up some extra work for the coming year. Thought I'd advertise here first just in case there might be somebody interested. :dunno:
i wasn't commenting on the viability of your ideas....just speculating on the responses you would have to your post. Good luck!!
 
i wasn't commenting on the viability of your ideas....just speculating on the responses you would have to your post. Good luck!!
Thanks... I've have all the usual suspects placed on ignore, so whatever comments/questions I receive will likely be worth my time to respond to. ;)
 
#1 is my favorite. I want to pay az for coming up with a domain name. That's the really hard part of creating a web based business. ;) Setting up a lamp server will take an afternoon for anyone that knows what a lamp server is, so that option is pretty awesome too.
 
#1 is my favorite. I want to pay az for coming up with a domain name. That's the really hard part of creating a web based business. ;) Setting up a lamp server will take an afternoon for anyone that knows what a lamp server is, so that option is pretty awesome too.

LOL. I have well used and tested scripts for that last part, fires 'em up at will on AWS. Takes about two minutes. :)
 
Now the POA admin is just going to create forums for charity, resumes and dating and put you out of business. Heck, we have so much thread drift these days that we already cover those topics...and it's free!
 
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Now the POA admin is just going to create forums for charity, resumes and dating and put you out of business. Heck, we have some much thread drift these days that we already cover those topics...and it's free!
LOL... some of those topics are what gave me the inspiration to formulate such a plan. I would welcome the owners of POA to create sub-forums based on those topics as a test bed of sorts to validate some of the concepts. Although the member base here is but a small sampling of the overall GA and professional community, it would still interesting to collect the data to form a somewhat biased consensus however limited in nature it may be. What's really needed is the general public (non-pilot) input which unfortunately this site can't offer. ;)
 
LOL... some of those topics are what gave me the inspiration to formulate such a plan. I would welcome the owners of POA to create sub-forums based on those topics as a test bed of sorts to validate some of the concepts. Although the member base here is but a small sampling of the overall GA and professional community, it would still interesting to collect the data to form a somewhat biased consensus however limited in nature it may be. What's really needed is the general public (non-pilot) input which unfortunately this site can't offer. ;)
Here's a suggestion. Use one of your domain names to create a forum that you can organize into as many subforums as you want. You might make a fortune if you charge people to join. You could also attract non-pilot input by whatever method you choose. ;)
 
Here's a suggestion. Use one of your domain names to create a forum that you can organize into as many subforums as you want. You might make a fortune if you charge people to join. You could also attract non-pilot input by whatever method you choose. ;)
Good suggestion, but way too much work.
 
Good suggestion, but way too much work.

That's just it - the ideas are always the easy part; they are not even a dime a dozen. The implementation is always where the work is, so to pitch an idea like this and expect anything in return is a bit of a reach. Besides, anyone with the skills to implement something like you suggest already has more work than they can handle and the devs that would pick up a project like this are available for a reason...

Almost forgot - is it too late to get on that ignore list?
 
#1 is my favorite. I want to pay az for coming up with a domain name. That's the really hard part of creating a web based business. ;) Setting up a lamp server will take an afternoon for anyone that knows what a lamp server is, so that option is pretty awesome too.
Or get a mac server with everything already loaded.
 
#1 is my favorite. I want to pay az for coming up with a domain name. That's the really hard part of creating a web based business. ;) Setting up a lamp server will take an afternoon for anyone that knows what a lamp server is, so that option is pretty awesome too.
Oh, I dunno. A few years one of the local colleges got "university" status because they created as single masters program (social work). [When they get an MBA and an MS in Engineering, then I'll believe it's a university.]

Needless to say, they needed a new domain name. Paid a consulting company a fortune only to find out a non-profit medical association already owned it. Those of us in the CS Dept were just in hysterics for days...any of our freshmen could have done that for extra credit. But the Administration and the IT Empire ignores the CS Dept.
 
Or get a mac server with everything already loaded.

ROFL. If you'd ever loaded up their current version of that and tried it (and seen how utterly and completely screwed up it is), you'd not have even said that. LOL...

OMG... want to destroy a "decent" desktop machine running OSX? Load up Server and then remove it. It'll happily destroy normal DNS resolution, and all sorts of things for you, and not put them back to normal on the way bye-bye.

LOL LOL LOL...
 
ROFL. If you'd ever loaded up their current version of that and tried it (and seen how utterly and completely screwed up it is), you'd not have even said that. LOL...

OMG... want to destroy a "decent" desktop machine running OSX? Load up Server and then remove it. It'll happily destroy normal DNS resolution, and all sorts of things for you, and not put them back to normal on the way bye-bye.

LOL LOL LOL...
I'm still on OS 10.6.8....still the most stable system on the mac.

For a server? Ubuntu, and it doesn't take an afternoon. On the other hand, you can spend days on hold with CenturyLink or Comcast trying to get the network installed. Two tin cans and a string are easier to deal with.
 
We need a forum to discuss ways to make money with your PPL. Maybe call the forum "Here's a number to call when you land"?
"Hello...we're from the FAA..."
 
I'm still on OS 10.6.8....still the most stable system on the mac.

For a server? Ubuntu, and it doesn't take an afternoon. On the other hand, you can spend days on hold with CenturyLink or Comcast trying to get the network installed. Two tin cans and a string are easier to deal with.

Ubuntu got popular, but if you're really doing a server, just go back to Ubuntu's grand-daddy and install Debian and leave out all of the BS that Ubuntu drags in with it. Or if you're not a fan of Debian's way of doing things (which is mostly Ubuntu's way of doing things) grab CentOS "minimal" and build up from there.

Too much cruft in Ubuntu. Nobody needs a GUI on a server!

GRIN... says the old Unix curmudgeon... no seriously... we interviewed someone once and when I asked them how they'd set the DNS servers for a server if they were wrong, he said he'd "Log in and click on Settings..."

Not hired. Buh-bye. You're wasting my time. You don't know *nix. Go away. Interview over.
 
You make it sound so simple I'll throw 30k at it to see if it sticks. But, I don't have time to do any work because I'm actively building my 500 hours. I could probably carve some time out to cash checks if I really had too.

My only contingency is I get first shot at the 5 hot young single pilot ladies out there that cant find a date so they have to pay a dating website to find one of the 8 billion men in the world who would chew off their own arm to date them.

Or I could just give 5k to a computer science undergrad and have a PILOTTINDER AP built in a weekend and be hooking up with all these pilot hotties in a couple weeks.
 
That's just it - the ideas are always the easy part; they are not even a dime a dozen. The implementation is always where the work is, so to pitch an idea like this and expect anything in return is a bit of a reach.
Reach? I'm offering to put somebody into their own business where they can make a decent living and have some fun flying around the country doing it. Is there a lot of hard work involved? You bet there is... but it's fun work. I can automate a lot of things associated with this business, but I can't automate social/personal interaction, which is at least 75% of what this business would consist of.

If somebody wants to discuss the particulars, feel free to PM me with your contact info and I'll walk you through it and we can decide if it's the right fit for you or not. ;)
 
Well, its good to be a dreamer.
Funny you should say that. Every successful business I've ever had basically started with a dream. In fact I dream so much, that I keep a notepad next to my bed and often wake up in the middle of the night to scribble my thoughts down. The sub conscious mind can be a very powerful entity. :yesnod:
 
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