More broadly, this concept could be applied to men wanting toupées or hair plugs made with their harvested teenage hair. Taken another level out, why stop with hair? We already have sperm and egg banks, and I’ve heard of donations being made for personal use in later years. We all know adults who are unable to reproduce, but were they once able? A donation in his younger years would sure prove helpful to a mid-20-something man victimized by blunt testicular trauma during a nerve football scrimmage.

It seems so senseless that we have this capability, to store our most valuable “stuff” that we might want or need in our older years, but don’t. Being able to put these things in a bank is nothing more than insurance for baldness, sterility, and many other afflictions. Additionally, cryobiology banking could be used for family planning. For example, as strange as it might sound, many men are having vasectomies in their 20s. Some do this because they never want children, but another reason might be so that they don’t have any “accidental” children before they are ready. For those who are very interested in family planning and having control over every detail of reproduction, a combination program of sperm/egg donation followed by vasectomy/tubal ligation might be just what is needed.

I’m not sure why these practices aren’t mainstream yet, except for seeming “weird.” Soon, we will be harvesting more than hair and eggs from ourselves. As the average lifespan continues to increase and as more and more people put off procreation until their 30s and sometimes 40s, it makes sense to take advantage of our youthful perfection, by saving our own goods for later. Banking our assets opens up many options in the decades ahead.

I’m dead serious when I say that this is a million dollar idea. This will happen and become mainstream, making someone a billionaire. If you have the entrepreneurial motivation, a lot of start-up capital, and any background in cryobiology, this opportunity is for you.

If you have a camera and a little bit of internet sense, you can make good money! How? Find an event that could be videotaped and streamed live on the internet for people who can’t be there. Then, charge them substantially for your time. The more events you film, the more cameras and staff you have, the more you make.

A few years ago I looked into real estate opportunities in Costa Rica. I had big plans to fly there, find a property, and have a house built for a fraction of what it would cost in the US. I changed my mind, deciding that it was too much of a gamble since I had so few days available to travel. While discussing possibilities, however, a major concern I had was construction oversight. My dad mentioned the possibility of a construction camera, which is nothing more than a camera running 24/7, streaming a live feed to some website. It would allow me to monitor the progress somewhat.

You’ve undoubtedly seen websites with live feeds of famous landmarks, such as this one of Times Square. Any person with some basic video and computer equipment can do the exact same thing. Certain privacy laws would have to be considered if you video social events, but that is the only restriction I can imagine. Private individuals could do this themselves, but many people don’t have the know how, and would just as soon shell out a few bucks to a pro.

Yesterday, I happened to read an article on ksl.com about a Weber State University who took this basic idea of streaming video of an event, and used it to build a business around filming funerals! Brilliant. He didn’t stop with being a one-man local business, though. According to the article, he works with 200 funeral homes and has recorded 10,000 funerals. Nice!

Where else is this idea marketable? EVERYWHERE. I have missed many weddings, many family parties, my brother’s commissioning, and several other events because work precluded my being there. If live feeds were used, I definitely would have watched all of them! Here are some obvious companies you could start locally:

-Weddings. Many people have professional photographers and videographers, but how many show a live internet feed that friends and family can watch from different states and countries?

-Birthdays and other parties. You don’t have to miss grandma’s 80th birthday party if you can watch it live online!

-Office and work events. Why not let the relatives watch you get an award or promotion?

-Athletic games. With so many parents working odd hours or in far-away locations, it would be great to “be there,” even if not in person.

-Babysitting and dogwatching. Right now, I’m house sitting and taking care of two dogs. How comforting would it be for the owners to be able to watch their dogs sleeping, eating, and returning from walks?

These are the obvious events, but anything could be filmed. Other companies and people are doing this type of work, but the market has low barriers to entry, is inexpensive, and is without dominant players.

Want to really go over the top? Use model airplanes with cameras taped to them! This is what the military uses for low-level reconnaissance, and as long as you abide by FAA regulations, there is no reason you can’t construct a similar platform.

What do you think? Is videotaping stuff really a path to becoming a millionaire?

Snake eating lunch at the Killing Fields in Cambodia, October 11, 2009. I bet that frog is wishing he had coordinated something special with Crematory Dreams!

Have you ever considered having something interesting done for your funeral, maybe a unique location, a specific guest list, a certain time of day? Often people mention how they want their funerals to be parties, for friends and family to celebrate the time they had with them. Of course it rarely turns out that way, as people need time to grieve losses. More to the point, have you ever heard of unique ways to spread or bury remains and want the same done with your own one day? There is a way to ensure your wishes are met: write special instructions in your will and choose an executor who you trust to go to the ends of the Earth on your behalf. Better yet, coordinate in advance with a company specializing in making your wildest dreams after death come true, Crematory Dreams, LLC.

Over four years ago, when I last had my will updated, I attached special instructions describing exactly how I want things to unfold. My instructions include people and publications I want contacted, small possessions I want given to friends, directions on dealing with organizations that might attempt to use my death as a political statement, and, most importantly, how my remains are to be handled. I will be cremated and want my ashes “bombed” out of a certain type of airplane over a certain peak in the Utah Rocky Mountains. Though highly unlikely, with the right connections, it is possible. How do I know this can happen? Because Crematory Dreams is dead serious about finishing the job.

Crematory Dreams, LLC, specializes in finding solutions to the most unusual final-resting-place requests, from scatterings requiring wreck dives in the Indian Ocean, to urn placement atop Mount Everest, to being mixed with black powder in a muzzle loader destined to shoot a prize elk. If you conceive it, Crematory Dreams will bring your dreams back from the dead. And they will charge you a fortune for the service. Hey, it’s not like you need the money, right?

This idea has been several years in the making. Doing an internet search today, it looks like there are companies that offer burials at sea, scatterings over the Sierra Nevada mountains, and other specific services. I can find none, though, that are worldwide, out of this world, problem solvers for those of us with eccentric postmortem wishes. Crematory Dreams would be the first of its kind, a service for people who have no problem dropping $100,000 or more on a first class, customized remains-disbursement program.

How will this company operate? Crematory Dreams offers a stark business model contrast to traditional mortuary companies. Typical mortuaries are local, dealing with families after the fact. They are also conservative, and gloomy. Crematory Dreams, as an alternative, will offer worldwide service, seeking business from living individuals. Details will be planned, payments arranged, and discretion kept while the customer continues living joyously. Operations will include any family and friends previously coordinated in the will. Customers can expect only top quality service.

Why is the service so expensive? Because Crematory Dreams is the only business alive of its kind. Because laws will be skirted, borders will be crossed, and expensive equipment and professionals employed in operations. Because this is the last bill the customer will ever have and because the customer has enough money to pay for the best for his last wish. Because Crematory Dreams is not the Wal-Mart of death, but is quality service, and only for those who demand a premium finish to life. This is a million dollar idea now open to the public. Leave  a comment if you want more ideas, a business partner, or simply want to voice your hate for my writing about death.

Is this a viable business idea? Do you know of something similar already in existence? Have you ever thought of being cremated or buried, and whether or not you would like anything unusual done? Happy Halloween!

Giant African Snail. Courtesy H. Vannoy Davis © California Academy of Sciences.

Ever wondered what to do with those disgusting snails you find in your garden besides kill them in place? Have fantasies of getting money for the slimy creatures in your backyard? All your dreams might come true if you can connect the bureaucratic dots in shipping your backyard wildlife to foreign countries yearning for a taste of them!

Robert, a machinist in Hilo, Hawaii, recently created a little garden with his girlfriend Diane. Hawaii, like most tropical islands, has extreme bug issues. Robert’s most pressing garden concern is preventing Giant African Snails from getting near his plants. While hosting me for a couple days, this topic came up, and Diane had a brilliant solution: ship the critters to France, where people pay well to eat escargot.

As with most great ideas I’ve come across or had myself, a quick search revealed that this one is already being done in Africa. You can, however, probably do it better or differently, such as shipping “Snail of the Month” selections to customers.

Your biggest barrier to entry will be government bureaucracy. You will have to work with multiple agencies to ship living things intercontinentally. Justifying your business model, proving that the snails won’t impact the ecosystem, and just dealing with international commerce are obvious struggles that come to mind. Bringing a piece of fruit into the United States is tough. Shipping snails from Hawaii to France? This task seems difficult to impossible.

Surely, there are other untapped markets. If one man’s trash really is another man’s treasure, then that means we have a lot of undiscovered international commerce.

What other pests do you have that might be valuable to someone else around the world? What kinds of things do we trash that could be useful to others?

Today, though, I would like to talk about how so many of our original ideas have already been conceived and produced. Take this website, for example. When I made the decision to drop everything, travel and write about it, I thought that surely this was a novel concept. I thought about some different themes I could try, like climbing to the tallest point in every country or sharing crazy things I see, maybe doing something unique in every country, or simply writing about Westernized society and the struggle to be individuals when we have been so conditioned to a certain way of life.

Well, guess what? When I researched ideas for this website and my travels, I found that A LOT of others were already doing what I wanted to do!

Here’s a short list:

Christine Gilbert quit her job as a Fortune 500 manager to travel…Hmmm…her story seems closest to mine, yet I just found her website yesterday!

Tim Ferriss never really had a job, but he’s a genius and quickly masters everything he tries. I like learning new things and am fairly intelligent, but don’t have that kind of innate brilliance to master new skillsets in a matter of weeks. In any case, part of what I want to do with Ends of Earth is learn new things around the world and share them. Many of my “original” ideas for themes were already being done by him!

Matt Harding quit his job as a video game programmer to travel. Accidentally, he did a silly little “dance” everywhere he went, made a short video of all the dance clips, then got sponsored by a gum company when the videos went viral. He recently wrote a book about his experiences doing the dance all over the world. I couldn’t believe his luck when I first read about him, because he was doing only a small part of what I had planned, yet was accidentally very successful. If anyone has an idea for a viral video I could do, let me know!

Tynan has always lived life “outside the box” and does funny, crazy things regularly. He actually bought and lived in an RV, something I mentioned in my last article. He writes occasionally on travel gear and technology. He does things to the extreme and lives by his own code. Once again, he is a person with whom I share so much in common and he was already writing about and doing these things long before my plan to leave my profession.

With technology so advanced and improving so rapidly, and the entire world becoming connected, having a truly original idea is nearly impossible. Even the best idea is usually based on another invention, building on the shoulders of others. Science history is full of originator disputes, so why should modern pop culture ideas be any different.

Have you ever had a brilliant idea that you later found out was already taken? Did you feel like you just barely missed your shot at the American dream? What was/is your idea? Please share!