This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
I love hearing creative ideas. We recently heard from a listener who wants to get paid driving someone else's car across the country. Now, a lot of people actually do that through a variety of services, as I explained in that episode. Still a pretty cool idea. It's something that I wanted to do when I was younger, and fortunately or unfortunately, whatever the case may be, I grew out of that dream. But today's caller has an idea that I think is
very original. At least it's original to me. I had never heard of it before. So driving someone else's car across the country, that's been done. This idea, they're going to describe it in more detail, but in short, it is a cross-country community road trip with dozens of people driving their own cars in a caravan. Pretty cool, huh? Interesting, at least, I should say.
But is it feasible, profitable, and timely? Because those are the three characteristics of a good business idea, or should I say not a good business idea, but an urgent one, like the right one for you right now, because that's much more important. So let's consider driving across the country in a caravan and getting paid for it. Stay tuned. Detailed question and my answer, coming right up.
I appreciate hearing the stories and other people's questions. I have an idea to create a road trip with dozens of vehicles that all travel together. It's a communal adventure. Groups of friends, couples, or solo travelers all drive from one stop to the next every day. They can make the trip in their own time and stop along the way wherever they want. Every
evening we gather for a shared meal that's included as part of the experience. I don't think there's anything else like this out there, but maybe there's a reason for that. I know you say that competition is a sign of market demand. What do you think? Thanks for your thoughts.
All right. Here's my quick two cents here. I think it's a cool idea. I have definitely not heard of it before. So it doesn't mean it's not out there somewhere, but it's new to me at least. It does remind me a little bit of a guy I know who has put together a
DIY amazing race that takes place in Europe every summer, maybe a few other parts of the world. So that's a cool project that has some shared values at least and maybe some similar logistics and basic business model. But driving across the country, in this case America I believe, driving across the country, not just as a solo road trip, but as a group caravan, I don't know, kind of different. Competition can be a sign of demand. When you see like nobody else is doing this, that could be a clue that it's not a good business idea, not a good business model, but maybe not because I just don't know anything like it.
So let's look at that lens, feasible, profitable, timely. Is it feasible? You have to ask yourself like do you know how to put something like this together? And not just putting it together and getting it started, but how will it build critical mass? Because a caravan doesn't work without a caravan, right? You can't just go across the country with two people. You need
to start with a bare minimum. I don't know what the number is, but for this to actually work over time, you need to have that critical mass. Is it potentially profitable? Well, that's another question. How will you make money from the project? Like, what do you
charge exactly? Are you charging people to just be part of this experience? Is there something else? Is there some sort of sponsorship component? There could be a few different things, but I would just really spend a lot of time thinking about that. Do I know how
to do it? And is it potentially profitable? And then finally, is it timely? Is this what the world needs right now? Is this the best project for you to move forward with right now? And probably the answer is maybe. It's a question for you. Like I said, it doesn't
seem like something that, you know, nobody would be interested in. In other words, I'm sure there is some market, but it's just a matter of solving that critical mass question. How can you get things going? Because everything stems from there. So I'd definitely be interested in hearing more. Let us know how it goes. The caravan across the country and listeners,
if you've got an idea or a question or a struggle or a success or, you know, all kinds of things, whatever it is, sign us on school.com/questions. We continue to feature them throughout the year, along with lots of different segments, updates, some other listeners, and of course, our action packed stories. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Got a new episode for you tomorrow. Hope you'll subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. My name is
Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
