Fake it before you make it

An interesting post from Andrew Thomas: the concept of building wireframes as a marketing tool to get out into your target before (or while) you work on the application itself, and generalizations of that concept (e.g. put links for possible extensions into your existing application, then work with the people who click them, etc.).

Upshot: a cookie-cutter wireframe + business process service would rock.

CFO-in-a-box

Or even "management team in a box". Many startups are founded by people whose grasp of business is less than stellar. There are standard ways of doing lots of business, though, and those can be manipulated automatically.

So let's imagine something like Quickbooks that has actual CPAs built in - that is, you enter your business data, and the CPAs keep things on an even keel. Automated rules show you where there may be risk, and automated events tell you what to do, when - and if you have a question, you ask a human who's a certified accountant. Since your data is already in a standardized form, you pay a lot less (they're saving staff) for the same smart input.

The same could go for many business processes, but my sister is a CPA, so I have the expert on tap. If only I had the time to implement this.