[wannabee]

One of the jobs I had was to do the front cover of the Auto Trader every week and because of the lack of broad band in our town I would take it over to them physically. They were short staffed so while I was there I helped out with their commercial client's adverts and overheard all the telemarketers.
They had a sister publication called "Buy and Sell", a free paper like ebay. (before ebay) Anyway, their money spinner was the free personal columns. "Looking for a great bloke, no smoking, non drinking etc... etc..." Free with a 1900 number. It cost them about 18 cents from the telco and averaged about $5 to call to respond.
My contacts and I decided that there was an opening for a similar item on the net and agreed we'd look into it. Small reserves and demand from existing customers meant overlooking that opportunity.

About 9 months later a site called RSVP was out and had enough capital to advertise and sold it for millions to either Fairfax or Murdoch.

I designed the logo for the first car sales site that was sold for several hundred thousand dollars. He never paid me. He said "That's something I can recreate." I said "You didn't think of it." He didn't respond and . . . . .


Maybe this should be on the rant thread. I'm going to bed any whoooo.

I think there are a lot of people out there that thought of an idea and that's as far as it got. Congratulations to those that took it a step further and brick bats to those that trod on people's toes to steal it away.