One advantage of doing a tech startup is the freedom you have of working when and where. On the flip side, it’s really choosing the freedom of ‘where’ because as an entrepreneur you are ALWAYS working. I’ve begun working from coffee shops a lot. 35% of my foursquare check-ins are at coffee shops (And I think another 35% of them are at restaurants that serve Chicken Wings 
) And because I get bored quickly, I make it a point to work from a different coffee shop every time. Today, I had a meeting in downtown Toronto, and then drove my Zipcar to Milton and am at a Starbucks at Milton preparing for my next meeting. Well, blogging instead.
My entrepreneurship prof at UofT always said ideas are cheap, “everyone has em”. And working full-time on one of my startup ideas, I’ve really come to realize how true it is. Execution is 99% of the battle. That’s a topic for another blog. I have a document with 100+ startup ideas and not enough lifetimes to implement all of them. I’m excited I’ll get to work on one of my small, fun ideas at Startup Weekend in Toronto, which I am helping out with as well.
So at the least, instead of those ideas living in a doc of mine, and me having spent an average of 2 mins on each idea, I think it would be cool to share some of my raw, unrefined ideas from time to time in hopes that someone creates value from them.
Right now, sitting at Starbucks, I cant help but think. Anytime I’m ANYWHERE, if I want wi-fi, I look for the nearest starbucks. I get my coffee, sit down with my laptop, and do some work. When I remember, I’ll do a foursquare check -in, hoping some day Starbucks will give me free coffee for it.
And there’s a Starbucks EVERYWHERE. What if starbucks could provide a whole city with free wi-fi? They could install routers, signal extenders, and repeaters to boost their range. People could login to starbucks wherever they are in the city. I’m sure they can figure a gajillion business models to make money from it. They are already working on a branded, personalized, and localized user experience online. That could be extended to not just people at Starbucks, people everyone in the city. They can either compete with ISP’s, or fill in the niche for people who only need 3G once in a while, maybe less than 50MB per month, so they dont need a data plan, and can pay starbucks much less. Starbucks can draw that crowd to their store, make more money on coffee.
Okay time to go back to preparing for my meeting in 45 minutes. Maybe starbucks will give me free coffee, or at least a free hug, for this blog post.
