What’s Missing

After going through various products I could find (let me know if you find any more boxes that i should look into!), there are two (more concise) ideas that come to mind. Both ideas would provide services that I haven’t seen before, and that I believe are worth investing time/money in.

A Subscription Box Service for New House/Apartment Owners

Many people are out of touch with what goes on behind the walls of their house/apartment so easy fixes like plumbing, electricity, and putting up shelves get outsourced to professionals. What if you were able to take care of some of these smaller-scale problems around the house, or in your first college apartment? How much money could you save? Would you feel empowered that you could rely on yourself? Would you be glad you didn’t have to call up your parents to ask why there’s a leak in the wall or how to put up that new wall mount for your first TV?

Let’s face it, the kind of apartments/houses college students first live in require A LOT of maintenance. They’re often really old houses with faulty plumbing/electricity. Do you or or son/daughter know about the beams behind most walls that provide structure to the house, but also anything you’d hang from them?

You also want to feel at home, and be able to customize your living space. Maybe you want to fix up some of the walls that have peeling paint/holes. Maybe you want to build an organizer for your cabinets to keep your spices and dried foods in order. What if you could build yourself a window-sill planter so you can have small plants in your room?

“Home Improvement” skills can be a necessity, or they can just be plain ‘ol fun. I’d like to create a kit that would help new home owners through the first steps of maintaining a house, while teaching them skills they can really improve their quality of life. Perhaps they can even be games as well. Maybe the kits can act as practice before you begin to experiment on parts of your house.

Giving Kids the Ability to Teach other Kids Skills

A lot of the kits designed for a younger audience are really trying to sell products to the parents as well as the kids. A lot of them require parental supervision as well. I think that younger kids may feel like they are constantly being taught by adults, but don’t get much of an opportunity to show off the interesting things they’ve discovered.

At school, a group of students started these workshops called “Quickies” (https://www.facebook.com/RISDquickies) where students can sign up to teach a class about a skill they know, and others can join in to learn. It’s a great way to exchange information, especially at a school where you learn far more from working with your peers than your professors.

I wonder if there is the ability to translate this idea to a younger audience. Could there be a platform for kids/teens to teach other kids/teens their special talents/interests? Maybe you have this cool comic book you’ve been working on, and you teach other kids how you did it. Or maybe you went out gardening with your dad and now you know how to plant seeds, and now you can tell others how to plant their first seed!

You learn a lot by teaching others the skills you have, and it helps build confidence. Not only do you have to understand a process/skill, but you have to be able to communicate that idea to other people. Just like those science fairs I used to participate in when I was younger, I learned through experimentation, but I also learned by having to organize my findings concisely and talk about what I did to my class.

What if kids could make and share their own kits? What if they sent a project that they worked on to another kid in the mail? What if kids could correspond with well known scientists/artists/designers to ask them questions and show off the skills they have?

I remember as a kid I asked a million questions, and it’s something I still do. I always wanted to know how things work. I guess as I get older I’m starting to think more about the why. There is an insane amount of creativity and knowledge that kids have, and giving them a platform to share their knowledge/ask questions would help develop important skills for their adulthood.