I've got $20 million to burn. Tell me why I should invest $1 million of it in your start-up.

[Skald the Rhymer]

So I've got $271,828,182 in procceds from looting and auctioning the treasures of Atlantis selling BP stock short church bingo winnings to hide from Aquaman launder invest. Most of it is already earmarked for various enterprises about which y'all need not concern yourselves, but I've set aside $20 million to invest in the business projects of various Dopers. I mean, where am I gonna find a group of smarter, hipper entrepreneurs? Detroit?

Tell me what enterprise you'd start up with a cool million, and why I should cut you a check and put you to work. Both serious and silly answers are welcome; bonus points for expressing yourself in haiku or limerick.

[multimediac17]

Budding songwriter
I may not be a big hit
But still, money money money!

or

There was a young man called Dick
But his stage name was to be "Richard Eric"
It might sound rash
But he'd love your cash
To give his career that extra kick

[Mr. Excellent]

Not an investment, but a donation: I'd use the million dollars to pay a small dev team to improve existing software that helps dissidents circumvent the Great Firewall of China, and develop new software, with an emphasis on ease-of-use. (Think "censorship circumvention your grandmother could use.") A million dollars wouldn't be enough to solve the bandwidth problem - Great Firewall circumvention requires proxy servers, which need alarming amounts of bandwidth - but it might help generate some useful new tools.

[runner pat]

Because you have 20 million and I need to fund my retirement.

[StGermain]

I happened to steal borrow a cookie recipe that promises to be better than Lembas. I want to put this into full production.

Delicious cookies

Recipe gone in the night

Dawn brings flying monkeys

StG

[Elendil's Heir]

If you send me $1 million, I will gladly keep sending you pictures like this every day, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_619633.html, or stop doing so. Whichever you like.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

If you send me $1 million, I will gladly keep sending you pictures like this every day, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_619633.html, or stop doing so. Whichever you like.

Cutest picture ever yields two and a half million hits on Google. Not sure why I'd need your help for that.

Originally Posted by runner pat

Because you have 20 million and I need to fund my retirement.

I'm not convinced you understand what a business plan. Maybe I should lend you some money to back to school. Lend.

Originally Posted by Mr. Excellent

Not an investment, but a donation: I'd use the million dollars to pay a small dev team to improve existing software that helps dissidents circumvent the Great Firewall of China, and develop new software, with an emphasis on ease-of-use. (Think "censorship circumvention your grandmother could use.") A million dollars wouldn't be enough to solve the bandwidth problem - Great Firewall circumvention requires proxy servers, which need alarming amounts of bandwidth - but it might help generate some useful new tools.

Ah, hell, I can't turn THAT one down. But you'll need more than a million. I'll have to take some money out of the Palin for American 2012 fund.

[Sunspace]

Budding startup designing passive-solar houses needs angel venture capital for expansion.

Building technique demionstrates that even in Canada's harsh climate, buildings may be constructed that need only the heat of the earth and the sun to stay warm. Prototype house with proven 15-year track record.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Sunspace

Budding startup designing passive-solar houses needs angel venture capital for expansion.

Building technique demionstrates that even in Canada's harsh climate, buildings may be constructed that need only the heat of the earth and the sun to stay warm. Prototype house with proven 15-year track record.

Okay, so you're not usually nuts. Give us a better idea of your tech. Can you really build your prototype for only a mill, or is that just seed money?

[Justin Credible]

My business model consists of exactly one word and one visual: Sexbots.

[Czarcasm]

Caffederm timed-release caffeine patches.
'Nuff said.

[Mr. Excellent]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Ah, hell, I can't turn THAT one down. But you'll need more than a million. I'll have to take some money out of the Palin for American 2012 fund.

Sweet! Two birds, one stone.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Mr. Excellent

Sweet! Two birds, one stone.

She's going to be president, dude. Don't think you can stop it. My taking the funds will, at best, force her to do a Maxim layout to raise some quick cash.

[Sunspace]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Okay, so you're not usually nuts. Give us a better idea of your tech. Can you really build your prototype for only a mill, or is that just seed money?

The 2300-square-foot prototype was built with volunteer labour and much recycled material for less than $50,000. A similar building built with paid labour and new materials might be less than $100/square foot, depending on land costs.

The house has massive rammed-earth walls that are insulated on the outside. Their temperature does not drop below that of the local ground at depth below the frost line. The sun's heat tops up the walls to room temerature.

We need funding to do thermodynamic analysis to establish guidelines for insulatiion levels and room sizing beyond the rules-of-thumb we have now. Structural analysis we have on hand. We also need to hire drafters, estimators, and marketing people.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Sunspace

The 2300-square-foot prototype was built with volunteer labour and much recycled material for less than $50,000. A similar building built with paid labour and new materials might be less than $100/square foot, depending on land costs.

The house has massive rammed-earth walls that are insulated on the outside. Their temperature does not drop below that of the local ground at depth below the frost line. The sun's heat tops up the walls to room temerature.

We need funding to do thermodynamic analysis to establish guidelines for insulatiion levels and room sizing beyond the rules-of-thumb we have now. Structural analysis we have on hand. We also need to hire drafters, estimators, and marketing people.

This sounds very interesting. How do they cool it?

[enigmatic]

If I had a million dollars to change the world in the most efficient way possible I would try to start up a charity to hire journalists and operate as a not for profit news agency providing stories for free or at cost to other news agencies. I'd emphasise under reported areas such as good quality scientific, technology, and international stories and try to provide unbiased political reporting.

[firstname]

I want to start a small microbrewery/bar. As the prime investor, and my new drinking buddy, you'll be drinking for free.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Cutest picture ever yields two and a half million hits on Google. Not sure why I'd need your help for that....

Ah, but I would send you pictures like that (or any other kind you want) every day. You wouldn't even need to consult Google!

[Sunspace]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

This sounds very interesting. How do they cool it?

Summers are short enough here that the massive walls never have a chance to warm up past comfortable temperature. Consider also the angle of the sun: in winter, it is low, and incoming sunlight shines all the way to the back of the rooms, warming as it goes. Ideally, the windows are tilted to meet the lowest winter sun at a right angle. In summer, the sun is high, and less sunlight enters the windows to start with because the apparent window opening is smaller. Some sunlight bounces off the windows because it's no longer arriving at a right angle to the glass. That sunlight which does enter falls on the plants inside and is used by them rather than heating the floors. (Oh, did I mention the interior gardens? We've grown lemons, dates, roses, jasmine, and grapes when it's -20C outside. )

[Isamu]

We're making circles. You know,... for kids.

[Miller]

If you don't give me one million dollars, I will blow up the moon!

Wait, forgot who I was talking to.

If you DO give me one million dollars, I will blow up the moon!

[Lynn Bodoni]

In the finest Bodoni tradition, I will make you an offer you can't refuse.

Grandpa Bodoni and a couple of my uncles were in the Mafia, and I'm sure I can dig up a few old favors. I don't know if I'd want to do so for just one million, though, so perhaps I'll just go for it all.

[GuanoLad]

Give me the money, because I have this great idea for a film.

Which I cannot reveal here, in case some nefarious evildoer steals it from under my nose.

[Nobody]

This is a twelwe-storey block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive in the entrance hall here, and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort and past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these...

[Smeghead]

I'm working on a PhD in molecular biology. If you fund my education, I will promise to be your personal researcher should the need ever arise. Whatever disease you come down with that promises to be your ultimate downfall, you'll have one fully qualified research lab working night and day to find a cure.

[Love Rhombus]

I want to start a pawnshop near a local casino. Think of all the interesting stuff you'd find! And you can sell some of your "found" items to interested collectors. Also, we're quite far from large bodies of water. If that mattered to you for some reason.

[E-Sabbath]

Geez, and the best I could come up with was opening a chain of adult social gaming centers, including teleconferencing rooms, across the US. I think it's an idea whose time has come, giving the gaming generation has come of age. Go out, smack talk, play each other... without that 13 year old screaming about gay. Admittedly, you have the 40 year old screaming about gay, but hey, at least it's not as high pitched. Very nice, very tasteful, taking the... is it Amarillo Movie House? The one where they premiered Star Trek by surprise, as a theme.

Not just video gaming, either, though that would be the primary focus. Local bands, good beer, decent food.

Probably require more than a million for setup, though.

Hm. Well, just a million dollars takes out my _second_ idea, the solar power panels on the moon beaming down to the Arizona Desert. I think it's technically possible in five years, if the Falcon 9 stays functional.

Sunspace's house design is a pretty good one, but it seems limited as to max capacity and climate. These kind of houses have been around for at least 30 years, and never seem to have caught on. Not sure why. I like the ones where they design it to have grass growing over them. It's very insulating.

Aha!

With One Meeeellion Dollars, I will attempt to get everyone in New York City to paint their rooftops white.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061300866.html
It's simple. It's cost-effective. With that kind of money, I might be able to persuade an entire city... no, probably not, roofing gets expensive. But it's worth a try.

[A Monkey With a Gun]

Americans are growing more health and environmentally conscious, but salad dressings haven't kept up with the times. I have developed one that is low calorie and benefits the environment, yet doesn't sacrifice it's attitude. I call it Oil and Vinegar: Black. For every 12 oz bottle purchased, we will remove 6 oz of oil from the gulf. Only the finest British Oil goes into Oil and Vinegar: Black. It will be huge. I predict it will spread everywhere.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Smeghead

I'm working on a PhD in molecular biology. If you fund my education, I will promise to be your personal researcher should the need ever arise. Whatever disease you come down with that promises to be your ultimate downfall, you'll have one fully qualified research lab working night and day to find a cure.

Do you need the whole million for tuition, or will some of it be going toward a grant?

Also, I'm more into CREATING diseases than curing them.

[Czarcasm]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Also, I'm more into CREATING diseases than curing them.

Again, dude-The Caffederm Patch. It doesn't cure jack, and there are millions of potential customers out there who buy your product for-freaking-evar!

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

Again, dude-The Caffederm Patch. It doesn't cure jack, and there are millions of potential customers out there who buy your product for-freaking-evar!

Oh, hell, man, you were the first one pitching a COFFEE-BASED PRODUCT. I thought my approval was implicit in the fact that I am me.

[Czarcasm]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Oh, hell, man, you were the first one pitching a COFFEE-BASED PRODUCT. I thought my approval was implicit in the fact that I am me.

The only thing implicit in the fact that you are you is the very great possibility that I'll soon be sleeping with the fishes and your name will end up on the patent.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

The only thing implicit in the fact that you are you is the very great possibility that I'll soon be sleeping with the fishes and your name will end up on the patent.

It would be foolish of me to off someone who came up with a profitable idea. You might come up with another, after all.

[Ace309]

My startup idea is to produce a chintzy plastic trinket and give several away to popular girls named Heather at the local middle school.

Our projected profits for September through December 2010 are $4 billion.

Our projected profits for 2011 are $1.

[Czarcasm]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

It would be foolish of me to off someone who came up with a profitable idea. You might come up with another, after all.

Speaking of which, tell me how this grabs you: along the lines of edible panties-Edible Tampons!

[Little Plastic Ninja]

Originally Posted by E-Sabbath

Very nice, very tasteful, taking the... is it Amarillo Movie House? The one where they premiered Star Trek by surprise, as a theme.

I think that's the Alamo Drafthouse. Nimoy showed up too. I was incredibly disappointed because I WANTED to go to the screening of Wrath of Khan -- such a great movie! -- but I was working and did not get to meet my hero.

[Smeghead]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Do you need the whole million for tuition, or will some of it be going toward a grant?

What, you want an itemized invoice? Just fork over the million, and you'll have one (1) qualified PhD in your corner.

Also, I'm more into CREATING diseases than curing them.

I'm flexible. Let's talk.

[Little Plastic Ninja]

Oh, as for me, I will market the perfect game: MoneyQuest. This is based on the phenomenon of goldbuying and powerleveling -- people will pay to buy the game, pay for the subscription, and then pay someone else to play. Why not cut out the middleman? I'll make a game with fantastic graphics that you don't have to play. You'll have a beautifully rendered website with your character's stats, their awesome magics and weapons and armor and everything else important to you, all dependent on how much money you give us. Worried that you're not as awesome as your neighbor? Just send us another fifty bucks and we'll give you your very own dragon. As long as you can outspend them, your gameplay ability doesn't matter one bit.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Smeghead

What, you want an itemized invoice? Just fork over the million, and you'll have one (1) qualified PhD in your corner.

Silly Smeghead. I was asking if you needed a grant, not being chintzy. You might have gotten TWO million smackers.

[E-Sabbath]

Atari's already got Cryptic doing that, LPN. I still like the idea of a giant ad campaign to paint every rooftop in America white. It's not that it has beneficial side effects, it's just that it seems so horribly pointless.

[Smeghead]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Silly Smeghead. I was asking if you needed a grant, not being chintzy. You might have gotten TWO million smackers.

Once I have the first million, my flying monkeys will ensure ongoing financial support.

[Death of Rats]

I want a million dollars and I have a surplus 1920's-style Death Beam pointed at your groin right now. Is that enough of a business plan?