The world's least qualified life coach. (allegedly)
MUSEUM OF REGRET / FREE ENTRY
Reader-submitted exhibits. Please do not touch. They have been through enough.
EXHIBIT 6206-W · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
My idea was an app where you upload any argument and the public votes on who's wrong, for 99 cents a verdict. I tested it with my flatmate over whose turn it was to buy toilet roll. 3,400 strangers voted. I lost by a landslide, with comments. My flatmate now quotes the comments. I've deleted the app, but she screenshotted…
— Anonymous
The market spoke. The market said it was your turn. The market will be saying it for the rest of the lease.
EXHIBIT 6169-V · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
I noticed people were fed up with chatbots, so I launched a service called RealPerson, where you message and a genuine human answers. The human was me. I had 340 messages on day one. I'd answered four by lunchtime. By the evening, people were complaining that RealPerson was slow, made typos and once just replied "no idea, mate." Someone suggested…
— Owen, Cardiff
You invented customer service, then rediscovered why every company sacked it. Bold of you to be the staff.
EXHIBIT 4810-A · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
My idea was a café for introverts. No music, no chatting, you ordered by writing on a little card. It was so quiet that people walking past assumed it was closed. The few customers who came in were too shy to ask for the Wi-Fi password, so they left. Six weeks in, I realised I'd opened a business for a…
— Olu, Manchester
You built a café for people who'd rather stay home. They kept their word. So did the lease.
EXHIBIT 4773-Z · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
During a heatwave I launched a premium ice delivery service. Hand-crafted ice. Cubes shaped like little diamonds. A cool box with a logo on the side. The heatwave ended two days after launch. My first and only order came from my brother, for a barbecue that got rained off. He said it was "very nice ice". It's on the website…
— Anonymous
Your product melted. So did your savings. Only one of them was supposed to.
EXHIBIT 4736-Y · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
I built an app where you could pay someone to stand in a queue for you. Lovely idea. In practice I was the only person signed up as a "stander", so I spent every weekend queuing for strangers for very small amounts of money. In three months I earned less than the logo cost. I am now extremely good at…
— Dev, Croydon
You disrupted queuing by becoming the queue. The gig economy has never had a purer victim.
EXHIBIT 4699-X · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
My plan was a monthly subscription box of tiny socks for cats. My research consisted of one very popular video of a cat in socks. I ordered 300 pairs. It turns out cats do not want socks. Cat owners, after one attempt, also do not want socks. I sold eleven boxes, nine of them to relatives, two of whom have…
— Ellie, Brighton
You found a gap in the market. The cats had already looked into it and passed.
It will be reviewed by one tired man. He is already laughing.