All the absurd business ideas

Every idea on this site has its own page, so you can read it, share it and argue about it. They are in no particular order, and none of them is a good idea.

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  1. Sell individual socks as a subscription. Customers receive one sock per month and are encouraged to be patient.
  2. Open a gym exclusively for people who already exercise at home. Membership consists of a card to carry.
  3. Rent out your shadow to people who need shade. Rates vary by time of day.
  4. Charge neighbors a monthly fee to not play the drums.
  5. Sell bottled air from places nobody wants to visit. Label it by postal code.
  6. Offer professional line-standing services for lines that do not exist yet.
  7. Start a consulting firm that tells companies to hire a consulting firm.
  8. Sell used passwords. Pre-owned, lightly typed.
  9. Create a dating app where both users must be in different time zones and never reply in time.
  10. Rent out the chair everyone else was about to take.
  11. Sell certificates of attendance for meetings that could have been emails.
  12. Offer a service where you wave at departing trains on behalf of those who cannot make it to the platform.
  13. Package and sell the silence between elevator floors.
  14. Launch a streaming service that only plays the loading screen.
  15. Sell extended warranties for warranties.
  16. Open a restaurant that serves only the garnish.
  17. Charge tourists to take photos of them taking photos.
  18. Sell a calendar with only Tuesdays.
  19. Start a lost and found for things people have not lost yet.
  20. Offer a hotline for people who want to hear a stranger say 'noted'.
  21. Sell pre-crumpled paper to writers who need an authentic struggle.
  22. Create a premium tier of waiting. Waiting, but faster.
  23. Rent out a small cloud. Delivery depends on weather.
  24. Sell fitness trackers that track only what you ate yesterday.
  25. Open a bakery that sells the idea of bread.
  26. Offer a subscription box containing the previous subscription box.
  27. Offer a service in which someone holds the other end of the tape measure.
  28. Sell handwritten apologies on behalf of strangers. Bulk discounts available.
  29. Start a podcast about people who skip podcasts.
  30. Rent out a quiet corner of your house by the hour.
  31. Sell bags of mixed-up jigsaw pieces from different puzzles as a team-building exercise.
  32. Create a luxury brand of tap water. It is, however, from a tap.
  33. Provide professional nodding services at conferences.
  34. Offer a shoe-tying service for people with very busy hands.
  35. Sell a handwritten shopping list that says "milk" and nothing else.
  36. Sell the first page of novels. Subscribers then wonder.
  37. Open a museum of things that were almost invented.
  38. Charge a fee to confirm that your fridge light turns off when closed.
  39. Create a mobile app that reminds you of things you have already done.
  40. Rent out emergency eyebrows.
  41. Sell reservations for tables at restaurants that are fully open.
  42. Offer a service where someone reads your terms and conditions out loud to you, slowly.
  43. Start a laundromat that only washes one sock at a time.
  44. Sell maps of the local area at a scale of 1:1.
  45. Open an escape room with the door unlocked. Reviews are mixed.
  46. Offer certified pretend-busy services for the office.
  47. Sell a gym membership to a gym that is a single dumbbell.
  48. Charge people to hold their place in a thought.
  49. Start a magazine consisting entirely of the table of contents.
  50. Create a premium email inbox that only receives emails you have already read.