827: My Business Idea

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My Business Idea

Title text: We didn't believe you at first, but we asked like three people who were at that party. They not only corroborated your story, but even said you totally mentioned wanting to start a company someday. Sorry! If this isn't enough money, let us know.

Explanation

Many people have shared Cueball's experience of seeing someone else make a profit from an idea that they themselves had. This comic plays with the thought of what would happen if intellectual property thinking was taken to an extreme, and if companies or people were keener on "setting things right" than money. The title text is an extension of the comic with increasingly extreme thinking.

In reality, having a great idea alone, of course, does not create a profitable business; there must generally be an enormous amount of effort put in to create a business from scratch, popularize it, and keep it standing. Having done none of this, Cueball would probably not deserve close to the "30% cut" he claims even if intellectual property did work the way it is presented here.

This comic originally was shared with the name 1721: Business Idea, but then this comic was renamed. There were no other relations between the ideas for the two comics, see the trivia section below.

Transcript

[Cueball is sitting at his desk, pointing at his laptop.]

Cueball: Dude! I had this idea like five years ago, and some company just got rich doing it! - I want my cut.

[Cueball starts typing.]

Person off-screen: That's not how it works.

Cueball: Sure it is. I'm applying for my share now.

Person: Wait, what?

[A browser window with the title 'Department of Ideas'. It has a series of text boxes.]

Date you had the idea:

Like five years ago.

Proof you had it:

I told my friend Mike - you can ask him! I was all "you know what would make a great business idea?" and he was all...

Their profit so far:

$20,000,000

Share you deserve (be fair!):

[Drop-down.]

25%

30%

35%

Mailing address:

137 Ash Tree Ln

[Cueball still at the laptop, above him is a SUBMIT button, and it shows a pointing hand cursor.]

CLICK

[Last panel set slightly lower than the rest.]

[Cueball is in front of an open box full of cash, with cash in his hand. A FedEx delivery guy is on the other side of the box with his PDA and pen.]

Trivia

• This comic was originally called "Business Idea" but Randall renamed it to fix a conflict on xkcd when he released 1721: Business Idea about five years later (as in the comic).
  • This comic was thus also renamed on this page.
  • It gave quite some turbulence on the release day as can be seen in the trivia section of the new comic.
• The delivery address is to Ash Tree Lane, and as shown in 472: House of Pancakes, Randall knows how to mess with people who've read House of Leaves.
• 20,000,000$ x 30% = 6,000,000$- a lot of cash for doing nothing but having an idea.

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Discussion

The delivery address is to Ash Tree Lane. As shown in 472, Randall knows how to mess with people who've read House of Leaves. Subtle references are probably worse (better?) than the blatant, full-fat parody of 472. 80.42.206.232 23:46, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

As I read it, the idea is to have a website where people who claim to have thought of something first would be able to submit 'claims' (for whatever they are worth, if anything). Cueball would get rich monetizing this sure-to-be-a-hit website. Mountain Hikes (talk) 09:09, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I had this idea for a website just like that! Has anybody made it yet so I can mooch off them? Profits will be big. Klyxm (talk) 03:42, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I just realized: maybe Cueball's business idea is to get money by doing this and the comic shows how it works! PDesbeginner (talk) 16:15, 22 June 2024 (UTC)