My name is Zak Normandin and I am addicted to creating business ideas.

One of my most memorable elementary school experiences was a project that my teacher assigned to my class in 7th grade.  The teacher instructed us to “Invent a product that you would like to see on store shelves”.  I remember feeling so excited when the assignment was announced.  We had to define our market, build a prototype, and present the product to our classmates.  In 7th grade the only things important to me were girls, video games, and practicing kick flips on my skateboard.  Naturally, I followed one of my passions at the time and came up with a video game system called XLO 3D.  It was to be the first 3D video game machine in the world.  At the time, this was a major improvement for the video game industry.  Super Nintendo had just been released and Yoshi’s Island was all the rage.  If people thought that was cool, wait until they started playing their favorite video games in 3D!  I designed the system from scratch (on paper) and started a notebook detailing all of the specs as well as the games and accessories that were to be included with the system.  I even developed games complete with level maps and character descriptions.  It was probably the most fun I ever had in school.  When presentation day arrived, I had a mock video game system in hand made up of various components of game systems that I had stored in basement boxes.  The system came with special 3D glasses and an instruction manual.  None of the hardware worked of course, but I had a blast creating it.  When I think back on that project, i realize now what an impact it had on my life.  That project got my wheels spinning and made me realize how enjoyable it was to create something from nothing.

In the years that followed, I bothered almost everyone I knew with business ideas that I still believe will make money if properly executed.  In high school I devised a plan to bottle the popular Shirley Temple bar drink.  The selling point was the cherry.  Each bottle of Shirley Temple would include a cherry inside the bottle.  It was a novelty item for sure but there’s no doubt in my mind that it could make some serious money.  When I was in the Coast Guard I told all of my buddies about an idea I had for a bagel shop where you could create your own cream cheese flavor.  Think Cold Stone Creamery or Marble Slab but only for breakfast.  The bagel shop would only have to stock one flavor of cream cheese: plain.  Each customer would then customize the cream cheese for their bagel with mix-ins of their choice.  There would be fresh fruit, nuts, chocolate chips, spices, vegetables, ETC.  Everyone is cutting the carbs these days and the bagel craze is not as big as it used to be but this is still a great idea.  A couple of years ago I thought up an idea to rent out textbooks to college kids.  At the time, there was no one out there doing it.  I wrote up a full business plan and financial projection.  To reach even a small portion of the total market, we were going to need over $10 million to cover the initial purchase of books and other start-up expenses.  Things were not looking good.  $10 million is a lot of money to bootstrap and I knew that no investor would take me seriously with no working website or collateral.  I dropped the idea but was encouraged when several months later Chegg.com and Bookrenter.com launched and started renting college textbooks.  That was a great idea!

I have never had a desire to work for a large company or become a lawyer or doctor.  I can’t stand the thought of working somewhere where I am doing the same thing  as 25 other people.   My goal is to create a successful company from scratch.  I want to be the guy who tells his children about how he started brainstorming a business idea on a napkin and then built it into something great.