Open Problem Bank is a project that aims to collect open technical problems into a searchable database for the public to use freely. People are invited to submit problems into the bank. The problems submitted in the bank should be ideas of devices that somebody could design and build. You don't have to know how the device you have in mind works, you just have to know why it would be needed or why it would be useful. Besides the description of the problem, some meta information describing the problem is collected. This meta information includes tags, which enable you to browse the database by following different keywords.

Open Problem Bank won the weekly idea competition at Cambrian House, a site which  used to hold idea competitions for mainly software related ideas and gathered people around the world to realize the best ideas. Cambrian House is currently moving its user base to Vencorps, a site that crowdsources deciding of venture capital for startups. Read the description of Open Problem Bank and comments that it received in the competition here.

Cambrian House has built a prototype of Open Problem Bank. It is a wiki that contains descriptions of problems, links to related ideas submitted in the Cambrian House and other metadata. This wiki is found here. Contributing requires that you registrate as a user of Cambrian House first.

An interview on Open Problem Bank at Youtube (about the first four minutes of the clip) is found here.

Open Problem Bank was featured in Startupbin, a blog about web and startups. Read the blog post here.

More information: nisse.suutarinen [at] iki.fi.

Here is a business plan draft for Open Problem Bank:

Open Problem Bank Business Plan: Draft 1
Executive Summary

Whether it is personal problems or technical solutions that are needed, every day millions of people turn to the Internet to find answers to their problems. The Open Problem Bank offers a one-stop-shop for people looking for answers and a helpful community of users willing and able to help out.

Finding solutions to a problem on the Internet can be a tricky thing for many users to do. Not everyone is adept at using search engines to find an answer to a problem, and in many cases people are looking for solutions to situations unique to them. The Open Problem Bank offers a new route for people looking for answers online. Rather than using a search engine to find a solution, the users of The Open Problem Bank submit the problem they are seeking an answer too, and let the larger community find the solutions. Rather than trying to search for an answer on their own, The Open Problem Bank harnesses the power of crowds to find the answers to the problems a person is looking to solve.

Coupled with the posting and commenting on problems is the ability for people to use crowd sourcing as a method to have technical or time intensive problems solved. Users can post up a reward for a solution, and then pick from the solutions provided or let the community vote for the best solution. The reward goes to whoever solves the problem, and the user with a problem has a solution they can work towards. In the background The Open Problem Bank tracks and mines for meta-information, pulling out critical statistics that can be used by SEO experts, marketing agencies, and companies looking for niche market needs.

The Open Problem Bank generates revenue via three distinct channels; advertising, service charges, and sale of metadata and meta-statistics. The site will feature advertising relevant to the problems being posted, both banner and text based. When a user posts a reward The Open Problem Bank takes a 10% transaction fee for processing the exchange. Finally, part of the Open Problem Bank is to gather metadata and meta-statistics on what problems people are dealing with on a regular basis. This meta-information will be sold to interested parties looking for new niche markets to capitalize on.

The Open Problem Bank is currently in pre-production and is looking for seed capital and startup funds. The initial prototype is projected to take 6 months to build, and cost $25,000.00 US. Once the prototype is complete, it is to be launched as a beta product and will require an additional $25,000.00 US to run and market for 12 months. In total The Open Project Bank is seeking $50,000.00 US in seed capital, and is offering up a total of 25% equity in exchange.

Additional rounds of funding may be needed at the conclusion of the 18 month development and beta community phase. Round 1 funding will be used towards marketing, expansion of feature sets, and hardware to support the growing community. The Open Problem Bank is slated to soft launch in Q3 2008, with a full beta launch in Q4 2008.

Management Team and Staff

Nisse Suutarinen – Founder and CEO
Open Problem Bank was founded and created by Finnish inventor and entrepreneur Nisse Suutarinen. Nisse has worked on several inventions and patents, and is currently working with the Foundation for Finnish Inventions to bring a prototype to market. Nisse holds a M.Sc post-graduate degree from Turku, Finnland where he majored in mathematics with a minor in computer sciences, chemistry, and pedagogics. Nisse has worked as a researcher for Helsinki University of Technology, has studied and worked abroad in Sweden and Germany, and was the founding member of the University Turku Juggling club.



Open Problem Bank is currently looking for suitable technology startup management talent to flesh out the management team. Adding talented adviosory board members and management staff to the company roster is one of the high priority goals of the company over the next 12 months.



Currently Open Problem Bank is using Cambrian House as a crowd sourcing solution for preproduction and contract recruiting, as well as early stage community building and market testing.


Business Model

Open Problem Bank is not a new technology play, rather it uses and leverages tested and existing technology in a new manner. Using standard Content Management Systems (CMS) as a back bone, with an analytics and user statistic tracking system on the back end, the Open Problem Bank leverages the community of users as a content creation and statistical generation tool.

The Open Problem Bank business model focuses on providing a service for people seeking solutions to technical, social, and personal problems. Open Problem Bank works like an abstraction layer off Google Search, providing a place for people to list problems they wish solutions to, and a community of feedback that helps solve the problem through the wisdom of crowds.

In finding these solutions the community provides valuable statistical data on what problems people are looking solutions for, the types of solutions that are popular and socially acceptable, and as an extension products that can be created based on the statistics. Open Problem Bank sells, to interested parties, the abstracted statistical information generated by the community, making it an excellent early market testbed and market research tool.

Secondary revenues will be generated through on-site advertising and minor transaction fees.

The nature of Open Problem Bank allows it to be ported to multiple technology platforms, such as MySpace and Facebook, allowing for expanded delivery of services and content in the future.
The Competition

There are currently a number of competing services that are similar to Open Problem Bank. No single competitive product has the same spread of features that are proposed for Open Problem Bank, and all have portable communities that can be enticed to a new service that offers a better user experience.

Unlike Open Problem Bank, the competition have business models focused around free offerings, offerings supported by service fees, or offerings supported by advertising revenue. Open Problem Bank leverages the actions and statistics of the community as a potent revenue generation source.

www.Innocentive.com

www.IdeaConnection.com

www.fellowforce.com

www.tekscout.com
www.bigideagroup.net

answers.yahoo.com

The majority of the competitive services focus either on personal problems or on technical issues, while Open Problem Bank allows the community to post solutions to a wider range of problems and situations. This allows for synergistic play between technical and personal solutions, often bringing technological solutions to a personal problem, or vice versa.

The Market

The market for analytics and statistics is growing as advertisers and product makers seek to differentiate themselves in an increasingly noisy market space. Consumer goods production is needing an ever increasing number of unique and interesting items to sell, and new niche markets to exploit. Marketing companies are making efforts to become more targeted and efficient with how they spend marketing money online and in traditional marketing efforts. All these factors point to a strong market for consumer generated and driven analytics and statistics to aid these companies.

Harnessing online communities for this sort of effort is still in its early stages, but the practice is increasing. Most notable being Digg.com, and their analytics and statistical services that are used to drive the companies revenue streams.

Budget Projections

To Be Provided.