The 3 Biggest Problems in my Life and How I’m Trying to Solve Them
Cleeyk
I saved my Grandmother £130/$170 dollars yesterday with one phone call
It disgusts me how companies abuse their power to profit from the elderly.
The worst part? The company publicly markets itself as being focussed on providing the best service to elder clients who are less able technologically to pursue lower costs.
Instead, they exploit their customers more than anything I have ever seen.
In one call they reduced there ‘offer’ for home insurance by 25%, just because we threatened to go elsewhere.
Not good enough.
But it’s not just the elderly, its you as well.
We end up with so many recurring expenses when do we get the time to renegotiate them all? When the initial period of new customer deals expire how many times have you just allowed it to roll on?
I know I have and I do.
And it’s not laziness, it’s just a lack of time to take action. I’m too busy to waste the precious time I have outside of work speaking to call centre workers and trying to get a discount on something.
So I pay the premium to make life simpler.
But I should and you shouldn’t either.
- The world’s largest taxi firm, Uber, owns no cars.
- The world’s most popular media company, Facebook, creates no content.
- The world’s most valuable retailer, Alibaba, carries no stock.
- The world’s largest accommodation provider, Airbnb, owns no property.
What relevance does that have to the above?
Everything.
The biggest company in any particular field no longer has to be a provider. Instead they are platforms, that aggregate supply and provide value to consumers. Instead of enterprises positioning themselves to exploit customers, theses platforms allow competition on top of them, while curating their supply to ensure quality.
The biggest Service Company in the world won’t offer any services directly.
Instead it will collectively bargain on customers behalf to ensure the lowest cost, while negotiating it lowers at every possible opportunity, and renewing at the best price and never rolling over.
The future of service companies is Cleeyk.
Interested in Cleeyk? Want to help change the world? We are looking for a technical co-founder.
Ember
Love and relationships are hard.
Technology makes them harder.
If it’s not distracting us from investing ourselves fully in meeting the needs of the people we care about most, making us forget our commitments, it is making us think of all the things we are missing out.
And it hurts.
I have tried to create a product that overcomes my shortcomings by enabling me to be the best version of myself at all times.
I want to be a better father, friend, son and partner.
Ember is the product I have created in order to help me do that.
I acknowledge my own ignorance and have created something which reminds me to act like i should.
Ember is my super power. It helps me remain the person I want to be.
Crucially though, it lets me be the person other people have come to expect me to be. Ember is lets me be when life happens. It acts in my best interest helping me to maintain the health of my relationships.
By creating relationship markers, Ember acts as my spontaneity. It takes my input — how many times I want to buy my partner flowers each year or how many times to bring her breakfast — and plans it at defined intervals throughout the year. It doesn’t tell me when they are, instead it lets me know the day before it happens.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Ember links me with florists in the area and provides instant ordering through my app. It leaves me with no excuses and it looks like a spontaneous loving gesture to my partner.
And that’s what it is. We don’t purposefully take our partners for granted. Ember is a conscious choice to be better.
I’m currently working to develop it further.
It takes an input of all the dates you’d like to go on then it plans them throughout the year for you. Weekly date night becomes a planned event which you and your partner have defined together and is decided at random weekly.
When so much of our happiness rests on relationships why do we pay them such little attention? It’s because we take them for granted.
I don’t want to anymore. Anyone who’s felt the pain of going through divorce or a split knows this. Increasingly, it is happening because we failed to show our care and affection as frequently as we should.
Technology can be the answer to this question.
I plan to expand Ember to assist me with all my family and friends. Ember will eventually link to Facebook and use machine learning to identify the things the people I care for the most need from me to be happier. In turn I hope to be happier myself.
Whether that’s heartfelt notes, a phone call, or understanding which nail polish they are likely to enjoy.
When it comes down to it all we have are the people we care about.
And we all want to be loved.
Aigency
Airport parking sucks.
I ditch my car on a portion of land leaving it completely useless for the period of time which I’m away while paying for the privilege.
What a waste of time, money and effort.
What if your car was fully valeted for your return home and instead of costing you money it made money?
Instead of being a liability while you are away it is an asset that allows you to have a better time while you are on vacation by giving you more spending money.
It does so by linking arrivals for car hire and lending your car while you are away at a cheaper rate that car rental companies offer.
The car is photographed 360 degree when it leaves so any issues that occur while you are away are covered fully by insurance.
If you rent your home out while you are on vacation, why would you not do the same with your car?
How about coming home to a full tank of petrol as well?
Airgency can be the solution.
