Go read it for yourself.

I posted this comment on Jay’s “The Value Add of a Real Estate Agent” post, and thought I’d repost it here:

I think a lot of what this comes down to, unfortunately, is that many agents (and the majority of people in general) are lazy. Everyone wants the “EASY” button. Instead of actually going and “doing something” like interpreting the Case Shiller market stats, writing a blog post, running your own MLS queries to generate unique market stats, building links, emailing your past clients, paying for SEO, etc — agents would rather sit around and bitch and whine about how unfair what everyone else is doing or why they can’t succeed. You know what…no one cares. Zillow is not the reason you aren’t doing well at SEO. Trulia is not the reason you can’t sell your listing. Realtor.com is not the reason you only have one buyer lead in the last 60 days. And on down the line. No one wants to hear it. One thing matters, and one thing only. Execution. And execution starts, and ends with DOING.

Go DO something. Go do anything.

And let me reiterate – this is not just a flaw of agents. It’s a flaw of the majority of the population. Further reading - http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com/2012/01/24/focus-on-doing-if-you-want-to-spend-your-time-with-other-doers/

**Photo via Nao

I personally think there is already enough news in the world. In fact, 24 hour a day news is kind of a joke if you ask me since it leads to much of the over exaggeration of many of today’s issues that are really A LOT smaller than the media makes them out to be.

What do I really wish a media company would do? Figure out how to cover all the good happening in the world on a daily basis rather than talk non stop about how crappy everything is. A media company that only (or 75%) covers positive news…imagine that.

Never worry that someone else “stole” your idea. Ideas are free. Execution is what makes you money. I’ve met countless bitter people who “invented Facebook” years before.

What Chris said.

Sure, the banking system does work, but it’s ripe with inefficiencies and overhead that’s not needed to accomplish its core business. The physical real estate that banks own and operate are largely unneeded to serve consumer needs. They have literally thousands of employees behind the scenes. Again, largely unneeded overhead.

Hence my question — can the whole consumer banking system be completely wiped out with a website and some peer to peer lending technology?

In short. Yes.

And, the more I think about this, the more I think NOW is the precise time for a web company to do it.

As you can tell from the title of this post, I’ve been thinking a bit about the future of the consumer banking industry and peer to peer lending for awhile – for numerous reasons. My thoughts on this actually started in Ghana last fall when my buddy Dan (who runs Bankvibe.com) and I spent our down time (and there was a LOT of it – ever heard of “ghanian time”?) during our stay with Lumana Credit discussing random web and banking ideas.

The consumer banking space is fundamentally broken and ready for a disruption

Why do I bank with BofA and still not know a single person at the company (other than the customer service folks I’ve met via Twitter)? Why do I have to use such useless online banking tools? Why doesn’t BofA help me track all my finances & categorize them like Mint.com does? Why do I repeatedly have problems transferring funds between accounts and it takes 3 days? Why must I pay outrageous fees to withdraw cash internationally?

Answer? There is no easy or better alternative. Which is precisely why I think now is the right time for someone to turn the consumer banking industry completely upside down.

It’s no secret I haven’t exactly been thrilled with the consumer banking system over the past few years, though my “switch” (not 100% yet) to Charles Schwab and School Employees CU of Washington from BofA is certainly helping in the way of problems with debit cards I’ve had abroad. I hate everything about the current banking system. Aside from the ability to withdraw cash from ATMs, I see little value in the current banking structure.

Peer to peer lending works

Given my passion for microfinance, it’s a given I’m a huge advocate for the power of peer to peer lending given what’s it has done to propel microfinance forward through sites like Kiva and Wokai. If peers can lend entrepreneurs around the globe money — why can’t they also lend money to others within the US — and make a profit from it?

The web is changing

The web is evolving faster than we can keep up with, and seemingly no industry is safe. Real estate, travel, autos – you name the industry, it’s been massively transformed by the web’s ability to transfer information to consumers almost instantaneously. Google dominates search, Facebook dominates social. What’s the Facebook of personal finance? There isn’t one currently (Bankrate isn’t quite there), but it’s only a matter of time before someone lands in that spot — it’s too lucrative a niche not to.

There is a Better Way – And the World Is Already Moving that Way

What I think this issue really comes down to is getting enough mass adoption toward some sort of “digital currency” accessible via your mobile phone. If you think about it, many of you likely already deal almost entirely in digital currency. In the states, I charge almost everything to my credit card (but pay it off in full every month). However, while abroad for much of 2010, I relied almost exclusively on cash given that credit cards are not widely accepted for small transactions, and rarely accepted for any transactions in Africa where I spent 2 months in fall of 2010.

In Kenya, after speaking with my friend Allan, I learned that Safaricom already enables individuals to transfer money to others straight from their mobile phones. Imagine person A finds some shoes at a street vendor they want to purchase, and both person A and street vendor B have Safaricom, person A can wirelessly transfer credit to street vendor B to complete the transaction without the need for cash. Either person A or street vendor B can either retrieve their credit from any Safaricom distributor, or use the credit to pay for others goods or services (including of course phone calls). In the US, it’s a little different in that individuals purchase monthly phone plans rather than prepay cash for their phone usage as they do in Kenya (and much of the world). But a mobile carrier could easily add items to a customers monthly bill, and paying your cell phone bill would quickly replace paying your credit card bill. I doubt any major bank would give a startup going after this space access to their ATM system, which would solve the cash problem – consumers have to be able to take cash off and put cash on to their phones at a wide variety of locations for the model to work. However, there is no reason a tech startup couldn’t partner with a company like Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, AT&T, or some other national franchise with locations across the country in order to give consumers a place to go “cash” their credits or deposit cash into their digital account.

So why do we need the brick and morter component of the financial system as it stands today? We don’t. Wouldn’t we see more value if there wasn’t such high fixed costs (real estate) in the system?

Establishing Trust

The other crucial issue to disrupting the consumer banking vertical is establishing trust with consumers. A startup tackling this has to be very well funded, have some major partnerships in place, and a seasoned executive team behind it. Building consumer trust is going to be a massive massive obstacle given the stigma of online fraud — and I’m sure the traditional banks will put up a fight to keep this issue front and center on consumers minds.

The Perfect System

What’s features would the perfect payment system include? Well, it actually should stay drop dead simple. Simple works. Of course, seamless integration with all major mobile phones is a must since the phone is the device that will be the central focus. With your phone rather than an actual credit card as the hub, the perfect digital banking system needs to allow you to transfer funds to a variety of devices that local merchants can easily get setup with. It would need to allow you to easily transfer funds to any other account online or via your mobile phone. The most important thing is simplicity. It can’t do everything for all people — or it’s likely to fail.

Wrap Up

Is VISA, Mastercard, or AMEX working on this service? It seems the most viable company/service is PayPal — but I’m not sure they are innovative enough to pull this off. I’m all but sure Square is working on backing their way into this business model.

One thing I am positive of — I for one will certainly be an early beta user if such a service comes out.

So, back to the original question of whether peer to peer lending wipe out the consumer banking industry as we know it?

Yes.

WILL it happen?

Only time will tell.

[photo via CanEquity]

Facebook has pulled location tagging off marvelously — they’ve figured out how to suggest locations to tag photos to. Look at the following screen shot.

Uploaded with Skitch!

The absolute genius move they made? It’s ONE CLICK to say either yes or no to tag an entire album with their suggested location. Their suggestions aren’t always right, but as more people answer yes/no…their suggestion tool will get better and better by the day.

Brilliant. Well done, Facebook. Well done.

1. A Cloud-based Personal Shopping Service. An affiliate model that’s free for users, personal shoppers take home 75% of the earnings for their labor, and the company takes a 25% cut for facilitating. This is the natural evolution of Fancy Hands, VigLink, and Pinterest.
2. Priceline for Ski Tickets. Just like hotels, incremental costs for the ski area are very low, so seems like a natural fit.
3. The Most Results-Oriented Gym in the World. Only people serious about making a lifestyle change need apply. Members get personalized workout and diet plans that they must adhere to. They must create concrete goals and post them on facebook so friends keep them accountable. “Before” pictures taken on day 1. Members will not be allowed to fail, or the reputation of the business fails.
4. Ringback Advertising. Build an advertising company to utilize the dead air before someone picks up a call. Normally you just hear ringing. Verizon and other companies sell “ringback” tones so sometimes you hear a song. Why not hear an ad instead and split the proceeds with the subscriber.
5. A Site that Collects Business Ideas. A community forms and people who want to work together can begin to collaborate. Success stories add fuel to the fire.

Have 5 of your own money making ideas and want a link? Email 5 ideas to meyers.drew at gmail.

1. Write a Book
2. Become a @TaskRabbit
3. Shovel Snow
4. Become a Public Speaker
5. Learn to Sell
6. Bonus: get into debt collection

1. Sell ocean air in little glass bottles to inlanders
2. Sell sea water in little glass bottles to inlanders
3. Teach a class
4. Become a coach
5. Find work on Elance.

1. Ads
2. Subscriptions
3. Resell a product
4. Write an Ebook
5. Begging for Donations like Wikipedia

Ummm….number 4 sounds good?

8 editions down…a lot to go.

1. Build a site around highlighting great and horrible social media stories. Charge marketings a monthly subscription for the content, and have someone available to help people find a specific story that would help them with their specific presentation.
2. Build better consumer facing MLS sites (the new Sandicor one needs LOTS of work)
3. Sell stuffed animals, and give one stuffed animal to charity for every one sold.
4. Start a dating site targeted at white men who want to date asian women
5. THIS

1. Start a hostel in Hong Kong (the hostel I stayed at in Hong Kong a few years ago was the worst one I’ve ever been to)
2. Hostel membership group – backpackers pay $30/mo for discounts to all hostels that are members. Paying for 4 hostels a month should equal the monthly membership fee. Hostels pay some small fee per month to be a member of the network. Come up with a formula for how many hostels per city to allow to join. Maybe make it by-product of how many overall members have stayed in the city or something.
3. The world is increasingly moving to a point where everyone is their own business — be a personal coach, and offer them online marketing services to help them figure out how to stand out from the crowd
4. Run a beach bar on an island somewhere. Santorini? Koh Phi Phi? St John?
5. Start a blog/website about how to make money online. On 2nd thought, scratch that..there are already thousands of sites out there trying to show people how to make money online. But it’s still an idea for today.