Dinu Dominic Manns

Every once in a while I come up with an idea for a product or a service. In April 2011 while driving home after a long day and waiting for the traffic to move on I was discussing with my wife about what to have for dinner. We were new in town and we didn’t know the top-notch restaurants here yet. Okay, I could check out the internet to see the ratings for the locations nearby. But somehow I didn’t like this approach. It takes time (and money!) to explore all the places, study the menus and test all the meals and delivery services out there. Also this evening I had a special dish in mind and was quite hungry! Nope, I was in no mood to spend much time on research.

This is when a new idea hit me! What if there was a service for smartphones allowing you to find your desired (best) meal within the restaurants in your area? What if you could see ratings and comments for the things inside a restaurant and not only the typical 3-5 stars for the place itself? That would be great, I thought. A few days later I recalled this idea, took notes and draw my thoughts on paper. I also talked about it with my peers and about how to realize and implement such a service. And then… time passed. Nothing really happened. From time to time I was thinking about it again. Also I added new insights in my spiral notebook when they came up. But I’ve never took real action, never started working seriously on this as a real project. Was it lack of courage? I don’t know. But what I know for sure is that today destiny slapped me in the face – and I deserved it! Here comes Oink – and it says:

With Oink, you don’t rate places — you rate the things inside. We need you to help fill Oink with all the best stuff.

Aaaargh! This is good… and it looks good, too. I must admit it: It’s pretty damn awesome! And it is Kevin Rose himself, the Internet Entrepreneur who invented it. Congrats Kevin – I couldn’t have done it better! ;-)

I’ve learned my lesson. Although I believed in this idea from the first moment on my vision wasn’t strong enough. The intuition was right but you also need courage and dedication to follow through. And if you don’t – others will. Next time when I have a brain-fart like this I will take action immediately. The last thing I want is another Oink-moment.