Most of us know the stories of Uber and Airbnb and how their business models and success took the world by surprise. Both businesses run on models that break away from the traditional structure where businesses have a product to sell. These two businesses thrive in a share economy, where owners of goods that build a solid reputation can make a significant income. A sharing economy is seen as sharing assets or services enabled by a digital platform. While Uber and Airbnb are the poster children for sharing platform businesses, there are many other wonderful sharing platform businesses that you have never heard of, ranging from energy to food to umbrellas.

The first wave of sharing platforms failed miserably. However, with the success of GPS-enabled smartphones came a second wave of fantastic sharing platforms. Crunchbase currently maintains a list of 807 companies in the sharing economy business and over 1,072 founders. Personally, I think the real number is far bigger. The success of Airbnb and Uber has paved the way for numerous other innovative ideas to come into the space.

This is actually still early days in the field of sharing economies, which means that there are many opportunities out there for grabs. There are also a good number of success stories that we can learn from and borrow ideas from. This data can help innovators to find success faster without wasting years down the wrong path.

There are still many other apps and businesses out there across a wide range of industries, far less well known than the big players. A lot can be built from this model. To name a few: transportation platforms, urban mobility platforms, vehicle/ride sharing, mobility-as-a-service, food/goods delivery platforms, service sharing platforms, home sharing platforms, things-on-the-go sharing, goods sharing, real estate co-use, office sharing & services, co-living, space sharing, storage space sharing, parking space sharing, and remote working platforms.

What I intend to build is still based on the sharing economy principle, which is a mobile app for finding a toilet in a nearby area. It will be a useful app for almost everyone all over the world. This might sound funny at first, but it's actually a pressing problem to solve.

Personally, I have found myself in several situations where I desperately wanted to take a dump but couldn't find a suitable place. When this happens, people tend to settle for odd places like nearby bushes or deserted places.

Even though some people might not agree, I still see this as a huge problem that needs to be solved. If, for any reason, the host doesn't feel comfortable enough to share their personal toilet, they can actually build a toilet specially for the occasion.

Public toilets can also be listed on this app. The app will have review features that will allow users to leave their reviews about the toilet they used and how they were attended to by the host. Other features, like payment, image display, GPS signal, and call and messaging options, will also be available.

Conclusion

You can always start small and work your way up to a multibillion-dollar corporation. Innovation is an endless space to play in with no rules. I know I will definitely need decent funding to market this product. A lot of the building process will be done by me, but I still need some form of funding.