Snailmail to Email
I recently had a business idea which I am sure could be a success if only I had the time and money to implement it.
The basic idea is that you create a service where regular postal mail is automatically scanned and emailed to the appropriate recipient. Nothing complicated or fancy, just a basic service to help bridge the analog-digital divide.
Initially, I envision people signing up for the service on a website and getting a postal mailing address in some large city like New York. The mailing address would likely just be a PO Box. Any mail then sent to that PO Box would be automatically opened and scanned by a machine such as the ones made by Opex. The service would probably cost around $5 a month - although I have not really run the numbers to find the appropriate price point.
If this basic business model ended up being successful, then I envision offering additional lines of business related to the principle of automatic mail<->email handling. Ideally, it would be possible to partner with the US postal service and offer mail redirection of people’s home address to the email service. Another avenue of possible interest would be to setup and/or operate digital mailroom solutions for businesses of all sizes. There are a number of other obvious directions the business could go.
Anyone want to spot me the money to get started?
July 31st, 2006 at 7:48 pm
That would just be a glorified faxing service.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:05 am
Systems like that already exist. A number of offices in the House of Representatives are using a trial system that does exactly that for all constituent mail… I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know how good it is, but it’s a brilliant idea. I would love to be able to do that with my own personal mail.
December 7th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Now that is a good idea!
Has any one helped with financing? That would appeal to all the environmentalists.