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Idea Of The Day - You Can Be The Boss Of Antiques Roadshow 2.0
Needs To Exist
January 13, 2025
GM. This is Needs to Exist (aka NTE), dropping daily startup ideas – today, one that turns good ol’ antique hunting into a community-powered treasure hunt.
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Here’s what we’ve got for you today.
Daily Idea - Tokenized Antique Revolution
AI - The Future Starts Now - Start Building
Antiquing Reinvented with Blockchain
The One Liner
Collect, tokenize, and profit from antiques with the community.
The 140 character tweet (or X) version
Antiquing meets blockchain: Livestream the hunt, vote on buys, tokenize treasures, and share the profits. Turning history into a group adventure.
The Longer Story Version
The Problem
Antiquing is stuck in the past—literally. The world of rare and valuable antiques is exclusive, inaccessible, and often too expensive for the average person. It’s dominated by a handful of insiders, leaving little room for new collectors or enthusiasts to engage.
Even worse, the market is fragmented and unapproachable for those who want to invest. People either lack the capital to buy in or the knowledge to spot the right opportunities. Meanwhile, the excitement of the hunt is reserved for dealers and well-connected buyers.
The Solution
A platform that brings the thrill of antiquing into the digital age by letting the community join in on the action.
Here’s how it works:
Livestream the Hunt
Explore antique shops, estate sales, and auctions via livestream, letting participants see treasures unearthed in real-time.Community Voting
Using tokens, viewers vote on which antiques the platform should buy during the livestream. The most-voted items are purchased.Tokenized Ownership
Once an item is acquired, it gets tokenized, allowing participants to buy fractional ownership. Even a small contribution lets you invest in rare and valuable antiques.Profit Sharing
When tokenized antiques are sold in a marketplace, profits are shared among the token holders. The more tokens you hold, the bigger your share.
How We’d Build This
Partner with a Marketplace: Start by collaborating with established antique marketplaces (like Chairish or 1stDibs) to ensure a steady supply of items and leverage their expertise.
Use Existing Livestreaming Tools: Platforms like YouTube Live, Instagram Live, or specialized tools like StreamYard can enable seamless livestreaming of the antiquing process.
Develop a Token System: Use blockchain solutions like Solana or Base for tokenization. Tools like OpenZeppelin provide frameworks for creating and managing secure tokens.
Enable Fractional Ownership: Partner with platforms like Rally, which specialize in fractionalizing assets, to streamline the tokenization and ownership process.
Leverage APIs for Integration: Use APIs like Stripe or PayPal for handling payments, and blockchain APIs like Alchemy or Infura for integrating token functionality.
Automate Profit Distribution: Use smart contract platforms like Chainlink to automate profit-sharing based on token ownership.
Build Engagement with CRM Tools: Incorporate marketing automation tools like HubSpot or Mailchimp to keep the community informed and engaged.
Why It Needs to Exist
Antiquing isn’t just about finding valuable items; it’s about preserving history, building community, and creating an exciting journey. But for too long, it’s been locked away from the masses.
With the rise of blockchain and tokenization, we can turn the exclusive world of antiquing into something anyone can participate in. Imagine splitting ownership of a $50,000 antique chair with 1,000 other enthusiasts—or earning passive income when a tokenized item sells for twice its original price.
Antiquing becomes accessible, profitable, and most importantly, fun. It’s time to revolutionize the way we connect with the past by opening it up to the future.
If you’re a builder, this is your cue: Go make it happen.
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The Most Important CES Keynote You Didn’t Hear About
Let’s cut to the chase.
Shelly Palmer’s CES 2025 keynote wasn’t just another “future of tech” speech. It was a jolt to the system—a call to rethink how we market, innovate, and, most importantly, start businesses.
“The Era of Marketing to Bots Is Here”
Imagine this: you're not marketing to people anymore. You’re marketing to their bots—the AI personas that handle everything from shopping to social interactions. Palmer dropped a bombshell: one phone won’t just have one ad ID—it’ll have 20 personas. Price shoppers, privacy nuts, dating profiles—all automated, all running their lives (and spending their money) without your permission.
Why does this matter for startups? Because the rules of the game just changed. If your business isn’t thinking about how to appeal to these digital gatekeepers, you’re already behind.
Google’s Endgame: “The Death of Link-Based Search”
Palmer didn’t sugarcoat it. Link-based search is toast. AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity don’t click on ads, don’t scroll, and don’t care about backlinks. They summarize. They answer. They move on.
For entrepreneurs, this isn’t bad news—it’s an opportunity. The ad game is leveling up, and there’s a huge gap for startups to figure out how to reach customers in a world where search engines don’t drive the funnel.
To get ahead, here’s what you need in your arsenal:
Creativity vs. Execution: The Fatal Mistake
Here’s where Palmer got real. Most people conflate creativity with execution—and it’s a career killer. AI can out-execute you every day of the week. But creativity? That’s still human territory.
His takeaway? Startups that lean into creativity, while using AI to scale execution, will dominate. Want proof? Look at the explosion of indie creators who are using AI tools to pump out content faster than entire marketing teams.
Tools you should be using:
November 30, 2022: The Day Everything Changed
Palmer called this the “CG boundary.” Everything before November 2022? Human-made. Everything after? Generative AI is in the driver’s seat.
For founders, this shift means one thing: the world is hungry for human authenticity. Your startup doesn’t have to be perfect—it just has to feel real. Build the tool, write the blog, launch the product. Your edge isn’t flawless execution (AI has that covered). It’s the unique perspective only you can bring.
Big Questions = Big Startups
Palmer posed questions no one has the answers to yet:
Will we solve AI’s insane energy demands?
Can startups train GPT-level models without burning billions?
Here’s the thing: if nobody knows the answer, the market is wide open. Some 14-year-old math prodigy might crack it—or maybe it’s you.
If you’re serious about tackling these questions, tools like Hugging Face for machine learning models and Cohere for training AI on a budget are where you start.
Why This Matters Now
If you’re reading this and thinking, “This all sounds cool, but what does it mean for me?” here’s your answer: this is the best time in history to start something.
Why?
The barriers to entry have never been lower.
AI is a co-pilot for execution.
Chaos creates opportunity.
Take Palmer’s advice: super-automate your workflows, lead your team through the shift, and stop waiting for someone else to show you the roadmap.
Here’s your toolkit to start today:
The roadmap doesn’t exist. You’re writing it.
Now go build something.
One More Meme
