Problem: In university, you could talk to intelligent researchers anytime by simply going to a professor’s office hours. However, in the world, it’s much more difficult to get connected to those sorts of individuals.
Solution: A platform that connects professors to paying patrons who would love to attend their “office hours.” These office hours would allow people to talk about anything for 15 minutes and would be priced through an auction system of some sort.
One very logical question is “why would a professor want to do this when they’re already so busy?” There are two incentives that would be built in: first, the monetary incentive (getting paid to offer your time) and second, the network and information incentive. Professors through doing a platform like this would get access to extremely unique individuals who they otherwise wouldn’t have talked to. Perhaps, to double-down on this benefit, people would have to apply in order to chat with a certain professor: this would help ensure that conversations are actually valuable.
Monetization: A percentage of bookings through the platform.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)