Making money with government transactions/data - $100k+ possible

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Ok got sometime to whip out another idea for all of ya while I install HD Express3.5. Our cash cow or I would like to say our bread and butter was traffic abstracts. We would go into a state and sew that angle up ASAP. We would provide a FTP site where companies such as Choicepoint and LexisNexis could come and drop a electronic traffic abstract request file. For those of you who do not know what a traffic abstract is it is a report that lists someone's traffic violations and sometimes their accidents. It is used by insurance companies in determining how much to charge you for your automotive coverage. It is also used sometimes in background checks.

Anyway, the idea is create a way for smaller businesses to request the traffic abstract through you. These smaller businesses include small insurance offices and local businesses who have drivers. You would tack on a additional processing fee on to the standard legal fee. So if your state or county charges $10 for a traffic abstract you can tack on an additional $5. Or whatever you wish. I have seen some sites who rank high for getting abstracts and replacement driver's licenses in certain geographical areas. You will want to select an area that has a large transient population. Say near military bases, consultants, and major tech areas.

Once you have your area and your site go to town and market it. One site I saw charges $65 to request a traffic abstract. The markup on that was over $58. Your target audience is people who have left the state/county and need an important document such as a traffic abstract or driver's license replacement.

In our situation, we provided the FTP site and tacked on $2 per requested record. We did 2000 records per work day. All we did was write checks. The FTP site and script handled everything. If you can get a set-up where you are between choicepoint and the state/county dept you will be able to make some nice cash. You will want to have some good agreements in place and if anyone is serious I might be willing to share the docs we used as starting point.

Again this is just a basic idea and you will need to research it further to see if it can be lucrative for you. It was for us if you do the math above. Our scale may not be obtainable but on a more smaller scale where you offer traffic abstract requests to jonQpublic it can be a nice recurring cash cow.

More ideas to follow.
 


techustle said:
Ok got sometime to whip out another idea for all of ya while I install HD Express3.5. Our cash cow or I would like to say our bread and butter was traffic abstracts. We would go into a state and sew that angle up ASAP. We would provide a FTP site where companies such as Choicepoint and LexisNexis could come and drop a electronic traffic abstract request file. For those of you who do not know what a traffic abstract is it is a report that lists someone's traffic violations and sometimes their accidents. It is used by insurance companies in determining how much to charge you for your automotive coverage. It is also used sometimes in background checks.

Anyway, the idea is create a way for smaller businesses to request the traffic abstract through you. These smaller businesses include small insurance offices and local businesses who have drivers. You would tack on a additional processing fee on to the standard legal fee. So if your state or county charges $10 for a traffic abstract you can tack on an additional $5. Or whatever you wish. I have seen some sites who rank high for getting abstracts and replacement driver's licenses in certain geographical areas. You will want to select an area that has a large transient population. Say near military bases, consultants, and major tech areas.

Once you have your area and your site go to town and market it. One site I saw charges $65 to request a traffic abstract. The markup on that was over $58. Your target audience is people who have left the state/county and need an important document such as a traffic abstract or driver's license replacement.

In our situation, we provided the FTP site and tacked on $2 per requested record. We did 2000 records per work day. All we did was write checks. The FTP site and script handled everything. If you can get a set-up where you are between choicepoint and the state/county dept you will be able to make some nice cash. You will want to have some good agreements in place and if anyone is serious I might be willing to share the docs we used as starting point.

Again this is just a basic idea and you will need to research it further to see if it can be lucrative for you. It was for us if you do the math above. Our scale may not be obtainable but on a more smaller scale where you offer traffic abstract requests to jonQpublic it can be a nice recurring cash cow.

More ideas to follow.
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sweet.
 
In our state the unclaimed property data was available on a DVD and was very cheap to purchase. If I recall correctly, it was $28. It was updated once a month.

The basic overall strategy with govt data is to go and walk around the physical locations of your local state and county govt buildings. Look at the type of people waiting in line, research what data is available electronically (on the web and other mediums), and lastly build a govt portal or govt related website for your state or county.

I am unable to update any of the posts above so wanted to throw out another tidbit for Idear#4. Annual business filings. Registered businesses usually have to file some type of annual filing yearly or quarterly. Build a app to to do it electronically and submit it to the local govt agency. This is recurring income that only grows. If you build the web app correctly such as a subscription based service you could hit their credit card every year for the annual filing processing fee. The number of users only grows and grows.

Another important topic to keep in mind and research is "electronic signatures". A lot of govt filing docs have a requirement of some sort of signature or mark. So you will need to research your state and county laws on what is acceptable. In smaller states it is the wild west since there is sometimes nothing in place. A larger or more technology focused state will have laws that directly answer the topic of electronic signature. For us we could take a name that someone typed into our so called electronic signature text field. It was good enough.

Got many more topics and stuff about govt data at the state/county level. Will continue to add to this thread. All I ask that if you do something and succeed send me a PM so I can know that someone made use of this info. Also if you would like for me to check out your apps, or bounce ideas off feel free to PM me.

There gold in them govt departments you just need to work at it. Because most govt workers are not working hard as you can guess (just my personal impression in working this govt web app field for over 5 years). They are usually concerned about their fellow workers getting to many smoke breaks or what is for lunch.
 
Just looked at some of the old stuff I worked on and realized another tidbit for a traffic generator. This one can be done by someone with some web design skills. At the county level most have a website of some sort. The quality of the website is dependent on who works at the county, how much the county has, and the population size of the county. Of course the population size is the root. Anyway, the idea is build a better website with their content. You are basically building a county portal with their content. What you might do differently is the structure. So for example in govt world they see everything as departments and divisions. But to JonQPublic he just wants to start a business. JonQPublic has an action or actions he wishes to conduct with the county. He does not know that the county tax dept handles the processing of business vehicle loading zone parking passes.

One suggesting is to build menu items in your website with calls to action. The hope is the visitor will see that and say hey that is what I am trying to do. You can even do that with just information. Mix the govt website info into a specific common actionable item. Again, you are going to need to know how your local govt is structured as well as what they do.

In my next update I will share some of the "free" apps that generated us traffic but no money. We did not monetize so that is why we did not. But with some ad$ense or affiliate offers you would be set.
 
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^^^ This is a golden post right here. Most of the smaller, underfunded municipalities are sadly deficient in web talent. Shouldn't be too hard for a good php guy to run a Smarty template based site and get good SERP position
 
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