Fahd Jleid
Al-Jazirah
AN advertisement on one of the Internet websites caught my attention. It was titled: "A project idea for sale".
The advert was placed by someone who claimed to be a young man. He said the project he is offering for sale will generate monthly profits of more than SR20,000 and will only cost about SR200,000.
The alleged young man said the profits are guaranteed depending on the strength of the executor's public relations.
This was a very tempting offer. I began seriously searching the matter only to find out that there were plenty of such advertisements on the Internet. Actually there is a booming electronic market for the ideas.
I contacted some addresses just out of curiosity. All of a sudden one advertiser called me to say he does have an idea of a commercial project that is highly feasible.
He said the profits of his project are guaranteed but his role is only to present the idea and explain it against a certain amount of money to be agreed upon before hand.
I asked him about some details so as to be able to evaluate the idea but he said he cannot do this on telephone. He also said he cannot reveal his idea for free without payment guarantees.
He told me openly that just sitting with me in a coffee shop to explain the idea will cost me SR2,000 whether I liked the idea or not.
Here I started to doubt the entire project. A scene in a TV soap opera produced in 1977 came to my mind. In that scene, an investor started marking an idea to invest in the Pyramids and the Sphinx. He offered to sell them to the Kuwaitis who "weight transfer" them from Egypt to their country.
The ideas-selling market may be new to us in Saudi Arabia but it is not new to the other Arab countries who opened the markets for selling project ideas long time ago.
The market of idea selling is not subject to legal controls or guarantees. It is always surrounded with suspicions of theft, forgery and conning.
Though this market could be considered a platform for exchanging ideas between the young men and the businessmen who may turn the ideas into profitable projects, yet the guarantees between the two sides are almost nonexistent.
We do not have a legal or ethical mechanism for selling a certain idea. Naturally there are no guarantees for the rights of neither the seller nor the buyer. The worrying aspect here is that such a market may be a platform for the crooks to make dough.
I think I have an idea of a feasible project that could be implemented by serious buyers. This project is extremely profitable and it can generate huge sums of money.
However, I am not willing to reveal my idea for free. It will cost any interested buyer SR1,000 an hour. Of course, the time the explanation of the idea may take depends on the power of perception on the part of the buyer.
So calculate how much time you will take to absorb my idea, prepare your money accordingly and then come to me for the detailed explanation.
