Author: Ian Park

Ian Park is the editor of Exploding Ideas. He started his career at a media group, where he sometimes worked on small digital projects, and went on to build and sell two small SaaS businesses of his own. He read Exploding Ideas for months before taking it over. Here he writes about the new economies that form around a shift in behavior, technology or regulation, the customers they create, and which businesses around them are worth building.

  • Outdoor Business Ideas

    ByIan Park

    Outdoor businesses split into two kinds: services tied to property, which recur and can be contracted, and experiences tied to weather and tourism, which do not. Property services are the ones that survive winter. Experience businesses earn more per customer but concentrate their entire year into a few months, which is a cash flow problem…

  • Paint Business Ideas

    ByIan Park

    Paint businesses fall into three categories that share nothing but the material: services, where you paint for clients and sell labour by the day; products, where you make or sell paint and paint-adjacent goods and compete on shelf and shipping; and experiences, where paint is entertainment and you sell an event. Each has a different…

  • Pickleball Business Ideas

    ByIan Park

    Pickleball business ideas fall into five groups: equipment and apparel, facilities, coaching and events, software, and content. Facilities carry the highest capital cost and the clearest local moat. Software and coaching are the cheapest to start. The opportunity exists because US participation reached 24.3 million players in 2025, up 22.8% in a year, while court…