More than 30 years ago, during a business studies lesson, I became obsessed with something they called the Internet.
In that lesson, we learned about hyperlinks and how they could take you to other websites. I couldn’t get enough of FrontPage, which, back then, was website-building software.
After everybody had held up their wired mice (or mouses; apparently both are correct) to prove they hadn’t removed the rubber tracking balls from inside them (the oldest I have ever sounded), I stayed behind to ask my teacher a question.
We received a lot of takeaway leaflets through our door every week. Would the internet be able to combine them all into one website instead of using so much paper? Rather than phoning to place an order, could it be sent to the restaurant electronically? It would also mean not having to keep calling whenever the line was engaged.
My business studies teacher asked why I was asking the question. She then told me it wouldn’t work for things such as food and asked whether I had any questions about the homework she had set.
I knew she didn’t know.
I completed her homework, but I also set to work on my own!
If takeaway restaurants saw potential in my idea, they could put their menus on the website. Customers could then visit the site, select the food they wanted and enter their address.
Take Action on the Takeaways!
Having only a typewriter at home was devastating now that I had this knowledge, and so:
- I spent most of my lunch breaks in the business studies classroom, familiarising myself with this internet thing.
- I made a list of every takeaway restaurant in my town, crossed off those whose leaflets we had already received and cycled to the rest on my BMX to ask for one.
- Using my flatbed scanner, I scanned and uploaded the front and back of every leaflet or menu. I added links to the images and individual menu items, then created a form that would send the information to the restaurant.
- I tested it using my own email address. It worked.
I was twelve years old.
Even now, as I write this, the excitement of the idea is still there.
Things obviously changed very quickly as the internet grew bigger by the day. Nowadays, there are a few people giving it a go.
To be clear, I’m not claiming ownership of the global online takeaway-ordering industry (which I obviously invented) but it taught me a valuable lesson that has stayed with me.
You don’t need everybody to understand your idea. You don’t need permission to test it, either. Start with whatever you have, even if that happens to be a typewriter at home, a school computer and a BMX bike.
If you have an idea, do something with it.