When I was 8 or 9, my grandmother used to take me yard selling. We’d get the newspaper on Friday afternoon and make our plan. We’d pick which ones were the best, and plan the schedule around them.
We would map out all of them and make an order we’d hit them, the best ones we’d hit as early as possible. I remember waking up when it was still dark and getting to the best yard sale by 7 AM so we’d get the pick of the best stuff.
Fast forward about 20 years.
I have gone yard selling a few times in my adult life… most of the time by accident. I’d just drive by and see a sign, so I’d stop to see if there was anything good. Most of the time, the good stuff was gone because someone got there early.
This morning I woke up at 4:30 like I usually do and worked for several hours. Wrote a few blog posts, worked on a couple websites, had some coffee, got ready. Then I decided to see if there were any yard sales. I hit the road, filled up with gas and grabbed a biscuit. I pulled up the newspaper website with my iPhone. I jotted down some of the better looking addresses and mapped them using Google Maps.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find any good stuff… the only thing I bought was a $0.50 book. But it got me reminiscing about when I was a kit yard selling with my grandmother. And it gave me an idea…
I got an idea for a web application that’s a mashup of other web services like classifieds, Google Maps, and of course, yard sales. I actually thought about it a while back too, and just dismissed it as another one of those ideas I’d never actually do. But I think it might be a pretty good idea… and am going to look into a bit more.