I don't think I fully understand what your trying to do.

YOu mean you will be a clown provider ..and will be hosting your company website that allows for customized clown request? appearance etc! sounds fun but might gives disappointments to the whining children that expect too much. What ever happen to the element of surprise?

What do you want to do with the designed clown?

How do you guarantee the clowns you provide aren't boozed up and angry? It's not like parents go out and order a drunk clown now is it? Regardless of how you allow the customers to customize the clown, the root of the problem you're trying to solve seems to be how you vet the clowns.

"Ever been disappointed by a booze-soaked clown who hates children?"

Sir, you are TALKING to a booze-soaked clown who hates children. And I'm SOOOO HAPPY to disappoint you!

Are most clowns freelancers? If they're already all sub-contracted then it might be possible to write software to help the clown provider companies narrow down the demands of their clown customers... your opportunities would be kinda narrow, but you might still be able to make a buck.

But if those clowns are typically freelancers, then I'm sure you have a great opportunity to consolidate orders and farm them out to pre-vetted clowns. All sorts of opportunities to clown acquisition optimization.

My ONLY concern is that you make sure YOU don't get sued when one of the clowns you supply loses it and goes on a rampage. (You can't vet perfectly.)

I think micco and gord have a good point. You have no way of guarenteing that your clown isn't booze-soaked. Ever been to work with a drunk co-worker? I have, and there was no way of anyone stopping that from happening.

I've never really booked a clown for a party, they kinda scare me. But if I was booking one, I'm also not sure that people look for specifics when the book a clown (e.g. green hair). Possibly skills like making animal baloons. In general, I think they book freelance clowns based on reputation and word of mouth.

I think noniesaft probably has it right - my guess is that personal recommendations, 'local-ness' and availability on a given day play the biggest parts in people's decisions, and you're not going to affect any of those.

What's the incentive for the (non) booze soaked clown to sign on? I assume that you'd be asking them for a % of their cut. Given that I don't think they're exactly raking in the bucks as it is, you may find that these clowns wouldn't appreciate the increased traffic/decrease $ trade off that you'd be proposing

Could be a niche site, but doesn't have huge potential.

You would have to wrangle up some serious clown networking in order to get clowns available worldwide to actually make this happen. I assume you would want to start out with a specific local area, but as said above, you still can't really guarantee that your clown won't be "boozed up." I think the business of clown-pimp will have to wait for web 3.0.

web3.0 for this, are you serious guys?

Do people even hire clowns anymore ? I thought all the kids wanted to go to arcades now days.

Wow - thanks for the input on this idea I thought was somewhat ridiculous. I am going to revamp it based on your feedback.

Guys seriously you overthought this it is a simple idea and very creative and its technology brought into the clown room, it would be a revolution for clowns worldwide no more long driving sales calls just stay at home with a high quality nikon D80

Whoa Raspyman, you changed the idea text right? To me it looks like you've changed the idea so much it would have been better to submit a new idea, and not re-submit the old idea in another tournament. It looks like everyone who left a comment is talking crazy.