Four years ago, my friend AV and I began discussing a number of entrepreneurial ideas, which began as a way to kill slow times at work and later included “I JUST WOKE UP AND THOUGHT OF A BETTER NAME” texts.

These ideas were unlikely to ever happen (one was a luxury hotel), but that didn’t stop us from letting our creative minds run with them.

The best one was a food truck-like service that would deliver over-the-counter medicine, soup and other things that would make you feel better when sick.  The target audience was primarily single people who would otherwise not have someone around to make a trip to CVS for them when sickness struck.

One early name possibility was “What U Need” (or perhaps “What U Need?”):

But eventually we settled on one that more distinctly called out that this was the kind of service that was on the move and ready to come to you at any moment: Heal Mobile.

That second part?  That’s why we never did it.  Well, the most glaring reason, at least.  You need money, and we had none, so our business ideas were reliant on a side strategy of winning the lottery.  The most we’ve ever won in limited attempts is $2, so no luck on that front yet.

As with any good idea though, it was only a matter of time before someone else did it.  And this month, AV sent me this from Uber, who became that someone:

They call it Uber Essentials, and it’s everything we planned plus a few extras.  For instance, we didn’t envision offering Christmas lights or Hanukkah candles during the holidays.

How did we take the news that our not-really-happening venture had been usurped by a competitor who had a much better infrastructure in place to carry it out?  Not well.

 On to the next one.