I know it is valuable, but I can't find anyone to pay me too gather it.
Maybe you can combine existing databases? For instance: that company (Locatus) recently made a new 'product', which they called the Retail Risk Index: by analyzing companies moving in and out of retail properties and combining it with other databases (which you can buy, man) they calculated (among other things) how long a retail company will survive. So: there's a new shop opening, and according to the value of the property, the amount of times it has moved of ownership in the last decade and the quality of the street, how likely is this shop to succeed? Approach a bank. Tell them you can tell what retail properties in their portfolio are good and which are large risks. Then, buy the necessary data. Profit?
Just, shoot the CEO an email or what? How do I know who in an organization like that makes those kinds of decisions? Usually it's a committee. I have this dream scenario where I have a team of like 3-4 other guys/gals, spend Mon-thurs out in the field, gathering data, talking to people, Friday grouping up and conducting analysis and making our data sell-able.Approach a bank.
Well I don't know the details on how to start it all up, there's no guidebook. You need to get creative yourself. What I do know is that useful (geo)data analysis is valuable and that if you think you can do better than companies out there, by all means do. Find out who you'd want to help, what you want to tell them and how you're gonna get the data and a solid argumentation, numbers that are representative and useful in a combination that suits your goal. Then find the smallest part you can monetize to get closer to your goal. I heard the story -whether it's true, I don't know, but that doesn't really matter - about Richard Branson, who wanted to start his own airline company. Tough start, right? But he figured he had to start somewhere. He wanted to make some progress, so he figured out the smallest thing he could do to get him closer to his goal. The 1%. He figured that he could go to airports, rent a plane and offer delayed customers to fly them there himself if they split the cost +10% for him. If you really, really want to do this, find the first step. Keep that end goal in mind, but realize that it is far away and not something you can achieve easily. There aren't people waiting in line to throw money at you. There may be corporations interested in good statistical data analysis.
I'm working from practically 0 starting capitol. I still go to school full time and will be until at least the end of next fall semester at the earliest. I'm in love with the idea, but I'm one man, with almost 0 resources and very little time. I know I sound defeatist, but I can't see a realistic way to get started. If I dropped everything else and started today I would guess I'm at least 8 months away from a useful product/dataset.