Steemit is growing rapidly and you could have your slice of it, if you build what needs building. There is a whole ecosystem of services that is desperate to grow.
Please steal these ideas and make them happen. I'm a merely a good writer.
1- Direct Steem & Steem Dollar Exchange with Fiat Money
Currently to cash out your Steem earnings you need to exchange them into bitcoins, then sell the bitcoins. Let's bypass bitcoin. Instead you could create something like LocalBitcoins.com - where traders could buy and sell Steem directly for Pounds, Euros or Dollars.
2- Freelancer Hiring Network Like Upwork Steemit could offer a marketplace to hire freelancers, paying in Steem Dollars. You would have designers, artists, coders, writers, videographers, inventors... all on demand to help with your projects.
3- Steem Debit Card to let you withdraw and spend Steem Dollars at places that won't accept Steem Dollars yet. A.k.a. most of the world. This is overdue. I looked into it, and has taken it further
4- Steem Charity Like Justgiving, there could be a site that let you donate to good causes. It could feature the best stories and most-impactful projects. It could offer writing services to help charities tell the stories they need to earn donations.
5- Steembay Like Ebay, for auctions in Steem Dollars.
6- Steem remittances This is likely linked to number one. But wrote about how Western Union and other large money-transfer companies screw over the world's poor for $16 billion per year. Steem could cut those fees to a fraction of that.
7- Steemstarter. Like Kickstarter but funded with Steem dollars. It could be used to fund new products, services and activism. Steemit's reputation system here would help keep founders accountable.
8- Steemlist Like Craiglist for local for-sale ads and services, but paid in Steem Dollars
9- Steem friendmaker/matchmaker service. This analyses all your Steemit voting and writing data. Then it matches you up with people who've voted on the same articles. These can be your new friends and potential dates.
10- Steemit for N00bs guide. Steemit has a lot of friction to join it. It's very confusing for your average joe. We need to have an explanatory page or two by for new users. Perhaps using material from the Steemit 101 book. If that doesn't happen you could create your own short, explanatory website, explaining how and what Steemit is.
11- SteemBNB Like Airbnb, but paid in Steem Dollars. It would make the bonds closer between our community, if we stay in each other's spare rooms and couches. Or it could function like Swapnights which is aimed at getting you to have guests sometimes, and going away sometimes too.
12- Stetsy. Like Etsy, but in Steem Dollars. Artists and crafty people here could sell their creations to others.
13- Stuber. Like Uber, but again, in Steem Dollars. Taxi rides for Steem members means we could help each other out, and those who can drive but who aren't talented writers, can earn what they need.
14- Steem Art Marketplace. Place your artwork for sale, and showcase your body of work. As we become a wealthier bunch of people we'll want to fill our houses with community-made art.
15- Steemit internal Marketing & PR agency. You could promote all the projects that others are making (for a fee) - reach out to other bloggers, members and help it all get traction. This isn't necessary yet, but as Steemit becomes more crowded, people will pay a premium to be seen.
16- Steem houses/hacker houses. When I was in San Francisco I saw a few hacker houses. Typically these were guys 16-24 with bad hygiene and amazing coding skills working on startups. I'd prefer better conditions... but I'm sure some of us would be up for housesharing. We could have a few houses worldwide and pay a membership rent, and are able to move between them. This would let us all have location independence and also create new bonds/ideas/possibilities as we live and work together.
17- Steem experience days Everyone's heard spend your money on experiences, not things... well why not create something like Red Letter Days but where you can pay with Steem Dollars. Spa days, helicopter trips, hot air balloons, supercar-driving - all these things could be at our fingertips.
18- Steemship spaceship. OK, this is a little far-fetched. But we could work with SpaceX and Elon Musk to have a Steem-funded spaceship and sell the tickets in Steem Dollars.
19- Steem courses. Like Udemy, but where members offer to teach skills and courses for Steem Dollars. The reason this could be more successful on a Steem based platform is that if people have the disposable income from articles - they're more likely to spend.
20- Steemstacart Delivers groceries to your door, paid in Steem Dollars.
21- Steemit translation/editing. Many good writers here don't have English as their first language and miss out on attention and upvotes. In exchange for editing and sharpening their English-language articles. You could charge a percentage of the article's earnings for your work.