
Startup ideas spreadsheet - igul222
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag-R_ZlGO21NdE9HSWRkbjNyUGRxS2JIV3NxYVdiaXc
======
kintamanimatt
Having skimmed through the summaries, the general trend is they're trying to
solve a non-existent problem, or a problem that isn't painful enough that
people would be willing to pay to solve. I mean, who wants to pay for their
Facebook statuses to be backed up? They're about as valuable as old voicemails
and the threat of loss isn't palpable.

There's a lesson to be learned in all of this: don't think about ways to make
money, but think about painful problems that you can solve for someone, and
figure out whether a viable business can be created with that idea.

~~~
samrat
Maybe a "painful problems" spreadsheet would be more appropriate.

This reminds me of something Paul Graham called "sitcom startup ideas" in a
recent post.

~~~
kintamanimatt
I'm not necessarily sure why anybody in their right mind would create such a
thing and share it! Ideas are less valuable than execution, but ideas are
valuable nonetheless!

People should really be solving their own painful problems anyway (always
better to be your own customer!) whose solutions can in some way be
successfully and profitably exchanged for money.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> I'm not necessarily sure why anybody in their right mind would create such a
> thing and share it!

Best startup ideas are about solving real problems. Some people care about
problems getting solved, whether or not they are the ones doing the solving.
Keep in mind that no one has enough time to try and solve all the problems at
once. So if you see something wrong that needs to be fixed, and you don't have
time to do it yourself (because you're busy fixing something else), why not
just share it with people, so that someone else might work on it, thus helping
to make our world a better place?

~~~
kintamanimatt
That's reasonable however I've always been of the opinion that it's better to
solve a problem when _you_ have the problem and are feeling the pain, rather
than implementing someone's idea in the abstract. It always seems that the
people who are really solving their own painful problems capture a market.

Maybe other people are better at implementing someone else's idea than me and
I'm just viewing the world through Matt-colored glasses.

------
jaredsohn
Original post from almost three years ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974>

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runako
My favorite blindingly obvious business plan straight from HN discussions:
(insert non-US country X here) clone of (insert successful US-only business
that HNers constantly whine about not being in country X).

Examples: Stripe for Norway, Twilio for New Zealand, etc.

~~~
trevorcreech
This is exactly how the Samwer brothers are making boatloads of money:
[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-29/the-
germany-...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-29/the-germany-
website-copy-machine)

------
wgx
Can't face the copy/paste, but I should add my 'idea dump' posts:
<http://willgrant.org/category/idea-dump/>

~~~
sdqali
I liked your "Git for everyone idea".

But thinking about it a bit more, this idea can be split into:

1\. Collaborative editing - Google Docs already allows this to some extend.

2\. Document history - Tools like MS Word already does this to some extend.
There is still a lot of room for improvement.

3\. Using Git as a document store - Is Git really needed for this? Even if the
system was backed by Git, would not it be better if the whole Git related
parts are hidden from the user? Even if the system uses Git as the store, in
order to present changesets that are meaningful to the user, the system will
have to process the Git changesets. So why use Git?

------
sterna
Phosphorus recovery is an important problem indeed, but there already exists a
solution:

[http://www.grontmij.com/highlights/water-and-
energy/Pages/pe...](http://www.grontmij.com/highlights/water-and-
energy/Pages/pearl-phosphorus-recovery-waste-water.aspx)

The main problem at the moment is a lack of incentives to use it at waste
water treatment plants, but I guess this will come with increasing Phosphorus
prices. Still it would be beneficial to start recovering more Phosphorus
already now but this is a political issue rather than an Engineering issue in
my opinion.

------
ChuckMcM
This would be an excellent application of the Slant [1] concept. Basically
create a topic which is the idea, with sub topics for the other columns and
then debate them. Then layer on a searchable UX so that different concepts
could be tagged and located and correlated. Boom, community curated web site
of startup ideas with history.

[1] http:://slant.co/

(I personally have nothing to do with Slant just find it an interesting way to
capture a debate like the ones in the spreadsheet into a more structured form)

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chmike
Where can we vote and comment ?

Make a website to list, vote and discuss business idea should be first on the
document. :)

~~~
icebraining
It has a field for Community Feedback. I'm not sure what would be the purpose
of voting, though.

~~~
chmike
Sorting by "relevancy"

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realrocker
<http://www.reddit.com/r/startupideas/>. Nothing is on it though. We can use
it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Seems to be moderated; I submitted a link but it's not there. My guess is
people will forget about it before the moderator gets around to see new
submissions, and thus the subreddit will remain abandoned.

~~~
alanctgardner2
If you're really dedicated, you can check the Admin's reddit activity and
potentially usurp them as an admin. I know a few people who have taken Reddits
by force.

edit: To clarify, there is a reddit dedicated to this; I think it's
adminrequests. You can ask the admins to remove mods or close dormant reddits.
It's standard procedure, no kneecapping or anything required.

~~~
jeremyjh
Stone cold operators huh?

------
MasterScrat
I like the "date someone with similar interests" idea, but I'd rather see an
app to make new friends.

Give your Twitter/FB/IMDb/last.fm usernames, and you'd see the list of people
with common interests around you. You could disable this "social mode" when
you don't want people bothering you.

The app would provide the perfect conversation opener, eg a recent news item
about something you both like.

~~~
halixand
I'm working on an app very similar to this. Should be ready in the very near
future :)

------
randomsearch
Glancing at a selection of these ideas, many have already been done.

A big part of starting a business is ensuring that you do your market research
right, know your competitors and identify what need you are fulfilling.

Some examples:

* "Share your wifi" - see <http://www.btfon.com> \- this started years ago and is back by a huge telecommunications company.

* Checking browser and O/S versions - <https://browserlab.adobe.com/en-us/index.html>

* Anonymous email - <http://www.sendanonymousemail.net> etc.

* Online image editing... <http://www.photoshop.com> etc.

RS

~~~
geori
_surprise, surprise_ hacker news is a great place to crowdsource market
research. I had a fun time looking through the list but I can't edit the
comments on the Google Doc.

And since I can't edit: "Crowd-sourced shipping" has been done.
<http://www.uship.com> in Austin has been doing this for 5+ years.

------
evolve2k
I'm thinking this would work better in a stack exchange thread, then we all
don't have to read crappy ideas like the pyramid scheme lotto and people could
easily upvote and comment on each idea (one idea per post style).

~~~
chmike
Yes, sort by various criteria.

------
evv
The high traffic is preventing me from entering an idea of mine. The problem
is one I personally experience: I don't have time to archive and manage all of
the content I want to have digitized.

Mass-media conversion service:

Send in DVDs, CDs, tapes, records, hard drives, iPods, photos, documents,
books, (almost anything), to have digitized. Make all digitized content
browsable on a web interface.

Allow multiple data export methods such as web availability, as well as hard-
drive send-in/purchase. Make data as accessible as possible. Think of the
service like Earth Class Mail for digital archives.

~~~
tlb
How much do people want it? For people to use your new service, they would
have to:

\- find you online, shop around to find the best service

\- trust an unknown startup with their data

\- pay a fair price

\- put their media in a box, put stamps on it, put it in the mail

\- keep track of an account & password

Although you say you want it yourself, I gather you haven't even done step 1
(there are several such services already). So find out how many people really
want this thing so badly that they'll do all the steps. If those people exist,
they'll be doing some painful version of it today.

~~~
evv
Yes, with all these barriers to entry, I think people will still want it. I
would be happy to pack up my tapes and disks and put stamps on a package if I
knew I would never see it again and my memories are safe.

What services are out there that do this? I can only find a handfull of
conversion companies, but none which offer online access. These services seem
to specialize on either video or audio, but what about both? What about
documents or arbitrary digital media which I would like to consolidate?

And yes, I _would_ trust a trendy startup with this task, much like I decided
to trust Dropbox about 5 years ago. I doubt I am the only one who could be
convinced with a nice website and a decent video.

------
netcan
Thanks. Just the process of reading a list and thinking about the reasons why
things will/won't work & how is very helpful for starting to think of ideas.
Also what makes these unique.

------
jcs
Fun to see this pop up again.

Original: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974> (almost 3 years ago)

------
gogatsby
How many of us that keep an ideas notebook have similar ideas to these?

I add to my idea notebook a couple of times a week without judgment of the
idea itself. I do this as a bit of melon training, encouraging creative
thinking. The fun part is reviewing these ideas. Finding an idea you had that
resonates in someone else's successful startup is cool. More than anything
else it reminds me that implementation is key, the idea is the catalyst.

------
zupreme
OP,

This is superb. I'm sure all of us have an Evernote notebook, spreadsheet, or
text file with startup or app ideas (if you don't, you should) but most of us
also keep these lists top-secret for fear that somebody else will steal
billion dollar idea #1023 right out from under us.

It takes alot of courage and openness to share your list in this way. For
this, you have earned my respect and appreciation.

Thanks.

------
shrikanthr
Most of these "ideas" are neat apps, but i don't see how they are startup
ideas. A startup is a business, has a LOT more to do with a productivity app.

Are these just nice, potentially open-source able apps? I would agree with
that. I think the valley, is suffering in realizing the difference b/w apps
and companies! :)

------
rbirnie
The "double index stock fund" - The stock market doesn't sleep it just closes.
It opens the next day at a different value than what it closed based on any
new information.

"Lock your savings into the housing market, so you don't get priced out!" -
REIT

------
glomph
There is also <http://www.reddit.com/r/somebodymakethis> which from reading
these has at least some overlap.

------
keph
What do people think about the "Imaging REST API" idea? It seems all the
needed infrastructure exists (AWS, etc), are there any services like this
already?

~~~
trevorcreech
Blitline is doing it: <http://www.blitline.com/>

------
swah
Had one yesterday: provide/sell cheaper/"fixed price" dollars on the fly for
foreigners buying stuff in USD, just-in-time.

------
culshaw
The traffic from this must have crashed Gmail

------
vijayr
"Viewing in simple list mode due to high traffic to this document." - HN
traffic can stress _even_ Google? :)

------
huhtenberg
It wants me log in with a Google account that I don't have. Can remove this
requirement?

------
hayksaakian
Are all of these recent or was this posted a long time ago before?

~~~
davidhperry
It must have some age on it, since I'm seeing some Google Wave URLs in there.

~~~
mikle
"Date a document" service that tries to understand when something on the
internet was written according to slang popularity (like YOLO=recent), sites
that have closed or lost popularity (like wave, digg). products mentioned and
other heuristics.

------
aviswanathan
"Good artists copy, great artists steal"

------
manglav
What's the source of this? Anyone know?

------
allbombs
how does one add ideas to this spreadsheet?

------
adv0r
"We provide a lottery where you get just as much back as you put in (on
average), as long as you're willing to wait a while. "

Target market : "Socialists, Communists, Poor people "

WTF

~~~
alanctgardner2
This is actually already a thing. Rather than lottery pools, companies have a
collection where people can contribute every week, and at regular intervals it
'pays out' to one person in the pool. Everyone wins in turn, it's effectively
gamifying saving money, combined with the pooling aspect of corporate lottery
buying. It's much more profitable than buying lotto tickets on average,
because there's no outflow. In addition, the money can be stored in a short-
term security, like a monthly rotation of one-year GICs. This requires more
overhead to get started, but then you actually turn a small profit.

That said, I don't know if you could start a company around it. Most of the
point is the social aspect of collecting the money and deciding who 'wins' for
a given week ( I suppose you'd do a lottery from a pool where winners aren't
re-entered)

~~~
cschneid
This idea has been floated before:
[http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/11/18/freakonomics-radio-
co...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/11/18/freakonomics-radio-could-a-
lottery-be-the-answer-to-americas-poor-savings-rate/)

Basically just taking all the interest from the loans, and splitting it up as
payouts in a lottery among everybody who has money saved.

~~~
alanctgardner2
I knew I read it from Levitt somewhere. For better or worse, most of my
knowledge of economics derives from his blog and books. Of course, he
describes it better than I did.

