Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard? - plaban123
======
JackFr
Crowdsourcing vigilantism (or random violent assault) - whoneedsabeating.com -
snap a photo with your phone, location is tagged and timestamped, optional
tweet with why the subject needs a beating.

For free subscriber's beat-down requests are published only with city, photo
and reason. Paid subscribers get street address published with beat-down
request.

~~~
telephonetemp
How would you know who delivered the beating? Was there supposed to be a
reward for that person?

On a related note, has anyone actually tried building a cypherpunk-style
assassination market?

~~~
DanBC
"Happy slap" style video clips with some kind of cryptographic signing?

------
jasonlotito
The stupidest idea I have heard was Twitter.

After that, I changed the way I thought.

~~~
GalacticDomin8r
Considering the amount of stupidity on Twitter, I'd say you weren't too far
off the mark.

~~~
kamaal
What people do with X, has nothing to say about X.

People use knife to cook food, but also use to same to commit murder.

~~~
GalacticDomin8r
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/10/correlation_does_not_imply_causation_how_the_internet_fell_in_love_with_a_stats_class_clich_.html)

------
drharris
For awhile, it was Twitter. Then someone came out with the idea of a Twitter
you pay for (App.net), and since then it's been at the top of my list. Even
when they're both making billions, I'll still believe they're stupid.

------
_blaise_
The Socialist Network. Everyone has the same number of comrades.

~~~
gametheoretic
Would you be explaining the joke if you were to note that no non-trivial
solutions exist for n?

~~~
telephonetemp
For any fixed odd number of friends k you could keep the network consistent by
only allowing people to join in groups (call them "cells") of m, where m is
even and greater than k.

(Explanation:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_graph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_graph))

~~~
gametheoretic
"Sorry, Gary. Come talk to me when you have 558 friends. Gare? I'm sorry,
Gare, those are the rules. Everyone has to be equal. It doesn't matter if
you'll never have 558 friends and I only had to find 32. Everyone's equal!
Don't you see, Gary! Gary? Gare? What are you doing. Sic semper what?
Aughhhh."

------
damon_c
My gf wants to make a mobile app that helps homeless/impoverished people share
good dumpster eating locations.

~~~
pkfrank
I actually feel like there could be significant value in something _like_
this.

Imagine a platform where restaurants, bakeries, anyone with excess food that
would otherwise go to waste, could get "points" for availing that excess
inventory to those in need. It might be similar to the model used by Shelter
Partnership
([http://www.shelterpartnership.org/](http://www.shelterpartnership.org/)).

In a nutshell, they solicit donations from major manufacturers (think Johnson
& Johnson, et. al.) for totally-usable products that can't be sold on store
shelves for whatever reason - i.e. a typo on the packaging. They provide some
receipt giving J&J the opportunity to seek some tax benefit for the donation
at a discount of the retail-price, and needy people get the products for free.

I don't see a compelling reason why something _like_ this couldn't work in
major metro areas. Bakeries could get some off-set for donating bread; grocery
stores could get some off-set for donating otherwise-spoiling fruits and
veggies, etc.

~~~
potatolicious
I like the idea, physical distribution will be the problem though. Most stores
don't mind donating things to the needy that would go to waste otherwise - but
no one wants to have the homeless congregate around their store chasing away
business.

There would be substantial value for this to exist in addition, or in
cooperation, with food banks.

~~~
pkfrank
Definitely would need cooperation with food banks / other charities in order
to handle distribution. It's important that i) the homeless folks aren't
chasing away business, and ii) that you aren't supplying a population of
potential customers turned dumpster-divers (i.e. physical separation from the
location).

I could see this being a valuable tool for food banks to build relationships
with willing-entities that otherwise wouldn't want to bother with setting up
the relationship and keeping track of items donated.

If it were very simple:

\- Bakery downloads App "Free Food"

\- Plug in estimated donation

\- Get matched with a willing food bank

\- Pictures to confirm donation from both parties

\- Some agreed-upon "value" (points) for said donation

\- Food bank takes and re-distributes

Win-Win-Win

Bakery does good and maybe gets some benefit; Food bank gets more food (as
long as the collection ROI makes sense); and hungry people eat food that would
otherwise end up in the trash.

FYI, I wrote about this idea very briefly way back when:
[http://peterkimfrank.com/2013/01/21/doing-well-by-doing-
good...](http://peterkimfrank.com/2013/01/21/doing-well-by-doing-good/)

------
meshko
"Make a web page where all the students of our college can post their pictures
and talk to each other!" (proposed to me by a classmate in May of 2000)

------
workhere-io
Color
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs)).
The idea behind the app was flawed (as in "why would anyone need this?"), and
they made no attempt to hide the fact that the underlying idea was
datamining/advertisement.

~~~
sim0n
I don't think Color is a terrible idea. The concept of group photo
collaboration, where many people who don't know each other can contribute to
the same photo album (i.e. during an event/etc) isn't that bad. Their
execution for the ludicrous amount of money they raised was most definitely
embarrassing though.

------
jacquesm
SpinDisp (65)

[http://jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+January+2011+edition](http://jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+January+2011+edition)

I should do another one of these, it's been way too long.

------
imwhimsical
[http://dcurt.is/what-a-stupid-idea](http://dcurt.is/what-a-stupid-idea)

------
bayesianhorse
Fish Tank Analyzer:

1) Train fish to swim towards some chemical/compound whatever you want to
detect

2) Put valves at different places in the tank, where you can put in the
diluted sample

3) Detect the "swarm opinion" via webcam and computer vision

I never found a good application for this...

------
xauronx
This thread is reminding me of how many ideas I've had that I never went
through on.

Another one: Sponsor a homeless person. Crowd-sourcing getting someones life
back on track. You get 100+ people to pitch in $5 a month to one person they
"adopted". These 100 people have full transparency to how that person spends
the money, can advise and help in other ways . If you see that they withdrew
$50 in cash on a friday night, they have to show a receipt for a valid reason
for doing so, or you can drop out as a sponsor.

Anyhow, it was a stupid idea because people are generally selfish, on both the
giving and receiving end.

------
xauronx
Mine: Rate your barista

You would be able to snap a picture of your barista, put in where they work
and rate them on things like: Skill Speed Attractiveness Friendliness

It all started to feel kind of creepy, because I knew the "attractiveness"
would become the most important thing, then you'd have guys using it as an
excuse to be creepy. Anyhow, there are barista competitions so it seemed like
something worth measuring. Also, a lot of times the quality of the coffee in
many places is on an even playing field and the person making it starts to
become more important. Never went through with it though.

------
slig
Mine: It's based on a Seinfeld episode where George makes up a fake charity
and gives cards to people "A donation has been made in your name to Human
Fund".

Say you want to gift someone but you don't know what they want / don't want to
buy more stuff / etc. So you buy a card that has a message ("Happy Birthday!"
or whatever) and a number of credits associated with it and you give it to
someone. The person, then, can use the credits to give things to non-profits,
like a shirt for the homeless, or some food for a orphanage.

~~~
xauronx
That's not really a terrible idea. Well, except I'm too selfish and would be
pissed if I had to give my birthday gift to someone else. I bet corporations
would love that though. It LOOKS like they're giving the employee a birthday
present but it's actually a tax deductible donation. Win-win.

~~~
dholowiski
Yeah, except it already exists and it's called cash.

~~~
xauronx
What? How is cash relevant to a service that let's you make a donation but
have a recipient choose where it goes?

------
johnmacintyre
I've forgotten my 'stupidest' ideas, but my 'worst' idea was basically to do
what PRISM is doing now. I realized you can infer a hell of a lot from the
bits of information people post publicly and you could aggregate them into a
comprehensive profile. There's obviously a market for this as we all now know,
but I realized how evil it was and that even if it was highly successful, how
shitty would I feel about selling out humanity. ... however, it does still
strike me as a fascinating technical challenge.

~~~
DanBC
People went ahead with it anyway. See, for example, PHORM in the UK.

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm))

> _The company 's proposed advertising system, called Webwise, is a behavioral
> targeting service (similar to NebuAd) that uses deep packet inspection to
> examine traffic. Phorm says the data collected will be anonymous and will
> not be used to identify users, and that their service would even include
> protection against phishing (fraudulent collection of users' personal
> information). Nonetheless, World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee and
> others have spoken out against Phorm for tracking users' browsing habits,
> and the ISP BT Group has been criticised for running secret trials of the
> service._

------
rpm4321
Apparently mine, based on the number of upvotes my Show HN is getting right
now ;)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6374377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6374377)

~~~
imwhimsical
Agreed.

Edit: Maybe that came off as rude, but I really don't get the idea. You pay
somebody for something you want to see done? What?

~~~
rpm4321
No worries, it's a slightly confusing concept. You can basically crowdfund
cash prizes for anything you want to see get done in the world. Teams then
apply for the prize with proof that they've accomplished the prize's goals.

You basically can crowdfund your own X-Prizes.

~~~
imwhimsical
Assuming I want, say somebody to build a new kind of genetically altered
flower, I can ask all my friends and people around the world who would also
like to have this kind of flower to pledge a certain amount of money.

A group of genetic engineers someplace in the world notice that me and my
troop have collectively pledged, say $500k, and the genetic engineers actually
spend some time and make such a flower. They send us a video, and we trust
they've built it. We get flowers, and they get the money.

Am I right?

~~~
rpm4321
Yes, those are the broad strokes. For that prize amount, you would probably
have multiple teams applying for the prize and providing proof of their
accomplishments, and the donors would then vote on whose project best
accomplishes the prize's goals.

------
TheMagicHorsey
App that you use to report empty parking spaces. That earns you karma points.
You can then spend the karma points to get reports of nearby parking spots
when you need them.

------
speeder
Since I advise people that want to make new game companies, I hear A LOT of
those, ordered by stupidity level (all of them are fairly common, although
seemly the most stupid ideas are more popular too).

First place: Make the next World of Warcraft, with only 3 people and no money.

Second place: Make the next Unreal/Quake/Half-Life with 1 programmer, one
artist and no money, for console, in 6 months. (yes, this idea is more common
than you think).

Third place: Make iOS game and get rich quick, without no idea of how, and
hating games in general actually.

Fourth place: Be the idea guy, and makes games only having the idea, and being
so awesome with your ideas that programmers and artists will work to you for
free and accept only 2% of equity in the end.

Fifth place: The same as above, but when said that he would be just a useless
guy, he proposes to be the writer instead, the guy that make the rules (I
still do not understood what being the writer has to do with game design...
but it is fairly common! Even when the person want to make a soccer game, that
has no writing).

Sixth place: the same as the two above, but knowing people won't work for
free, want to sell his idea to Activision for 10 million USD, those are
usually paranoid with NDAs too, and insist me to sign their NDAs before asking
whatever questions they want to ask me.

~~~
xauronx
>Third place: Make iOS game and get rich quick, without no idea of how, and
hating games in general actually.

I like this one. I've gotten that before. "Hey man, you write iPhone apps
right? Let's make a game!" "Haha, alright, what kind of game do you want to
make?" "I don't know, I don't play games on my android. What kinds of games
are making a ton of money on iPhone right now?" "..."

------
pjungwir
1\. Automatic goose-plucking machine. I was walking out of work one evening
around Christmas and had to cross through a flock of Canada geese on the
office park lawn. I thought, "I could just snatch one of these guys, wring his
neck, and have him for dinner, if only I had a way to pluck him." It would
look like a salad spinner, where you add the goose, attach a lid, then turn a
crank. Out comes your plucked goose. Also solves goose overpopulation, so it's
good for the environment.

2\. Rubber trees. Sell them to commercial real estate developers/contractors.
Cheaper than real trees, and less maintenance cost. Just pop them into the
ground! We'd also sell accessories, like attachable bird nests or battery-
powered hooting owls. Premium customers could buy four "styles" of the same
tree, one for each season, and with a support contract we'd swap them out at
appropriate times of year.

3\. Renewable energy. What is the largest source of untapped energy in the
universe? Little children! We'd sell shoes with an integrated battery that
recharges as your kids play. The sole of the shoe contains a standard power
outlet so you can plug in your TV and watch your shows after the kids are in
bed.

~~~
xauronx
1\. Whizbang -
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMGZMoENjcU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMGZMoENjcU)

------
kirubakaran
All ideas that were the seeds for multi-billion dollar companies.

They sounded stupid^W bound to fail at first, especially before seeing the
implementation / impact:

Better search engine with no sponsored listings, seamless sync and backups,
short status updates blasted to your followers, better social network,
animated movies that target adults, online book store (without a book store
experience), $4 lattes ...

Some ideas that sounded awesome and turned out to be awesome:

Open source and breakfast bars.

To be fair, many considered open source to be blindingly stupid -- "Anyone can
edit the source? That would be madness! And why would anyone just contribute
hours and hours of their time? Why do you think Microsoft pays their
programmers so much."

But then, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at
the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -Carl Sagan"

~~~
phaus
Better Search Engine / Better Social Network - By definition, something that's
better than an existing product that's wildly popular isn't stupid. I
personally think that social networks are stupid, but by the time Facebook
came out, it was obvious that most people didn't.

Seamless Sync and Backups - This is an obviously useful concept, we just
needed to wait for the technology to arrive.

Short Status Updates - Agreed.

Animated Movies that Target Adults - Animated movies originally targeted
adults. Also, in Japan they have targeted adults for decades. The small group
of anime fans in America gradually grew into a billion dollar empire. American
companies waited for the business to be lucrative before they started making
their own. How is that stupid?

Online Book Store - Might as well say the entire eCommerce industry is stupid.
Selling stuff on-line is about as obvious and sensible as it gets.

~~~
kirubakaran
> "By definition, something that's better than an existing product that's
> wildly popular isn't stupid", "This is an obviously useful concept, we just
> needed to wait for the technology to arrive."

In retrospect, yes, absolutely. But when you first hear it, having seen many
other attempts, it seems bound to fail or at least don't seem like a billion
dollar idea. Hence the "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

~~~
phaus
It might have been foolish for Facebook if they had started out thinking that
they were guaranteed to dethrone Myspace, but that's not how it happened.

The idea of having all of your stuff get automatically backed up and synced
with all of your devices seemed like a billion dollar idea the first time
someone mentioned it. It just didn't seem feasible until recently. That's not
the same as it being a stupid idea.

------
maxgaudin
Square for homeless people. You can never again say "No, I don't have any
change."

~~~
xauronx
Somewhat relevant... I had an idea to set up accounts for street performers.
If you were near one it would send you a notification, you could easily drop
them a tip through the app. They aggregated in an account somewhere until they
were able to make it to a computer (hell, anyone can go into a library
right?). You can rate people, find where they play, etc. Why not?

------
boredprogrammer
'Lets put qr codes on "welcome to $town" signs than when someone scans them
with their phone, its loads a website advertising various things you can
do/buy/participate in around town.'

------
xutopia
Twitter. I'm not joking either. It is the stupidest startup idea I've ever
heard and yet...

Seriously I'm probably the worst person to ask. Almost every startup idea
sound ridiculous to me.

------
telephonetemp
Heard:

<existing social network> for <pet>

~~~
nlh
I'm going to give this a serious response even though I know you're referring
to a well-known cliche for startup ideas.

I was talking to a fairly smart VC recently and he made a good point -- while
everyone likes to use "Facebook for Cats" as a joke about bad startup ideas,
it's not actually a bad idea.

A lot of people REALLY like their pets. And they spend a lot of money on them.
And they like to share pictures of them with their pet-owning friends (go see
/r/aww if you don't believe me.)

It basically hasn't been done right (yet), but I wouldn't be surprised if
something that looks like Facebook for Pets does actually become a thing at
some point.

~~~
xauronx
[http://packlove.com/optimus-prime](http://packlove.com/optimus-prime)

This website gives customizeable one page profiles for your pets. Seems pretty
heavily used, I signed up one time and I get emails every couple of days
because another user "loved" my pet.

------
trez
I've got a couple of stupid ideas. mine:
[http://www.stamplin.com](http://www.stamplin.com) \- extract text from PDF,
mine again: [http://signup.mealthy.com](http://signup.mealthy.com) \- eat
better

and lot's of other ones.

An idea is always stupid. Few iteration later, it starts to be not that bad.

------
krapp
Years and years ago, I wanted to make an auction site like Ebay, but only for
"haunted" items. So, yeah.

Also, services where you pay someone to digitize your mail. And Lockitron... I
just... these seem like bad ideas waiting to happen.

But then I was sure Twitter was a terrible idea, and I loved the original
format of formspring so what do I know?

------
Mankhool
They are numerous. Almost daily I see things funded that make me shake my
head. Here is the latest
[http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/10/foodiequest/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/10/foodiequest/)

------
plaban123
Mine: replacing business cards

~~~
xauronx
At some point I had the idea for an RFID bracelet. Ideally, it would be
targeted to trade shows. I went to one previously the best tech they had was
these cards that you had to go and manually scan at each booth.

Anyhow, the idea was that each bracelet would have an RFID card, and an RFID
reader. When you shook hands with someone, it would read their ID #. So,
you're not only physically meeting someone, but logging them as someone you
met. When you got back to your hotel that night, you plug it into your
computer and it pulls up everyone's bio (picture, name, company, email
address, etc).

~~~
benjamincburns
Hmm, sounds like an iteration of Bump, but for NFC-enabled smart watches...

------
LouisSayers
That guy on Dragons Den that wanted to save his cucumber ends from drying
out... WTF

[http://uktv.co.uk/dave/article/aid/635224](http://uktv.co.uk/dave/article/aid/635224)

------
rholdy
Read about a startup that recently launched that was claiming to be "Netflix
for Books." We already have that. Its called a Library.

Either that one, or the guy selling fart scented candles on Shark Tank.

------
joncp
Some guy wanted to save the whole internet on his computer and index it.

~~~
ActVen
Not such a bad idea for some:
[http://www.widernet.org/egranary/](http://www.widernet.org/egranary/)

------
kodablah
Coveralls/TravisCI for code reviews w/ self-hosting option. I'm sick of
Crucible and expensive alternatives that don't even work that well these days.

------
namenotrequired
Looking for some "ideas that seem bad" here? ;)
[http://paulgraham.com/swan.html](http://paulgraham.com/swan.html)

------
marknutter
[http://onstaffhobos.com](http://onstaffhobos.com)

------
neethupriya
One man started a movement to have peace all over the world and wanted to
solve problems without bloodshed in the path of Ahimsa.

This was the stupidest! idea in the whole history of mankind.

I think everyone guessed who it is.

Humans don't need aliens or space creatures to get killed. they will kill
themselves.

Long live war! Long live humans!

------
trevordixon
When I first saw it at McDonalds, RedBox. Now I use it all the time.

------
coldcode
Back in the dotcom day, yachts.com

------
OafTobark
Ionic Ear from Shark Tank

