Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue? - hpvic03
======
nardi
An online-only bank (with ATM support of course) that lets you have as many
"virtual" accounts as you want, and lets you set up programmatic rules for
transferring money in between accounts on certain days/times, or triggered by
events ("transfer $100 from B to A if account A goes below $100, and notify me
by email"; "on overdraft from A, withdraw from B instead"). Then have a debit
card that you can use to charge to any of your accounts, and an app that lets
you configure which account it's drawing from.

This would make "budgeting" very easy. Have a "food" account, an
"entertainment" account, etc. Do weekly or monthly budgets by transferring
money into your mini-accounts, and denying transactions for each account when
it goes over budget. (Or let the transaction go through from a backup account,
but notify you that you went over budget.)

Also, have an API that anyone can write apps for.

Of course, I'll never do this because starting a bank is really hard.

~~~
pan69
I'd like to see a not for profit bank in the sense that the profit the bank
does make, goes directly back into the local community surrounding the bank.
The bank would have a physical presence but strong and modern on-line support.

~~~
kohanz
It sounds like you're describing a credit union.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_union)

~~~
aptwebapps
That just validates the idea.

------
frequentflyeru
Github for travel planning. You can collaborate with your co-travelers on
creating an itinerary but then like github you can fork other peoples
completed itineraries and make them your own.

~~~
jmc734
TripIt?

~~~
himanshuy
Not exactly.

------
pkfrank
Love this thread idea, had been considering posting one myself.

\- Tablets for seniors: when the elderly population sees an iPad ad, they're
not captivated or entranced; they're intimidated and disappointed that they're
left behind by technology. I envision the "jitterbug for tablets" \-- built on
Android with big, tactile buttons; a 'never get lost, take me home' feature;
remotely controlled functionality (IE turn on/off apps); etc. They wouldn't
use much bandwidth, so you could build 3G right into the device and charge a
significant monthly premium -- after all, it's a dramatic quality-of-life
improvement for someone sitting in a retirement home.

GE and a few other companies are doing similar projects, but no one is really
executing all that well IMO. Problems: would be super hard to get off the
ground / defend, and the market is becoming increasingly obsolete.

~~~
omarforgotpwd
Yes, it would probably be hard to get off the ground before all your potential
customers died.

~~~
fiatmoney
The thing about old people is that they're making more of them every day.

~~~
x711Li
The old people 20 years from now will not be the same as the ones today.
Rampant tech consumption among the newer generations will purge the need.

~~~
fiatmoney
The obvious business model is making the technology-du-jour accessible, not
tablets in particular.

------
adrianmpc
Something that pipelines charitable donations through micro-financing. Say
someone needs a payday loan, and Bill Gates is going to donate a billion
dollars to some charity. Instead, that person gets the loan with no interest
or penalties and sets up a payment plan with that charity for the amount.
Should create more efficient spending patterns for low-income families,
particular those that encounter short-term deficits, while still getting the
charities the same amount of money in the long run.

~~~
smeyer
The charity doesn't get the same amount of money though. Even setting aside
the reduced value of getting money in the future instead of now, you're not
going to get 100% payments and you have no interest or penalties to make up
for it.

------
darkstar999
Remote sysadmin service.

Percona has a remote DBA service that gives us 24/7 access to a team of
proficient DBAs for a fraction of the cost of hiring one.

I'd like to see the same product for cloud sysadmins.

~~~
peacemaker
Pythian do this, not sure how much they cost though.

------
evv
Uber for digitizing, storage and disposal.

I have boxes and boxes of tapes, disks, notebooks, books, and photos. All of
which I'd prefer to have digital. Other physical things could be digitized
with video, photographs, and scans. I would take them to my street corner and
a driver would pick them up and deliver them to a digitizer. They could show
up in the cloud a week later, or be delivered back to me in a hard drive.

Once the digital copies are received, the customer can request to have the
goods responsibly disposed of. The service could also cover long term storage
for customers who want the originals to remain intact. Possessions can be
returned to the owner within a day or two's notice.

A service like this would allow people to minimize their physical existence
while preserving the memories associated with physical possessions.

~~~
Rainymood
Considering myself a minimalist I have tried to do this on a much smaller
scale: for myself.

I ran into a big problem: how do I label/organize this mess of both
physical/digital memories? What are your thoughts on that specific part of the
problem? How would you solve it? More importantly, how would you automate it?

------
conductr
Uber for hiring a undocumented worker/day laborer. Sometimes I hire these
guys[0,1] and I have to go pick them up [2], try to find one that speaks
decent English, negotiate pricing, explain the job, and manage the quality of
work[3].

There is actually a huge potential to improve the worker side of the current
status quo. Right now, these guys have a ton of idle time[4] and there is a
pricing opportunity[5]. There's a lot of other opportunities in this, I've
been mulling it over for the past few years, I can build it just don't want to
market/grow it[6]

[0] for projects that I don't necessarily need a contractor for [1] or, work
that a regular contractor doesn't do, like; my lawn guy doesn't clean gutters,
my housekeeper doesn't clean windows [2] taking them home is worse - they're
probably dirty & sweaty and I don't that in my car [3] can't have high
expectations, these are generalists don't expect them to do high quality tile
or carpentry [4] they sit in front of hardware stores for hours just waiting,
some days they have no work, there is never a guarantee of work [5] they would
take less money for guaranteed work, they could build a reputation and charge
more for work, they could have their own transportation; saving the buyer the
hassle of playing taxi service (often the buyer is a contractor, not a lone
home owner like me) [6] if you do, let's talk

~~~
vishalzone2002
regulatory issues?

------
jonbischke
A couple of years ago I proposed an idea for "AirBnB for self storage" on
Quora: [http://www.quora.com/Collaborative-Consumption/What-is-
the-n...](http://www.quora.com/Collaborative-Consumption/What-is-the-next-big-
Airbnb-for-X-company-idea)

Still seems like a massive opportunity. $24 billion market in the US.
Inconvenient locations (for many people). People have (collectively) a massive
amount of under-utilized space. Not without its challenges but neither was
AirBnB when it started.

~~~
refurb
Already exists (in SF at least). Roost, StowThat.

~~~
jonbischke
AirBnB existed before AirBnB as well. People just called it Homeaway or VRBO.
AirBnB did a few key things much better. I think there's the same opportunity
in self-storage (although not sure what makes this model finally take off).

------
mrfusion
Identify damaged roofs via satellite imagery, match to addresses, and sell the
list to roofers for marketing?

~~~
crazypyro
Aerial drone imaging? It would be much more accurate and give you better
resolution. Downside is harder to scale.

~~~
michaelmior
Google has started doing something like this[0]. They're basically taking
advantage of the detailed satellite imagery they already have. You certainly
don't have the same flexibility as you would with drones, but seems like
decent quality and definitely helps with the scaling problem.

[0] [http://googleenterprise.blogspot.ca/2014/07/bringing-
google-...](http://googleenterprise.blogspot.ca/2014/07/bringing-google-earth-
images-to-business.html)

------
juanplusjuan
A service for freelancers that automatically withdraws projected income tax
and puts it into a safe money market fund so that they can make a little
change on it (more in better times).

~~~
keithwarren
The problem I have with this is that I end up using the gross take on projects
to float my receivables. In theory your idea has merit, but in practice we all
have cash flow challenges and the money I owe uncle sam can bridge those
challenges for me.

------
digikata
Order while you wait infrastructure at restaurants. Basically pull up the menu
via wifi while waiting for your table to clear. Take the order, and maybe even
pay ahead. Orchestrate the order so that the food is available shortly after
you sit down.

This lets the restaurant increase their profits by serving more parties
through their tables at peak times - maybe 10-15 min per table that uses the
order system.

Some variant of this might also work for busy bars too.

~~~
darkstar999
I've always had a funny lower-tech idea along the same lines. It's an airplane
themed restaurant where each table has one of the service buttons that
airplanes have. When you want a server to come by, hit the button. It lights
up at the table and at the server station.

~~~
abrugsch
The Yo! Sushi chain in the UK does this. When you press the button, something
on your table lights up and a cute (usually)Japanese-ish soundbite rings
around the restaurant.

------
bobosha
A store-to-kitchen cart. I carry it in store, checkout items from within the
cart - mos t current carts are clunky, heavy - one that you can push onto your
car trunk and carry out into your pantry/kitchen. Basically the iPod of
shopping carts. Would save billion of shopping bags, no more "paper or
plastic?"

~~~
jaredsohn
I have used something like this for years: [http://www.amazon.com/Folding-
Shopping-Double-Basket-Capacit...](http://www.amazon.com/Folding-Shopping-
Double-Basket-Capacity/dp/B0000UZ58C)

It doesn't let you check out from within the cart itself (is that really
necessary? If that is what you need, why not just create an app like the Apple
Store has?), but it does let you use the same cart both in and outside the
store. I bought mine since it makes it a lot easier to walk my groceries home.

~~~
bobosha
I too have used that, but it's clunky & unwieldy. Need something more senior-
friendly, better ergonomics e.g. something that folds up into your car trunk
like a stretcher for ambulances. Make it fashionable to bring your cart to
store.

------
bogrollben
I started a site just for ideas like this, mostly for hackathons:
[http://www.freeideas.co](http://www.freeideas.co)

------
mindcrime
I had this random idea today, that I'd totally do if I had any free time.
There may already be somebody doing this - I haven't looked. But here ya go:

An "eliza bot" like service that doles out Freudian dream analysis when you
tell it about your dreams. Maybe even combine a logging service so you can log
your dreams (ala the way some people keep dream journals).

I really have few ideas for monetizing the thing, I mostly just think it would
be fun to do. But possibly you could do some cool targeted advertising based
on the "discussions" you have with the dream-analysis-bot.

~~~
irremediable
I really like this idea, though I suspect it'd be let down by the ELIZA-like.
I don't think even a cutting-edge AI would do a lot better than ELIZA did, and
she really was limited.

------
rb2e
A specialst book store or lending library or archive in hard to find new and
seconhand books. For some subjects, amazon and its secondhand book site Abe
books (?) sucks if you delve into narrow neiches. They are enthuaists out
there who crave a book which will teach them something. These books are
published in areas which may not be as commercial as they once were.

The neiches are small. One for example is model engineering and related
subjects. Books with plans, drawings etc. Construction methods.

------
mileszim
Recipes based on the content of your pantry/fridge. The ideal solution would
provide a db based on sensors/user input to know what ingredients and amount
of those ingredients you have. Additionally, you can hook it into some calorie
counter or diet tracking/fitness apps and it will make decisions based off of
that.

Then you simply specify: "I want to make dinner, what can I cook?" The app
links you to the recipe and any videos for making that recipe right to your
device.

~~~
ddw
I've thought of this too and there seem to be a few companies trying something
like it. The difficult part seems to be keeping your stock up to date. You'd
basically have to update it after every meal.

Maybe a smart refrigerator will figure it out some day or Amazon with their
automated service/scanner combo. It certainly could prevent food waste.

------
jefflinwood
GeekFit - an online community of geeks/coders looking to improve from
sedentary to athletic.

~~~
mattdanger
I'm curious, there are a lot of online communities for fitness. What do you
think could be done to cater to tech folks that isn't currently offered?

~~~
jefflinwood
I was mostly thinking more in terms of getting people together in the "real
world", rather than just an another online community for mountain biking,
triathlon, etc.

Possibly a week-long summer camp, weekend hackathons/fitness outside major
cities, weekly runs or bicycle rides.

------
fidotron
A sort of reverse kickstarter with combinations.

Instead of just makers saying what they can do it would be based more on what
people say they want, and attach a value to say they'd pay a certain amount
for it. You could also declare that given x, y and z you could do a, b or c
and thus giant chains could be resolved.

All a bit GOSPLAN like though.

I've also considered Tinder crossed with auctions: bid according to how hot
you think they are, with highest bids getting to meet (and pay!)

~~~
rdlecler1
This is a but like Quirky

------
dorfuss
I thought of a math edu-game similar to CeeBot.

In CeeBot you learn programming concepts and whole languages by writing
instructions for virtual robots. You can see how they move around and perform
different tasks. (Actually Mehran Sahami from Stanford teaches the programming
methodology course with a little virtual robot named Karel with exactly the
same principle).

The player in my game would be a spacecraft captain. But unlike in other
games, where you just press a button and the vessel goes to any direction,
this ship had been hit by a meteoroid and its main computer is broken.
Therefore all the commands have to be done manually and any computation is
performed on a piece of paper and just put into the command line.

There could be no graphics at all. Just the roar of your enginges.

In the beginning the tasks are simple, but the more you play the more
complicated the calculations become. It begins with simple arithmetics and
trade. Later you need trigonometry to fire a "torpedo". It would be great if
you could progress it even further, with advanced math and phisics, and also
chemistry - you need to combine different substances in order to burn them as
fuel or to produce oxygen to breathe or combine nitrogen and carbondiaxide in
order to grow food in the farm.

It would be great if instead of taking tests the teacher would just say:
"John, you are still on level 8, you should go to Alpha Centauri and fight
with pirates. Play more!" \- which would mean - learn to solve problems with
two unknowns and calculate volume of spheres.

And imagine a multiplayer with students on the same level who have to make
accurate calclulations fast because without it they would just float in the
dark and cold outerspace.

I will never make it - I don't know math and programming that well - but I'd
play the game!

------
whentheship
A search platform that allows users to find stores that specialize in whatever
it is they're looking for. For example, here in Austin we have a store that
sells upholstery fabric, specifically, and another that sells just bookcases.
I've also seen a disc golf store. If I were looking for any of the above, I
wouldn't remember that those specialty stores existed and so would probably go
to Michael's for fabric or Ikea for a bookcase or Dick's for a disc. If there
were a way to show stores that could give me a better selection to suit my
particular need/want, I'd much rather shop there. Maybe if I search "fabric"
it would pull up a location-specific list of fabric stores further
categorized?

------
g12u
A system to retrofit an appliance into a smart home.

Example: My AC has its own remote. With my device I can record the wireless
signals it outputs, similar to a garage opener in a car. Then with my mobile
app I can create my own interface to power on/off, set temp, etc. I now use
just my smart phone to turn on my AC. I press power on the custom UI I created
in the app, it will send a packet to the hardware in my LAN, and that hardware
sends the matching wireless signal to the AC.

Some things might still need physical fittings and cannot always be wireless
devices such as power switches. New power splitters with this functionality
would also be a good way to control appliances that just need to power on and
off.

------
covercash
I posted this before:

Popcorn Time for quality children's programming - Bill Nye, Mr. Rogers, Sesame
Street, Avatar. Shows that are entertaining AND educational, none of that
advertising filled, sassy attitude, Disney Channel crap.

~~~
jbarham
Just move to Australia and watch ABC for Kids. Entertaining, educational shows
for kids and no ads:
[http://www.abc.net.au/children/shows/guide/](http://www.abc.net.au/children/shows/guide/)

------
DanBC
"Music Finder"

You open an app. You're played three different pieces of music. You're asked
which one you like best. The program branches and plays you three more pieces
of music. Again they're different but from a more similar selection.

At each point you can highlight bits of music to go back to - to buy that
music or to start the chain from that point.

One example would have this tightly connected to one particular publisher's
catalogue.

It would eventually teach about music, giving comprehensive sleeve notes about
the composer or the piece of music or the history or music theory or etc.

~~~
polynomial
Why 3 and not 2?

------
lincolnq
Something with the Oculus VR tech. I think there's massive, exciting options
opening up with the Gear VR or similar, and anyone starting now will have a
substantial first mover advantage.

I have two specific applications for VR: the metaverse, and really good porn.
(These do not need to be combined though I suppose they could.)

I would argue that Second Life failed mostly due to execution issues. I'd love
to see a virtual world where I can socialize, and where I can build cool
spaces to hang out with my friends / hold meetings / work.

~~~
thenomad
There are already a few projects working on both.

Phillip Rosedale, the guy behind Second Life, is working on a next-gen
equivalent. Janus VR, meanwhile, is busy working at turning the Web into a
metaverse, and getting some rave reviews.

As for porn,
[http://www.reddit.com/r/oculusnsfw/](http://www.reddit.com/r/oculusnsfw/) is
your source there... "Really good" porn is, of course, highly taste-dependent.

------
i4i
WeWillWalkYou - An online platform for volunteering to walk, visit, cook for,
seniors. Trade time with a stranger's loved ones in your town, for the same
for your folks back home.

~~~
lgieron
It can be also repurposed as an idea for a dystopian novel :)

------
ilanco
Underground garbage disposal. In Tel Aviv, the garbage gets picked up every
day (hot climate), and because of traffic this is done early morning (4-5am).

The system will have dedicated "containers" on corners or squares where you
drop your garbage and an underground network of carts delivers it to a central
point where it can be picked up. Or even to the dump if possible.

This can be fully automated and I think will save a lot of money in manpower
and gas (for driving the garbage trucks through the whole city).

~~~
bjourne
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_vacuum_collection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_vacuum_collection)

------
DanBC
"Blind Lego Watchmaker" \- lego biomorphs.

Dawkins' book "the Blind Watchmaker" introduced "biomorphs". These are
intended to show the power of repeated random change and selection. He uses a
small computer program to draw six images composed of lines. The user selects
one and the program redraws another six images, making small changes based on
the image the user choses. This is repeated many times.

The new version is pretty similar except it uses Lego pieces instead of lines.

------
recalibrator
Take your pick: [http://startjumper.com](http://startjumper.com)

It's kind of like a parking lot for business opportunities I didn't go through
with.

------
jmolinaso
Since all the scandals about security, I came up with a different approach,
instead to increase cryptography, just build kind of a reverse surveillance. A
place like gravatar that informs you who is accessing to your profiles on your
social media. The idea is very simple, you provide a jpg that can send back a
message every time it's being rendered by a client. It can be that it requires
a new image standard that allows to send some info to the main servers.

------
jpavlick
Starbucks of marijuana.

~~~
joeyspn
Amsterdam Coffee shops, but _franchised_... This could be massive in the USA.
Like the idea...

~~~
jpavlick
Start it in Colorado and Washington, of course. Go into any Weedbucks and the
"O.G. Kush" (or any strain) is just as good (e.g. THC concentration constant)
as at any other. Special sales on April 20th, and at 4:20pm everyday.

You'd make a killing.

------
gintsmurans
TextMe - Too much texting apps started popping around. Cactus - Photo sharing
app with option to put a title on it. Had this a while ago, then whisper and
others showed up. Escape the Monster - iOS kids game, some creature have to
avoi d obstacles to escape the monster. Lack of time. Invoicer - Mac app for
making invoices. Lack of time. Donster - Texting using only recorded sounds.
Lack of time.

------
thomasfoster96
Reading through this I came up with one: Tinder for jobs. Employers can look
through a small CV of candidates that they might like, while potential
employees can do the same for workplaces. Matches lead to interviews.

I can't really see myself ever doing this though because you'd got a chicken
and egg problem, plus it'd probably only ever be used by tech companies unless
there was an easy to use API.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
There's the opposite already:
[http://www.jobrapp.com/](http://www.jobrapp.com/)

------
zvanness
Something a bit like Pocket app, except where the content is automatically
summarized for you.

I've made a naive summarizer that seems to get the job done for the summaries
part: [http://breue.com/summarizer](http://breue.com/summarizer)

I'm just not sure what the final product would look like or if there would be
enough of a reason for people to prefer it over Pocket.

~~~
hashtag
I'm probably an edge case user but I don't save stuff to Pocket because I want
summaries of stories. I save them because I want access to the actual content.

For example, I do save articles I can just read. For that, a summary service
would be great BUT that is true with or without Pocket. On the flipside, if I
saw stuff like a blog post on technical code someone wrote about for
something, more than likely I want to save that reference for later (true for
a huge chunk of stuff I save or the type of things I save).

That said, I came across several people who have either worked on summarizers
or talked about it but nothing seemed to have ever took off on those. I can't
speak for others but in general I prefer to read content for myself.

------
dang
A Verilog/VHDL killer.

~~~
ac204680
There's Chisel (Scala based) the LowRisc team from Berkeley are using[1]. It
can output Verilog and also compiles to cycle accurate simulators.

There's also PSHDL from Karsten Becker[2] at TUHH. It's immature and seems to
be focused on teaching at the moment.

[1] [https://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu/](https://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu/) [2]
[http://blog.pshdl.org/](http://blog.pshdl.org/)

~~~
asb
Hi, just a quick correction - the Berkeley RISC-V team are not one and the
same with the lowRISC team. We collaborate with them, and we have Krste on our
technical advisory board. We are of course also using Chisel though.

------
canterburry
An insurance company who's policy covers anything you own against any kind of
loss for any reason. House, car, boat, bike etc for flood, fire, theft etc.
Basically, if you buy insurance you should simply be insured. Period. No fine
print.

Yes, it would probably be more expensive than people's current policies.

~~~
yen223
I shudder to think what the actuary tables will look like!

------
seanmccann
What Dropbox did for storage, but for CPUs. The classic business example would
be that you have to to process a large Excel doc and are willing to pay extra
to speed it up. With fast internet connections and cheap online storage, it
could be opened up to a growing number of tasks like video rendering.

~~~
dbarlett
That was the idea behind PiCloud [1], which was acquired by... Dropbox [2].

[1] [http://www.picloud.com/](http://www.picloud.com/)

[2] [http://www.wired.com/2013/11/dropbox-
piclou/](http://www.wired.com/2013/11/dropbox-piclou/)

------
krapp
Probably one of:

\- a "Rap Genius" for crowd-translating doujin manga (kind of exists on
danbooru but not quite)

\- A collaborative gaming site for pen-and-paper RPG and boardgame players
which would let you design and run your games as a virtual representation of
the physical game (probably exists or else is a bad idea)

~~~
notdarkyet
Re RPG Games:

I have heard Roll20 is pretty popular and fun to use. I have never done it
myself but it seems like a really cool way to play.

[http://roll20.net/](http://roll20.net/)

~~~
krapp
Well, at least I know I can have a good idea.

Now I just need to be able to not be the last to have it.

~~~
michaelmior
And also be able to implement the idea. Not that I'm saying that you couldn't.
But in general, I think having a great idea is not really worth all that much
on it's own.

~~~
krapp
Yeah. And of course, implementing it _well_ matters, because someone with an
actual team and money is certain to want to eat your lunch.

------
mrfusion
How about a kickstarter kickstarter?

It seems like you need a lot of money and experience to build a successful
kickstarter?

What if there's a different service where a person can put up an idea with
minimal cost and flare, and just raise enough funding to hire a video team, PR
team, etc to then run a kickstarter campaign?

~~~
crazypyro
But then how will I get the idea? I think we need
kickstarterkickstarterkickerstarter.com. It literally just sends someone to
your house and kicks you until you have a good idea.

~~~
davidnagy
Genius :-) Had a good laugh

------
gordon_freeman
I am fed up with all those warranty cards I am getting with every equipment I
buy like juicer,external HDD,etc. so thought what if I can make a smartphone
app with open API which other manufacturers can use to link their warranty
info.

Through the app, you can apply for warranty , see when it is expiring etc.

~~~
fiatmoney
You don't in normal circumstance have to "apply" for a warranty, at least in
the US.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act)

~~~
joeclark77
Those cards are more for the purpose of giving the company your contact info
in case they need to notify you of a product recall. Still, the idea makes
sense.

------
rb2e
Another one is predicting price rises and optimal time to sell Magic the
Gathering cards before rotation. Its like the stockmarket only unregulated
Gambling. People, do invest in these cards and flip them. Not for the faint of
heart but people love to buy into dreams...

~~~
faet
My friend and I kinda do this. We started 8-10 years ago when we were in high
school. We pooled ~10k together to buy legacy staples. Since then we've bought
_some_ cards, but very minimal compared to legacy cards.

We aim for the cards that will be useful post-rotation as many card sale sites
do an okay job estimating release price. Also, we mostly played legacy.

Snapcaster for instance was ~$25-30 on release (although some places sold it
for as low as 15). Then it was ~20-30 for a while until it saw a lot of legacy
play and jumped up. It is currently 30-35. ROI probably similar to an index
fund.

Tarmogoyf was probably our biggest 'buy' since our legacy staples. We didn't
buy that many (5 play sets). And sold as soon as the price hit $100-120. This
we risked due to rumors of 'modern'.

Force of Will, a legacy staple for a long time. 8 years ago we paid ~$10-15
per FoW. Now they're going for ~$90. The S&P is up ~70%, FoW is up ~566%. We
bought 20 play sets (80 cards) for roughly $1000.

We're still holding many of our original collection. But, sold off enough to
get our original $10k back. At this point the price keeps going up, many cards
fall out of circulation (destroyed/lost/etc). The only "risk" is reprints.

One issue is unloading many cards. With stocks I can create a sell order and
sell it for roughly asking price. Whether I'm selling $100 of shares or $100k
of shares it will go through instantly. With magic it isn't hard to deal with
~500 cards or so. But, once you scale up it is a full time job. If we bought
$10k worth of FoW vs $1k we'd have 800 FoW to try and sell at some point. This
would take a _long time_.

You either pay SCG prices to get cards quick. Or you use ebay for a 10-20%
discount. But, takes longer and no guaranteed sale.

As far as logistics we each put in roughly 5k and split the original buy cards
evenly. Since then our collections have fluxed. He bought/sold a Black Lotus
at one point, I never did. He bought individual power 9 cards and sold a
'power 9 set' (5-10% markup) a few times. I was more passive.

~~~
lgieron
As for the scaling up part, you could hire a student (or even a responsible
high school kid) to do the buying part for you.

A friend of mine was a full time magic trader, and he hired a kid to sift
through mountains of commons that he bought in bulk.

------
gxespino
GPS powered fast food inhibitor. e.g. You get a text coupon for a salad at
"insert healthy restaurant" whenever you pull into the parking lot of a
Mcdonalds.

The idea is to catch people and entice them to eat differently right before
they make the decision to eat fast food.

------
ddw
Heroku for queue jobs. Pay by the minute.

Basically I hate maintaining an AWS instance that is idle most of the time.
And Heroku will only get you so far.

It would probably be difficult to make profits on because you'd be charging
slices of a penny at a time...

~~~
prohor
No exactly this, but take a look on
[http://www.picloud.com/](http://www.picloud.com/)

------
callmeed
An on-demand "Uber for babysitters" ... most of you shot it down but I still
think it's a good idea

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7356497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7356497)

~~~
rush-tea
I read somewhere that this is already been done, but I do not remember the
startup name

------
coke
... thought about building a mobile femtocell attached to a helium baloon, so
if you find yourself (playing Ingress) in a dead spot, perhaps the femtocell
in the baloon 10 to 30 meters above you could help out?

------
mattwritescode
A paper version of a sat nav. Essentially its a book with a picture of all the
roads. A reader will be able to use it on the go to see where they are trying
to get to.

~~~
hackerboos
A road atlas with pictures then? That would be a huge book.

------
ajcarpy2005
App that connects people with leftover food to pet owners.

------
vishalzone2002
the missing B in AirBnB. I really wish I can finish the work on this idea
someday. I have tech MVP but I dont know how to move forward. The idea :
Basically, people can charge for Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner at their places. There
are people who like to cook and people who dont. Why not let former earn money
and later save money while eating healthy meals and meeting new people.

~~~
TheAlchemist
I have thought about this too, but in the country I'm currently living
(France), it would be too much of a mess with the licence / legal side - if
somebody gets really sick after a dinner, that could end bad.

That being said, it's a great idea and I would love to work on this one day.

~~~
alain94040
Isn't this what super-marmite.com was doing?

~~~
TheAlchemist
Thanks ! Didn't know that one, but seems to be this.

Doesn't seem to really take off - 6000 users in France after 3 years of
operations (data from a french article a year ago, not sure if reliable), and
their FB page has last posts about a year ago too - I would say it's dead now.

I'm gonna take a look why it didn't take off.

Btw, the same idea in UK - Cookisto.

------
orky56
A subscription payment service with easy canceling for both consumer &
merchant, built-in pro-rating, and support for groups.

------
bsbechtel
A task management app that organizes all your completed tasks into a resume.

~~~
vishalzone2002
this is pretty cool.

------
rush-tea
shazam for face recognition? Sometime when you see a movie, you can't make out
who stars in it. take a quick picture and shazam it away to get the actor /
actress name!

~~~
networkjester
Google play does this when watching certain movies and shows. Not sure if it's
added manually or does intelligent recognition. However, it's certainly useful
- so I could see generalizing that capability for other movies / plays??

<br/>

Granted, the movies and shows on Play have at least a context to do the
pattern matching with - a cast list greatly reduces the possible matches.

------
bluerail
An end to end Recruitment management services..

Fully automated and fully mobile.

------
BorisMelnik
I love the format of this thread:

How bout this idea..

>> already exists, here is URL

------
motyar
Location based anon social network. I am working on it.

~~~
hashtag
Curious but why do you see this as valuable?

Secret exists to confess anonymously within your circle.

General social networks to connect to your connections (FB, LinkedIn, etc).

An insane list of failed startups that try to get strangers to connect but no
one actively seeks meeting strangers for the sake of in general.

I am having a hard time seeing why I'd want to connect to anyone anonymously
in my area that don't fall into the above categories but I'd love to hear why
you think it makes sense

~~~
motyar
Let's see. Its fully anon system where visitor can talk to other visitors. Its
fully anon. You just see form where the other visitor is.

~~~
hashtag
Unfortunately, at least for me, that isn't a selling feature. It's basically
Secret (perhaps more social) without the personal friends angle and adding in
location. Can't see a reason to use it.

------
jfb
A secondary market in sports bets.

~~~
yummyfajitas
See betfair (UK only).

~~~
jfb
They doubtless predate my idea (~2009 in conversation with one of the Ron
Conway boys), which is way too obvious not to have been done before.

------
hashtag
True CloudOS

