Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius? - mahringer_a
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brianwillis
Not really a start up, but I thought Wikipedia was an extraordinarily dumb
idea at first. An encyclopedia that _anyone_ can edit - what could possibly go
wrong?

I completely missed the value of having decent moderator tools (which no site
had back in the early 2000's), and a passionate group of moderators who cared
very deeply about the integrity of the site.

~~~
roflmyeggo
There have been a lot of startups over the past decade centred around the
sharing economy that have helped to prove that humans can be civil in these
situations where one might think that we would default to nefarious activity -
Airbnb, Local Motion, etc. to name a few.

Humanity is continuing to prove itself as capable of dealing with each other
harmoniously and we are seeing great businesses emerge that are benefitting
the masses as a result.

~~~
beeboop
If you think Wikipedia is civil, I recommend looking at the talk pages for
contentious articles. It's overwhelmingly full of pedantic bickering and
passive aggressiveness. It also suffers from a lot of bias in articles where
there's a vocal minority on the internet willing to spend hundreds of hours
militantly editing and moderating. It's essentially a shouting match on the
internet with the loudest group winning.

~~~
notahacker
Even worse are the articles on subjects which few people other than a couple
of authors actually care about at all (notably English language articles on
political issues in non-English speaking countries and fringe issues which
aren't quite fringe enough to get their pages deleted) There's no argument
taking place, _but that 's why the content is so bad_. A couple of UK
politicians editing their articles hit the headlines in the election buildup,
but I found an article on a more obscure MP which was _almost entirely, and
very openly and honestly, written by the politicians ' partner_.

Wikipedia is more successful than most people could have imagined in
generating _quantity_ , and better than most would have thought in suppressing
outright vandalism, but _quality_ is far behind what people are lead to
believe from rather superficial studies comparing heavily-trafficked pages
against only slightly better-written and more outdated conventional
encyclopedias. But there was a time when encyclopedias were expected to be
_authoritative_ , as opposed to where Wikipedia has excelled, which is
regularly being the first remotely useful result in Google.

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nostrademons
Facebook. I was convinced this was a terrible idea until about 2007 or so,
despite being on it since 2004. Still think it's kinda a terrible idea, but a
billion people disagree with me. (Or perhaps it's more like a billion people
agree with me but use it anyway.)

~~~
bokonist
I also thought it was going to be a fad. What is interesting is that
everything people use Facebook for day-to-day existed back in 2005. We used
email for sharing life updates, various tools for photo sharing, AOL Instant
Messenger for chatting, mailing lists for groups, email and evite for
organizing events, etc. The novelty of Facebook was profile browsing and
poking each other. And if Facebook had just remained that it would have been a
fad. What is impressive about Facebook, is how they managed to little-by-
little get everyone on their network, and little-by-little beat out the tools
people were using before Facebook.

Interesting, now, in 2015, Facebook is a worse tool for me than it was in
2009. Any tool that my boss is on, my aunt is on, my old high school
classmates is on, etc, has lost any coherence to it. I now have to obey
standard internet security: anything posted on the internet or on Facebook in
my real name has to be treated like it is on my resume. Because, de facto, it
is.

~~~
drcross
It's better to think of and use Facebook as a placeholder for identity and not
a platform for expression.

~~~
rndn
This statement makes me feel nauseous.

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Rodyland
My mate had a university assignment several years back to come up with an
online business idea.

His idea was to set up an online "home delivery" service for restaurants
(including those that don't do home delivery but do take-away). He got a
shitty mark because the lecturer thought the idea was "stupid".

~~~
why-el
Since we are talking about genius ideas, where is the idea now? (Apologies if
this was supposed to be obvious and I did not get it).

~~~
iamben
In the UK - Deliveroo, Just Eat, Hungry House... There's probably more.

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deliveroo](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deliveroo)
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/just-
eat](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/just-eat)
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hungryhouse-co-
uk](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hungryhouse-co-uk)

~~~
why-el
I was actually curious about parent's friend's idea. To be fair all these apps
haven't yet figured out the whole market, so perhaps instead of genius we can
call them 'implementable'.

~~~
dormant1
I have seen an integrated system in Australia. Delivery Hunter. Actually
involves a delivery service if restaurant does not have one.. We all thought
it would fail but it is getting bigger and bigger.

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Jare
Instagram. I still don't get it. Vanity filters sure, there were dozens and
there must now be hundreds of such apps, but a separate social network just
for that?

~~~
spobin
Similarly, Twitter. Status updates are great, but a separate social network
just for that?

~~~
zachmachuca
Agreed. It took me a while to join Twitter. I was reluctant at first because I
thought: "Why the hell would anyone want to hear my random thoughts?" I didn't
realize that I was the one who wanted to hear OTHER people's random thoughts.

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jacquesm
Selling shoes online.

There's a bit of a story behind that one because my one time Canadian
accountant came to me with this idea and I told him I thought it was crap but
_also_ (fortunately) told him to ignore me because nobody knows what will and
will not work online.

He went through with it and does very well indeed.

~~~
richardbrevig
I know two different guys that sell shoes online. The one moved to Amazon
fulfillment and grosses over $15k a month. It's a lifestyle business for him.

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sanmathigb
I thought the YO app, was stupid and pointless till I realized it was used to
warn Israeli citizens of missile strikes! Now that app is everywhere and seems
to have mastered the concept "notification-is-the-message" philosophy.

~~~
krapp
YO is stupid and pointless, and i'm honestly shocked if it even still exists.

I guess there's a market for anything.

~~~
dtmooreiv
You think warning Israeli citizens of missile strikes is silly and pointless?

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krapp
No, I think YO, the app is silly and pointless.

Unless you want to suggest there is literally no other way on a device capable
of running the YO app to send a message to a group of people (which would be
an absurd thing to assert), then I will stand by my statement. If it's useful,
it's useful in spite of its own stupidity, not because of its own brilliance.

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dudul
Twitter. To this day, I find it idiotic. I thought society reached rock bottom
when politics started using it to convey their message (is there anything
sadder than a political agenda that can be expressed in 140 characters?)

~~~
codingdave
Twitter is mostly made up of abandoned/inactive accounts, and it hasn't turned
a profit. Despite popularity, I don't think it qualifies as a success.

~~~
lexcorvus
As of this writing, Twitter's market capitalization is over $23 billion.
That's a success by any sensible definition. If you know something the market
doesn't, there's any easy way to put your money where your mouth is:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_(finance)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_\(finance\))

~~~
codingdave
That is actually not a bad idea. A business with poor underlying fundamentals
must either improve, or lose market cap. I'll have to give some serious
thought to shorting twitter.

EDIT: It may be too late. It has already had major drops in the last quarter,
and is down almost 50% off its highs from 2014.

~~~
maxschumacher91
Also on my agenda, which is an interesting situation for me because I'm a
heavy user.

I think it is a great way to stay up-to date on what happens in startup-land
and in open source, the granularity with which you can follow people still
fascinates me. Seeing that 95% of what active human accounts post is pretty
useless, I don't see justification of a $20bn+ market cap, especially without
growth.

PS: They've recently cranked up ads, next earnings report could surprise ...

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batou
Yes I worked for a guy in 1998 who basically invented both salesforce and AWS
and wanted me to join him as the technical lead. I thought he was nuts and
told him no. Due to the geographical location of the company he couldn't find
anyone else to do it and went back to fixing PCs.

Now I look back with regret.

~~~
civilian
One missed hire shouldn't have been enough to stop him, which I think is why
you're getting downvotes.

~~~
batou
You're right. But this was in an area where there were no staff. One reason I
quit was we couldn't even get someone to repair PCs in so I ended up having to
do it.

------
rebelidealist
Airbnb: can you trust other people to not trash your place or the host walking
to your room drunk (happened to me lol).

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mwpmaybe
I was a PFY working for a dot-com shop in the mid-'90s. I (in large part)
invented an internal, web-based system that we used to track employee time
against external (billable) and internal (non-billable) projects and tasks.
Our salespeople would use the system as a common directory of customer
contacts, share notes on business development, and generate estimates. Our
accounting department would use the system to generate invoices with different
payment terms and forecast receivables.

I left the place right before Y2K, a flaming wreck of burnout, dead set on
going to college for a CS degree. My friends and coworkers at the time were
emphatic that I should take the system I had designed, reimplement it, and
sell it. Of course, this was way before cloud and SaaS and all that stuff. I
thought it was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard; I couldn't imagine any other
company needing and using the same (or a similar) system. And regardless, I
was so burned out from it that I couldn't bear the thought of turning around
and doing it all again. What can I say... I was young. :-)

Niku was founded in '97, which CA renamed Clarity in '05 after purchasing the
company for $350M. Salesforce.com launched in late '99 and currently has a
market cap of about $50B. If I were a little smarter (or more hardworking), or
if I had met a few different people along the way... who knows? Or maybe I
wasn't so unique in creating something like this, and the Niku,
Salesforce.com, and others were the ones who simply saw the opportunity for
what it was.

------
nstart
Snapchat. Thought it was a pretty dumb idea till recently. I'm now an active
user. To be fair though, I still think the messaging feature of it is fun only
as the occasional gimmick. The value tapers off as soon as you pass a certain
age (at least that's what I feel). But when they introduced stories, and "live
stories" in particular, their value just skyrocketed. It suddenly became
genius. Being able to follow a full day of Red Bull's highlights, experiencing
a country or city from multiple viewpoints in the span of a couple of minutes
was amazing. Watching UFC from the front, back stage, way at the back of the
ring, seeing the reactions of people in a curated-ish form that lasted 5
minutes was incredible. Snapchat suddenly became a whole lot more valuable for
me.

One other idea. Yo. I don't think anyone's really using it to its potential.
Apart from the "Yo" feature, the idea of it as a notification broker is
fantastic. I still carry bets that it won't hit "critical mass/momentum" in
its current form. Way too clunky.

~~~
Noctem
Came here to say roughly the same thing about Snapchat. I didn't expect it to
rise very far above a niche sexting app, and I was surprised when I started
seeing a lot of people using it for more innocent purposes.

The concept still doesn't appeal to me as much as a lot of people (though I
still use it), but I was clearly wrong about its potential for mass appeal.

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greydius
Facebook. I still think it's stupid.

~~~
welly
You and many other people, including myself. Unfortunately being a bit of a
traveller, it's probably the best practical ways of keeping in touch with
other friends/family.

~~~
batou
We still use email like we did 15 years ago...

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mettamage
The Selfie Stick comes to mind. It's the simplicity of the idea that I find
genius. Back when I first saw it, I couldn't see the appeal of it. I was
biased though, since I did not have much trouble with making selfies and
didn't care much about them.

Then I went on vacation to the US and was considering buying one... A few good
YouTube videos showing how to use them creatively helped as well. These videos
weren't made by the company itself, but by passioned YouTubers who didn't have
a camera man.

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roflmyeggo
twitch.tv, Periscope, etc. or just about any form of live streaming
application seems like a huge time-sink to me (and largely inferior products
when compared to curated content).

------
gravypod
Google. Who would ever want (or need for that matter) to search for something
on the internet. You should already know the phone numbers of your favorite
BBS by heart.

------
gisborne
Twitter.

I was in an Austin Ruby meetup when these guys came in who had a music startup
(this was when everyone and his dog had a music startup). They were hiring for
the startup, and they presented this side project they had. They described it
as "basically your myspace status, only that's all there is".

Thought the music startup was dumb and Twitter made it look smart. They were
hiring. I could have been a _really_ early hire…

------
femto
Web design.

Back in 1995, it seemed obvious that any idiot with a text editor could write
their own HTML page. Why would they want to pay someone else to do it?

I still cringe when I think that a friend interviewing with a web design
agency asked my opinion and I told her that this HTML authoring business had
no basis, and she turned down the job.

------
WaltPurvis
What about the opposite, something that seemed like genius but turned out to
be a terrible, terrible idea?

Secret, for example.

~~~
nostrademons
P2P filesharing. I loved the idea of this when it was all the rage c.
1999-2003. Cut out the big corporations, cut out the ISPs, no need for
servers, just people sharing data with each other directly. Only problem was:
it was slow, unreliable, hard to get started with, and the RIAA would sue you
for it.

I do find it interesting how so many prominent companies grew out of ideas or
founders that were deeply connected to the P2P boom of the early 2000s.
Facebook (Mark Zuckerburg worked on a media player before Harvard and a
filesharing network in parallel with Facebook, and its first COO Sean Parker
co-founded Napster). Uber (Travis Kalanick ran a P2P company that was acquired
by Akamai). Skype and Rdio, both by the founders of Kazaa. Y-Combinator (RTM's
research at MIT was in distributed hash-tables). Bitcoin, which builds on P2P
algorithms for exchanging transactions. Bittorrent is now widely used
legitimately for distributing software updates.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
It actually wasn't hard to get started with at all. The likes of
eDonkey/eMule, LimeWire, Kazaa and Napster all became hugely popular (and some
remain popular in certain jurisdictions) precisely because of how trivial they
were to use.

Then, you already mentioned BitTorrent. P2P filesharing wasn't a terrible idea
at all, and BitTorrent is evidence.

~~~
nostrademons
It's all relative to the alternatives. P2P was easy by desktop app standards,
but concurrently with its development, the web started taking over. With
webapps, you didn't need to download a program, you didn't need to deal with
your firewall settings (consumer firewalls were just starting to become
popular during this time period as well), you didn't need to configure
upload/download rates or servers - you just clicked on a link and got a file.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Sure, but an overwhelming part of file sharing still takes place under
BitTorrent, with the web just being a glorified link farm for it.

------
johnsang
Pretty much every single unicorn except for Amazon and perhaps Uber. eBay,
AirBnB, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat all seemed like strange ideas. Perhaps
transformational businesses are supposed to sound totally nuts until you speak
with the founders.

~~~
troydavis
Transformational businesses _are_ nuts until someone executes fantastically
well.

(Without the fallacy of the genius idea, this thread would be "Ask HN: What's
the worst startup idea you've heard, which someone executed amazingly well?")

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gorbachev
I think Twitter ranks way up there. Who the hell would care about a public
messaging solution for people posting status updates - "Cooking #dinner" \-
with a 140 character limit.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

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nmela
By a mile this [http://www.whatsupbro.co/](http://www.whatsupbro.co/) Sadly,
it never realized its full potential!

------
vasilipupkin
facebook. Thought it was the dumbest idea in the world to replicate what
livejournal and myspace did early on

~~~
vasilipupkin
Actually, I take it back, I thought twitter was just really dumb, even dumber
than FB

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Yokohiii
Large scale Recommerce. Pretty hard to imagine to buy tons of junk and make
profit out of it.

