
Ask HN - What's your best startup idea? - steveeq1
Ask HN - What's your best startup idea?
======
jadence
... a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. You see, it would be this mat that you would
put on the floor... and would have different _conclusions_ written on it that
you could _jump to_.

~~~
trafficlight
That's the worst idea I've ever heard in my life, Tom.

~~~
riffer
Yes, this is horrible, this idea.

------
matthodan
A social network for people who fly on airplanes regularly that helps people
book seats next to each other so that they can enjoy a nice conversation
rather than sitting in silence for the duration of the flight.

~~~
jadence
Along those lines I know there is a very lucrative black (maybe more gray)
market in which people will pay big money to find out flight plans of
important decision makers. People paid that money so they could try to buy a
ticket in the seat next to said decision maker. You've then got X hours to
work a pitch.

I know this happens to execs in pro sports a lot (people trying to get
sponsorship, get the leagues using their products, etc) and I imagine it
happens in other industries as well.

How you make a startup/product out of this I don't know but I thought it was
an interesting tidbit to share.

~~~
jlees
Why limit it to flights? You could create a whole new stalking service!

1\. Aggregate location info and travel plans of key celebrities from Twitter

2\. ???

3\. Profit

~~~
jadence
I know you're joking around but I thought I'd answer anyway. The key aspect of
flights is that your "victim" isn't going anywhere. He's stuck in that seat
and can't escape nearly as easily as he could if you approached him in a cafe,
museum, etc.

EG - Got a startup that'll need buy in from a major wireless carrier (you're
gon' change the industry like the iPhone did!) but can't get attention from
any of them? Imagine what you could work if you were sitting next to the CEO
of Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile on a 6 hour flight. How much would you pay for
the information to get you that seat?

~~~
olefoo
This could help raise the popularity of private jets. And don't truly
important decisionmakers travel with an entourage specifically to prevent
these sorts of things?

------
sanj
Open source credit scores and history.

Take down the oligopoly of the existing credit scoring companies by providing
an open algorithm to determine scores. Change it as necessary. Educate people
on how to improve the score. Provide the data to consumers for free, charge
others (banks, mortgage companies, etc.) to use it.

~~~
kelnos
Part of the problem with that is in reporting. The stuff that ends up on your
credit report is only there because companies (credit cards, banks,
collections agencies, etc.) report the information to the credit bureaus.
Convincing those companies to also report to you -- especially given general
corporate distrust for the "open source" concept -- would be a tough sell.

On the other hand, if there was a way you could gather all this information
without relying on third parties to actively notify you... that would be both
cool and incredibly frightening.

------
YCW10
Personal Fabrication Machines. Not expensive/rare 3D printers though, there
are over 1MM personal paper cutting machines like the CriCut and CraftRobo
that have already been sold. They need good software to drive them. I think
there is a tremendous market opportunity here and would be interested in any
feedback people have.

There are some slides fleshing the concept out on this page:

<http://ycombinator-w10-cofounder-search.tumblr.com/>

What do you think?

------
icey
The one I'm working on :D

(This is true for the duration of any startup idea that I happen to be working
on)

------
mlapeter
How about a news site that actually helps reporters/ photographers/ editors
collaborate to create news, instead of just aggregating/ ranking already
written articles?

The basic blocks of the news stories is source material: photos, quotes,
observations that can be submitted by anyone.

Every contributor (sources submitting photos/ quotes/ etc, writers, editors)
and every component (the photos, the source material, the finished article)
are rated, and feedback goes both ways.

So, the best sources/ writers/ editors eventually float to the top:

<http://www.slideshare.net/secret/FPFC5tEoeQIKX5>

------
matthodan
Add fins to catch the wind on the sides of airplane wheels so that the wheels
automatically begin to spin on landing approaches. This should help by
reducing the amount of rubber that is lost on landing and increase the useful
lifespan of airplane tires.

~~~
hedgehog
Good idea, already been done. My "Idea Graveyard.rtf" has an old link for
that, if you're curious you can hunt down what happened to the content:

[http://www.edwards.af.mil/archive/2002/2002-archive-
new_inve...](http://www.edwards.af.mil/archive/2002/2002-archive-
new_invention.html)

I think the 747 actually has motors that spin the wheels up. The lateral slide
is actually not a big issue, the landing gear on most larger aircraft are
steerable to allow for that ("crab landing" I think it's called).

Another idea in the file right after that one was to put vacuum flasks into
car engines to keep the fluids hot after the engine is turned off. In theory
this would reduce emissions & engine wear by reducing the number of cold
starts. Turns out the Prius has that already.

On the other hand a Boeing engineer came up with the idea of the little
winglets you see on airliners now, Boeing passed on the idea so he took it
outside and worked with a guy named Joe Clark. Their company (Aviation
Partners) has done very well.

I think the takeaway is that as an outsider to one of these mature industries
you may come up with new ideas but you're also at a significant disadvantage
compared to insiders.

~~~
RobGR
The link to your idea graveyard seems broken, but I would be very interested
in seeing it.

~~~
hedgehog
For the record my recollections of how aircraft landing gear works seem to be
inaccurate (I just looked, could only find a reference for steerable gear on
the B-52). For the spin-up idea I did find this though:

[http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/17808/Pre-Spin-Airplane-
Whe...](http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/17808/Pre-Spin-Airplane-Wheels)

------
mbrubeck
The Wikipedia of genealogy: a family tree for the entire human race, which
everyone can edit and add to.

~~~
dstorrs
Although I've often wished such a thing existed, you run into a significant
set of problems with accuracy. For example, the Mormons are big on genealogy;
many of them are extremely reliable sources, but many are not--e.g., their
genealogy files contain "Noah" and similar figures.

On the other hand, if the information is accurate, it raises major privacy
concerns. Most reliable sources will not display the backgrounds of living
people to the general public. If this were world-write, what's to stop someone
from adding my grandparents, parents (thereby giving away my mother's maiden
name), and myself without my knowledge? I might not want pieces of this
information known--for example, if I were 1/8 $RACE and I lived in an area
with a strong prejudice against $RACE, I would not want that fact known. I
might not even be aware of this lineage myself--it could come as a real
surprise, and possibly an unpleasant one.

~~~
derefr
Using your mother's maiden name as a secret should have died out a long time
ago. Public geneaology is an argument against _it_ , not the other way 'round.

~~~
dstorrs
Unfortunately, some places still either require this information, or treat it
as some sort of reasonable evidence for your identity.

My solution is to give my provider's my mother's maiden name when required,
but to deliberately misspell it. This solves the first problem but not the
second.

------
jacquesm
The only time I can say that we 'scored' we weren't so much concentrating on
'being a startup' or 'making it big', we were trying to solve a relatively
simple problem (how to put live video on the internet) in the simplest
possible way (1 click download and launch).

Nothing else I ever did before or after came close, but if there is one lesson
to take away from that whole period it is keep it as simple as you can.

------
bemmu
Deep search of local stores.

Several times I have needed to get product X, be it a hammer, sandals etc. but
have no idea where to get it locally. Do I have to take the bus to center, or
is it sold in some of the smaller shops around me? One weekend we spent hours
looking for sandals. At least here local shops don't list specific items they
have on their websites.

I imagine this would work by people contributing product info from shops as
they visit them, perhaps snapping pics of aisles with their iPhones, and then
having a separate group of people tagging the products they see in the photos.

~~~
derefr
There's a much simpler way: an iPhone app that would let you take pictures of
UPC barcodes, and would upload the UPC + GPS to a database (which would look
up the UPC with the central UPC service to find out what it means.) it would
also let you enter a quantitative capacity (not how much there is at the
moment, but rather how much the shelf looks like it was spaced to hold.)
Searching could be done from the same app or on the web, and the indexers
rewarded with discounts—on the specific things they're indexing—for previously
unindexed (UPC, GPS) tuples.

------
rv77ax
(not the best one, but just some thought)

a website that allow FOSS community to pay up developers based on community
request. basic goal : to speed up FOSS development.

i.e: let just say that user A want to donate $100 to pay any developer to
create a 3D driver for X card. Later, user B want it to and increase the pot
$150, and so on, and so on. At some time, some developers take a request and
developing it, publish it and take the money. As a profit, 5% of the pot will
be taken by the website.

So this website basically functioned as a mediator between FOSS user and FOSS
developer.

~~~
ErrantX
I posted a quite similar idea (though mine had some charity donation aspects
too it) here some time ago and the final consensus was that in an ideal world
it would be great.

But in actually fact it wouldn't get much by the way of serious pledges and it
probably is more off putting for the developers.

(I still think it is a good idea though; and sorry cant find a link to the old
thread)

EDIT: found it, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=682450>

Actually my idea was more different than I remember :P (sorry). Your is a
better approach to the problem.

------
lukifer
A touchscreen computer designed specifically for the kitchen, meant to be
mounted on the fridge or on the wall. Inventories food via bar-code scanner,
and/or image recognition. Massive crowd-sourced recipe database that checks
against fridge/pantry contents, and displays cooking instructions, or reads
them aloud. Throw in some timers and a media player for good measure, sync via
Wi-Fi, etc.

It's what I'd be working on if I wasn't so busy with my main idea. :)

~~~
kls
Monitors usage and reports grocery list based on projected consumption.

Provides coupons for purchased items. Or competitor brands.

Social ranking system for recipes. As well as flavor profile so that people
who prefer similar recipes as you affect a recipes rank more then someone with
opposing tastes.

Can send pre-order for packaging to local grocer or order hard to get items
from the web.

Can be integrated with a personal chef service to allow them to know what you
have on site.

I have a million more on this one. If anyone does this let me know. I would
love to chat about my ideas no strings attached.

------
steveeq1
An online dating site that uses collaborative filtering on large datasets of
people (perhaps Facebook as a dataset). Then inform potential couples when
they are physically close to each other via cell phone/geolocation.

~~~
petesalty
I've been thinking about something like this for the last few months. I think
the mobile element is a great idea, and a very nice ice breaker - "Hey there,
I'm Trent415 and superdate.com said you and I have a lot in common." Plus, you
could determine if there was a mutual friend close by to introduce you. I also
think there needs to be a wed based version that isn't location based, but I
do like the mobile idea a lot.

I think the problem with dating sites at the moment is that they make it easy
to lie. If you've ever used Match.com, or something similar, the dates tend to
end up poorly because one person who claimed to be into music listens to the
radio on the way to work, while the other person who claims to be into music
has a Masters from the Royal Academy of Music, has played in professional
symphonies and spends eight hours a day practicing. Also, that is NOT and
athletic build.

Now, if you monitoring their streams (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, whatever),
you could determine what they liked, where they went and who they knew. I
suspect this is way better way to form meaningful connections (it's how I
found the love of my life). And if you're just looking for a random hookup
there's always craigslist.

I've been looking for a co-founder for the Y Combintor summer 2010 session -
<http://ineedacofounder.wordpress.com> \- so if you're interested hit me back
and maybe we could team up.

~~~
pie
The concept of monitoring social site streams for dating/authenticity purposes
reminds me of a site I heard about recently, <http://ge.la.to/>

There are many sites struggling to gain traction in mobile aspects of dating,
and the problem is likely that it's difficult to get a critical mass of users
set up before using the feature is appealing.

Regardless, I'm not aware of anyone who has put all this together
successfully. Dating (in many aspects, but surely online) has shown itself to
be a tough nut to crack.

~~~
steveodom
yes, this is the premise of <http://ge.la.to>. Wait until you see our
recommendation/compatibility engine. It's going to be awesome.

~~~
petesalty
Steve, just a heads up, I'm running through a few things on ge.la.to and it's
super slow/crashy. Just thought you'd like to know.

------
akkartik
A recommendation-based feedreader.

This may be the answer to RFS1: what will replace the newspaper industry?
People won't pay for content anymore, but perhaps they'll pay for a
personalized service to sift through content.

I know reading recommendations have been tried several times, like at reddit.
But perhaps you can get a leg up if you get more data on the user - twitter,
delicious, etc.

------
WesleyJohnson
A web application where people can go online and post events they saw taking
place and/or ask if other people saw such events. I wagered the biggest draw
would be people trying to find out more information on crimes and you could
possibly partner with local law enforcement like CitySourced is trying to
partner with local government.

"My car was stolen today outside of 7-11 between 3 and 3:15. Black dodge
truck. Did anyone see anything?" It would be community driven and targeted at
locals. I imagined the draw to get people to participate would be to help
"clean up" the community. Imagine a centralized resource for people to post
about what they saw on 9/11 - assuming the government wouldn't shut you down.

UFO's sightings, missing pets, amber alerts could be other such usages.

Thoughts? I'm seriously considering developing this if it's well received.

------
d4ft
I tried a separate post of this but didnt get much response. So round two:

In short, more and more people are going to college which makes getting into
"top" colleges harder. I know there has been a lot of discussion as to the
worth of the college degree these days, but regardless, I think the
overwhelming majority of people still believe you should go to the best
(highest ranked? best fit? whatever) college you can. The site hopes to "level
the playing field" by connecting students with private college counselors at
various price points in various locations. Ideally, I would like to include
calendaring, planning, and video conference/recording functionality.

Anyway, here's the presentation:

<http://www.slideshare.net/secret/ATXWVjJNHk89Le>

~~~
matthodan
How would you make money?

~~~
d4ft
I think there are a lot of revenue streams available both provider and student
side. I think the most viable is to have a counselor list their normal price,
gross it up say 10% and take 15% of the proceeds of the transaction. That way
the provider gets most of what s/he wants and the student pays a little more
for the added convenience.

------
adatta02
walmart style inventory management / analytics for mom n pop size stores

~~~
ABrandt
I agree that most small stores could benefit from a "just-in-time" inventory
system, but I'm not sure it could be styled after Walmart's. The key to their
success is the massive quantities they move, as well as their network of
delivery trucks. Essentially each semi is treated as a mobile warehouse
stocked with a variety of carefully picked products. So instead of having cash
tied up in inventory that may or may not sell, any one store can pull items
from a truck as soon as they are sold off the retail floor.

As an example, I work at a "mom n pop" style mattress store that has 19
locations throughout the Midwest. We essentially have one main warehouse and
two delivery trucks to cover the entire state of Illinois. Wednesday is the
only day of the week that I can get any kind of inventory, and even then I'm
unlikely to get everything I requested.

With that being said, I do believe that a simple web interface that could
track the flow of our inventory through our network of stores could greatly
improve efficiency. Even though every individual item is carefully tracked
manually, I still have no easy way of identifying where I could potentially
pull a particular model or size from to serve my customers. To find that
information, I have to literally get on the phone and call each store
individually to inquire about what they have. An automated system would
certainly be welcomed, the question is only how. Could be a hard sell to a
company that still relys on dial-up and fax machines...

------
brandl
Mobile app where you snap pictures/video of issues around your community
(graffiti, broken streetlights, potholes, etc.) and upload to a site. Users
can search by geo and vote on the ones they want to see fixed first. Local
government subscribes to a reporting engine/workflow service that allows them
to slice data and work more closely with their citizens in improving their
locality.

~~~
lesterbuck
CitySourced just launched to do this at TC50:

[http://tc50tweets.techcrunch.com/story/180036092/citysourced...](http://tc50tweets.techcrunch.com/story/180036092/citysourced-
launches-at-techcrunch50-fix-potholes-with-your-phone-laist)

~~~
brandl
Well, I guess I shouldn't have shared this idea with so many people over a
year ago then! :-D

~~~
mattmanser
Or you should have started working on it a year ago ;)

------
crsmith
A super-simple way to email groups. Something where someone can easily
subscribe and unsubscribe. Something that doesn't require signing up for an
account, but only add an email address.

Concept:

Go to www.saturdaymorningrunninggroup.emailgroups.com

The webpage will have a box to easily add your email address.

To email the group, you send an email to
saturdaymorningrunninggroup@emailgroups.com and it is broadcast to everyone on
the list.

~~~
WesleyJohnson
What's to stop a spammer from joining said group and emailing everyone about a
great deal in country X to export 1 million dollars? I don't think the concept
is without merit, I do like it to an extent - just wondering how you would
manage it?

------
amohr
I want to start a job search site that allows for rich profiles that can
subtly communicate someone's design sense, style and personality.

You would have the option of uploading various formats and building a
portfolio of your work. This could be a suite of screenshots, embedded videos,
or other such work that would allow employers to get a sense of what it is you
do and how you do it instead f just matching keywords.

The closest thing I have seen to this is (was) SnapTalent - and their fate is
largely why I am not working on this already. They did not have the necessary
understanding of the HR industry and neither do I - but I think there's a
definite need for this type of service. I'm sick of trying to represent myself
in plain text - I don't think or work in plain text.

------
steveeq1
How about an website that collects/harvests good startup ideas? Like what
we're doing on this HN page?

~~~
run4yourlives
This post comes up regularly on HN, and a comment like yours is pretty much
guaranteed to accompany it.

I wonder why such a site has yet to exist?

~~~
harpastum
Some of the ideas are more whimsical than others, but the halfbakery [1] has
existed for quite a while.

"The Halfbakery is a communal database of original, fictitious inventions,
edited by its users. It was created by people who like to speculate, both as a
form of satire and as a form of creative expression."

[1]<http://www.halfbakery.com/>

~~~
run4yourlives
The issue with that site is that it lives up to it's name. I think you'd need
to launch any real idea site from a forum like HN. It's the people submitting
and evaluating the idea that will make it work.

------
DannyDover
I have always wanted to create a widget that would go into a dishwasher and
change color after the cycle was completed. This way, you would always know if
the dishes were clean :-)

It might work based on heat (drying cycle) or via a reaction with soap.

~~~
madebylaw
And this would be better than checking the dishes themselves?

~~~
aw3c2
(Us) Nerds don't like to move their body.

------
Calamitous
Most people think they're good drivers, even bad ones (thanks, Dunning-
Kruger!)

I'd like to see a rating and ranking system for drivers. A console in your car
with a big red button-- when someone around you is driving recklessly, you
target them and punch the red button... they rack up demerits (or frowny faces
or whatever) and they can go to a site to see how they rank up, and how people
think they drive.

Not that it's feasible or anything, but I'd love for somebody to do this;
there are people in dire need of this service (myself possibly included).

~~~
cmars232
I thought of something like this based on license plates a while back. Drivers
would send messages (kudos or kurses?) to a license plate's inbox. Anyone
could check the inbox, but you'd have to know the plate.

I think it'd have to do speech recognition though, because texting-while-
driving would probably be irresponsible to encourage.

I couldn't figure out how to make it practical or monetizable, but it'd be fun
to have something to scream at while driving now and then :)

------
timcederman
Yelp for products. I use Amazon in this way now.

~~~
pmikal
remember epinions?

~~~
timcederman
Yup. But it has too strong an emphasis on shopping, listing prices, etc, and
lacks a clean hierarchy. Too many duplicates, and not enough reviews, e.g.
[http://www.epinions.com/search/?submitted_form=searchbar&...](http://www.epinions.com/search/?submitted_form=searchbar&search_string=d630&tax_name=&dyn_nav=0&dyn_nav_id=&search_vertical=all&searchbar_submit=Search)

I'd love something with a Yelp-esque interface that allows me to search for
any product, whether grocery item or gadget, or whatever. e.g. "I wonder what
people think of the Blueberry Stonybrook yoghurt?".

Previously it wouldn't be that compelling, but with mobile computing being
what it is now, it could be very helpful.

------
mlLK
An unmonetized (account holders accumulate credit(s) per textbook(s) already
traded/donated) college textbook exchange hub.

Kind of like a distributed library of users holding textbooks for a finite
period of time until it is eventually re-queued for someone else to checkout.
Payment for textbooks exchanged are abstracted as credits according to some
scraped average.

------
adityakothadiya
To manufacture single-seater cars for daily commute. Saves fuel, traffic
conjunction, parking space, maintainence, etc.

~~~
matthodan
Like a motorcycle ;)

~~~
zackattack
Except a car.

~~~
desiderata
There's Aptera, I guess: <http://www.aptera.com/>

MIT did a neat concept car which could be stacked together for compact parking
as well.

------
matthodan
How about a cupcake company that sells designer bite size cupcakes to people
who need a sugar fix.

~~~
run4yourlives
<http://www.cupcakesonline.com/>

~~~
matthodan
I've been beaten.

~~~
run4yourlives
Handily, by two girls nonetheless! :)

They have very, very good cupcakes.

~~~
run4yourlives
Wow, and here I though smilies pretty much indicated homour clearly...

------
coolnewtoy
Software to help take an ebay business to the next level: \- seamlessly manage
both prospects and customers, \- dead-simple accounting \- some wizard-based
basic analytics to figure out which products/customers represent your best
shot of making profit.

------
mping
\- A mobile app that tells the user what is the best plan based on his calls
profile and current network, etc \- a Google-calendar like app where
advertising is time-based, like events, sports, TV shows, etc

------
Mankhool
A web/mobile app that will allow users to request information (text, audio
clip, photo or video clip) from each other, anonymously and in real-time,
based on their global location. Human Powered Search?

------
jeroen
I'm working on <http://vldtr.com> . Although it might not make me a lot of
money, it does allow me to learn about marketing, which is not my strength.

~~~
jacquesm
Looks good!

If it's completely free it will indeed not make you a lot of money, but what
you could consider is to limit the number of validations an IP can make in a
certain window of time.

If they exceed that ask them for a contribution.

~~~
jeroen
Interesting idea. Thanks!

~~~
jacquesm
Graag gedaan ;)

------
astartupaday
[http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/startup-31-thin...](http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/startup-31-things-
that-look-like-stuff/)

------
dawie
<http://docley.com>

------
migpwr
Virtual Bank Account numbers so you don't have to update every bill pay/direct
deposit when you change banks. Also allows you to add multiple bank accounts
behind it.

Paypal needs this.

------
matthodan
Social insurance-- similar to Lending Club, but for insurance.

~~~
run4yourlives
That would violate most regulations on insurance.

------
mtholking
A hyper-local politics application.

Allow users to give feedback on every representative, bill, or amendment that
affects them from their specific city, county, and state.

------
richieb
Direct person-to-person electronic payments.

~~~
antirez
How this differs from paypal? I understand that for you to propose this there
is some fundamental difference, just I can't figure it.

~~~
run4yourlives
>How this differs from paypal?

My assumption is that it won't involve paypal. :-)

Seriously though, that's the difference - some way to avoid the third party
lock in that paypal forces, replacing it with a simple: "money from my account
into your account" method.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
um...those are called checks. the reason that paypal got big was because
electronic checks and wiring money is riskier than an escrow.

~~~
run4yourlives
I know, and I'm not claiming to have the answer, but basically the idea seems
to be "electronic checks".

~~~
frossie
You guys know that in Europe this is common? It's called a "bank transfer" and
it is trivial to do, just need people's bank account and routing number and
yes, people do hand it out. Many (most? all?) bank websites support it.

We have newly-arrived Europeans working at our US office that cannot _believe_
people still write cheques here.

[Edit since there has been some curiosity: here is who underwrites the scheme
in the UK: <http://www.bacs.co.uk/> \- as you can see it's not-for-profit
unlike PayPal. US companies that trade in the UK (like ebay.co.uk of course
accept payments in this way . eg see [http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Payment-by-
Direct-Bank-Transfer_W0...](http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Payment-by-Direct-Bank-
Transfer_W0QQugidZ10000000002794069)]

~~~
mynameishere
We have these things called "credit cards" where you are protected from fraud,
typically get a certain percentage award through a marketing tie-in, and get
to earn interest on the monthly float.

~~~
frossie
They have credit cards over there too you know :-)

Many people object to being in debt in principle. Yes, yes, I know you can pay
off the balance every month, but clearly most people don't, otherwise credit
cards would not be in business.

Also, for small-time ebay sellers and the like, the overhead in accepting
credit cards is non-trivial.

------
matthodan
A simple drag and drop web interface for creating rich web applications-- no
programming skills necessary.

~~~
Maro
Like Frontpage used to be?

~~~
derefr
I think the difference is that these would be web _applications_. Imagine a
big, UMLish parts bin of controllers and models that you drag between to
create relationships, sourced from an online db. Once you're done, it gives
you the skeletons of the views and you drag-and-drop them to 'beauty.'

~~~
matthodan
exactly

------
gfodor
OpenCL powered generative DSL workbench for domain experts to build software.

------
yosho
a laptop with a monitor that can expand and contract allowing for greater
viewing space.

And not the crappy dual screen mock up they have now that looks like it was
invented in the 90s.

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maxer
bet tracking software and odds aggregation service..

what im working on now.. have four others but i will keep them in my head for
now

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rokhayakebe
Working on Email Analytics right now.

~~~
matthodan
Like Xobni?

~~~
rokhayakebe
No like Google Analytics.

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elboheme
Here are my current 3 picks.

1\. The Reverse Job Board

 _The mini pitch_ : “Buy and sell work online.” _What it is_ : You know all
those job boards you see littered around the web? This is a job board flipped
on its head. Think of it as a “work wanted” board. Instead of employers
posting job offers, this is a place for service providers to post requests for
work. _How it works_ : Designers, developers, writers, and anyone else wanting
work can post their request, together with the percentage or fixed fee they’d
pay to someone providing a lead. _Why it’s hot_ : More people than ever are
turning to the web as a source of work. Sometimes it’s very hard to find it,
or very time-consuming to browse offers and make pitches. Wouldn’t it be great
if people could find work for you? And imagine getting paid just for referring
someone you know who needs a new website or logo design. _Where the money is_
: Take a commission when work is successfully placed, or charge a monthly fee
to either buy requests or see contact details.

2\. Live Auction Sites

 _The mini pitch_ : “Buy it now on steroids.” _What it is_ : Online auction
sites are great, but few of them capture the same adrenalin rush and buzz that
you get from a real auction room. I think there’s still space for a well-
executed live auction site that makes listing and bidding super-simple. _How
it works_ : Imagine a list of iPhones for sale — you can only bid on the one
at the top, and it’s only available for minutes instead of days. Bids are live
and backed by escrow, and when the top item’s been sold, the ones below float
upwards and a new item becomes active and open to bids. _Why it’s hot_ : As a
seller, it’s becoming increasingly complicated to list things online, generate
buzz, and make a quick sale. A simple live online auction site could solve all
that. _Where the money is_ : Make it free to list and just charge a commission
for successful sales. You need to think carefully about how you’ll guarantee
that all bids (and items!) are genuine. This could be by asking users to
deposit funds into their account prior to bidding, or some other way.

3\. Website Sales

 _The mini pitch_ : “The place to buy and sell websites.” _What it is_ : If
you’ve got an established website to sell, where do you go? There is still no
clear-cut market leader in this field. What’s stopping you from filling that
gap? _How it works_ : List your website for sale at either a flat fee or
auction rate. Include screenshots, traffic, pagerank and earnings info and
watch the money roll in! _Why it’s hot_ : Domain name sales are big business.
But selling a website for what it’s really worth, or buying an online property
in a trusted way is still rather tricky. _Where the money is_ : Take a
commission from successful sales in return for offering escrow and listing
services, or charge for each listing.

source: [http://www.dailybits.com/11-undiscovered-website-ideas-to-
st...](http://www.dailybits.com/11-undiscovered-website-ideas-to-steal-and-
make-you-rich/)

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mrfish
Elance for local people only. So no overseas professionals allowed. Wouldn't
make any money though. I suck at ideas.

~~~
w-ll
how about elance for students only. Like facebook used to do requiring a .edu
email address

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derefr
Just as a reminder, universities outside the US don't get .edu addresses (for
example, mine is just a .bc.ca adddress.) This may or may not be your intended
effect.

~~~
w-ll
well .edu is just a filter, we can chose to allow any domain/TLD

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mdg
Something like the robotic vacum cleaner (I think it was called "Roomba" ??)
except instead of vaccuming, it will steam clean. Also, instead of doing it
all day willy-nilly, it will only activate when it senses your poorly-trained
or bad dog soils the carpet when you are at work.

Diapers on a dog just dont seem right...

~~~
Tichy
A robot dog might be the better alternative.

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adw
How is the answer to this not "working on it"? (Not that any startup idea has
one author. It's always a collaboration.)

