
Ask HN: Anyone have any good startup ideas? - aml183
My friends and I are in college. Just closed our last company. On to the next one, but can&#x27;t come up with any ideas. Anyone have anything interesting they want built?
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gt565k
I'm gonna have to go with PG's advice here. Stop trying to start a company.
You don't start a company just for the sake of it. Even if you have a project
that's cool and useful, it doesn't mean it needs to be a company.

I'd focus on working on projects and rolling them out. See if people use them.
If you can find a way to monetize, do it. Just build things to get experience.
Don't try to start a start-up just cause.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Why shouldn't you start a company just for the sake of it? Everyone's gotta
eat, what if you want your employer to be yourself?

I guess my behavior is the exact opposite: I won't start a project then try to
monetize it, I prefer to look at what people are likely to spend money on and
then build that. That seems more in line with what the OP is trying to do.

~~~
gt565k
Most people try to start a company by forcing an idea they think is good. Just
like one of my college friends, who doesn't understand the market, industry,
or even the target audience for his idea. Like I said, you don't just start a
company. You start a company when you realize that this is a product that can
sell, until then, it's a side project.

I can't tell you the countless times my college friend came up with a "great"
idea. Even went as far as registering an LLC. I quickly dismiss most of his
"great" ideas with 5 minutes of googling.

Starting a company means you need to invest ALL of your free time into
building the company, product, acquiring customers, etc.

Most people register an LLC with their crappy idea and think they are running
a company. Unless you are willing to drop out of school and invest 80 hours a
week building this company, it's probably not worth it.

The reason PG suggests to build things that don't scale, is because getting
experience building applications is far more valuable than trying to force a
stupid idea into a business. Building applications that already exist just for
fun, will open your mind. Once you start connecting different ideas together,
organically, an idea worth becoming a business will come to mind.

You can sit and brainstorm ideas all day, but the best ideas, the ones that
can turn into a business, they just come to you out of the ordinary.

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bko
A contract market for restaurant delivery.

Most restaurants in big cities offer delivery service by hiring and managing
their own delivery people. Restaurants probably don't want to be in the
business of hiring and managing these delivery people. It also doesn't make
sense logistically as the delivery person has to make a round trip. Also,
demand spikes and troughs result in a lot of delivery people sitting around or
over-worked. There needs to be a more flexible labor-force.

It would be more efficient if you have delivery people be able to contact out
to restaurants. For instance, a delivery person can pick up a package going
from A->B and then pick up another package going from B->C, resulting in less
time spent on the return. There would be a reputation aspect to the delivery
people and everything would be pre-paid or, if cash on delivery, would be
settled by the app.

The other good thing is that, although the idea benefits from network effects,
it could work very well in a small geographically limited location. You could
test the idea by signing up just two restaurants on the opposite side of town
and work out any kinks.

Not sure if anyone is getting into this space, but considering a lot of wealth
is created by specializing, it seems silly that restaurant managers should
have to deal with a delivery work-force with (I imagine) high turnover. I
could definitely see a Seamless or OpenTable get into this space, if not
already involved.

~~~
pj_mukh
DoorDash? Though they also centralize your restaurant and offer online
ordering. For small restaurants that's probably a bonus?

~~~
bko
I didn't know about this service but I'm not surprised. Seems from the site
that they are catering to customers rather than restaurants. That would
probably bring them into competition with Seamless. If I were going to order,
I have no reason to check out DoorDash when most restaurants I'm interested in
is on Seamless anyway.

Also seems expensive. People aren't used to paying for delivery and would much
rather have that baked into the price. I think focusing on restaurants as
customers would be a better strategy.

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vishalzone2002
1\. deliver organic and healthy food at airports and hotels. When a user
checks in for boarding pass, the delivery is ready. One delivery per flight..
2\. Hire a local "expert" to build your itinerary when you are visiting that
local's town/city. 3\. An new email platform built with UI in mind for non-
personal emails like newsletters, marketing offers, etc. happy to work with or
share more

~~~
aml183
I'd like to discuss these ideas more in depth. Can I email you?

~~~
vishalzone2002
sure. my handle at gmail

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davismwfl
It is interesting, when I was young I felt like I had no ideas at times. The
reality was I just wasn't recognizing all the opportunities ripe for
solutions. Pick things in your lives that you are frustrated and passionate
about, otherwise a startup is doomed to fail. I say that because passion is
the only thing that will sustain you when life is sucking as it will
occasionally in a startup.

At the same time, maybe this is a point you should get an internship or job to
gain the experience to know what might be of interest. I personally never
recommend that a college student go looking to start a company unless they
already have a really deep passion for an issue and it is marketable.
Otherwise, in my experience and opinion, your failure rate will be way higher,
almost a guarantee.

~~~
aml183
Thanks for reply. We are all interning this summer, but have a lot of free
time. Since we have experience with a startup. We realized that it's not just
building the tech, but doing the selling, acquiring users etc.

Now that we know this, we are struggling to find an idea that we can build,
but also have time to grow during the school year as well.

~~~
davismwfl
Cool.. My bet if you look around you'll find a bunch of ideas. Talk to
friends, strangers etc and just ask what's frustrating them etc.

Since you are interning go and talk to the sales, marketing and business dev
teams and ask them questions. As an intern you have the freedom to ask all
kinds of questions and no one will really think twice. Just try to get away
from the development group when you are asking a lot of the questions because
they typically aren't seeing the opportunities only the items presented to
them, and many times their presence will keep sales teams from speaking
freely.

~~~
aml183
We have been keeping a note book, asking people for problems they face, and
looking at problems we face. We just don't like any problems that we have
discovered. The best idea so far is creating some sort of AngelList for the LP
space or a version of Seeking Alpha for the private equity/venture capital
community. Nothing worthwhile yet.

~~~
davismwfl
Great, keeping the notebook is awesome.

Your smart to not just jump on an idea, if you don't like it or don't feel
totally energized by it then it isn't a good fit for you. Doesn't mean someone
can't do it and be successful, but you likely wouldn't if you aren't totally
engaged and super energized.

Keep it up and Good luck!

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lucasjcm
SaaS - Shabbat-as-a-Service

Challah right to your front door in minutes.

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tocs
Some to do with cabinets, like kitchen cabinets. There are a lot of CNC
machines around that are not being used to there full potential. A business
set up to let a handy man doing work around town or a home DIYer could walk
into a businesses, give some dimensions for some cabinets, and walk out a
couple hours later with all the parts to put the cabinets together could do
well.

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vijayr
Affordable immigration services that doesn't suck. For example, let's say I am
a guy from an Asian or African country. I input all my basic data
(nationality, age, qualifications, experience etc), it should analyze and tell
me the best countries to look into.

This is a very hard thing to do, but extremely valuable. You can charge a flat
fee of 50$ or something like that for a basic search (or even make it free),
then do lead generation for lawyers. Bonus would be, compare and contrast
various countries. For example country A and country B - compare and tell me
the best choice for me. Take into account family situations and other stuff
(can the spouse work? can you do freelancing/start a business, or are you tied
to an employer? what are the waiting times?) etc etc.

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michaelw
A white label uber like app for use by municipal taxi authorities.

There's no need to throw the baby (taxi regulation) out with the bath water
(getting a taxi is usually inconvenient).

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djokkataja
I'd been thinking for a while that this would be nice:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9785575](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9785575)

TLDR: Extremely high-res virtual "windows" that you can run on a flatscreen
mounted on your wall, so if you want it to feel like you have a live view
from, say, the top of Mount Everest (right in your bedroom/living
room/wherever), go right ahead.

------
panjaro
I'm thinking of starting a company which gives startup ideas. I have too many
ideas but got no time to work on any of them !

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HeyLaughingBoy
Here: [http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/t/opportunities-in-sme-
reorde...](http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/t/opportunities-in-sme-reorder-
management-space/1214)

------
lewisl9029
Here's a recent Ask HN thread that might be relevant:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836508)

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opendomain
I have several:

NoSQL.Com - Big Data as a Service

Free-Fi.Com - Secure open WiFi without software (Not VPN)

4NY.Com - Local site for New York

LipoSculpture.com - Directory for Lipo cosmetic surgery

You can use these domains for Free if you support OpenSource.

Contact me HN AT OpenDomain dot Org

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HeyLaughingBoy
What was your last company? Can you leverage those customers? What problems
did you encounter working with them? What did they ask for that you thought
was out of scope at the time?

~~~
aml183
Skilled gaming company (Koalah) Not really. Didn't know how to acquire
customers. In a market that had too much stigma. It was always associated with
gambling even though it was legal. Not a common problem that startups face.

------
tocs
It is a little late for a response to this question but I just had another
thought.

Maybe a local Uber-like business. One that only servers one city.

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bra-ket
a taxi-hailing app

~~~
scottydelta
uber?

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miguelrochefort
Let's get real here. This post is the perfect example of what's wrong in the
world. Startups for the sake of startups. A solution solution looking for a
problem. Newsflash kids, that's not how things work.

There are so many problems out there, it's difficult to believe they're not
obvious to you all. If you're one of those that just can't see, I recommend
you stay away from starting things. I'd rather the world not be introduced to
yet another disaster.

See the ideas from comments above? They're PERFECT examples of the worst
possible thing humanity could build next. That echo chamber is unreal.

~~~
aml183
I don't understand this comment. Some of the world's most influential
companies started as small, simple ideas. Twitter for example people
discounted as just a dumb app where people shared what their cat was doing
24/7\. It is now one of the most powerful tools on Earth and sparked a
revolution in the Middle East and has given millions of people a way to tell
their story to the world.

Based, on your comments nothing is worth building. We should encourage
innovation, rather than knock people for just asking a question of what ideas
they think are worth building.

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indoindo
Dribble and cofounderlab combine for indie game developers with different
skill set. e.g. I'm programmer seek a 3d animator/modeller

~~~
XaspR8d
Just saw [http://signup.metroia.com/](http://signup.metroia.com/) today in the
public Game Development slack.

~~~
sidmitra
Thanks for the mention. I've been working on Metroia. It'd be a platform
similar to dribble to showcase anything related to game dev and also connect
and collaborate.

