

Ask HN: where do you share and discuss ideas (just for the heck of it)? - Timothee

As most people here I presume, even though I don't necessarily do anything of it, I have ideas about stuff to build. I like to think about them as some kind of exercise, to think about different scenarios, how one could monetize it, the basic architecture, etc.<p>I'm wondering if you have a place (online or offline) where you usually discuss these ideas (the kind where most probably nothing will happen but which are still interesting to kick around), or a group of hacker friends you exchange emails with...<p>Personally, I discuss that with one of my friends by email. But I'm thinking I could find a bigger group for more discussion.<p>As an example, the release of Tipjoy's API (http://tipjoy.com/APIcontest/) sounds like something to spend some time just thinking about what could be done, even if we don't get to the implementation.
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mahmud
I "pitch" ideas to everyone and anyone who will listen, specially if I know
they're entrepreneurs, I will flood them with feedback and can spend the night
visualizing ways they can improve their business, etc.

It's good sometimes, but it mostly overwhelms people. I am also known to
express dismay whenever a friend tells me he will take/keep a full time job. A
few days ago I was at a party when I ran into an old gym buddy. I knew he was
a pharmaceuticals post graduate then and I wanted to kick back and forth a few
ideas someone else raised to be about starting a medical software business. My
friend said he was working full time at his university and he wasn't
interested in losing that lazy but paying academic gig. It really ruined my
night and I kept trying to talk him out of it.

Sometimes people will come to me with ideas and I will take them and run with
them. The next day I would have been exhausted all possibilities and now I
have several pages of business analysis in my notebook. Only problem is,
people usually "have" ideas but they're not convinced of them. It than falls
on you whether to put the 4 weeks of coding necessary to launch the service
and start marketing it and make $, along side your other projects in the
little time you have. It's a judgment call you have to make, and I always
choose to ignore it and just apply the lessons I "learned" to my own projects.

Ideas are cheap, just make sure you're not telling them to an _executioner_ if
you're not yourself a taker. You will waste his time and put him in a moral
dilemma when he finds out you're the one dragging his feet.

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Timothee
Rather than "where do you pitch your ideas", my question is more about just
discussing them informally. Discussions that could start by "wouldn't it be
nice if...?", "I was playing around with this API and thought...".

Like a book club for just discussing ideas :)

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vorador
What about creating a mailing list dedicated to discussing ideas ?

