

Using hacker news to generate startup ideas - geedelight

How about you guys who have collectively a lot of ideas for startups but probably not the time to work on them, contribute your ideas for startups here? and we can rank them by the number of points the comment will get.Maybe the next bill gates will pick it up and do something great with it :-)
======
SwellJoe
I think this is one of those times when we, as a community, are perhaps too
focused on ourselves.

Business ideas are _out there_ , in the real world, you won't find them here
(generally). Yes, "scratch your own itch", "do what you know", etc. All of
those are true, to a point, and there are plenty of smart people here...some
of them are even working on businesses that will be a success (or already
are). But, if you just ask a bunch of entrepreneurs, investors, and nerds what
they want, it's easy to end up working in the very small and competitive field
of "things ten other people are working on, and the entire market is measured
in hundreds of dollars".

I'm unfortunately not exaggerating. I've met quite a few people at startup
mixers and events and such who were working on clones of things that I'd never
even heard of. So not only are they working on something where they have
established (by some definition of established) competitors, but it's a field
that nobody outside of a tiny set of web 2.0 early adopters has ever even
heard about, and only a small segment of those even care about it.

And, of course, I would be remiss in my duties as a curmudgeon, and HN old-
timer, if I didn't say this: Ideas are worthless.

~~~
yesimahuman
True, but they could be a catalyst for someone who just needs a spark. Just
talking about them here on your own time certainly isn't HURTING anyone.

~~~
SwellJoe
Perhaps. I'm just advising folks to be careful about things they hear in the
echo chamber that is our community (where communit==HN+blogs+web 2.0
industry+etc., I'm not singling out HN, in particular). Just because you hear
a loud chorus doesn't mean there are actually a lot of people wishing for what
the voices are suggesting--it could just be two or three really loud people
who like the sound of their own voice (like me!). I suspect the better way to
get ideas is to work in the real world. Maybe work as a contractor for a
while, so you see how different businesses work, and more importantly, where
and how they fail to work.

Is the discussion hurting anyone? No, probably not. As I mentioned most of the
folks here are smart and interesting. Talking to smart and interesting people
is generally good for you. But, don't imagine that it's the real thing, or
that you'll find your business plan via discussion here--it takes research,
customer interactions, and a helluva a lot of work, to formulate a viable
business plan. And, talking on the Internet has the pernicious ability to make
you feel like you're accomplishing something, when in fact, you're not
actually doing anything.

And, honestly, I think that a big bunch of talent is currently being wasted on
dumb ideas, and I suspect there is some sort of relationship with the kinds of
things we reward in the Internet startup world with our validation, our blog
posts, etc. That's not to say that executing on dumb ideas is time completely
wasted...sometimes it can evolve into something wonderful (flickr from Game
Neverending, or whatever it was called, for example). I think a lot of the
dumbest ideas come from looking inward too much. "All the current todo lists
can't remind me three times at randomized intervals throughout the day about
important stuff, and I'm really bad at remembering to do stuff, so I will make
a todo list that can totally do that!"

Just be careful how much stock you put in ideas you read on the Internet
(including this one).

~~~
yesimahuman
Yea I agree with you, I just think that overzealous "ideas are worthless"
people are annoying. Sure, if you are trying to start a business on an idea
that hasn't been implemented at all, that's not a great idea. But if you are
just going to talk about ideas who cares?

------
tstegart
Mixing Tumblr and Paypal/Amazon to sell something straight from a blog post.
Blogs are really the way of the future, and there are a ton of people out
there who blog about their business or interests and sell things at the same
time. Think of a band or someone who blogs about indie music. You can sell a
new product easily from each post, without setting up a store.

Both Amazon and Paypal now have micropayment options (5% + $.05). Both have
code you can easily copy and paste into a post to add a sell button and both
have developer API's. Both are free to implement (no set-up or monthly fees),
Amazon has cheap storage and bandwidth and you only pay for what you use.
Tumblr and other blog systems are also free. Its time for a digital goods
selling revolution!

All this great stuff is out there, but no good interface exists to make it
easy for a non-developer to implement it. The current solutions available
require monthly fees that usually overcharge you for bandwidth, storage, or
transaction costs, or limit you in some way (e-junkie limits the amount of
products you can have). And in typical e-commerce fashion they have gawful
help desks and incomplete documentation.

One big thing missing is a way to instantly direct your users to a download
after they purchase something. I'm a non-technical guy who's looked into it,
and believe me, its impossible to do without using a service such as e-junkie.
But the parts of the solution are in place to make it happen for everyone.

I think a lot of people out there want less of a website, more of a blog, less
of an online store, but more of an easy way to sell digital or physical goods.
Think musicians (or musical blogs), photographers, artists (a really great way
to sell artwork as you make it). Monthly fees make it prohibitive to sell
artwork, because you usually only make one, and there might be some time
before you make another, but a blogstore is a great way to do it.

I like Tumblr, because its non-technical yet can be messed with if you really
want to dive in. What this problem needs is also a non-technical solution that
will allow people to get at the nuts and bolts if they need to.

Anyone want to have a go at it?

~~~
alaskamiller
Conversion rates are low.

~~~
villageidiot
Perhaps because people are nervous about taking out their credit cards except
when they are familiar with the reputation of the online vendor. It may be
hard for blogger X to overcome that fear factor.

~~~
tstegart
Exactly. I've formulated a theory of micropayment success. It requires:

1\. A credit card or payment method already in the system, OR, a trustworthy
vendor;

2\. One click ordering or an Ajax style cart where you don't have to load a
new webpage for every step of adding things to your cart and checking out.

3\. Large product base spanning multiple product offerings but only one
central payment center.

Obviously, this theory was postulated by examining by the most successful
micropayment vendor out there, Apple. They're really good at it. Think about
it: you don't need to enter your credit card information twice;they have one
click purchase; they have multiple product offerings, but all payment goes
through them. There is only one person who needs to be trusted, them.

I think the one person to trust thing is really the key point. People don't
have time to evaluate online vendors for trustworthyness. But if they're
already comfortable, it doesn't matter, and $.99 cents becomes no hassle at
all to spend.

------
kleneway
Good idea for those with some extra time during the holiday break. Here's one
I like that I've been saving for my blog (<http://www.astartupaday.com>) but
I'll go ahead and post it here.

I'm predicting that over the next 1-3 years, we're going to start to see a
major shift as users move from mouse+keyboard to touch as the primary input to
their computing devices. However, today every mainstream website is optimized
for the mouse+keyboard.

My idea is to get ahead of the curve and create user experiences for all the
major mainstream web verticals (such as Email, social networking, news,
search, etc..) that are designed primarily for use with touch. For verticals
that have a high switching cost (such as mail and social networking), instead
of trying to build from scratch, the focus should be on a front end that pulls
from an existing service (i.e. pulls from gmail pop or Facebook connect).
Users could choose the verticals that they use on a daily basis, and each
service would be available from different tabs. The core UX elements would be
consistent across all services, and would be optimized for use with a touch
screen.

If anyone's interested in hearing more or maybe hacking out a prototype with
me over break, feel free to contact me at kleneway@hotmail

~~~
bokonist
I'm a bit skeptical that we'll see touch screens or Minority Report type UI's
replace the keyboard and mouse. The keyboard and mouse are under appreciated.
It's really hard to match the following benefits:

1) keyboards are an incredibly fast way to input human language into a
computer system.

2) keyboard/mouse operate on flat surface while your arm is at rest. This
makes it easy to use for 8 hours a day.

3) A small movement of a mouse creates a much larger movement on the screen.
Yet, because the mouse is flat and at rest, it is easy to control.

4) Mice are far more precise at pointing than touch screens. Although perhaps
that's a secret disadvantage, since it encouraged the use of small widgets. A
good touch screen would most certainly not be able to use anything like our
current UI widgets.

~~~
tstegart
Picture this in your mind (or look at this sort of bad example:
[http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/17/taito-introduces-
surface-...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/17/taito-introduces-surface-like-
arcade-game/))

You move the monitor down, and make it very large. Build it into the desk at a
slight angle. Your arms rest on the entire surface, so its very comfortable.
The entire display and its interface is oversized, sort of like a media center
interface. An iPhone like keyboard pops up when you need it, sized exactly
like a regular keyboard. But quick keys on either side of the monitor's face
can also input commands.

------
danw
There are plenty of opportunities in the enterprises. They're looking to cut
costs and switching to interesting, powerful, cheap apps is one way. As a
hacker you'll likely need to team up with a former enterprise insider,
possibly someone recently laid off. They'll need to understand what tools are
inefficient, what strange requirements enterprises have and how to sell to
them. You'll need to price below the ceiling where middle managers can make
spending decisions without committee oversight or prepare for long slow sales
process.

One possible perspective.

Producing an ecosystem where normal 'sheeple' workers can be employed outside
of the restraint of big companies is another opportunity. After these mass
lay-offs people will see that working for one boss who can fire you is bad and
that multiple bosses will produce more stability. These workers and the
companies that use them will need sources of information[eg
<http://freelanceswitch.com/>], tools to manage work and workers [basecamp]
and ways of communicating with peers and customers[twitter].

------
jwesley
My startup idea is a web app that automatically generates startup ideas by
randomly combining various inputs. I think this would be approximately as
effective as throwing out ideas here and asking people to vote on them.

~~~
petercooper
You mock, but there's something to be said for the idea of randomly combining
unconnected ideas.. that's a hallmark of an original idea. There are many bad
ones formed by such a process, naturally, but you can come up with some
awesome ones too.

~~~
tstegart
But has it ever succeeded when tried by non-humans? Its kind of like the
monkeys at a keyboard theory. Yes, they can write a sentence every once in a
while given enough time, but in actuallity, they're useless at writing.

Original ideas are combinations of other ideas, but they're ideas combined by
humans.

~~~
petercooper
It depends whether non-humans have a sense of creativity and then the ability
to _recognize_ a good idea from the randomness. I don't think they do. We
humans are, putting it mildly, ridiculously good pattern matchers..

If I were to pull some buzzwords from a single niche (let's say social
networking) from a hat, say.. Twitter, music, friends, pictures, e-mail,
profiles, voting. I could pull a lot of random ideas from joining some of them
together:

\- a site that lets you specify the music artists you like, then it finds
Twitter users who have mentioned all of those artists.. instant music buddies!

\- social profiles oriented around people's e-mail addresses

\- random MP3 sent to your e-mail each day as voted for by people on a Web
site

\- voting on Twitter in elections

\- use song mentions on Twitter to establish the most popular songs for
certain artists

I won't go on..! These are not really great ideas, but they're not nonsensical
either.

You might argue that earlier I mentioned "unconnected" ideas, whereas
"Twitter, music, friends, pictures, e-mail, profiles, voting" are from a niche
of sorts. True, but when I said "unconnected" I guess I meant more that the
ideas are not connected in any practical way, rather than sharing a common
element. Random words would probably not cut it :)

------
mahipal
I got this idea after building a specialized website for a particular local
artisan, but I think the whole method could be generalized pretty easily.

Etsy provides a clean, centralized storefront for individual merchants /
creators to sell their products -- taking over what used to be the
significantly more decentralized and disorganized venues of eBay and
Craigslist.

This site would be a similar such venue for people who are trying to sell
_services._ A glance at the Craigslist "services" section shows plenty of
people like this -- computer repairmen, graphic designers, programmers,
housemaids, accountants, tutors, personal trainers, and many more. Each person
would be able to personalize their "storefront" with a list of their services,
some copy text and an image gallery, and a section for people to post reviews
/ testimonials of this person.

~~~
villageidiot
Just like skillwho. They get around 70K unique visitors a month so I would say
that sounds like a good idea. I'm not a big fan of their design, mind you, so
maybe that's something you could improve on.

~~~
mahipal
You're right, that site is hideous. =P

I came across <http://www.workstir.com> recently too, which is a similar
concept. But I have to wonder... do either of these sites actually have a
_business model_?

I had some thoughts on how to possibly monetize this sort of traffic, so a
couple other web sites in this niche doesn't really discourage me too much if
these guys are just rolling on advertising.

~~~
villageidiot
Agreed - the existence of competition should not be a deterrent. Angie's List
is kind of similar to these two and gets close to a million unique visitors
per month.

<http://www.angieslist.com>

And, like you, they have a monetization plan. Something to check out if you
haven't done so already. They received quite a lot of useful press coverage
outside of the regular tech channels - no doubt that helped them build this
level of traffic. Hopefully you have some connections at Martha Stewart Living
too :)

~~~
mahipal
This is great info, thanks for all these links.

Angie's List is interesting -- very high quality, I'm sure, with that
"Consumer Reports" style business model. But they also lose a lot of traffic
going subscribers-only. No doubt they're rolling in money, but I'm glad to see
it's not the same monetization idea I had.

Seeing all these has inspired me to throw together a prototype. I'll post it
on HN in a week or two when it's presentable. =)

------
ig1
Two start-up ideas which are feasible but I decided against:

1) Alumni software which lets universities/companies manage alumni
communication and also lets alumni network with each other. A few top-tier
unis and companies have in-house stuff for this, but most don't.
Facebook/Linked-In just don't work for alumni networking due to trying to be
too many things at once.

2) Publisher driven ads service. Current ad systems suck for closed sites
(i.e. non-public) or sites which know a lot about the user (dating sites,
social networks). Most of the big sites in this category currently solve this
by running their own networks but this obviously isn't feasible for many
sites. You could probably build this as a CPA ad brokerage service and expand
from there.

~~~
villageidiot
There's a ton of alumni networks on Facebook that seem to be operating sort of
successfully. Are you talking about reducing the feature set?

As for the ads service, I'm not sure if you're talkinga about something like
addiply, which is a UK-based attempt at hyperlocal advertising that avoids the
Adsense model.

<http://www.twadservices.co.uk/cufc/taintro.php>

The guy who started it was profiled in this piece in Britain's Guardian
newspaper:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/04/startups-
adv...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/04/startups-advertising)

I would think you would need some kind of background in advertising and be the
kind of person who doesn't mind knocking on a lot of doors to attempt this
kind of venture.

Here's their self-description. Sounds like what you're talking about (let me
know if I misunderstood):

"We empower both the local/niche publisher and the local/niche advertiser to
source and place perfectly-targetted, digital advertising themselves without
third party intervention."

I don't see why this would not work even better in the US but it remains to be
seen whether Addiply will have any success - it seems like an uphill battle to
me.

~~~
brandnewlow
<http://www.paperg.com>

~~~
villageidiot
That seems more to the point, being that it's US-based. Thanks for the link.
Here's Victor Wong, the Yale student who started paperg, talking about it in
this article:

<http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23170>

------
yan
Why not we form groups around ideas that people like to start hacking? We
should form a collective to bang out prototypes before not too long.

~~~
aneesh
I think that's great in principle, but I'd be wary of the communication
overhead if you can't meet in person. Especially if this is something that
you'd be spending only 5-10 hours per week on, it might be easier to just
build a barebones protoype yourself & then see if people are interested in
taking that further.

~~~
yan
I think it's still worth a try or two. If anything, we can potentially
organize a few real-life coding-oriented meetups to see if anything
formalizes.

