
What's an idea or creation that you've had success with locally that I can copy? - js7
What&#x27;s an an idea that you have implemented successfully in your local area that I can bring to my local area?
======
Scoundreller
Had a hard time getting to a government office or other facility that lots of
people have to get/go to on an irregular basis?

Write a blog article about it, but don't just provide the address and phone
number, provide VERY specific instructions that one actually needs and doesn't
get anywhere else, almost like turn-by-turn GPS. For example: "park by the X
retail location, go inside the doors of the building under the Y sign, walk
50m just past the elevators, go up the stairs 1 level (the elevator takes
forever), and you're there. You can park for free 1 block East on Y street."

I've done this for a few government offices. The earnings aren't high per
month, but they have been consistent for 7 years, pretty good for an hour's
work. It's doubtful the Yellow Pages, navigation providers or government
website will provide such useful and detailed instructions.

~~~
amit_m
Can you share some numbers? e.g. approximate unique visitors and revenues per
month per page.

~~~
Scoundreller
I'm usually reluctant to share any numbers, but it's a few dollars per month
per article (on average). It adds up over the years and has been very
consistent, which is why I like the segment a lot. Unique views is not a
useful number in my opinion, it's all about total revenue. I suppose it's the
hyper-local aspect that drives up the ad bid prices on Adsense. The content is
also a great example of "Evergreen Content", unlike, say, a review of a World
Cup game from yesterday.

I really see it as publishing my thoughts and notes, and things I would have
liked to have known in advance. Typical entrepreneurial thinking, "Solve a
problem that I actually had", but at a micro scale. Sometimes I end up reading
one of my own articles in a few years time because I've forgotten the precise
details of the process when I have to go back again.

(This has been one of my highest-upvoted posts on HN so far)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _but it 's a few dollars per month per article (on average)_ //

Earning being from GoogleAds attached to the article? Or ...

~~~
Scoundreller
GoogleAds attached to the article

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kephra
We did make a free beer mobile application in 1999, when cell phones had been
still big, called Happy Hopper. The idea of the service was: You send an SMS
to our server, we send you an SMS back to a pub in town, together with a
riddle to solve in that pub. Solve that riddle and you get a free beer and the
address of the next pub. The SMS also served as a ticket for the bus.

Success of this service was based on working with our local brewery, and local
radio station to advertise it, and of course public transport. Happy Hopper
did run two times during the Freimarkt and Osterwiese fair. So you also need a
date, where you can expect lots of people who enjoy to get drunk.

~~~
js7
That sounds great haha. I live in Ireland so it's bound to be popular!

~~~
ehurrell
As a fellow Irishman I agree, it could work very well with tourists too, a
drinking tour of Dublin where you have to solve the leprechaun's riddles
markets itself!

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bemmu
Send local goods to foreign subscribers in monthly surprise shipments.

~~~
Scoundreller
Just a thought to represent how creative one could be and probably still make
a viable business:

I've also been looking online for various toothpastes I bought in Croatia.
They have these nice herbal flavours that make me feel like I brushed my teeth
with a Ricola cough candy. Everything in North America is mint or cinnamon,
and many of the interesting esoteric flavours are fluoride-free :(

edit: removed joke offer of ketchup chips from Canada.

~~~
eitland
I'm on holiday in southern Europe and we got caught off-guard by ketchup
chips. :-\

------
akumpf
I haven't created one personally, but if you're in a maker desert (where there
isn't great access to spaces/people/tools to build and hack things), consider
starting a maker space.

I used to live a few blocks away from one in Seattle and it was awesome. Just
a couple workbenches, a 3D printer, hand tools, wifi, and some electronic
components can go a long way and get people in the community stoked. :)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _consider starting a maker space._ //

I've thought of this many times - mainly cause I'm too poor to buy all the
tools I want and even the tools I have I wish it were easier to lend them so
they don't die of rust before their otherwise useful hours have been used up
...

But, I've always thought that this would need to be a government supported
social enterprise, never that it could make enough money to pay for
rent+wage(s) and equipment, upkeep, insurance, etc..

Anyone actually done this and willing to share some figures (privately if
needs be)?

Thanks.

~~~
chatmasta
Our college has a "maker space" and it's been a tremendous success, to the
point that engineering "recruits" cite it as a reason for choosing the school.
Obviously this was school-funded, but my point is that the administration saw
a direct value add from it, and continues to pour funding into the program.
You may be able to pull data about municipal maker spaces in other cities, and
use it to convince your own city to fund a project to build one.

~~~
joshdance
What school was that?

~~~
chatmasta
Yale. So take the funding issue with a grain of salt..

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stevekemp
Fetish based dieting advice. I'm serious.

In brief you need a market of "kinky people", and you need a market of people
who wish to lose weight, stop smoking, or similar.

You agree on challenges, you "punish" them if they fail, or succeed, on a
case-by-case basis.

Very hands on. But there are a subset of people who will be in your target
audience who are extremely wealthy..

~~~
thenomad
There's already an exercise equivalent. Google "Slavercise". Appears to have
lasted a few years at least...

------
nhebb
An o-shibori (hot towel) service. They're common in Japanese restaurants, and
when I visited Tokyo in the middle of summer, I looked forward to the hot
towel almost as much as the meal. You could resell or lease the equipment and
provide daily laundry / sterilization service.

------
stoev
Web crawler that collects comments on social and media websites and lets users
analyse and visualise them. It's not very hard to build and provides a great
service to businesses releasing PR articles and seeking feedback on them.

~~~
veb
Couldn't you use something like Google Alerts, but don't tell your customers
that, just show the results in a more prettified and "tailored" way to them.
;-)

~~~
amanthei
Or, use mention.com and export beautiful analytical reports directly.

------
psychometry
Self-storage is getting big and can be done anywhere: [https://angel.co/self-
storage](https://angel.co/self-storage)

------
porcuk0r
Christmas tree delivery service by bikes:
[http://kantaa.hu/karacsony](http://kantaa.hu/karacsony)

~~~
xur17
I thought about doing something like this last year. It was in more of a
suburban area, so we'd use cars / trucks, but the idea was to allow people to
order trees online, and then deliver them a few times a week at set times
(between 9-12am on Saturday, etc).

------
supercoder
Middleman for a service that would connect men with women who would be
intimate for an exchange of money

~~~
hypron
I've heard that this isn't easy.

~~~
tuxidomasx
Do you know of any obstacles/challenges to doing this? Something like Backpage
escort listings where you just offer craigslist-like functionality for the
occasional listing fee. Seems like it'd be pretty straightforward, but I may
be overlooking something.

~~~
shiftpgdn
It's reference to an 80s rap song. First post suggesting selling women's
bodies (pimping). Second reply is reference to:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGRoEfRJSGs

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Theodores
A local arts group with a big 'open studios' event once a year, an artists
directory with mini portfolios, gigs, poetry readings, workshops and other
events. With a bit of help from whatever groups are already there plus the
council it should come together. A newsletter is what makes it all work plus a
half decent CMS. Local artists cannot do these things by themselves much like
how cats can't herd themselves.

As well as money from ticket sales there is also money as per the directory
model. A side benefit is that you will have a wonderful social life with all
of those gallery private views to go to.

------
hesselink
This site
([http://www.worldstartupwiki.org/](http://www.worldstartupwiki.org/)) is
tracking startup ideas that haven't been implemented in certain locations yet.

------
abestic9
Taxi/bus company rate comparisons. Most transit companies provide fare
information on their website, as well as a search function which rarely
includes a CAPTCHA, so getting updates is easy.

~~~
js7
There's not many bus services in my city and the taxi situation is:

\- Flag the taxi down - all the same price

\- Hailo which loads of people use all the time now

\- 20% discount taxis

\- 25% discount taxis

So I don't think we really have a taxi problem

~~~
jordanwallwork
Lucky you. Our taxis prices are all over the place, some charge a callout fee
and others don't, and some hide the meter and charge whatever the hell they
want - I'd use a price comparison service for this for sure

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nkg
A database management system for any structure who stores a lot of data. What
I did was basically transferring a lot of repetitive tasks they handle with
Excel to a PHP/MySql application.

~~~
D3_4dl1N3
Inventory management softwares handle those kind of tasks. Is it your
product/service ?

~~~
Falling3
Most inventory management software is fairly generalized. If you're doing
anything outside the box, it can be very difficult to rely on off the shelf
solutions and, at best, companies may require additional software to interact
with the inventory management programs.

------
_puk
Bog standard printing at your local store.

Seems it is easier and cheaper nowadays to buy a printer than replace an ink
cartridge. Looking at £50 a time. I just don't print enough to warrant it.

None of the supermarkets / high street stores do bog standard A4 printing for
a few pence.

I've found a print shop that will do it, at a cost, but the quality is far too
good for simple stuff, hence the price.

My 'right this moment' problem.

~~~
lucaspiller
There is a place that does this opposite where a friend lives in the UAE. They
are focused on business printing, but you can just walk in and do this for
about 10p / colour page. They are always busy and open 24 hours so it must be
profitable :)

------
kvee
Gossip forum in a hacker school that became so popular that the administration
demanded it get taken down yesterday. Now comments have to be approved, and
only the most recent 5 rather than 40 comments are displayed. Seems like
making these changes has already killed everything that was great about this
little online community, so if you do something like it, don't shut it down ;)

~~~
girvo
What was the rationale for neutering it?

------
thruflo
Really really good coffee.

~~~
amit_m
With all the international travel and global trade of this day and age, it
amazes me how difficult it is to get a decent espresso in the US, even in
major cities.

Beer OTOH has been completely revolutionised in recent years.

------
alexhawdon
[https://medium.com/@nikkidurkin99/my-startup-failed-and-
this...](https://medium.com/@nikkidurkin99/my-startup-failed-and-this-is-what-
it-feels-like-c5d64b3ae96b)

From what I read, the idea was very sound and validated by some great initial
success.

------
jitbit
go through all the small local shops and offer them SEO services. most of them
have terrible sites so "on-site" seo will work great. You'll make a couple
thousand. Good way to make some money when you really need it after moving in

~~~
js7
What do you mean "after moving in"?

That's a good idea. I always wonder: what if the site is already set up
correctly or what if you can't make any movement in search rankings (due to
competition, industry, anything)

~~~
SNACKeR99
You sleep in their shops of course! "Oh, don't mind that woman sleeping beside
the cans of soup, she is our SEO expert!"

By rotating where you sleep among your clients, you build stronger
relationships and have better insight into their business.

------
gadders
I've not done it, but I always toyed with the idea of doing a tampon-
equivalent of the Dollar Shave Club - i.e. get sanitary products emailed out
every month automatically.

~~~
vishalzone2002
i had this idea and found that there are lot of these.. its a tough one to get
successful in because amazon etc are already big time in it, unless you can
reduce the product cost itself.

~~~
gadders
Yeah. I had the idea of basing outside of the UK/EU to make use of the Vat
exemption for small packages:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAT-
free_imports_from_the_Chann...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAT-
free_imports_from_the_Channel_Islands)

~~~
rahimnathwani
The standard rate of VAT in the UK is 20%. Tampons are subject to a reduced
rate of only 5%. Being based outside of the UK wouldn't save you much VAT.

Visit this page and scroll down to the 'Health' section:
[https://www.gov.uk/rates-of-vat-on-different-goods-and-
servi...](https://www.gov.uk/rates-of-vat-on-different-goods-and-
services#health-education-welfare-and-charities)

------
draugadrotten
Print kiosks where customers can print out a customized "newspaper" with a
customized subset of news articles scraped from the web

~~~
vijayr
I can't tell if you are serious or joking. How can you simply scrape someone's
content and sell it? It would be copyright violation.

~~~
kachnuv_ocasek
Who's talking about selling it?

~~~
icebraining
It'd be a copyright violation even if you gave them away, at least in many
countries.

------
lun4r
A lemonade stand!

~~~
js7
Some university students did this in my city recently. I was disappointed that
they overpriced it (1 euro for a cup of lemonade)

~~~
jtheory
Charging 1 euro is practical (so they don't have to be giving out a ton of
change during the day...), but it sounds like they should have made sure they
were offering something that didn't look too cheap -- e.g., get decent quality
plastic cups that aren't tiny, do some actual work for each customer (instead
of just pouring from a massive pre-filled jug), include a lemon wedge in each
cup, etc..

I can easily imagine a lemonade-stand lemonade that would seem underpriced at
1 euro; but obviously they didn't take that approach!

------
js7
I'm thinking things like pizza price comparison apps etc

~~~
BorisMelnik
I almost thought you said Pizza compression, but I think that was actually
done in back to the future part II.

------
taway98765
well, none of these are really implemented (yet) but here you go

SW Only

1) An all-in-one transport app. You'd have a single credit wallet you could
re-charge on a monthly/weekly/as-needed basis. You set in your profile for how
long you are willing to wait for a ride(lets say +/\- 15min), and how far are
you willing to walk from your current location(lets say r500m) + other
criteria if you please(like ferraries-only:). Rates could be something like
few cents/km for "civilian" drivers(standard car-sharing - could be
problematic depending on the legislature/generated profit for the driver), few
bucks/km for cabs, pub transport based on routes/times and - dynamic pub
transport routes per km as well. Lets say there is a after-work beer with
colleagues planned so you can't drive to work by your self. During breakfast
you just choose a destination(predefined for freq. places), desired time and a
"hitchhiker sign". All drivers doing the same/similar route(with criteria
compatible with yours) would be notified .. a few "accept" clicks away/maybe a
quick look at the drivers profile(badges/km driven/reviews etc) and your off
to work. No drivers available? Your app would show you all public transport
possibilities(color coded based on compatibility with your criteria) + cabs in
your area - few clicks away and you're set(either buying a ticket or ordering
a cab). Double-validation for payments based on transport type - no more
waiting on a bus stop for 2 hours watching 100's of driver-only empty cars
going your direction + a public API would mean that bus companies could also
use small 6-8 passenger buses and dynamically create new/amend existing routes
based on the demand(200 people heading to a business park across town(C) from
destination A, 100 from B to D(which is near C) between 0800 - 0900 > change
route via B .. if time intervals are met(like 1h from A - C) ) ++ all the data
flowing your direction could also be used as a waze alternative for even
better routing +++ you could profit by selling api data/on % from commercial
transport partners) + have awards for car-share folks like free oil/filter
changes after 10k km/free coffee after 20km between 2200 - 0600 etc..). If you
are in EU, these projects are highly welcomed..

2) We need a distributed decentralized(p2p), no-authority write once read many
storage solution for "our civilizations data" like news/general knowledge. It
has to support versioning, encryption, deduplication, store synapses between
relevant data, be self-healing, layered, nodes
monitoring/promoting(demoting)/caranteening each other if needed, role-based -
build on premise that all* of the nodes are/can become malicious actors(..).
Everyone should be able to run a node on his nas @home/mobile device, assign
roles to his devices etc .. general storage for all things public.. + it
should support anonymous document uploads(lets say an indenpended journalist
from syria wants to get his/her story published / someone working in a big-co
comes across some very interesting public-interest documents he;d like to
publish and doesn't trust honey-pot assange/media) - all big problems on their
own .. regardless of the client app using the data(if you are running a auto-
moto/pro-(enter political party) website, you may apply as much filtering as
you wish), the user should still be able to get/contribute to the "publicly-
generated" synaptic nw of a news story as stored on the backend + this is the
bare minimum for other systems we desperately need to reform(the "no-trust"
premise of it) so a good way to dive into this problematic

3) services on top of 2) .. and there are many ..

4) DNS, routing, ssl/alternative, smtp replacement! .. + ton of things you
could do to make this world a better place.. please just don;t waste it on
another twitter app

5) Clouds are here to stay, what has to change is the way we look at and work
with data + connected with 2) + a few old concepts ms thought about pioneering
a few years back, maybe its time for - yet another - linux distribution,
combining best of today's storage array internals, embedded systems,
containers/vm technology and security(..). In combination with some dedicated
(hopefully usb-sized) hw .. could be a interesting time-waster

SW + HW

1) Easy-to-use/build RF-net kits for low-bandwidth applications(irc/messaging
fe) - pick a protocol/design your own, design a hierarchical topology of
clients, ap's, retransmitters, keep an eye on per-country rf encryption
restrictions and hope you'll never have to use it as your primary means of
communication(eg no "accidents" on our main optic backbone)

2) HW keys to your cloud data/apps - turning your PC into an
accessory/treating it the same like a cloud service provider with
computing/storage services available based on the pc-os setup .. maybe the
x-server architecture could finally become applauded ..

"HW" Only

1) The idea of public work-places is great! soldering sets, measuring gear, 3d
printers, tools for lease, benches for alu/wood work etc - would probably be a
hit anywhere(+ that equipment costs too much/takes years to gather at home.. )
- there is a hobbyist in most of us + in combination with a caffee/"fun"
area/library and city funding, you may even get into some green numbers

2) In combination with 1) - electronics tuning shop - if you like to get your
hands dirty(building hw slider switches into phones/nbs, custom cases/hw
customization - router fw's etc) - you could get some traction if you;d
presented your self as something underground/anti-establishment .. these
days..

3) bio and localized farming - huge opportunities, really bad business
models(we;re talking about real bio producers struggling with the rising
regulatory pressure lobbied by the big guys, not the so-called bio farmers
selling out to those big-co's) - monthly payments with 2x/4x a month "basket"
deliveries of seasonal food to your doorstep with some it tech in the mixture
+ insurance coverage for the farmer +++ .. ok I'm hungry - sry for this half-
baked not thought through / naive / unfeasible list and good luck ..

~~~
felixrabe
Re SW 2 and 4: You might want to base this on [http://named-
data.net/](http://named-data.net/) that builds an information-based
alternative to the host-based IP protocol. AFAIK this work was started by Van
Jacobson at PARC who is a central figure in the TCP/IP stack.

------
wwwhatcrack
Jacking off

------
randomvc
Da Pimp business

