
Bad Startup Idea - Your next weekend project - CGamesPlay
http://www.badstartupidea.com/
======
justin_vanw
All actually good startup ideas are bad ideas when they are started. Everybody
thought twitter was retarded, and nobody had any idea social networking was
even going to be a thing when facebook launched. If you only work on things
that people agree seem like a good idea, you are probably the 5th team that is
working on it, and you probably started about 3 years too late.

This actually ends up giving many real successful startup ideas or just good
ideas. It also gives a lot of bad ones, but here are some I noticed:

OKCupid, for music. (Pandora) Github, but for knowledge. (Wikipedia) Hacker
News, but for knowledge (Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange) FourSquare, but for
photography (is that Instagram?) and a bunch that are more of a stretch.

So, here are some ideas it had that I think are are actually good:

OKCupid, but for shopping (better, hyper personalized product
recommendations).

LinkedIn, but for beer (more like "it's Just lunch" for professional
relationships, set up one on one beers and such, foster mentor relationships,
etc).

Github, but for fashion (imagine something like paper dolls, where users can
mix and match shirts, pants, accessories and share the combinations with each
other, and then purchase complete outfits).

~~~
natejenkins
I have to disagree a bit with the idea that no-one thought social networking
was going to be big. Were you not around for Friendster? Amongst my college
friends it was huge. The problem was that it didn't scale. I logged on
frequently until logging-on became too painful. It was the first site I used
to reconnect with lost friends, and that was valuable to me.

Apparently Google also saw the value in Friendster, as they offered $30
million for the company, which Friendster turned down.

I'm not sure that being late to the game is as bad as many people would like
to believe either. Implementation is king. I yahooed before I ever googled,
had many email accounts before gmail, talked on my computer before skype, and
on and on.

I agree with you though about Twitter. Total surprise.

~~~
chaz
Agree about social networking -- it was around in early forms, soon after the
web launched: PlanetAll.com (1996; acq by Amazon for $100mm in 1998) and
SixDegrees.com (1997; acq for $125mm in 2000).

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gmu3
When he said the ideas were hidden (and before I realized you just refresh the
homepage), I just started trying random urls. This was my favorite:

<http://www.badstartupidea.com/no-satisfaction>

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donfitz
Funny that the first idea it showed is almost exactly what I'm working on now.
I couldn't believe it.

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msoad
Meanwhile my restaurant owner friend wants me to sign a NDA for his startup
idea. Oh God, why?

~~~
tunesmith
Hmm... helping developers politely decline the amazing opportunity to work on
a lousy app/startup idea. Someone should write an app for that.

~~~
Cacen
We could work something out. I'll just need you to sign this NDA.

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ville
I was expecting a blog post about how it's bad to build a startup from a
weekend project. :P

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blparker
I was too lazy to refresh, so I built a script and dumped 220 of the ideas in
a pastebin. Sorted with duplicates removed. Very likely that some are missing.
Would've probably been just as easy to try all combinations of left and right
terms, but oh well. <http://pastebin.com/rzEuz89f>

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redschell
_LinkedIn, but for Cooking_

Definitely niche, but not bad. It might be cool to have a system like that for
connecting young, promising Chefs with more established ones. I don't know too
much about cooking, but I bet it's hard for Chefs to convey their expertise
and experience with a traditional resume.

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rtcoms
One day I was thinking of using github for writing novels, stories etc. Each
branch will have different climax. Newbies in writing will be motivated to
write small parts and get feedback.

Although it's not a startup idea but a use case of github api and will need a
different interface.

What you all think of this ??

edit:grammatical error fix

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mattbradley
Shazam, but for beer.

I think I might be on to something.

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tomasien
I just got "Quora for programming" which is already a thing, it's called
"Stack Exchange" and it's a massively big deal of a company making a ton of
money that saves my life every day at work.

Sooooo actually picking one of these may be smart.

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DigitalSea
Stumbleupon but for knowledge — this could actually work. You stumble
knowledge of particular subjects instead of blog posts and comics. Very
interesting. Cool idea, lots of fun I've been generating ideas for 20 minutes
now.

~~~
ehsanu1
A side project of mine is sort of a stumbleupon for knowledge. Sort of. It's
more like a directed stumbleupon; you get web pages related to the page you're
currently on. Good for research, but knowledge-stumbling works too:
<http://jellly.com>

~~~
mailshanx
Hey i checked it out, it's a really cool project! Would you mind sharing how
you implemented this? I'd really love to know :)

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tikhonj
There are some amusing combinations there. Quora, but for programming: sounds
like StackOverflow :). Netflix but for news: rent news broadcasts months after
they were aired; sounds like a perfect plan!

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sgdesign
To be fair, any of those ideas could produce a great startup with the right
team behind it… That's the thing, the idea alone is pretty much meaningless
one way or another.

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droidist2
I hear people say this often and never quite understood it. The idea is very
important. Having a bad idea vs. a good idea is like the difference between
trying to sell snow to an Eskimo and trying to sell a glass of water to a man
dying of thirst. Given the right salesperson, both can be theoretically done
and both can be screwed up, but that doesn't mean that execution is
everything.

~~~
hayksaakian
He means that execution is more powerful in general. If you can sell snow to
an Eskimo, imagine what you could do with a _good_ idea.

~~~
droidist2
Absolutely, you need both. I'm not sure how to quantify which one is more
powerful or important, especially since "idea" can mean many things, from a
very vague concept to a fully fleshed out and vetted business plan. I was just
taking issue with the "ideas are worth nothing, execution is everything"
mantra.

~~~
mion
Let me quote Derek Sivers: "To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed.
They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions."

<http://sivers.org/multiply>

~~~
thoughtcriminal
That should go without saying though. I think a better way of asking the
question is _"what's better: a brilliant idea executed so-so or a so-so idea
executed brilliantly?"_

That to me is a more interesting and logical question.

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mwill
_Github, But for Knowledge_

Wikipedia?

Between this and the Video Game Name Generator [1], I think I could work
forever on random junk. ; )

[1] <http://videogamena.me/>

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samsolomon
I made something similar when I first started learning ruby.

<http://ideabit.herokuapp.com/>

eHarmony for tax consultants is one of my favorites.

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______
This is good, I thought that itsthisforthat.com gives funnier results
though...

Wait, what does your startup do? So, basically, It's an analytics platform for
aquariums.

~~~
greghinch
I have a friend who builds high-end custom aquariums for rich people and
businesses. There's a lot of monitoring to be done on those things, I bet
there's an opportunity

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mistercow
Ow, that Venn diagram.

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instakill
Github, but for photography.

That's not actually a bad idea.

~~~
yawniek
exists: <http://canv.as/>

~~~
kken
Interesting, I had already forgotton about that one. It looks like it did not
really take off in the meantime...

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flexxaeon
Spotify, but for business

Motivational audiobooks? Hmmm....

~~~
flexxaeon
So I refreshed and got "Github for Cooking" which sounded funny at first,
until I thought about it. Which then led into a 15 minute discussion with the
wife expanding on the idea. Now I wanna build it.

~~~
blcArmadillo
Funny that this just popped up on the homepage:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5120578>

~~~
flexxaeon
wow looks like it's being/been done a few times over. nice

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rukshn
it's really nice most of the results are good ideas, some already exists, some
are pretty bad

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arbuge
I was thinking a sentencing commission website, but for hackers.

Oh wait, looks like that one just got taken...

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stuffihavemade
"Instapaper, but for Location"

Rand McNally is Web 3.0 certified!

