
20,000 Startup Ideas - overlords
https://unawaz.github.io/stochastic-hill-climbing/tasks/
======
davidw
You could generate even more startup ideas by running a Markov chain thing on
these!

* Check with customers to determine their usefulness.

* Inoculate animals against various diseases, such as internships.

* Review product promotional materials, and physical fitness.

* Monitor computer-controlled test equipment, using germicides and sterilizers.

* Transpose music to alternate keys, or to towers.

* Operate farm machinery, such as espresso machines.

* Document software defects, using hand and horn signals.

* Prepare bank deposits, or performing arts.

* Run errands, such as animal dehorning or castration.

* Forecast staff, equipment, utensils, and silverware.

~~~
edm0nd
Ah yes, the great music towers of 2020. What a time to be alive.

~~~
cameron_b
The Music Towers of the 1960s[1] were pretty intense too

1 - [https://news.artnet.com/art-world/taiwan-kinmen-island-
sonic...](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/taiwan-kinmen-island-sonic-
territories-1332893)

------
Geee
These are not startup ideas, but activities that people do. A startup-idea
might be to find a way to make these activities easier.

To make this list more useful, there should be two additional datapoints: 1.
How many people does the activity impact 2. How much does the activity impact
each person. The product of these would be the total impact. Sorting by the
amount of impact would give the most valuable areas for innovation, and there
should already be a plenty of businesses focused on these activities.

~~~
petra
What's missing is a resource that would let you understand each activity, it's
tools, processes, problems, etc.

~~~
Geee
Actually, if you Google them, you'll find the ONET page for the job
descriptions that includes the activity and has more information about the
task, e.g.
[https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/51-8011.00](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/51-8011.00)
(tasks are the 'startup ideas')

------
fencepost
Even without the list being suitable for mockery, ideas are _EASY_. Ideas are
like opinions, everybody has one. Take a shower, have some ideas. Go out for
drinks, hear a bunch of drunk people talking about the great idea they just
had. Winnowing out the chaff (not done here) is harder because not everyone
agrees on what's chaff, and building a successful company for any of many
definitions of success is harder still.

The idea is when an egg is fertilized. Producing a baby is a lot more work,
and producing a successful adult is a lot more beyond that.

~~~
tiborsaas
> ideas are EASY

That's true. I see a few things behind the monitor right now.

1) Trees. Let's do something with them, like planting them at scale, maybe
mess with their DNA, WCGR?

2) The window has birdshit on it. Let's build window cleaning drones.

3) Ceiling lights. These are really crap make a really smart, well designed
one for office environments.

~~~
joshspankit
3) Surprisingly enough (to me); Unifi has done just that.
[https://store.ui.com/collections/led/products/unifi-led-
pane...](https://store.ui.com/collections/led/products/unifi-led-panel)

~~~
Tharkun
Not fond of their colour temperature. If they had an option to change it, I'd
install them all over my house.

~~~
joshspankit
Hundred percent agree. Especially if they upgraded it with >95 CRI and
adjustable colour temp based on separate warm-white LED chips (not an array of
RGBs).

------
jcadam
> 4678\. Develop transactional Web applications, using Web programming
> software and knowledge of programming languages, such as hypertext markup
> language (HTML) and extensible markup language (XML).

Where has this list been all my life? I could have been a zillionaire....

------
colinwilyb
I enjoy how some of them run together. 10933 and 10934 as an example:

Clean, shape, and polish fingernails and toenails, using files and nail
polish.

Remove bones, and cut meat into standard cuts in preparation for marketing.

~~~
toper-centage
I'm confused about 10933. Isn't that just a regular nails salon?

~~~
ALittleLight
I've heard somewhere the way to find start up ideas is to take something like
this list and add AI to it. How do you add AI to a nail salon start-up?

How about: build an augmented reality display for customers who are waiting to
get their nails done. It's got a camera, and it will show users what their
nails would look like with any of the styles offered by the salon applied.

~~~
alex-wallish
Looks like some of the large retailers are already doing this:
[https://mobile-ar.reality.news/news/modiface-applies-its-
aug...](https://mobile-ar.reality.news/news/modiface-applies-its-augmented-
reality-tech-nail-polish-with-fingertip-tracking-feature-0190496/)

------
eloisant
Well, considering ideas are a dime a dozen this site is worth 20,000 / 12 *
$0.1 = $167.

Maybe less actually :)

~~~
akerro
>20,000

there aren't even 20k ideas...

~~~
tim333
18514 so they are worth $154.28

------
hermes0
Looks a bit random.

If you give the start of this list to transformer

[https://talktotransformer.com/](https://talktotransformer.com/)

the generated ones look as good as those, example:

5.Evaluate a vehicle's operation and use of the system and record information
on the system, such as the number of miles driven, total mileage, speed, and
odometer reading. 6.Prepare and administer reports to provide data on vehicle
performance, and to support vehicle performance maintenance and repair.

~~~
eitland
Maye someone should interface this to the patent applications system.

The idea is that if a bot can generate patent applications they aren't very
novel.

From this we should backtrack and look at existing patents and throw a large
percentage of them out : )

------
dpcan
Could a massive list like this help stop frivolous patents from being viable,
or granted? Perhaps if all people could just add their ideas to this list,
over time, we could prevent the ability for anyone to patent anything if the
idea already existed.

Or do I still not understand patents?

Could this list exist at a stop-patents type website where even the patent
office could do a quick search to see if an idea is unique and original, or
has been thought of easily already and put on big list?

~~~
nhumrich
You dont understand patents. You cant patent an idea. You patent a specific
way to do something. For example, you cant patent a mop, but you can patent a
specific design of a mop, a way to build it. You cant patent encryption but
you can patent an encryption algorithm. You cant patent "compressed video" but
can patent a compression format. A patent requires a detailed writeup of _how_
to do something.

------
BlameKaneda
> 10799\. Align wheels.

Okay.

> 11031\. Transport the deceased to the funeral home.

I think we've found another use for robots.

~~~
d-sc
I’m pretty sure your mocking. But the funeral industry needs to be disrupted.
Went through the process a couple weeks ago and it felt pretty scummy.

~~~
Ill_ban_myself
I don't really have a point here, but my wife and I recently looked at burial
options and there's a beautiful cemetery near us but the only really
affordable option is cremation and storage in a wall of tiny notches with
little doors with an indoor/outdoor viewing area and garden for visitors.

I have started referring to it as, "Our Cubby" and my wife hates it.

------
orangepanda
> 7384\. Prepare customers' nails in soapy water, using swabs, files, and
> orange sticks.

Some are oddly specific

~~~
joshvm
> 12399\. Give enemas and perform catheterizations, ear flushes, intravenous
> feedings, or gavages.

Very specific, and somewhat disturbing.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejmFSN2qBG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejmFSN2qBG0)

~~~
codefreq
How did you went so far while reading the list?

~~~
joshvm
I ctrl-f'd for something else and had to do a double take when I saw that. The
worrying part is presumable someone actually does that job - which seems to
only involve sticking tubes into people, never mind which hole.

~~~
jandrese
Someone's gotta do the job.

I've thought that inserting IVs is something that nurses struggle with a lot
and maybe could be automated. It would be an absolute nightmare to develop
that robot though, as you'd have to go through all of the medical device
certification on top of dealing with all of the edge cases of human anatomy.

------
xntrk
"524\. Solicit new business." how did i never think of this before...

~~~
cschneid
Then when done:

7024\. Collect payment upon job completion.

~~~
_Nat_
And:

> 1600\. Collect payments from customers.

~~~
davidivadavid
All of these are huge businesses. Debt collection. Factoring. Etc.

------
AaronNewcomer
Word Cloud: [https://i.imgur.com/2Tjjo6S.png](https://i.imgur.com/2Tjjo6S.png)

~~~
cameronbrown
Nah this can't be right. Blockchain, AI and Machine Learning need to be huge.
No wonder no startups are getting funded nowadays /s

------
bepitulaz
Idea 20100, make a filtering and full text search service for all of these
ideas for better reading experience.

------
whalesalad
This is hilarious. The first one that caught my eye was helping passengers
leave and airplane.

Was this an ML project? This looks like the output of a very basic machine
learning project.

The commentary here is the best part of this. As (un)valuable as this list may
be, it definitely gets the wheels turning in your mind.

------
marviel
"883: Design computers and the software that runs them."

Seems to check out

------
hilmarh
> 12064\. Manage leasing of facility space.

Sounds profitable.

~~~
chuckgreenman
> Regular Brain - Lease an Office

> Nebula Brain - Virtual Offices like Regus Offices

> Galaxy Brain - Coworking spaces

> Exploding Galaxy Brain - WeWork

> Super Exploding Galaxy Brain - OurWork a per second billed coworking/living
> space

~~~
ovi256
OurWork ?

More like Amazon Workplace Services, if Amazon does it.

~~~
tim333
WeLive.com is kinda getting there.

------
cabaalis
Just prepend "Uber for " or append " for developers" and this is indeed a
startup idea list.

Also:

> 20\. Carry messages or documents between departments.

"I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand
that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

------
saalweachter
Unsurprisingly, contains some duplicates:

#11755: Separate scrap waste and related materials for reuse, recycling, or
disposal.

#11784: Separate scrap or waste materials for recycling, reuse, or
environmentally sound disposal.

#11997: Identify or separate waste products or materials for recycling or
reuse.

------
kuu

      2948. Deliver babies.

~~~
orangepanda
I raise you "2603\. [...] deliver babies safely"

~~~
samfriedman
Sounds like something to worry about once we've achieved market domination.

------
_Nat_
To clarify, is this meant as a joke of some sort?

Just not sure if it's just a satirical thing -- like, " _Hah, look at the
silly word jumbles my script generated!_ " \-- or if it's meant as a tool for
something.

------
vincent-toups
This combined with the WeWork news is not doing anything to counter my opinion
that startup culture is both practically vacuous and morally bankrupt.

~~~
icebraining
If I upload the right HTML to github, can I get you to move to Portugal and
become a cod fisherman?

------
Rainymood
>1556\. Enter data into computers for use in analyses or reports

Literally scale.ai

~~~
daliusd
I was thinking about Power BI.

------
homonculus1
A few of these are totally ripe for disruption!

>51\. Conduct raids and order detention of witnesses and suspects for
questioning.

~~~
xer0x
Definitely my favourite economic disruption!

------
hnal943
Is this what people mean when they say that start up ideas are worthless? Or
is this a joke?

------
k__
I subscribed to a few newsletters that would send me startup ideas and
problems to solve on a daily basis.

But somehow that didn't do anything for me.

Some even would offer to connect me to people with the problem, but I had the
feeling even with people who would say "I have problem X and I'd pay for a
solution" the whole process was still too abstract for me.

I think this has more to do with the business side of things than with talking
to potential customers and implementing a solution.

How do I start? What are good first steps if you don't know anyone, don't have
a network etc.

~~~
dceddia
Flip it on its head: don’t start with an idea. Start by identifying a group of
people you belong to (e.g. “Rails developers”), because it gives you an
instant leg up in knowing their struggles. Then research their struggles.
Write about them, and solve them. Grow an audience (read: email list). After
all that research you’ll have a solid idea of what they already want and buy,
and you can create that for them. Plus you’ll have built up an audience to
sell it to!

It’s not necessarily quick but it works. Amy Hoy & Alex Hillman were the ones
who taught me this strategy and I heartily recommend reading everything
they’ve written at
[https://stackingthebricks.com](https://stackingthebricks.com) :)

~~~
yetanotherjosh
It is a lot easier from a technical standpoint if the group you pick is not
already in tech. Replace "rails developers" with something like "antiques
collectors" or "massage therapists" or "arborists" any other profession that
isn't saturated with software options already. These people all have
smartphones and computers but probably have only crappy options for how those
tools specifically accelerate their work.

------
martin_a
> 7819\. Participate or assist in raids and arrests.

Yeah, well, not sure about this one.

~~~
icebraining
Lots of money to be made selling equipment for those.

------
chrismorgan
The five shortest ones (11, 13, 13, 13 and 13 characters long):

> 874\. Carve meat.

> 5221\. Dig trenches.

> 8361\. Graft plants.

> 10799\. Align wheels.

> 16441\. Shampoo hair.

And the five longest ones (291, 305, 308, 317 and 332 characters long):

> 6231\. Keep abreast of government regulations and emerging Web technology to
> ensure regulatory compliance by reviewing current literature, talking with
> colleagues, participating in educational programs, attending meetings or
> workshops, or participating in professional organizations or conferences.

> 12863\. Design, develop, select, test, implement, and evaluate new or
> modified informatics solutions, data structures, and decision-support
> mechanisms to support patients, health care professionals, and their
> information management and human-computer and human-technology interactions
> within health care contexts.

> 7530\. Keep abreast of game design technology and techniques, industry
> trends, or audience interests, reactions, and needs by reviewing current
> literature, talking with colleagues, participating in educational programs,
> attending meetings or workshops, or participating in professional
> organizations or conferences.

> 4806\. Direct environmental programs, such as air or water compliance,
> aboveground or underground storage tanks, spill prevention or control,
> hazardous waste or materials management, solid waste recycling, medical
> waste management, indoor air quality, integrated pest management, employee
> training, or disaster preparedness.

> 5895\. Compute, retrace, or adjust existing surveys of features such as
> highway alignments, property boundaries, utilities, control and other
> surveys to match the ground elevation-dependent grids, geodetic grids, or
> property boundaries and to ensure accuracy and continuity of data used in
> engineering, surveying, or construction projects.

\---

My method for determining these things (which may be of interest to some),
using just my favourite text editor, rather than slurping it into a REPL for
some programming language and manipulating it thus:

1\. Copy the whole document to the clipboard;

2\. Paste in Vim (and note at this point that lists lose their markers in
favour of just a tab character, so the numbers disappear);

3\. Manually remove everything that’s not the list;

4\. Manually remove the tab at the start of each line with `:%s/^\t//` or
block selection (this could also be done in the next step with slight
modification, matching `^\t\\(.\\+)` and using `submatch(1)`);

5\. Prefix each line with its length and the line number using
`:%s/.\\+/\=len(submatch(0)) . "\t" . line(".") . ". " . submatch(0)` (I
actually used asterisk instead of \\+, but HN formatting hates unmatched
asterisks; see `:help sub-replace-\=`; another approach for the line number
part alone would have been to block-insert `1.\t` on every line, then block-
select all but the first, and use `g<CTRL-A>` to increment them, see `:help
v_g_CTRL-A`);

6\. Sort by line length with `:sort n` (since I had put it at the start of the
line for convenience);

7\. Optionally strip the character counts out again with `:%s/^\d\\+\t//` or
similar.

sub-replace-\= and v_g_CTRL-A are among my favourite not-so-well-known Vim
features. They’re not useful very often, but when they are, they’re _really_
great.

~~~
TeMPOraL
My first chance ever to be _that guy_!

My solution:

    
    
      curl "https://unawaz.github.io/stochastic-hill-climbing/tasks/" \
        | awk '{ print length, $0 }' \
        | sort -n -s \
        | sed 's/<li>//' \
        | (tail -n +11 | head; tail)
    

Updated to remove noise.

~~~
chrismorgan
The problem with such a pipeline is that it’s not interactive. Now if you had
a REPL that would memoize the steps so that it only ever did one `curl`
request, that’d be different and useful.

~~~
TeMPOraL
First,

    
    
      curl [address] > /tmp/foo
    

Then, build up the pipeline starting with:

    
    
      cat /tmp/foo |
    

(And I know this is probably "useless abuse of cat", but whatever.)

------
marceloabsousa
Great stuff - however, one thing that is missing is the ability to discuss
these ideas in a forum-like medium. This is why I created the GH repo:
[https://github.com/marcelosousa/million-dollar-
ideas](https://github.com/marcelosousa/million-dollar-ideas). I might code a
script that pushes each item as an issue to the repo to at least allow for
that.

------
tbritsch
[https://thisstartupdoesnotexist.com/](https://thisstartupdoesnotexist.com/)

------
rorygibson
[https://www.ideasarecheap.net](https://www.ideasarecheap.net)

^^ I built this more or less on a bet about a year ago. Give it a dollar and
it will give you a startup business idea.

(No Markov chains here, it's a couple of arrays of industries and keywords and
a JS function that uses Math.random()... )

------
frobozz
> Shape shoe heels with a knife, and sand them on a buffing wheel for
> smoothness.

> Adjust felt hammers on pianos to increase tonal mellowness or brilliance,
> using sanding paddles, lacquer, or needles.

> Review filed tax returns to determine whether claimed tax credits and
> deductions are allowed by law.

Three adjacent ones there, could be rewritten as:

* become a cobbler

* become a piano technician

* become an accountant

------
tabtab
"Implement dynamic relational" is _not_ listed. Fooey! In fact, it doesn't
even contain the word "relational" or "RDBMS".

In general the IT-oriented items seem like variations of "fix my goofed up
spreadsheet". Did they scrape the tech support logs?

------
fouc
>It maybe is even the listing of approximately all startup ideas.

I wasn't able to find cloudflare in there

------
adpirz
What would make this for more useful is to have a list of even mildly
_validated_ ideas, even by showing that there are existing competitors or a
market for it. Or pointing to a gap where it exists.

Validation is the first step to product market fit.

------
bengarvey
There are only 18514 ideas there

------
TeMPOraL
I wrote an app that turns those into proper startup ideas. Source here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21126901](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21126901).

------
starikovs
A startup idea: an app to generate a startup idea (based on this list).

~~~
TeMPOraL
Here you go:

    
    
      (function () {
        var els = document.getElementsByTagName("li");
        var startups = ["A web-based platform", "An AI-powered platform", "Uber for",
                        "Subscription-based service", "Blockchain", "A folder that syncs"]
        for(var i = 4 ; i < els.length ; ++i) {
          els[i].innerText = startups[Math.floor(Math.random() * startups.length)] + " for people who " + els[i].innerText;
        }})()
    

Paste it into dev console on that page to receive an instant list of proper
startup ideas.

The code is GPLv3, and can be trivially modified to generate further
interesting startup ideas.

EDIT: Modified to add a greater variety of instant startup ideas!

~~~
starikovs
Cool. But it should be in React Native and AI to raise some money.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Don't know about React Native, but updated the app to generate AI-related
ideas (and some others).

------
morpomorpo
Replace xylophone bars and wheels.

Watch out guys we've got a unicorn over here

------
itaibo
I like it. I created this mini API. Throws random ideas: [https://startup-
ideas-api.btl.es](https://startup-ideas-api.btl.es)

------
layoutIfNeeded
20 001: collect, organize and rank a library of startup ideas

------
geonic
> Select sizes and types of molds according to instructions.

Fair enough

------
georgewsinger
Title should be: "20,000 incremental startup ideas that will waste years of
your life and generate mediocre returns for your investors".

------
forgotmypwd123
>524\. Solicit new business.

Genius!

------
ArPDent
6835\. Provide testimony as a witness in court.

------
luxuryballs
“Perform oral practice periodontal surgery on the jaw or mouth.” Dude! I even
have a spare room, we can totally do this one!

------
milsebg
"Process or book convicted individuals into prison." AirBnB and Uber for
prisoners. Sounds legitimate :)

------
rodrigopetter
768\. Measure and mark cutting lines on materials, using a ruler, pencil,
chalk, and marking gauge.

------
Accujack
Ideas are a dime a dozen; Everyone has them.

What is rare is the hard work needed to make an idea a reality.

~~~
shantly
I never have any that are even half-decent. Plenty for things that aren't
businesses. Sometimes I act on those but they don't make me money. None for
businesses. When I think I have one it always turns out there are a few
players in the space already, one or more of them appear to be doing a good
job with no clear way to outdo them, but nonetheless all appear to be
struggling (so it might have been an OK idea when no-one was doing it but
trying now would pretty much be doomed, spending weeks to months to get off
the ground to take 10th place eating from a small pie). Or it's something
you'd have to have FAANG resources and/or a huge pile of cash available to do
(owning/collecting relevant machine learning datasets, mostly).

When other people say "hey I'd love an app that let me do X, you should build
it, you'd make so much money" it usually turns out there are already 20 in the
app store, and they "love" the idea so much that they'd never bothered to look
for one. This is true whether it's for themselves, or for their job.

------
shaneprrlt
How old are some of these? For instance, is #402 even relevant today?

------
ajmarsh
"Splice or solder cables together or to overhead transmission lines, customer
service lines, or street light lines, using hand tools, epoxies, or
specialized equipment."

No...no no don't do that you will stand a good chance of being electrocuted.

------
morpomorpo
Replace xylophone bars and wheels.

Watch out you guys we've got a unicorn

------
eejjjj82
"117\. Buff defective areas of inner tubes, using scrapers."

what?

~~~
icebraining
Part of the job description of Tire Repairers and Changers:
[https://www.mappingyourfuture.org/planyourcareer/careership/...](https://www.mappingyourfuture.org/planyourcareer/careership/career_summary.cfm?careerID=727&headerImage=_career_summary)

------
ttul
Oh no. There is a banner ad now at the top of the list.

~~~
martin_a
uBlock Origin got my back. No ads to be seen.

------
codefreq
2413\. Google maps

~~~
deegles
Well, if you can out-Google Google Maps you'd definitely have a huge business.

------
codeulike
15728 would be an organised crime startup

~~~
yoz-y
Or the police becoming privatized?

------
utopcell
this is an outrage: there are only 18,514 startup ideas in there.

------
pratio
haha > 5131 Move and arrange furniture and turn mattresses

------
foobar_
Unreadable.

------
moonlighter1
ideas are cheap

------
sixQuarks
These are so useless

------
nqzero
REQUEST FOR IDEA:

i have a backend tech stack that i believe is scalable and efficient (REST or
websockets). i'd like to prove this out with a demo or app. i can do a pure-js
SPA frontend (eg fitno.us) but i'm terrible at UI so it's not gonna be pretty

is there a free service that i could provide that people would use at high
scale ? there doesn't need to be a way to eventually monetize it

required: store data to database optional: rest calls to 3rd parties

anyone have an idea they're willing to share ?

~~~
peterburkimsher
My FBI guy: a moderated chat app.

Instead of just a 2-way chat program, there is a 3rd participant "the FBI guy"
who also joins the chat. Every message sent must get approved by the FBI guy
before it goes through to the recipient.

It should also be possible to send messages to the FBI guy directly. e.g.
"Does she/he like me?"

~~~
nqzero
i like the concept (and it's sort of the inversion of another chat app idea
i've been tossing around along the lines of cyrano de bergerac) but i don't
see what's going to drive adoption

what's the motivation for a user to use this app vs un-moderated chat ? is it
driven by the moderator, eg a parent wanting to limit what their kids can say
or see ? or is it one of the 2 chatting parties that prefers to have someone
else sanitize content before they have to see it, eg to ensure that they don't
get d*ck pics ?

in the latter case, what motivates the moderator to participate ?

~~~
peterburkimsher
I think it would have to grow (or die) virally. Like GMail in the early days,
moderators would get accounts by being invited.

Although there probably is a way to pitch it as a parental control, I think
other demographics could enjoy it too. As you say, the moderation basically
ensures no creepers or d*ck picks. That will probably encourage more female
users to trust the platform, which would certainly help to boost overall
numbers.

It could be a means of chatting to strangers, where the moderator chooses 2
people to pair up. That could get interesting. The idea is still pretty half-
baked, but I'd like to explore it more, and maybe use it as a testing ground
for decentralised chat technology.

For people who are unsure about social norms of chatting to people, such as
those with Aspergers, autism spectrum, or who are just plain shy, I think
being a moderator would be a great way to learn how to have an ordinary
conversation. I'd also want to make the website fully accessible, with text
readers for the blind, and automatic language translation so that people can
make friends in other countries.

