

Share HN: Ideas you would like to develop but you won't - niiico

I happen to have a lot od ideas all the time but I don't have time to develop them or simple I'm more focused on something else.<p>For instance an idea that I had a couple weeks ago was a dating site for people studying abroad.<p>Share yours
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kls
I have an idea for a barcode and RFID scanner as well as a weight scale pad
that can be retrofired into refrigerators and pantries. The concept is that
ever time you remove and add a food item to the refrigerator or pantry it
would take a weight measurement and gauge your consumption therefor it would
be able to predict and assemble a shopping list of items that need to be
purchased in the upcoming day or week.

Further it would be tied into a recipe data store so a user could find recipes
that they have the necessary items for.

There is another angle in which if it caught on the list could be provided to
the local grocery store for fulfillment so the list of items would be prepared
and boxed at the store and the user would then be able to pick it up, further
if it became big enough it may support delivery services.

As well there are personal chef services in which a chef prepares meals for a
few clientele, In this situation, the Chef could be provided a list of
inventory on site that wold allow them to formulate meal plans based on
inventory at the home.

Finally one way I though of monetizing it was to allow coupon marketing in
which when an item was up for restocking an alternative vendor could target
the customer with a discount for choosing their product over a competitors.
Say a person generally purchases Kraft Mayonnaise, the coupon service would
allow Hellmans to provide a coupon to the client in an effort to try to sway
their buying decision over to their product or allow Kraft to provide one as a
loyalty incentive.

My though was building a system that could be retrofitted into existing
refrigerators and pantries would allow users to adopt the system without the
need for large capital outlay, then patent the system and offer good royalty
agreements to manufacturers of refrigerators, etc. to gain adoption in the
next gen of kitchen appliances.

Realistically though, I will never peruse this idea, the capital outlay to
just get the prototype hardware is beyond my means and all of the Angle
Investors I know, do not invest in hardware based ventures they are strictly
software guys so it would most likely require me to bankroll it. That coupled
with my consultancy has pretty much just left it to languish in my mind as
just a cool idea that I ponder now and then. I would live to build it, but I
just don't have the resources needed to get it to the point where I could
pursue investment. It's one of those ideas that requires significant
investment just to get it to the point of getting real investment dollars.

~~~
dglassan
I had an idea similar to this a few years ago when my brother was diagnosed
with diabetes. I thought it would be a good way for diabetics and anyone else
that needs to track what and how much they eat.

It could analyze eating habits and recommend healthier meals...man that would
be cool

~~~
kls
yeah I believe the idea has Merritt, but from my perspective, I think the
hardware is key to making it easy to use. If all one had to do was what they
normally do (e.g remove an item, put it back) then you are not adding steps to
their normal flow. I am a stickler for usability and if it adds work flow you
are going to lose people. The hardware is the problem for me, it take more
investment that I can muster, I figure 1-1.5 mil to get to fully functional
prototype that you could then solicit real investment dollars. That is a big
outlay for what amounts to just an idea right now. With diabetics you may be
able to get away with a more complicated work flow because the disease already
impedes on their daily life so if it eases it they may see the value in the
trade offs.

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kodeshpa
Guys here is my short story ,

I posted 5-6 times on HN about my idea with lot of expectation , sometimes i
got 1 or 2 feedbacks but never got it to featured category, not many people
given me much comments.

I struggled but kept working on it, I built a product and launched it week
back in android market I had 0 marketing budget, no press release but still
guess what slowly but steadily number of downloads increasing per day from 0
to 500 , people are giving me feedbacks.

Here is about what i built.

Let’s meet Dawg, your new friend. Simple application making social life easier
than ever before. Now you can seamlessly connect your social life at Facebook
and Twitter in one place. Get updates on the go, and glance over them - even
if you get disconnected from the Internet! .Dawg helps you stay social with
your tweets, updates, photos and videos in a single application. Let’s gear up
to explore your social network easy way with Dawg. Get it now
<http://bit.ly/gakCmT> and give your valuable feedback.

I suggest you ,just follow your heart. At the end it will give you an immense
pleasure irrespective of end result.

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atgm
I never really message people who are offline, whether it's on MSN, AIM,
Skype, or any other instant messenger. I may have something I want to tell
them or show them, but if they're offline, nine times out of ten, I just don't
bother.

So what I wanted to make at one point was an internet "answering machine" that
will log in for you when you log off and collect/log messages that you can
check remotely or have e-mailed to you.

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chaosprophet
Last night, I posted this [<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2344594>], but
I guess it flew off the new page before too many people had a look at it. It's
about a helpdesk system which works completely through email. If there is
substantial interest, I might take it up though.

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codeslush
This morning, I posted this - but no love! :-)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2344169>

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cuchoperl
<http://thisfruit.com>

~~~
revorad
You forgot to mention the fructose in those apples, which is not all that good
for you.

~~~
cuchoperl
If an apple is not good for you, what is?

~~~
unignorant
Apples are relatively nutrient poor with respect to their fructose/sugar
content.

There is an offshoot of the Paleo crowd which generally eschews fruit. For
example:

<http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/>

<http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/>

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JoshKalkbrenner
An indestructible, waterproof smartphone. I'd buy that.

