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Somewhat related: "Gift guides" is one service that I considered unsolved. Every holiday (Christmas, birthday, father's day, mother's day, etc) I struggle to c

Somewhat related: "Gift guides" is one service that I considered unsolved. Every holiday (Christmas, birthday, father's day, mother's day, etc) I struggle to come up with gifts for the people I care about. In many ways it's demoralizing. If I care so much about someone, why can't I think of a good gift for them? There are lots of factors here, but I think it basically boils down to, as adults we generally get what we need/want during the course of the year. So gift giving is really the art of giving things people hadn't thought of, but still would like. That's a tall order! In recent years I've tried searching for "experience" gifts, which I believe to have more value. Nights out to exciting dinners, fun shows, events, etc. But the sites that serve those needs (Groupon et. al) are really rather scummy. All the businesses on there tend to be poorly reviewed; just using those sites to push polished turds of a deal. I look all the time for gift guides and helpful sites and always come up empty handed. The lists on Amazon mainly push Amazon's products, which are garbage, or really common/useless stuff (there's no-one in my life who needs a kitchen stand mixer; they all already have one). I've read idea threads on Reddit, and those mostly boil down to "Man, all I want for Christmas is a pair of shoes. I'm really poor." followed up by a bunch of helpful Redditors. Not that that is a bad thing, but it's useless as a gift recommendation. Before the deluge of rhetoric replies: yes, rampant consumerism, corporate marketing holidays, donate in someone's name, etc, etc. I happen to enjoy giving gifts, and would love to give more meaningful, personalized gifts (like those experience gifts I mention). I'm just really bad at it. And regardless of that rhetoric, can you honestly tell me that you would pass up an opportunity to build a successful "gift guide" service? I can't even imagine how lucrative something like that would end up being.

exolymph 10y ago
It takes more effort, but I look for local events that aren't far off and buy tickets to those.
VLM 10y ago
A moderately interesting startup idea. If you like the outdoors you can get county / state / national parks annual passes. I enjoy and use the heck out of my park passes. They're fairly cheap (well, not the national). Of course people who hate the outdoors, well... There are several food delivery services I've used with mixed results. "highly processed meat and cheeze like product in a box" are kinda weird. Fruit delivery is absurdly expensive but everyone loves it. Right out of a 00s sitcom I ordered my MiL the "fruit of the month club" and she enjoyed it. Food delivery is not cheap. I'll send my mom a crate of peaches every Christmas and its like $5 per peach. But they certainly are delicious. Junk food / candy delivery is cheap. Booze delivery impacts about a zillion weird state laws and the recipient sometimes has to sign and show ID and its a circus, also relatively few people seriously drink. If you can deliver it in person or illegally ship it yourself, a hundred dollar bottle of scotch lasts me about a year at my usual consumption rate, and at the usual markup a service would probably charge $500. With the decline in public parks and public play there is a growth in private parks and private play and there's a local water park complete with water slides and all that, my kids love that especially nice and warm in the winter and usually doesn't cost that much. Grandma used to buy her grandkids an afternoon pass to the waterpark and it was always fun. Go directly to the park to buy a certificate there's no need for the middlemen. Likewise the local suburban mall hasn't had a video game arcade in maybe 30 years now but there's chuck e cheeze and D+B and stone fire pizza company and places like that.
eggbrain 10y ago
I think the main reason it's unsolved is that there's a lot of personalization that needs to happen. If you (as a son, let's say), can't figure out what to give your dad, how can a site? The reason why a lot of holiday guides give common or useless stuff is because they have to generalize across age ranges, ethnicities, locations, and preferences. The best gift guide would also probably be one that gets to the core of what you are lacking -- you might want a specific book, for example, but what you're looking for is how to learn a language, and that specific book didn't really matter (unless it was the best one to help you learn). This is really hard to do though, unless you are Santa.
- fpgaminer 10y ago
  Yes, that's definitely true, it's not a simple task by any stretch of the imagination. I think the experience gifts is perhaps a more viable option. For example, a mystery dinner type deal (mystery theater + dinner) I think is a good gift for a lot of friends and family. Cooking classes are pretty general too. I've been gifted cooking classes before and they were really fun (they focus on making it date night sort of deal so it was geared towards couples). But both of those I've had challenges gifting. I couldn't find any well reviewed mystery dinner type deals, and the few good cooking class type things I found did not offer a gifting option. Buying tickets to events, like concerts, is tough too, again because they don't generally offer gift options. If I could buy a "blank check" sort of ticket to the local playhouse, that'd be nice. My big gripe is the sites that get mostly there. They ask questions about the intended recipient, like age, gender, and tastes. At the end of it, though, the recommendations are really bland. I don't mind sorting through a list of possible gifts, with only a few good results. But the results I get are the kind of generic "gifts" you see on the end-caps of Kohl's during holiday season. As I mentioned, people generally already have what they need. Gifting often comes down to finding something the person wouldn't have otherwise thought about. So it's necessary to show unique options. Again, the accuracy doesn't need to be terribly high. If I only find one good option amongst 40, that's fine. Instead I get 200+ kitchen stand mixers...
- hahajk 10y ago
  Well if Spotify can figure out what I want to listen better than I can it's not unreasonable to think that Amazon or maybe my credit card could figure out my tastes better than my parents could.
euyyn 10y ago
My thought is: Don't give them something they need (as they'd buy it anyway, if they haven't already), but something they would fancy but probably would restrain themselves from getting.

exolymph 10y ago

It takes more effort, but I look for local events that aren't far off and buy tickets to those.

VLM 10y ago

A moderately interesting startup idea. If you like the outdoors you can get county / state / national parks annual passes. I enjoy and use the heck out of my park passes. They're fairly cheap (well, not the national). Of course people who hate the outdoors, well... There are several food delivery services I've used with mixed results. "highly processed meat and cheeze like product in a box" are kinda weird. Fruit delivery is absurdly expensive but everyone loves it. Right out of a 00s sitcom I ordered my MiL the "fruit of the month club" and she enjoyed it. Food delivery is not cheap. I'll send my mom a crate of peaches every Christmas and its like $5 per peach. But they certainly are delicious. Junk food / candy delivery is cheap. Booze delivery impacts about a zillion weird state laws and the recipient sometimes has to sign and show ID and its a circus, also relatively few people seriously drink. If you can deliver it in person or illegally ship it yourself, a hundred dollar bottle of scotch lasts me about a year at my usual consumption rate, and at the usual markup a service would probably charge $500. With the decline in public parks and public play there is a growth in private parks and private play and there's a local water park complete with water slides and all that, my kids love that especially nice and warm in the winter and usually doesn't cost that much. Grandma used to buy her grandkids an afternoon pass to the waterpark and it was always fun. Go directly to the park to buy a certificate there's no need for the middlemen. Likewise the local suburban mall hasn't had a video game arcade in maybe 30 years now but there's chuck e cheeze and D+B and stone fire pizza company and places like that.

eggbrain 10y ago

I think the main reason it's unsolved is that there's a lot of personalization that needs to happen. If you (as a son, let's say), can't figure out what to give your dad, how can a site? The reason why a lot of holiday guides give common or useless stuff is because they have to generalize across age ranges, ethnicities, locations, and preferences. The best gift guide would also probably be one that gets to the core of what you are lacking -- you might want a specific book, for example, but what you're looking for is how to learn a language, and that specific book didn't really matter (unless it was the best one to help you learn). This is really hard to do though, unless you are Santa.

fpgaminer 10y ago
Yes, that's definitely true, it's not a simple task by any stretch of the imagination. I think the experience gifts is perhaps a more viable option. For example, a mystery dinner type deal (mystery theater + dinner) I think is a good gift for a lot of friends and family. Cooking classes are pretty general too. I've been gifted cooking classes before and they were really fun (they focus on making it date night sort of deal so it was geared towards couples). But both of those I've had challenges gifting. I couldn't find any well reviewed mystery dinner type deals, and the few good cooking class type things I found did not offer a gifting option. Buying tickets to events, like concerts, is tough too, again because they don't generally offer gift options. If I could buy a "blank check" sort of ticket to the local playhouse, that'd be nice. My big gripe is the sites that get mostly there. They ask questions about the intended recipient, like age, gender, and tastes. At the end of it, though, the recommendations are really bland. I don't mind sorting through a list of possible gifts, with only a few good results. But the results I get are the kind of generic "gifts" you see on the end-caps of Kohl's during holiday season. As I mentioned, people generally already have what they need. Gifting often comes down to finding something the person wouldn't have otherwise thought about. So it's necessary to show unique options. Again, the accuracy doesn't need to be terribly high. If I only find one good option amongst 40, that's fine. Instead I get 200+ kitchen stand mixers...
hahajk 10y ago
Well if Spotify can figure out what I want to listen better than I can it's not unreasonable to think that Amazon or maybe my credit card could figure out my tastes better than my parents could.

euyyn 10y ago

My thought is: Don't give them something they need (as they'd buy it anyway, if they haven't already), but something they would fancy but probably would restrain themselves from getting.