6 ms·

Proving that ideas are not worth a lot.

15 points by shabda 18y ago

We always argue on the relative worth of ideas. While I do not believe that ideas are worthless, I believe a lot of people are waiting unnecessarily believing they will start when the right idea comes. When I was starting up, I had to think of a lot of ideas, before I finally settled on www.42topics.com. Since I am not going to be using any of these ideas here is an experiment. I am telling 5 ideas, which I believe have the potential to make a lot of money. They all are in the same format, describe a problem , a pain point, away to solve them and how to make money with them. Now here is the challenge, either prove that these ideas suck, and can not make money, or if you are waiting for that big idea go out, build these and make a lot of money. [1]. http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-an-automated-adwords-optimizer/ [2]. http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-recomendation-system-based-ad-network/ [3]. http://42topics.com/blog/category/5startupideas/ as they become live. PS. How can I convert these link into clickable links?

michael_dorfman 18y ago
I don't think it's necessary to prove that the ideas suck; rather, it's enough (for me) to say that I don't find them compelling enough to invest the time and energy and commitment they would require to bring to fruition. I believe that successful start-ups are based on ideas that the founders are actively jonesing over, not merely ideas that "don't suck."
- ctkrohn 18y ago
  Something about this definitely rings true to me. I absolutely can appreciate the sense of pride and self-determination that comes with a startup, but that sense alone isn't enough to motivate me. Without an idea that I could truly get behind, how could I carry myself through the low demoralizing points that most startups will encounter? It would be hard to avoid a cycle of working until I meet a roadblock, thinking "oh, this idea sucks anyway," and starting something new -- but never making any progress toward a single goal. Until I can come up with something truly exciting, I can't see myself quitting my day job just yet.
mkull 18y ago
I love the "automated Adwords optimizer" idea. This is something my startup (ecommerce) would absolutely pay for. We have discussed building something similar for our own needs.
shabda 18y ago
[1]. http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-an-automated-adwords-optimizer/ http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-an-automated-... [2]. http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-recomendation-system-based-ad-network/ http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-recomendation... [3]. http://42topics.com/blog/category/5startupideas/ http://42topics.com/blog/category/5startupideas/ as they become live. To make the links clickable.
- xenoterracide 18y ago
  given their length tinyurl might be good in the future.
  - bigtoga 18y ago
    Careful - a lot of people (myself included) won't click and will often downmod for such use. Use their preview feature if you like but anything can hide behind a tinyurl :)
  - epi0Bauqu 18y ago
    Why? News.yc already truncates for display.
Alex3917 18y ago
Apropos of nothing, I'd like to throw out a longstanding personal idea for improving dating sites. All of the current dating sites work by matching similar interests. This is really dumb, because most people don't want to date people with the same interests; rather, they want to date people with any compelling set of interests as long as there aren't any red flags. So rather than matching people with similar interests, dating sites should let you add tags to your profile and then let show you everyone in your area except for those with tags you are filtering out. For example, show me everyone within 10 miles of 14850 except those whose profiles contain: jesus, single mom, smoker, republican, pulp-free orange juice, george bush, herpes, bbw, us weekly, horses, etc.
- hooande 18y ago
  That's a good solution. I think you are very right...dating is about filtering more than matching. Just from my experience, the hard part is getting people to accurately fill in all that information. You've definitely got the right approach though.
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    While people do lie on normal dating sites, they tend to lie about predictable things: Men are most likely to lie about their height and income, and women are most likely to lie about their weight and age.[1] It's hard to say whether people would lie more or less on a filter-based site, but it seems to be worth a try if only because no one (AFAIK) has ever tried it. As for getting people to fill out the information, I think you could come up with some novel ways of encouraging people to add tags. As for the tags themselves, you could easily datamine hot-or-not to figure out the most popular 1,000 or so. [1] There is an academic study by Catelina Tomas (sp?) about this.
    - wumi 18y ago
      I rather think this idea would be better deployed in an existing social environment. (Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, etc.) I'm not sure how much people would trust a NEW dating site, especially with all the information out there about fake profiles -- how will you gain enough organic traffic not to turn people off with fake profiles? And if you use fake profiles, then it's self-defeating, and although monetization should be easily achievable, won't help people find a potential partner. Why not a dating application that doesn't intrude in people's lives?
mynameishere 18y ago
Google already optimizes ads and keywords in various ways. Before messing with it, you would have to have a firm understanding of what they already do, which I'm not sure is presently the case. Actually, I doubt they would even be completely open about their methods.
babul 18y ago
"1% inspiration, 99% perspiration". The ideas are only as good as thier implementation. Many good ideas fail because they are poorly executed.
wumi 18y ago
or maybe this is a ploy to raise awareness/ draw traffic to your startup :)
walterk 18y ago
Ideas can indeed be worth a lot, and I'm tired of this macho entrepreneurial culture which tries to disregard their value as a way of motivating better execution. If you have to trick yourself into believing that ideas aren't worth much to properly assess the value of execution, you're just telling yourself one more lie than you really need. As it happens, we live in a time where there are so many (potentially) good ideas that there isn't enough time or talent for us to work on them all. But good startup ideas aren't like dollar bills, where the more you have of them, the less each of them is worth. Nor are they like most goods whose marginal utility decreases with consumption. We call them "ideas" as a way of lumping what they are together, but each is unique and arises from the perception of very different needs/pains/wants in the world. They don't lose value because many other similarly worthy ideas exist.
derefr 18y ago
I have an idea: an idea aggregator. If ideas are really worth so little, why aren't they indexed, searchable, and community-improvable? One example of this model is http://www.halfbakery.com/ http://www.halfbakery.com/, but its ideas are, like it says, of the "half-baked" variety. I think I might call it "MindCycling" or something to that effect--rather than throwing away ideas you'll never implement, put them in the big blue bin (-site) and let other people re-smelt them into something someone can use. I admit I'd use it every day, for more than just start-up ideas: as an author, it would probably help my fiction worldbuilding immensely.

15 points by shabda 18y ago

michael_dorfman 18y ago

I don't think it's necessary to prove that the ideas suck; rather, it's enough (for me) to say that I don't find them compelling enough to invest the time and energy and commitment they would require to bring to fruition. I believe that successful start-ups are based on ideas that the founders are actively jonesing over, not merely ideas that "don't suck."

ctkrohn 18y ago
Something about this definitely rings true to me. I absolutely can appreciate the sense of pride and self-determination that comes with a startup, but that sense alone isn't enough to motivate me. Without an idea that I could truly get behind, how could I carry myself through the low demoralizing points that most startups will encounter? It would be hard to avoid a cycle of working until I meet a roadblock, thinking "oh, this idea sucks anyway," and starting something new -- but never making any progress toward a single goal. Until I can come up with something truly exciting, I can't see myself quitting my day job just yet.

mkull 18y ago

I love the "automated Adwords optimizer" idea. This is something my startup (ecommerce) would absolutely pay for. We have discussed building something similar for our own needs.

shabda 18y ago

[1]. http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-an-automated-adwords-optimizer/ http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-an-automated-... [2]. http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-recomendation-system-based-ad-network/ http://42topics.com/blog/2008/05/an-idea-a-day-recomendation... [3]. http://42topics.com/blog/category/5startupideas/ http://42topics.com/blog/category/5startupideas/ as they become live. To make the links clickable.

xenoterracide 18y ago
given their length tinyurl might be good in the future.
- bigtoga 18y ago
  Careful - a lot of people (myself included) won't click and will often downmod for such use. Use their preview feature if you like but anything can hide behind a tinyurl :)
- epi0Bauqu 18y ago
  Why? News.yc already truncates for display.

Alex3917 18y ago

Apropos of nothing, I'd like to throw out a longstanding personal idea for improving dating sites. All of the current dating sites work by matching similar interests. This is really dumb, because most people don't want to date people with the same interests; rather, they want to date people with any compelling set of interests as long as there aren't any red flags. So rather than matching people with similar interests, dating sites should let you add tags to your profile and then let show you everyone in your area except for those with tags you are filtering out. For example, show me everyone within 10 miles of 14850 except those whose profiles contain: jesus, single mom, smoker, republican, pulp-free orange juice, george bush, herpes, bbw, us weekly, horses, etc.

hooande 18y ago
That's a good solution. I think you are very right...dating is about filtering more than matching. Just from my experience, the hard part is getting people to accurately fill in all that information. You've definitely got the right approach though.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  While people do lie on normal dating sites, they tend to lie about predictable things: Men are most likely to lie about their height and income, and women are most likely to lie about their weight and age.[1] It's hard to say whether people would lie more or less on a filter-based site, but it seems to be worth a try if only because no one (AFAIK) has ever tried it. As for getting people to fill out the information, I think you could come up with some novel ways of encouraging people to add tags. As for the tags themselves, you could easily datamine hot-or-not to figure out the most popular 1,000 or so. [1] There is an academic study by Catelina Tomas (sp?) about this.
  - wumi 18y ago
    I rather think this idea would be better deployed in an existing social environment. (Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, etc.) I'm not sure how much people would trust a NEW dating site, especially with all the information out there about fake profiles -- how will you gain enough organic traffic not to turn people off with fake profiles? And if you use fake profiles, then it's self-defeating, and although monetization should be easily achievable, won't help people find a potential partner. Why not a dating application that doesn't intrude in people's lives?

mynameishere 18y ago

Google already optimizes ads and keywords in various ways. Before messing with it, you would have to have a firm understanding of what they already do, which I'm not sure is presently the case. Actually, I doubt they would even be completely open about their methods.

babul 18y ago

"1% inspiration, 99% perspiration". The ideas are only as good as thier implementation. Many good ideas fail because they are poorly executed.

wumi 18y ago

or maybe this is a ploy to raise awareness/ draw traffic to your startup :)

walterk 18y ago

Ideas can indeed be worth a lot, and I'm tired of this macho entrepreneurial culture which tries to disregard their value as a way of motivating better execution. If you have to trick yourself into believing that ideas aren't worth much to properly assess the value of execution, you're just telling yourself one more lie than you really need. As it happens, we live in a time where there are so many (potentially) good ideas that there isn't enough time or talent for us to work on them all. But good startup ideas aren't like dollar bills, where the more you have of them, the less each of them is worth. Nor are they like most goods whose marginal utility decreases with consumption. We call them "ideas" as a way of lumping what they are together, but each is unique and arises from the perception of very different needs/pains/wants in the world. They don't lose value because many other similarly worthy ideas exist.

derefr 18y ago

I have an idea: an idea aggregator. If ideas are really worth so little, why aren't they indexed, searchable, and community-improvable? One example of this model is http://www.halfbakery.com/ http://www.halfbakery.com/, but its ideas are, like it says, of the "half-baked" variety. I think I might call it "MindCycling" or something to that effect--rather than throwing away ideas you'll never implement, put them in the big blue bin (-site) and let other people re-smelt them into something someone can use. I admit I'd use it every day, for more than just start-up ideas: as an author, it would probably help my fiction worldbuilding immensely.