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In my day (I'm only 32), the startup ideas everyone always wanted to do were: 1. A better bug/issue tracking system 2. A custom CMS 3. A code library/platfor

by allwein 16y ago

In my day (I'm only 32), the startup ideas everyone always wanted to do were: 1. A better bug/issue tracking system 2. A custom CMS 3. A code library/platform for easily building Business CRUD apps. 4. A word processing app that has only the 20% features that 80% of Word users use. 5. A better classmates.com

bryanlarsen 16y ago
The difference between your list and his is that some people have actually succeeded with all of the items on your list. But you've still hit the nail on the head with your list: there are vast numbers of failures and uncompleted projects for every success.
- frisco 16y ago
  That's the point of parent's post: that everyone on the old "stupid repeat ideas" list has now been successfully executed.
smanek 16y ago
It seems like someone did do them! Obvious examples include: 1. basecamp/fogbugz/jira 2. Confluence/Sharepoint 3. django/rails 4. Google Docs 5. Facebook
- kno 16y ago
  ... While we were all sleeping.
- cadr 16y ago
  I think there is a lot further someone could take #3 (crud apps for business). While django/rails are great, I think you could build some more specific tools that would provide a lot more leverage in some cases. (Maybe something like DabbleDB but with some more specifics built in.)
  - bad_user 16y ago
    Like what cases? Both frameworks support plugins you know.
    - cadr 16y ago
      Sure, but do you really want to mess with low level things like html (or even haml, etc) when all you care about is business logic? Not saying you are wrong, just saying I think there is room in that space for some innovation.
      - bad_user 16y ago
        There are a couple of CMS modules for Django. For Rails there are a couple of good open-source shopping carts that you can customize (quite nicely actually, if you know Rails, since all Rails projects have a standard layout). And I think such projects will migrate to being plugins (which are fairly new in Rails). Sure, HTML editing is still required and can be painful, but it is an effective way of branding the final result. I think clickety-click interfaces where you modify the interface through various selections / drag-n-dropping are seriously flawed. Yes, MS Office is a nice example of what a WYSIWYG interface can do, but that's just for standard documents. As soon as you want to get creative in Word, you'll feel the pain and start wishing for HTML. Besides ... design, other than replacing a logo / playing with colors / choosing a layout from a predefined set, should be left to people that know what they are doing and there is no way around that, because IMHO the hard part is not the HTML language itself, which is included nowadays in high-school curriculum.
  - ultrasaurus 16y ago
    I think #3 very quickly very quickly merges with #2. Specialized crud applications start to look a lot like CMS's with well defined content.
  - ziutek 16y ago
    Like Salesforce / Force.com. It's more a framework you build upon than a CRM app.
  - 16y ago
- ebiester 16y ago
  No. People still haven't done #3 right. Alpha five comes closest, but apparently nobody has heard of them. It should be built on top of SQL server, or Oracle. People are using it already. It should have a subset of Crystal Reports, with an easy way to develop simple entry yet let you override the business logic if necessary. Essentially, combine ext-js with django's administration, with a marketplace of addons for various verticals.
  - cadr 16y ago
    Have you used Alpha Five? Any comments on it? Glancing over the page it looks like it might be in the realm of what I am thinking of. As an aside, one thing that these type of tools often lack is integrated testing. Which is a shame, because it seems like it should be easier in these tools, as the tool can have a lot of context about what the fields, etc, mean.
    - ebiester 16y ago
      I had an evaluation copy on my desktop, but didn't play with it. There were others when I was looking; I went the traditional development path for the project instead. http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-tools-rapid-web-development-297?page=0,0 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-... has some of them.
      - jeremypeng 16y ago
        I read the same article looking for alternatives. Did a little sleuthing and found something called ironspeed. Looks like a competitor. It builds everything in C# or VB from an existing database. I'm working with their trial now but there jury's still out...
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
People do what they know witness books about authors/publishing, movies about making movies, and yes geeks writing bigger, better programming tools. Its not wrong, its just not a very big market. Especially when Microsoft et al are nearly giving such things away.
rick888 16y ago
It reminds me of the Joelonsoftware community. When the forums were actually active, there seemed to be another time tracking app popping up every few weeks.
brc 16y ago
Don't forget about 'better' ebays. I've seen serious money wasted on people thinking they could out-do ebay 7 or 8 years ago. Usually by companies already in the auction space who thought they could bring their experience and contacts to the game and win. Nowadays nobody bothers, but the online auction space was very attractive for a lot of people. ebay still has a lot of flaws but the name is a verb for selling something online. You don't see many people trying to take them on anymore.
- warren_s 16y ago
  counterpoint: trademe.co.nz - started up in 1999 and pretty much owned the NZ auction space because eBay didn't have a presence there at the time. Sold for 3/4 billion NZ$ in 2006. Being a big fish in a small pond can be profitable - these days, its Groupon clones setting up outside the US. I think this stands a higher than average chance of working - simply because the model does require direct interaction with businesses, and therefore local operators are going to have an advantage in terms of cultural/local knowledge. If you're lucky to win your local market, you'll probably end up getting acquired by Groupon itself.
  - brc 16y ago
    trademe.co.nz is the poster boy of ebay killers. There is always an exception to the rule. I know of several other countries were ebay has no traction and there is a local alternative. It is a valid strategy to get in and own a regional variation before the bigger players move in. But you have to move very fast - so fast that the 'big' player hasn't really been noticed yet, or bothered with the local market. There's still plenty of countries with no real craigslist implementation. But for some reason nobody seems to want to do it. So you're correct, you can early-move-copy on a big idea, but you've got to have the conviction to move early, and your idea must have ties to the locality through real life goods and businesses (or, I suppose, languages).

by allwein 16y ago

bryanlarsen 16y ago

The difference between your list and his is that some people have actually succeeded with all of the items on your list. But you've still hit the nail on the head with your list: there are vast numbers of failures and uncompleted projects for every success.

frisco 16y ago
That's the point of parent's post: that everyone on the old "stupid repeat ideas" list has now been successfully executed.

smanek 16y ago

It seems like someone did do them! Obvious examples include: 1. basecamp/fogbugz/jira 2. Confluence/Sharepoint 3. django/rails 4. Google Docs 5. Facebook

kno 16y ago
... While we were all sleeping.
cadr 16y ago
I think there is a lot further someone could take #3 (crud apps for business). While django/rails are great, I think you could build some more specific tools that would provide a lot more leverage in some cases. (Maybe something like DabbleDB but with some more specifics built in.)
- bad_user 16y ago
  Like what cases? Both frameworks support plugins you know.
  - cadr 16y ago
    Sure, but do you really want to mess with low level things like html (or even haml, etc) when all you care about is business logic? Not saying you are wrong, just saying I think there is room in that space for some innovation.
    - bad_user 16y ago
      There are a couple of CMS modules for Django. For Rails there are a couple of good open-source shopping carts that you can customize (quite nicely actually, if you know Rails, since all Rails projects have a standard layout). And I think such projects will migrate to being plugins (which are fairly new in Rails). Sure, HTML editing is still required and can be painful, but it is an effective way of branding the final result. I think clickety-click interfaces where you modify the interface through various selections / drag-n-dropping are seriously flawed. Yes, MS Office is a nice example of what a WYSIWYG interface can do, but that's just for standard documents. As soon as you want to get creative in Word, you'll feel the pain and start wishing for HTML. Besides ... design, other than replacing a logo / playing with colors / choosing a layout from a predefined set, should be left to people that know what they are doing and there is no way around that, because IMHO the hard part is not the HTML language itself, which is included nowadays in high-school curriculum.
- ultrasaurus 16y ago
  I think #3 very quickly very quickly merges with #2. Specialized crud applications start to look a lot like CMS's with well defined content.
- ziutek 16y ago
  Like Salesforce / Force.com. It's more a framework you build upon than a CRM app.
- 16y ago
ebiester 16y ago
No. People still haven't done #3 right. Alpha five comes closest, but apparently nobody has heard of them. It should be built on top of SQL server, or Oracle. People are using it already. It should have a subset of Crystal Reports, with an easy way to develop simple entry yet let you override the business logic if necessary. Essentially, combine ext-js with django's administration, with a marketplace of addons for various verticals.
- cadr 16y ago
  Have you used Alpha Five? Any comments on it? Glancing over the page it looks like it might be in the realm of what I am thinking of. As an aside, one thing that these type of tools often lack is integrated testing. Which is a shame, because it seems like it should be easier in these tools, as the tool can have a lot of context about what the fields, etc, mean.
  - ebiester 16y ago
    I had an evaluation copy on my desktop, but didn't play with it. There were others when I was looking; I went the traditional development path for the project instead. http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-tools-rapid-web-development-297?page=0,0 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/infoworld-review-... has some of them.
    - jeremypeng 16y ago
      I read the same article looking for alternatives. Did a little sleuthing and found something called ironspeed. Looks like a competitor. It builds everything in C# or VB from an existing database. I'm working with their trial now but there jury's still out...

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

People do what they know witness books about authors/publishing, movies about making movies, and yes geeks writing bigger, better programming tools. Its not wrong, its just not a very big market. Especially when Microsoft et al are nearly giving such things away.

rick888 16y ago

It reminds me of the Joelonsoftware community. When the forums were actually active, there seemed to be another time tracking app popping up every few weeks.

brc 16y ago

Don't forget about 'better' ebays. I've seen serious money wasted on people thinking they could out-do ebay 7 or 8 years ago. Usually by companies already in the auction space who thought they could bring their experience and contacts to the game and win. Nowadays nobody bothers, but the online auction space was very attractive for a lot of people. ebay still has a lot of flaws but the name is a verb for selling something online. You don't see many people trying to take them on anymore.

warren_s 16y ago
counterpoint: trademe.co.nz - started up in 1999 and pretty much owned the NZ auction space because eBay didn't have a presence there at the time. Sold for 3/4 billion NZ$ in 2006. Being a big fish in a small pond can be profitable - these days, its Groupon clones setting up outside the US. I think this stands a higher than average chance of working - simply because the model does require direct interaction with businesses, and therefore local operators are going to have an advantage in terms of cultural/local knowledge. If you're lucky to win your local market, you'll probably end up getting acquired by Groupon itself.
- brc 16y ago
  trademe.co.nz is the poster boy of ebay killers. There is always an exception to the rule. I know of several other countries were ebay has no traction and there is a local alternative. It is a valid strategy to get in and own a regional variation before the bigger players move in. But you have to move very fast - so fast that the 'big' player hasn't really been noticed yet, or bothered with the local market. There's still plenty of countries with no real craigslist implementation. But for some reason nobody seems to want to do it. So you're correct, you can early-move-copy on a big idea, but you've got to have the conviction to move early, and your idea must have ties to the locality through real life goods and businesses (or, I suppose, languages).