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Question for PG/HN: Where do you think we stand on your list of "ideas"?

172 points by jmspring 15y ago

About three years ago, Paul penned his essay "Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund". Three years along, how do you think this list stands up today? Are any solved (in part or in whole)? Anything new you would add to the list? I ask, because I remember reading this years ago and getting inspired to work on a few things (that didn't pan out). Given the popularity of (and success of YC), it would be interesting to see what Paul and HN see as the state of the world for this list.

jmspring 15y ago
Link to the essay -- http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html
- dstein 15y ago
  When I go down the list I can only think of a few YC startups that have done well by following these ideas (dropbox, heroku). The leaders in the categories listed are not YC companies, and the big hits that YC did have were in categories not listed (eg. Airbnb).
  - marciovm123 15y ago
    Airbnb = Craigslist competitor (#25)
    - shii 15y ago
      More like Craigslist spammer.
    - dstein 15y ago
      I'd put Airbnb as a competitor to hostels, they're not really competing with Craigslist directly.
benologist 15y ago
My opinion: - Simplified browsing has happened ala tablets, mobiles etc, especially purpose-specific apps. - Photo/Video sharing services .... they went mobile, big time - CRM ... I think twitter, facebook and internet outrage are changing that pretty rapidly - Web office apps ... I (still) don't get the sense there's any major urge to move to web office apps, but obviously the 800 pound gorilla in that space is (went?) web - Online learning ... Kahn Academy - New payment methods ... Square, NFC et al - The web os ... kind of became redundant with the explosion of mobile and tablet, but Chrome OS might end up mattering - Application and data hosting happened in a huge way lol
- jmspring 15y ago
  re: - Simplified browsing has happened ala tablets, mobiles etc, especially purpose-specific apps. Mobile and apps certainly have helped. But, there is still a problem of knowing what urls (in the case of a browser) or sites to search or which apps to get to help out. It seems like there should be a better way of just "getting information" based on location/interests/curiousities...
  - mbell 15y ago
    You mean google?
    - jmspring 15y ago
      Google may be an answer, but it is still oriented towards typing in search terms, maps, etc. Is there a better way to package this up as a ui/service?
      - uxp 15y ago
        Seems like you are looking for an App Store for SaaS apps, like the Chrome Web Store, but more general purpose and less Chrome specific. Edit: as much as I despise the term, Social App Store. You would need algorithms like Pandora uses, that tracks how often and for how long a user uses certain kinds of apps, and through categorization, tailor a "Recommended" page to popular apps in the same category, as well as ones that "friends" use on a regular basis.
jackpirate 15y ago
I'll take the opportunity to post about my recently started (2 weeks now) project on "design dependent search" (idea 16). The idea I'm trying to leverage is that typing long search queries on mobile devices is super awkward, but the touch screens make clicking much easier and more fun. My site displays similar search results geographically near each other on the screen, allowing you to make your searches more focused just by clicking on certain areas. Right now, it only works on blogs with RSS feeds due to my limited internet crawling resources. I hope to add media (picture,movie, and maybe music) search by the end of the summer. I don't see this necessarily working as a Google replacement though. You can check out the prototype at http://blogumbus.com http://blogumbus.com and visit the developer blog at http://dev.blogumbus.com http://dev.blogumbus.com.
- boyter 15y ago
  Interesting. I had a play with it and I think there is some potential there. Its somewhat similar to http://www.chunews.com/ http://www.chunews.com/ which I wrote some time ago in that you can follow the links between similar articles and paged. I like your implementation though. How are you working out whats related? Links or some deeper textual analysis?
  - jackpirate 15y ago
    Thanks for the heads up on chunews. I was having some trouble finding similar projects to judge where I should focus development. How many users did you get? As for linkedness, I'm going to do a detailed blog post about it sometime, but here it is in short: Use the HITS algorithm to get hub and authority scores for each domain. Pages are related only if websites with higher scores link to both of them. This makes spam much less of a problem (I think!), and will make for some interesting search algorithms that I haven't quite implemented yet.
    - boyter 15y ago
      I was more my attempt at recreating TailRank when it closed down (since I assumed that it couldn't be that difficult to write). It just seems to overlap what you have there quite a bit. Not many users. It tends to get a lot of SEO traffic though (usually breaking news stories funnel through it pretty quickly and you see a large spike) with anywhere from 50 to 500 uniques a day. Ah interesting. Chunews does statistical word ranking on each article it pulls down to group similar stories together. From memory it uses links as well but in reality since it checks exact links that never affects this. One of these days I may iterate on it but for the moment it shows me whats happening in the world at any point which is fine for me.
andrewstuart 15y ago
We built something alot like: 22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid. The question is though, what problem does it solve? It was very hard to explain to people why they would need it or care about it. Spent a year developing it and spent alot of money on it. For nothing in the end. A very cool technology and I still like it alot. Lesson: build something people want, or that solves a real problem. Don't build a solution looking for a problem.
- philfreo 15y ago
  From the 1-line description it sounds like Wufoo took care of that one
  - andrewstuart 15y ago
    Wufoo doesn't look like a database/spreadsheet hybrid to me.
    - rubinelli 15y ago
      Wufoo solved the "mail a template spreadsheet, receive filled in spreadsheets, manually consolidate results" problem, which is huge in any company with more than a hundred or so employees.
- pitdesi 15y ago
  Link?
  - andrewstuart 15y ago
    The software demo starts at about 1:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuSDU0JiI2c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuSDU0JiI2c Stupid name - NeoGopher. The basic idea was that with 10 to 15 lines of Javascript you could bring back results from any XML or JSON web based API and display it as a list. You could then link any row or cell to any other list. In a way it was like a reinvention of the old "gopher" protocol which allowed the user to navigate from one data list to another. The site is gone now.
schiptsov 15y ago
Not just Enterprise software 2.0. but Localized Enterprise software. The idea to adapt, say, SAP for Russian or Indian or Chinese laws, regulations and actual document flow is totally broken. Hosted services also limited to US market. The problem is - it is almost impossible to get funding for such projects in domestic markets. So, it is a very simple and obvious idea to build Enterprise software using the same technology that powers modern global-scale online services, targeting emerging markets, but it is quite long and very expensive journey. There are huge demand for hosted niched services for small and medium business, such as tour operators (schedules, synchronizations), goods carriers (simplified logistics), B2B systems (customer - supplier) and so on.
- paragraft 15y ago
  Something I've been pondering lately is whether there's a viable niche in internationalization as a middleware library & service: it takes a lot of effort to get right, it's tedious stuff (as I discovered when trying to document postal address formats for most of Africa and Europe), and it involves a lot of domain knowledge that's completely irrelevant to the actual core business of most SaaS vendors.
  - schiptsov 15y ago
    Yes, that is why it should be done by domestic startups and teams 'right on the site'. So, YC's model doesn't work here - they fund only US-based startups (because it is quite difficult to fetch a profit from aboard =) but this one must be an international one. (same as that network of Google offices around the globe).
    - paragraft 15y ago
      What I mean is whether there's a niche for a single entity whose job it is to be knowledgeable about all the sorts of issues you can run into in trying to internationalize software and services, whether they be local tax issues, best practices for translation layers in a software stack, cost estimations for freighting products. Like, i.e. an all-in-one service: build your SaaS platform against our framework, and we'll handle all i18n issues on this given list, for this given set of countries and languages, including payment handling and shipping, and take a cut. A successful startup often doesn't have time to deal with its own internationalization before local competitor clones get the jump on it (e.g, Ebay, Groupon). So what I'm envisioning is a company that acts at a higher level than the usual outsource-to-the-translator-agency routine, yet has product-ized its offerings enough that it's not locked into the consultancy business model.
jameswilsterman 15y ago
Dating? Anyone think the chicken & egg problem has been solved or is being solved? Any ideas how to solve this?
- nikcub 15y ago
  build it on top of facebook or twitter
- jcampbell1 15y ago
  When I look at the history there is a clear pattern: - Match.com solved it by starting in 1995 and working really hard. - eHarmony solved it by attracting the christian crowd with endorsements by pat roberson and great offline marketing. - plentyoffish solved it with a great brand name, and using the "free forever" look, feel, and marketing. - OKcupid solved it by creating tons of questionnaires that were fun and interesting. - AshleyMadison solved it by targeting the infidelity niche. - AdultFriendfinder solved it by marketing to suckers on gaming and porn sites. The pattern is clear. There is no pattern.
  - stevenp 15y ago
    Don't forget apps like Grindr. It's hyper-local, which is a whole new niche in this space.
  - retube 15y ago
    There is one pattern: a lot of marketing.
  - dmitri1981 15y ago
    Tastebuds are still getting started, but have an interesting approach of matching based on people's music taste and Last.fm profile.
  - fleitz 15y ago
    I thought the pattern was fake profiles.
- impendia 15y ago
pbreit 15y ago
Dare I say we'd like to work on 10 & 25? We've started testing a selling format (http://pricetack.com http://pricetack.com) we think might be applicable in a variety of situations and have some ideas on how to address the immense chicken & egg issue. But have no illusions on the difficulty ahead.
kloncks 15y ago
It's interesting to read this knowing that it was return years ago: A form of search that depends on design. Google doesn't have a lot of weaknesses. One of the biggest is that they have no sense of design.
- edash 15y ago
  I'd say this is the idea Hipmunk is going after...
mslate 15y ago
Anyone have any news of developments in 15. "Off-the-shelf security" products?

josephcooney 15y ago

Are you kidding? 80% of 'enterprise' systems involve a spreadsheet that is (conceptually) a database. Some business users use the words spreadsheet and database interchangeably. Almost every enterprise system I've build involved Excel as one of it's data sources. Users often give you requirements in terms of excel formulate etc, or ask for screens that are 'just like excel'. Microsoft has even recognized this and now offers 'server-side excel' as part of office 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Services I'd suggest that if this product wasn't a success you either didn't understand how end-users currently use spreadsheets as a 'poor man's database' or the marketing let you down.

andrewstuart 15y ago
No doubt we did a crappy job marketing. Also ran out of money before being able to implement the full vision/feature set. We built it a a desktop application too which I think was a mistake. Getting people to download and install things is hard.
SkyMarshal 15y ago
Or competing with Microsoft in this domain is still extremely difficult. As you point out, Excel still has very strong mindshare.
- andrewstuart 15y ago
  Realistically it was more like editable gopher than excel - or that is what it was meant to be anyway, we didn't get to implement the editing functionality. I still very much like the idea of being able to build lists from web based API's with only a handful of lines of Javascript.
  - nl 15y ago
    Wait.. what? You built something that was supposed to be an Excel clone, but you didn't implement the editing functionality? Isn't that pretty much 99% of the point of Excel? I mean yes, people do use Excel to share data as well, but most scenarios involving shared Excel spreadsheets involve multiple people editing the same spreadsheet, and then generating reports out of it. That's where the pain is, and that is what I had assumed you were aiming at. If not, then what did your system do exactly? (Also, build lists from web based API's with only a handful of lines of Javascript isn't Excel, either) Edit: I see further down you noted that your system was desktop based software. A web-based Excel/database hybrid isn't a big requirement list, but I'm not convinced you are covering a whole lot of it..
retube 15y ago
My comment yesterday seems relevant here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714515

viandante 15y ago

People do need an alternative to Excel, but it must address the issues Excel has, not compete on the same ground. One example: data consolidation. Try consolidate 30 excel files from 30 different people across the globe and you will be asking why nobody is providing a better solution. As an analyst/controller I work with Excel every day, let me know if you want to know about issues with Excel, there are tons of problems to solve.

emil0r 15y ago
Would love to hear about them. Mind emailing me?
- viandante 15y ago
  No problem, when I have time I send you an email. I would like to discuss this myself to see if there are cheances to build something in this direction.
  - jannes 15y ago
    I would love to hear about these problems, too. I'm currently planning (as in not having started programming yet) a web app that allows people to manage all sorts of data. Which of course would also include financial data. I'm always looking for new use-cases.
    - akg_67 15y ago
      Interesting topic as I recently spent three months on customer discovery for a CS researcher/wannabe entrepreneur who developed a spreadsheet consolidation (combining data from disparate sources) solution. My discovery work was primarily focused on enterprise. The primary finding was that everyone in enterprise claimed that they have the problem but the pain is not high enough for them to consider buying a solution that only consolidates data. They were looking for end-to-end solution. Have you looked at google fusion table and google refine? These are powerful tools in same space for non-enterprise applications.
andrewstuart 15y ago
Do people really need an alternative to Excel? I would suggest that as soon as someone has gotten to the limits of Excel, then they would start looking at a programming language as an alternative, not at a "more better Excel".
- viandante 15y ago
  Andrew, have you ever worked in a business environment? People get scared for some humble sql, how the hell are you going to convince them to learn programming (also vba is a problem)? Plus, what about cost/opportunity? Would you prefer to pay 10/20$ per month per person to improve their excel efficiency or either paying custom code or coding training? Point is, there must be a market out there for some functionalities that Excel does not have, it also should not be that difficult to build such a solution (call it a hunch, but I think with nosql that should be really easy to do). But the whole thing requires stopping thinking logically (of course excel makes no sense) and start thinking business(ly) (how do I get people to understand and use my solution).
  - david927 15y ago
    You're both right. Spreadsheets are already a (poor) programming paradigm called Functional Reactive. I say it's poor but it does something amazing: it doesn't require structure, planning, and forethought; and it can be used by anyone. The problem is that these constraints pull at each other: make it more powerful and you make it less useful. I think it's only when you make a complete rewrite from the bottom up in another paradigm that you can extend the power while retaining the usefulness.
    - viandante 15y ago
      'I think it's only when you make a complete rewrite from the bottom up in another paradigm that you can extend the power while retaining the usefulness.' True, but again, look at the users. People with very poor IT knowledge and very scared of change. Any new solution pointing at this market will have to:1) be as easy to use as excel; 2) much better than excel (why change otherwise?). I think that being better than excel overall is impossible, but looking into specific businesses and uses it should be.
      - david927 15y ago
        I think that being better than excel overall is impossible We disagree.
gordonguthrie 15y ago
We have written a new spreadsheet and spreadsheet consolidation is one of the core cases. http://hypernumbers.com http://hypernumbers.com Our core business case is to address the problems of distributed business processes implemented in spreadsheets. We want to continue to offer the flexibility of the spreadsheet paradigm whilst addressing the most weaknesses of the current paradigm. This short video (when its finished) will be the centerpiece of the new release: http://vimeo.com/25937882 http://vimeo.com/25937882

david927 15y ago

That's funny because I'm also building a web-based Excel/database hybrid, and I'm also a bit concerned about demand. But your story doesn't deter me at all, for two reasons: one, because I'm crazy; two because of La Femme Nikita. Let me explain. People talk about ideas as being worthless, etc. No, they're not. You can't get an oak tree with a mustard seed. But there's a big difference between even oak trees. Idea and execution are the same thing, just two ends of a continuous line. The films La Femme Nikita and Point of No Return have nearly the exact same plot. The former is one of the greatest action films ever made; the latter is one of the worst. That whole "build something people want" is only for people who want to make money. And honestly, if what you want is to make money, be a dentist. People waant Facebook and Twitter and Farmville. But they need core technological innovation. They need better ways to work with data. You did the right thing, Andrew. It wasn't a waste of time. And I won't stop either, because the world has far too much of what it wants and far too little of what it needs.

Sandman 15y ago
And honestly, if what you want is to make money, be a dentist. And if all you want is to build something just for the fun of it, don't start a company. You'll lose money, time and nerves. There really are only to options when building something. Either build something people want (and if somebody built it before you did, build a better version - see: Altavista, Yahoo and others vs. Google) or build something, and then make people want it (see: iPad). But don't start a company to build something just so you can satisfy your professional curiosity. That's what side projects are for.
- david927 15y ago
  The web was a side project. It changed the world. Linux was a side project. It also changed everything. Angry Birds was a side pro... wait, no it was a way to make money... and that's fine. I'm not trying to say, "Don't make money." I'm saying, making what people want gets you Angry Birds. Making what people need gets you the web.
  - Sandman 15y ago
    So your point is that you should build something that you believe people will need even though this need/want doesn't yet exist. Ok, I can agree with that. But if you're going to run a company, you better build something people want now, or be able to make people want it, otherwise you'll go bankrupt.
    - david927 15y ago
      And I can agree with that.
andrewstuart 15y ago
Mail me when its ready to show, I'm interested andrew.stuart at supercoders.com.au I think I understand your point. AltaVista is nowhere and google is..... I am also a fan of the original (the french version) Nikita - great shootouts.
- david927 15y ago
  Thanks, I'll do that, and my email is david927 at gmail.
kingsley_20 15y ago
Actually, Facebook, Twitter and Farmville are great examples of products nobody said they wanted and didn't solve any perceived problems, but are succesful any way. I've compulsively weaned myself off the "solve a problem" mentality because it gets in the way of building truly innovative products, IMO.
- Hisoka 15y ago
  You're right. You don't have to solve a problem. But you do have to create something people want, or something that appeals to them. Technically, there aren't many "problems" in life besides survival. Everything else though has to appeal to something in the Maslov hierarchy
- int3rnaut 15y ago
  Couldn't the problem be that people just have way to much time on their hands and need help with that? Haha, seriously!

ig1 15y ago

I can think of a bunch of ways: 1) Make it a one-side market. For example you could let guys set up profiles and then buy Facebook ads to advertise those specific guys ("Think Brad is cute? - He's single, click to find out more") to single girls in their areas with similar interest. 2) Leverage off of another userbase. Tastebuds.fm is a good example that leverages off Last.fm's userbase. If I wanted to take this approach I'd make a dating service for users of 23andme's genetic analysis service. Newspapers will literally fall over each other to write about a dating service that uses DNA to match couples. 3) Take the primary feature of your competitors and turn it into a weakness. Most dating websites focus on having x million members. Turn around a build an exclusive dating website ("fed up having to search through hundreds of profiles and getting most of your messages ignored?"). Only have 20-30 members of either gender at a time and only give them access for a limited period (say a couple of weeks). Have a wait-list for people who want to get on. People will want to signup even without knowing how many people of the other gender or on the system.

revorad 15y ago
Re 1: why would a (hetero) guy set up his profile on a site which features only other guys?
- ig1 15y ago
  You're thinking about it in terms of a traditional dating site too much. I think this comic may be a good way to explain it: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-09-09/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-09-09/ The dating site would let you create a landing page to promote yourself (You could also do things like A/B testing on it) and buy advertising to promote it on places like Facebook. It's absolutely irrelevant who else is using the site to promote themselves.
  - revorad 15y ago
    Well, however you spin it, it's a traditional dating site but without any women! The only unique thing about this idea is that it starts by worsening the chicken and egg problem. Can you tell me why advertising on Facebook for your profile wouldn't work if there already were women on your dating site? Why not just start selling advertising to people who have profiles on OKcupid, eharmony, PoF and other existing dating sites? If it's irrelevant who else is using the site, then how does excluding one side of the marketplace improve my odds to find a partner?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - ig1 15y ago
      Because the women on Facebook become the women on your dating site. Selling advertising to people who have profiles on existing sites would also work, but obviously you'll have a lot worse conversion rate as rather than a girl being able to just send you a message immediately after hitting your page they'd have to signup/subscribe to the dating site before doing so. This approach is how airbnb essentially bootstrapped their business, they found people who had rooms they wanted to advertise and then re-advertised those rooms on places like craigslist, etc. so it didn't matter they didn't have both sides of the market. Craigslist, etc. became the other side of the market for them.
    - nl 15y ago
      I think this idea could work - or at least it's not as bad as you are making out. You are thinking too traditionally. Imagine the site was called "BankersLookingForDates.com". You charge $5000 (or more?) to become a member, then go visit other dating sites to find women who might be good matches for your members, contact them, vet them and arrange the date.
Hisoka 15y ago
I was also thinking of #3 - keep it very exclusive.. such as limiting it only to people who are serious about marriage. Make it sorta like a marriage catalog service, but less shady. Make it very very expensive. $10000/year or your money back if you don't find a mate. You get 50% of the money back if you get married though thru the site.
- fleitz 15y ago
  Marriage stats would suggest that not even married folks are serious about marriage.