3 ms·

I'm sending out free (unvalidated) startup/SaaS ideas

hardwaresofton 5y ago
Here's an example up front that I think is pretty solidly mid-tier because it's easy to execute on and could potentially be a game changer for some people: <idea> Curated twitter blocklists, in particular a curated twitter bot blocklist. Twitter's got a relatively large bot problem, and increasing the effectiveness of your ads by ~8% (if you believe the estimations) by ensuring they got to real people. One of the lynchpins of this idea is whether blocking someone on twitter prevents them from seeing your promoted content and I can say now that it does. The idea itself </idea> If you have a hard time with coming up with ideas, get on this list and I'll send you some. I thought that most people, like me, have an insanely large list of unvalidated ideas they'll never get to (even though they want to), and after talking to people it looks like that's not the case. Took a break from customer finding & building last week to throw this together since it seemed like it would take a short amount of time (and I wanted to make a template for what I call prospecting pages[0] like this). I'm not the first one to have this kind of idea of course, and certainly not the last but I know I'll never get to all these ideas and some of them should see the light of day outside my $NOTE_TAKING_APP. [0]: https://vadosware.io/post/lets-call-pre-launch-landing-pages-prospecting-pages/ https://vadosware.io/post/lets-call-pre-launch-landing-pages...
jqpabc123 5y ago
I have a startup idea --- collect validated email addresses and sell them to spammers.
- hardwaresofton 5y ago
  Well that's pretty cynical, but you're right, that could be what I'm planning to do. A cursory look at my domain, socials and what I've posted on HN should be enough to at least suggest I'm not trying to do that though. Also, raw profit wise, it would be incredibly short-sighted to sell emails to spammers IMO. That's a dogshit plan. My plan is to put out good content -- i.e. deliver value (well actually unvalidated ideas are near worthless... so this might be hard) -- and maybe add a paid tier (early reception? better quality ideas? I'm not sure) or an ad in the mailing list (probably at the bottom) eventually. That's a far more sustainable AND profitable plan than selling to spammers.
  - jqpabc123 5y ago
    That's a far more sustainable AND profitable plan than selling to spammers. Maybe ... or maybe not. You point out that "actually unvalidated ideas are near worthless". Selling near worthless ideas or selling addresses to spammers --- hard to say which is more viable and/or profitable.
    - hardwaresofton 5y ago
      > You point out that "actually unvalidated ideas are near worthless". Selling near worthless ideas or selling addresses to spammers --- hard to say which may be more viable and/or profitable. That was a bit tongue in cheek (I do think there's some value there -- it's just drastically less than a validated idea). I strongly think an advertising spot is going to be worth more in the long run. Maybe I'm not familiar enough with just how profitable selling to spammers is, but million dollar businesses have been built off of mailing lists, and the connections made through the list are probably more valuable than even that. The real "long con" is just delivering a bunch of value and seeing how it resonates with people. Not burning bridges or annoying people is a decent way to live and often more profitable long term than selling data to spammers, I think.
      - jqpabc123 5y ago
        I strongly think an advertising spot is going to be worth more in the long run. So you want to send people advertisements? You want to become a spammer? Your response does not encourage me to provide my address.
        hardwaresofton 5y ago
        Yeah I mentioned that was an idea up front, no? If I went that route I think it'd definitely be worth more. If people don't like the advertisement/sponsor I find, then they can unsubscribe, that's not blocked in any way. I think most people, especially the demographic that would find value in unvalidated startup ideas know about how newsletters are monetized and what commonly happens. The difference between spam and a good newsletter is content quality, and if someone put a sponsor read in front of me in exchange for a great startup idea, then I think it'd be worth it. > Your response does not encourage me to provide my address. And that's OK! Not everyone is into it and I can't lose sleep over that -- thanks for the discussion though.

Here's an example up front that I think is pretty solidly mid-tier because it's easy to execute on and could potentially be a game changer for some people: <idea> Curated twitter blocklists, in particular a curated twitter bot blocklist. Twitter's got a relatively large bot problem, and increasing the effectiveness of your ads by ~8% (if you believe the estimations) by ensuring they got to real people. One of the lynchpins of this idea is whether blocking someone on twitter prevents them from seeing your promoted content and I can say now that it does. The idea itself </idea> If you have a hard time with coming up with ideas, get on this list and I'll send you some. I thought that most people, like me, have an insanely large list of unvalidated ideas they'll never get to (even though they want to), and after talking to people it looks like that's not the case. Took a break from customer finding & building last week to throw this together since it seemed like it would take a short amount of time (and I wanted to make a template for what I call prospecting pages[0] like this). I'm not the first one to have this kind of idea of course, and certainly not the last but I know I'll never get to all these ideas and some of them should see the light of day outside my $NOTE_TAKING_APP. [0]: https://vadosware.io/post/lets-call-pre-launch-landing-pages-prospecting-pages/ https://vadosware.io/post/lets-call-pre-launch-landing-pages...

jqpabc123 5y ago

I have a startup idea --- collect validated email addresses and sell them to spammers.

hardwaresofton 5y ago
Well that's pretty cynical, but you're right, that could be what I'm planning to do. A cursory look at my domain, socials and what I've posted on HN should be enough to at least suggest I'm not trying to do that though. Also, raw profit wise, it would be incredibly short-sighted to sell emails to spammers IMO. That's a dogshit plan. My plan is to put out good content -- i.e. deliver value (well actually unvalidated ideas are near worthless... so this might be hard) -- and maybe add a paid tier (early reception? better quality ideas? I'm not sure) or an ad in the mailing list (probably at the bottom) eventually. That's a far more sustainable AND profitable plan than selling to spammers.
- jqpabc123 5y ago
  That's a far more sustainable AND profitable plan than selling to spammers. Maybe ... or maybe not. You point out that "actually unvalidated ideas are near worthless". Selling near worthless ideas or selling addresses to spammers --- hard to say which is more viable and/or profitable.
  - hardwaresofton 5y ago
    > You point out that "actually unvalidated ideas are near worthless". Selling near worthless ideas or selling addresses to spammers --- hard to say which may be more viable and/or profitable. That was a bit tongue in cheek (I do think there's some value there -- it's just drastically less than a validated idea). I strongly think an advertising spot is going to be worth more in the long run. Maybe I'm not familiar enough with just how profitable selling to spammers is, but million dollar businesses have been built off of mailing lists, and the connections made through the list are probably more valuable than even that. The real "long con" is just delivering a bunch of value and seeing how it resonates with people. Not burning bridges or annoying people is a decent way to live and often more profitable long term than selling data to spammers, I think.
    - jqpabc123 5y ago
      I strongly think an advertising spot is going to be worth more in the long run. So you want to send people advertisements? You want to become a spammer? Your response does not encourage me to provide my address.
      - hardwaresofton 5y ago
        Yeah I mentioned that was an idea up front, no? If I went that route I think it'd definitely be worth more. If people don't like the advertisement/sponsor I find, then they can unsubscribe, that's not blocked in any way. I think most people, especially the demographic that would find value in unvalidated startup ideas know about how newsletters are monetized and what commonly happens. The difference between spam and a good newsletter is content quality, and if someone put a sponsor read in front of me in exchange for a great startup idea, then I think it'd be worth it. > Your response does not encourage me to provide my address. And that's OK! Not everyone is into it and I can't lose sleep over that -- thanks for the discussion though.