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Ask HN: Startup ideas that you'll never do?
There are a lot of reasons to not do a startup, maybe it creates a lot of value but you don't see a good way to capture that value. Maybe it's just outside of your area of expertise.
So what ideas do you have that you'll never act on?
- gtsteve 3y agoA search engine for physical shops, which indexes their items and inventory so you know where to go when you want a specific type of cheese for a recipe and you're in an unfamiliar small town. Of course you can just ask locals but that's so analogue.
- solardev 3y agoI wish Google Shopping did this. They have the code for it, but right now it's all paid placements instead of organic inventory levels. Maybe it's something Square and the bread one can team up and offer?
- samsquire 3y agoI wrote a list of startups I would like here: https://github.com/samsquire/startups https://github.com/samsquire/startups
- warrenm 3y ago11's pretty much done with Cloud Bolt and other hybrid cloud management / service catalog frontends
- warrenm 3y ago17 can be done by tools like Splunk
- samsquire 3y agoI am looking for visualisations that model things to the point that bottlenecks and inefficiency are obvious. I think visualisations of business processes can be similar to video games. Here's a visualisation I'm playing with: https://processes2.chronological.repl.co/ https://processes2.chronological.repl.co/
- warrenm 3y agothere are definitely tools (monitoring, observability, etc) out that that do that (or most of that) currently :)
- warrenm 3y agoisn't 25 more-or-less a startup incubator a la YC?
- acuozzo 3y agoCan you elaborate a bit on #20, please?
- Doctor_Fegg 3y agoAutobiographies. A platform to write your life story. Free for basic text, premium for extra features, subscribe to read more than n per month etc.
- solardev 3y agoA federated technology co-op that serves local needs, like rideshare or food & drug delivery or point of sale systems. It'd be entirely employee owned and operated, shared between the people making the tech and the local drivers and restaurants and technicians and the such. Needs trickle up, app & hardware dev is done collaboratively and centrally and the output trickles back down to every chapter, profits are split among all employees accordingly to some formula. No outside shareholders. It might also be possible to organize this as a worker self directed nonprofit, such that you have no profits at all (still pay salaries and benefits, but removing speculatory investments and controlling shares from employee owners). Similar businesses exist in other fields, but tech is uniquely reusable between chapters once developed. Gain the efficiencies of scale of a small national command economy, with democratic input from co-owners/co-workers, without the bureaucracy and corruption of the formal government. It would never be able to directly compete with the VC bubbles of Uber etc., but it would be a more ethical and sustainable operation, and maybe can win some government contracts and protectionism if it has a special nonprofit status...
- mikewarot 3y agoBitgrid - A new computing architecture, which seems absurd at first, but might be the one that democratizes access to Petaflops/second. Take an FPGA, rip out all of the routing hardware, and basically have a sea of LUTs in a grid, clock them in two phases like the color on a chess board. It's a huge waste of transistors, but every single bit of compute is pipelined, so you could run an LLM with one output per cycle, for example. I'd estimate a 8192 * 8192 array could fit in a chip the same size as my i7 processor. (Assume an FP16 multiply fits in 1024 cells, there could be 65,536 of them, each giving an answer each clock cycle, at 2Ghz --> 131 TFlop FP16) If you manage to optimize the multiply to fit in a smaller area, you can immediately get more TFlops out, something that an FPGA can't do. I'll be glad to help anyone who wants to make this thing go.
- readonthegoapp 3y agoA startup to build bike lanes, and other tech/policies that allow people to bike. This would be similar to the functions provided by orgs like https://sfbike.org/ https://sfbike.org/ but we'd be for-profit and have billions in funding.
- aramndrt 3y agoDeveloping software for small, independent cinemas is a notable idea. While I can't speak for the global situation, based on my experience in Europe, many cinemas suffer from outdated and subpar booking software. Creating an aesthetically pleasing platform akin to Shopify for webshops could prove to be a lucrative endeavour. My research into existing solutions revealed a dearth of options, and the few available ones look crap.
- warrenm 3y ago20+ years ago, that was the final project assignment in the VB6 class I took in college ...Though we manually had to manage the seating arrangement - each of us (to a better or worser extent (mine looked not-so-great, but was one of the few that worked)) had to build a theater booking tool backended by Access
- lewiscarson 3y agoUpload all of your course notes onto a website, and have it all categorised and sorted automatically with generated flash cards, key takeaways, etc Maybe a section for exploring a topic more deeply.
- traverseda 3y agoPacket switched pneumatic tubes. Back when pneumatic tubes were a big thing we didn't have a lot of the technology we have now. I think a lot of the inefficiency in pneumatic tube networks could be made up for by modern computing and robotics. Obviously a lot of challenged but if you could get the downtown core of a high density city on board as a trial project you could be delivering everything from packages to fast food. It's an expensive piece of infrastructure to invest in, and I know big companies like Amazon are expecting drones to solve all their problems, but I can't help but think the answer is to just lay out some pipe and build the network. I think once you have a network like that it changes the economics of a lot of stuff. Maybe you can even use return packets for garbage collection. I think if you can get the per packet price low enough it opens the doors for a lot of new business ideas.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoif nothing else it could probably make a neat RFC
- jjgreen 3y agoYes! But packet fragmentation?
- traverseda 3y agoDepends on what you've ordered I guess. A piano, probably not. 30 Books? Sure, ship them one at a time. Finding the sweet spot for pneumatic tube size would be challenging for sure.
- traverseda 3y agoBulk laundry service using RFIDs. The economics of scale are different when you can just throw all the fabric into one giant washer/dryer, like the type they use in hospitals, and let robots sort out who owns what. My province has one central laundry facility that services basically all government buildings (hospitals, prisons, etc) using giant washing machines. RFIDs let us turn something like that into something that can service an entire community. Of course last mile transportation remains a problem.
- raylad 3y agoThey do that in Mumbai, sorta, but using tags they put on the clothes. You drop off a bag of laundry, it gets picked up and taken to this central washing area in town. Someone labels every piece of clothing, and then throws all the clothes together with everyone else's clothes for washing. After washing they fold and separate all the clothes and you get everything back (at least I always did). I think this has been going on since at least the 19th century.
- warrenm 3y agominus the RFID ... sounds mildly similar to cloth diaper services: you subscribe to X many per week, and they're delivered with the soiled ones picked up in exchange Of course ... you're not guaranteed to get the same cloth diapers back on the next delivery :)
- traverseda 3y agoThat is one inspiration of course. My town is too small for something like that but if it can work for something as specific as diapers I think it would work for all kinds of other stuff.
- warrenm 3y agoIt definitely works on less "personal" / more standardized items (like diapers, uniforms (the cleaning service would come once a week when I worked at Hertz, dropping off X-many pants and shirts in the right size, and take the dirty ones to be cleaned), etc)
- jdwyah 3y agoSerial cereals. It's a breakfast cereal, but each month the box comes with the next installment of the next Dickens.
- philomath_mn 3y agoUhh, that is a fantastic idea. Where do I sign up?
- jdwyah 3y agoIt's so good right??? Then we can branch out to different cereal types for different genres... Count Chocula -> Serial Mysteries. I wish I didn't already have a startup. This one has been a dream for me since somebody spitballed it in 1999.
- warrenm 3y agoHere're 999 you might find interesting: `Hamster Burial Kits & 998 Other Business Ideas` https://web.archive.org/web/20090213131053/http://www.sixmonthmba.com/2009/02/999ideas.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090213131053/http://www.sixmon...
- warrenm 3y agoWhale farming - building the containment nets is probably tricky, but if you had a big enough area to cordon off in the ocean, you could raise them for meat etc
- traverseda 3y ago...Why whales? Aren't like regular fish farms going to work better?
- warrenm 3y agoWhy not (other than the space constraints)? I don't know if it's a good idea, but it's an idea
- schwartzworld 3y agoIt would more humane to grow whale blubber in a lab. Even if you don't care about the suffering of whales who are absolutely miserable in confinement, there's no way to make farming such large animals economical. It's why you can't farm bluefin tuna, it just takes too much food and space compared to what you get.
- phanimahesh 3y agoNot to mention the relatively high levels of intelligence in many whales.
- gadders 3y agoMy Nan ate whale meat during the war in the UK. She didn't recommend it. "You didn't know if you were eating fishy meat or meaty fish."
- warrenm 3y agoCreating food forests in cities - changing "traditional" city landscaping into perennial forageable forests - fruit & nut trees, berry bushes, etc
- traverseda 3y agoI'd worry about pests. I've done some food forest type stuff and you can run into pest problems pretty easily. Rats and pigeons and all that. Rats will eat under-ripe fruits before humans can harvest them, and for taller trees like apple trees windfall apples will litter the street. I think you need some kind of animal to clean up food waste from food forests and even traditional farms, and you'd really like that to be deer and not rats. Deer aren't really compatible with an urban environment.
- warrenm 3y agoI might make more sense to do it in parks, etc - not just along the streets ... but I think there's some potential for it :)
- warrenm 3y agoA replacement for Uservoice that doesn't suck - a public/whitelabelable RFE service that companies could subscribe to (SaaS) or deploy and manage on-prem
- warrenm 3y agoA way to crowdsource patronage - everything/everybody seems to be asking for subscriptional support (Patreon or the like) I would love to support a lot of the creators I know more personally ... but if I were to add-up even the $1/mo they each ask for, I'd be into the $100s a month easily ... so I live with the ads they have Something a la Brave Browser's tokens, though, would be great - pitch, say, $50 into a "patronage bucket", and then pay a penny for every page/video/podcast/song/etc you read/watch/listen to OR allow the ads to load/display/stream
- samsquire 3y agoDo you want to talk more about this idea? This is what I want too! I am thinking of sponsoring 12 really high quality blog posts for $12 a year.
- droningparrot 3y agoI think Flattr does exactly this https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/ but it looks like they may have changed their business model recently
- warrenm 3y agoEnabling libraries to become print-on-demand centers for public domain / out of print / old / unusual works
- solardev 3y agoOr just expanding their ebook rights beyond "1 copy, one loan at a time"
- warrenm 3y agoI'd rather have physical books most of the time :)
- traverseda 3y agoThere used to be these espresso book machines that showed a lot of promise, but I'm pretty sure they're completely defunct now: https://www.ondemandbooks.com/ https://www.ondemandbooks.com/
- warrenm 3y agoA way to integrate digital conversations a la mind mapping[0] or a Zettelkasten[1] - allowing for branching, parallel conversations (that could be remerged later (eg like git's development branch concepts)), private conversations (which might be ephemeral (disappearing after X period of time (like Snapchat, Signal, Telegram, etc offer - or like unlogged IM clients, irc, etc)) chats) Bring all your social media, messaging apps, and email into a single app If you want to add someone to a conversation they were not previously in, you could have a set of approvals that need to be granted by X-many members of the chat group to allow/disallow certain content items to be visible Being able to easily search across all those communication mediums would be a godsend - can't remember if you sent something to Bob via Messenger, Signal, or email? Open this tool, and they are all in one place ------- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten
- countWSS 3y agoA sort of "temporary building constructor" like a LEGO for sheds, made from small pieces like interlocking plates/hinge blocks of standard size to build cube-like shapes extending from each other like Minecraft blocks.
- simon_acca 3y agoI can very much recommend Exel Composite's "system 30". It is a sort of lego-like system for building structure's frames, we've built several 30m by 10m barn/shed type buildings with it that have withstood the elements for 20+ years. https://exelcomposites.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/EN_System-30-Data-Sheet.pdf https://exelcomposites.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/EN_Sys... junctions: https://www.etra.fi/en/engineering-plastics-e540/plastic-reinforcement-tubes-connectors-e5421/exel-system-30-e542105 https://www.etra.fi/en/engineering-plastics-e540/plastic-rei... tubes: https://www.etra.fi/en/exel-tubes-e54211505 https://www.etra.fi/en/exel-tubes-e54211505
- traverseda 3y agoLike gablock? https://gablok.be/en/ https://gablok.be/en/
- muzani 3y agoData driven astrology, numerology, or similar divining tools. Find out your compatibility with a date! Should you take this job? Make this decision? High risk or low risk investments this year? Potentially fun, but seems like it would get too cultlike if it works. More likely it could end up disproving astrology and pissing off certain people. Numerology would be interesting as there's no preset canon that 14 exudes leadership skills or whatever. Nobody minds if you process some numbers and spot some pattern.
- mtmail 3y agoI actually worked on that at a corporate job. We got daily horoscope from a FTP server, many months aheads. All static ad spots were tarot readers, premium phone numbers and other astrology related services (scams in IMHO). There was an oracle feature where you can ask yes/no questions with over 1000 submissions per day, all from "should I leave my boyfriend" to "should I kill myself". The list of manually refused/tuned words was long, kind of crazy to think people would base real-life decision on effectively a random answer (random plus some hashing of normalized input). There was also a compatibility checker where you provide two first names. Also an algorithm with some normalizing and fine-tuning. I think it returned a score from 1 to 100. I switched departments as soon as possible.
- codegeek 3y agoA startup that can get rid of Health Insurance companies butting in between Doctors and Patients and existing only for catastrophic events (cancer etc). Get rid of Insurance premiums, copays, deductibles and all the other crazy stuff. Let patients pay out of pocket directly to Doctors. That would bring down the cost of healthcare like crazy. Yes I know this will require some legislations etc and I am a nobody in this field but man I would love for this to happen. Hate the Health Insurance bullshit with a passion.
- logicalmonster 3y agoI don't know the practical realities and complex legalities of this field too well, but when I was paying cash for common medical procedures for a few years, the biggest problem I had was finding out the prices of procedures. Trying to call a medical office and get a price for anything was often a frustrating exercise. The staff would say things like "The doctor has to examine you first and then tell you how much it costs" or even "We won't know the full price until after the procedure". Trying to comparison shop was very difficult, even for relatively common tasks.
- codegeek 3y agoYes and again, that is because of our system which requires Health Insurance. Those people at the front desk are low level hires who only understand how to ask for your Insurance card before they can do anything. When you throw the "cash question" at them, they have no clue. This is again all by design.
- throw9away6 3y agoA services where you order used bike parts based on request. The local bike chop shop can then fulfill your request and send you the part. Kind of like eBay or Amazon marketplace in reverse with buyers driving orders instead of sellers listing inventory.
- krembo 3y agoIMDB for books