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Startup ideas spreadsheet
- manglav 14y agoWhat's the source of this? Anyone know?
- harshadura 14y agoalmost 4 yrs, lol > http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974
- hayksaakian 14y agoAre all of these recent or was this posted a long time ago before?
- davidhperry 14y agoIt must have some age on it, since I'm seeing some Google Wave URLs in there.
- mikle 14y ago"Date a document" service that tries to understand when something on the internet was written according to slang popularity (like YOLO=recent), sites that have closed or lost popularity (like wave, digg). products mentioned and other heuristics.
- netcan 14y agoThanks. Just the process of reading a list and thinking about the reasons why things will/won't work & how is very helpful for starting to think of ideas. Also what makes these unique.
- jaredsohn 14y agoOriginal post from almost three years ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974
- harshadura 14y agoomg!
- evolve2k 14y agoI'm thinking this would work better in a stack exchange thread, then we all don't have to read crappy ideas like the pyramid scheme lotto and people could easily upvote and comment on each idea (one idea per post style).
- chmike 14y agoYes, sort by various criteria.
- victorantos 14y agoall these ideas could be put into a business model canvas, add the ideas to http://www.CanvasBM.com http://www.CanvasBM.com
- kintamanimatt 14y agoHaving skimmed through the summaries, the general trend is they're trying to solve a non-existent problem, or a problem that isn't painful enough that people would be willing to pay to solve. I mean, who wants to pay for their Facebook statuses to be backed up? They're about as valuable as old voicemails and the threat of loss isn't palpable. There's a lesson to be learned in all of this: don't think about ways to make money, but think about painful problems that you can solve for someone, and figure out whether a viable business can be created with that idea.
- samrat 14y agoMaybe a "painful problems" spreadsheet would be more appropriate. This reminds me of something Paul Graham called "sitcom startup ideas" in a recent post.
- borplk 14y agoI highly support something like that. At some point I even wanted to create a listing website where people can submit "pain points" for others to solve. A "Pain Point Directory".
- kintamanimatt 14y agoI'm not necessarily sure why anybody in their right mind would create such a thing and share it! Ideas are less valuable than execution, but ideas are valuable nonetheless! People should really be solving their own painful problems anyway (always better to be your own customer!) whose solutions can in some way be successfully and profitably exchanged for money.
- netcan 14y agoSome exercises work better collaboratively.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago> I'm not necessarily sure why anybody in their right mind would create such a thing and share it! Best startup ideas are about solving real problems. Some people care about problems getting solved, whether or not they are the ones doing the solving. Keep in mind that no one has enough time to try and solve all the problems at once. So if you see something wrong that needs to be fixed, and you don't have time to do it yourself (because you're busy fixing something else), why not just share it with people, so that someone else might work on it, thus helping to make our world a better place?
- chmike 14y agoWhere can we vote and comment ? Make a website to list, vote and discuss business idea should be first on the document. :)
- vlokshin 14y agoMaybe we can take LaunchSky.com there :)
- icebraining 14y agoIt has a field for Community Feedback. I'm not sure what would be the purpose of voting, though.
- chmike 14y agoSorting by "relevancy"
- huhtenberg 14y agoIt wants me log in with a Google account that I don't have. Can remove this requirement?
- cfontes 14y agoThis made me laugh out loud. "Chatroulette involves men masturbating in their bedrooms. Landscaperoulette involves men masturbating on rooftops and in front of scenic landscapes. Advertising for hand cream, silicon lube, and travel guides."
- swah 14y agoHad one yesterday: provide/sell cheaper/"fixed price" dollars on the fly for foreigners buying stuff in USD, just-in-time.
- sterna 14y agoPhosphorus recovery is an important problem indeed, but there already exists a solution: http://www.grontmij.com/highlights/water-and-energy/Pages/pearl-phosphorus-recovery-waste-water.aspx http://www.grontmij.com/highlights/water-and-energy/Pages/pe... The main problem at the moment is a lack of incentives to use it at waste water treatment plants, but I guess this will come with increasing Phosphorus prices. Still it would be beneficial to start recovering more Phosphorus already now but this is a political issue rather than an Engineering issue in my opinion.
- vijayr 14y ago"Viewing in simple list mode due to high traffic to this document." - HN traffic can stress even Google? :)
- randomsearch 14y agoGlancing at a selection of these ideas, many have already been done. A big part of starting a business is ensuring that you do your market research right, know your competitors and identify what need you are fulfilling. Some examples: * "Share your wifi" - see http://www.btfon.com http://www.btfon.com - this started years ago and is back by a huge telecommunications company. * Checking browser and O/S versions - https://browserlab.adobe.com/en-us/index.html https://browserlab.adobe.com/en-us/index.html * Anonymous email - http://www.sendanonymousemail.net http://www.sendanonymousemail.net etc. * Online image editing... http://www.photoshop.com http://www.photoshop.com etc. RS
- geori 14y agosurprise, surprise hacker news is a great place to crowdsource market research. I had a fun time looking through the list but I can't edit the comments on the Google Doc. And since I can't edit: "Crowd-sourced shipping" has been done. http://www.uship.com http://www.uship.com in Austin has been doing this for 5+ years.
- wgx 14y agoCan't face the copy/paste, but I should add my 'idea dump' posts: http://willgrant.org/category/idea-dump/ http://willgrant.org/category/idea-dump/
- sdqali 14y agoI liked your "Git for everyone idea". But thinking about it a bit more, this idea can be split into: 1. Collaborative editing - Google Docs already allows this to some extend. 2. Document history - Tools like MS Word already does this to some extend. There is still a lot of room for improvement. 3. Using Git as a document store - Is Git really needed for this? Even if the system was backed by Git, would not it be better if the whole Git related parts are hidden from the user? Even if the system uses Git as the store, in order to present changesets that are meaningful to the user, the system will have to process the Git changesets. So why use Git?
- TeMPOraL 14y agoI took the liberty of submitting this list to /r/startupideas mentioned by realrocker [0] hoping this could bootstrap the subreddit, but it seems to be moderated and people here will forget about it before the moderator gets around to look at new submissions. [0] - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4899874 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4899874
- Jonovono 14y agoI was interested in the "Git for everyone". I made a quick example as a quick project awhile ago. I have the domain http://www.rubberdocky.com http://www.rubberdocky.com. I have not done anything on it in awhile but I think it could be neat. That builds off collaboration on things like Google docs and makes it more social/nice looking.
- jcs 14y agoFun to see this pop up again. Original: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190974 (almost 3 years ago)
- adv0r 14y ago"We provide a lottery where you get just as much back as you put in (on average), as long as you're willing to wait a while. " Target market : "Socialists, Communists, Poor people " WTF
- flyinRyan 14y agoWhat's WTF about that? Are socialist, communists and poor people not a valid market? I can't speak to the other two but there are rather large markets that target poor people almost exclusively (e.g. Pawn shops).
- alanctgardner2 14y agoThis is actually already a thing. Rather than lottery pools, companies have a collection where people can contribute every week, and at regular intervals it 'pays out' to one person in the pool. Everyone wins in turn, it's effectively gamifying saving money, combined with the pooling aspect of corporate lottery buying. It's much more profitable than buying lotto tickets on average, because there's no outflow. In addition, the money can be stored in a short-term security, like a monthly rotation of one-year GICs. This requires more overhead to get started, but then you actually turn a small profit. That said, I don't know if you could start a company around it. Most of the point is the social aspect of collecting the money and deciding who 'wins' for a given week ( I suppose you'd do a lottery from a pool where winners aren't re-entered)
- cschneid 14y agoThis idea has been floated before: http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/11/18/freakonomics-radio-could-a-lottery-be-the-answer-to-americas-poor-savings-rate/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/11/18/freakonomics-radio-co... Basically just taking all the interest from the loans, and splitting it up as payouts in a lottery among everybody who has money saved.
- alanctgardner2 14y agoI knew I read it from Levitt somewhere. For better or worse, most of my knowledge of economics derives from his blog and books. Of course, he describes it better than I did.
- runako 14y agoMy favorite blindingly obvious business plan straight from HN discussions: (insert non-US country X here) clone of (insert successful US-only business that HNers constantly whine about not being in country X). Examples: Stripe for Norway, Twilio for New Zealand, etc.
- trevorcreech 14y agoThis is exactly how the Samwer brothers are making boatloads of money: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-29/the-germany-website-copy-machine http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-29/the-germany-...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- aviswanathan 14y ago"Good artists copy, great artists steal"
- rbirnie 14y agoThe "double index stock fund" - The stock market doesn't sleep it just closes. It opens the next day at a different value than what it closed based on any new information. "Lock your savings into the housing market, so you don't get priced out!" - REIT
- realrocker 14y agohttp://www.reddit.com/r/startupideas/ http://www.reddit.com/r/startupideas/. Nothing is on it though. We can use it.
- TeMPOraL 14y agoSeems to be moderated; I submitted a link but it's not there. My guess is people will forget about it before the moderator gets around to see new submissions, and thus the subreddit will remain abandoned.
- alanctgardner2 14y agoIf you're really dedicated, you can check the Admin's reddit activity and potentially usurp them as an admin. I know a few people who have taken Reddits by force. edit: To clarify, there is a reddit dedicated to this; I think it's adminrequests. You can ask the admins to remove mods or close dormant reddits. It's standard procedure, no kneecapping or anything required.
- jeremyjh 14y agoStone cold operators huh?
- glomph 14y agohttp://www.reddit.com/r/somebodymakethis http://www.reddit.com/r/somebodymakethis is something close that is a little more active.
- culshaw 14y agoThe traffic from this must have crashed Gmail
- keph 14y agoWhat do people think about the "Imaging REST API" idea? It seems all the needed infrastructure exists (AWS, etc), are there any services like this already?
- trevorcreech 14y agoBlitline is doing it: http://www.blitline.com/ http://www.blitline.com/
- ChuckMcM 14y agoThis would be an excellent application of the Slant [1] concept. Basically create a topic which is the idea, with sub topics for the other columns and then debate them. Then layer on a searchable UX so that different concepts could be tagged and located and correlated. Boom, community curated web site of startup ideas with history. [1] http:://slant.co/ (I personally have nothing to do with Slant just find it an interesting way to capture a debate like the ones in the spreadsheet into a more structured form)
- shrikanthr 14y agoMost of these "ideas" are neat apps, but i don't see how they are startup ideas. A startup is a business, has a LOT more to do with a productivity app. Are these just nice, potentially open-source able apps? I would agree with that. I think the valley, is suffering in realizing the difference b/w apps and companies! :)
- schraeds 14y agoHow many nice apps do you have to make to be considered a startup?
- MasterScrat 14y agoI like the "date someone with similar interests" idea, but I'd rather see an app to make new friends. Give your Twitter/FB/IMDb/last.fm usernames, and you'd see the list of people with common interests around you. You could disable this "social mode" when you don't want people bothering you. The app would provide the perfect conversation opener, eg a recent news item about something you both like.
- evv 14y agoThe high traffic is preventing me from entering an idea of mine. The problem is one I personally experience: I don't have time to archive and manage all of the content I want to have digitized. Mass-media conversion service: Send in DVDs, CDs, tapes, records, hard drives, iPods, photos, documents, books, (almost anything), to have digitized. Make all digitized content browsable on a web interface. Allow multiple data export methods such as web availability, as well as hard-drive send-in/purchase. Make data as accessible as possible. Think of the service like Earth Class Mail for digital archives.
- tlextrait 14y agoThat service already exists, look it up on Google.
- evv 14y agoMaybe I don't know how to use Google very well, because I can't find the one you seem to have in mind. https://www.google.com/search?q=media%20storage%20service%20%22hard%20drive%22%20tapes%20dvd%20archive https://www.google.com/search?q=media%20storage%20service%20... Let me know if this service actually exists
- tlb 14y agoHow much do people want it? For people to use your new service, they would have to: - find you online, shop around to find the best service - trust an unknown startup with their data - pay a fair price - put their media in a box, put stamps on it, put it in the mail - keep track of an account & password Although you say you want it yourself, I gather you haven't even done step 1 (there are several such services already). So find out how many people really want this thing so badly that they'll do all the steps. If those people exist, they'll be doing some painful version of it today.
- evv 14y agoYes, with all these barriers to entry, I think people will still want it. I would be happy to pack up my tapes and disks and put stamps on a package if I knew I would never see it again and my memories are safe. What services are out there that do this? I can only find a handfull of conversion companies, but none which offer online access. These services seem to specialize on either video or audio, but what about both? What about documents or arbitrary digital media which I would like to consolidate? And yes, I would trust a trendy startup with this task, much like I decided to trust Dropbox about 5 years ago. I doubt I am the only one who could be convinced with a nice website and a decent video.
- zupreme 14y agoOP, This is superb. I'm sure all of us have an Evernote notebook, spreadsheet, or text file with startup or app ideas (if you don't, you should) but most of us also keep these lists top-secret for fear that somebody else will steal billion dollar idea #1023 right out from under us. It takes alot of courage and openness to share your list in this way. For this, you have earned my respect and appreciation. Thanks.
- glomph 14y agoThere is also http://www.reddit.com/r/somebodymakethis http://www.reddit.com/r/somebodymakethis which from reading these has at least some overlap.
- allbombs 14y agohow does one add ideas to this spreadsheet?
- gogatsby 14y agoHow many of us that keep an ideas notebook have similar ideas to these? I add to my idea notebook a couple of times a week without judgment of the idea itself. I do this as a bit of melon training, encouraging creative thinking. The fun part is reviewing these ideas. Finding an idea you had that resonates in someone else's successful startup is cool. More than anything else it reminds me that implementation is key, the idea is the catalyst.
- benn 14y agoMost of the ideas are fucking retarded. I especially liked the 1000 people working on a hard problem one. That's going to work out choice.