Share HN: Ideas you would like to develop but you won't

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2345103

by niiico • 15 years ago

13 13 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I happen to have a lot od ideas all the time but I don't have time to develop them or simple I'm more focused on something else.

For instance an idea that I had a couple weeks ago was a dating site for people studying abroad.

Share yours

kls2• 15 years ago

I have an idea for a barcode and RFID scanner as well as a weight scale pad that can be retrofired into refrigerators and pantries. The concept is that ever time you remove and add a food item to the refrigerator or pantry it would take a weight measurement and gauge your consumption therefor it would be able to predict and assemble a shopping list of items that need to be purchased in the upcoming day or week.

Further it would be tied into a recipe data store so a user could find recipes that they have the necessary items for.

There is another angle in which if it caught on the list could be provided to the local grocery store for fulfillment so the list of items would be prepared and boxed at the store and the user would then be able to pick it up, further if it became big enough it may support delivery services.

As well there are personal chef services in which a chef prepares meals for a few clientele, In this situation, the Chef could be provided a list of inventory on site that wold allow them to formulate meal plans based on inventory at the home.

Finally one way I though of monetizing it was to allow coupon marketing in which when an item was up for restocking an alternative vendor could target the customer with a discount for choosing their product over a competitors. Say a person generally purchases Kraft Mayonnaise, the coupon service would allow Hellmans to provide a coupon to the client in an effort to try to sway their buying decision over to their product or allow Kraft to provide one as a loyalty incentive.

My though was building a system that could be retrofitted into existing refrigerators and pantries would allow users to adopt the system without the need for large capital outlay, then patent the system and offer good royalty agreements to manufacturers of refrigerators, etc. to gain adoption in the next gen of kitchen appliances.

Realistically though, I will never peruse this idea, the capital outlay to just get the prototype hardware is beyond my means and all of the Angle Investors I know, do not invest in hardware based ventures they are strictly software guys so it would most likely require me to bankroll it. That coupled with my consultancy has pretty much just left it to languish in my mind as just a cool idea that I ponder now and then. I would live to build it, but I just don't have the resources needed to get it to the point where I could pursue investment. It's one of those ideas that requires significant investment just to get it to the point of getting real investment dollars.

codeslush2• 15 years ago

Hah - I have a 16 page business plan outlining something very, very similar, dated 4/3/2008! Never did anything with it! I just pulled up that business plan to see the similarities and they are many. I was going to market initially to persons with certain health problems (diabetes, food allergies, etc...) and monetize via nutritionists and coupons like you mentioned. YourPantry was the name I came up with. Just goes to prove that no ideas are unique!

EDIT: The main diff in our approaches was that I was going to scan UPC codes - not any special hardware outside of a smart phone or a barcode scanner I looked at having contract manufactured (in 2008 not many had smart phones that could scan barcodes).

dglassan• 15 years ago

I had an idea similar to this a few years ago when my brother was diagnosed with diabetes. I thought it would be a good way for diabetics and anyone else that needs to track what and how much they eat.

It could analyze eating habits and recommend healthier meals...man that would be cool

kls2• 15 years ago

yeah I believe the idea has Merritt, but from my perspective, I think the hardware is key to making it easy to use. If all one had to do was what they normally do (e.g remove an item, put it back) then you are not adding steps to their normal flow. I am a stickler for usability and if it adds work flow you are going to lose people. The hardware is the problem for me, it take more investment that I can muster, I figure 1-1.5 mil to get to fully functional prototype that you could then solicit real investment dollars. That is a big outlay for what amounts to just an idea right now. With diabetics you may be able to get away with a more complicated work flow because the disease already impedes on their daily life so if it eases it they may see the value in the trade offs.

codeslush2• 15 years ago

This morning, I posted this - but no love! :-)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2344169

JoshKalkbrenner• 15 years ago

An indestructible, waterproof smartphone. I'd buy that.

chaosprophet• 15 years ago

Last night, I posted this [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2344594], but I guess it flew off the new page before too many people had a look at it. It's about a helpdesk system which works completely through email. If there is substantial interest, I might take it up though.

kodeshpa• 15 years ago

Guys here is my short story ,

I posted 5-6 times on HN about my idea with lot of expectation , sometimes i got 1 or 2 feedbacks but never got it to featured category, not many people given me much comments.

I struggled but kept working on it, I built a product and launched it week back in android market I had 0 marketing budget, no press release but still guess what slowly but steadily number of downloads increasing per day from 0 to 500 , people are giving me feedbacks.

Here is about what i built.

Let’s meet Dawg, your new friend. Simple application making social life easier than ever before. Now you can seamlessly connect your social life at Facebook and Twitter in one place. Get updates on the go, and glance over them - even if you get disconnected from the Internet! .Dawg helps you stay social with your tweets, updates, photos and videos in a single application. Let’s gear up to explore your social network easy way with Dawg. Get it now http://bit.ly/gakCmT and give your valuable feedback.

I suggest you ,just follow your heart. At the end it will give you an immense pleasure irrespective of end result.

cuchoperl2• 15 years ago

http://thisfruit.com

revorad• 15 years ago

You forgot to mention the fructose in those apples, which is not all that good for you.

cuchoperl2• 15 years ago

If an apple is not good for you, what is?

atgm• 15 years ago

I never really message people who are offline, whether it's on MSN, AIM, Skype, or any other instant messenger. I may have something I want to tell them or show them, but if they're offline, nine times out of ten, I just don't bother.

So what I wanted to make at one point was an internet "answering machine" that will log in for you when you log off and collect/log messages that you can check remotely or have e-mailed to you.

Share HN: Ideas you would like to develop but you won't

Related Stories