Business Ideas for 2014

http://www.scottsbarlow.com/100-awesome-business-ideas-for-2014/

by strwbrry • 13 years ago

203 77 13 years ago

Cursory google searches and from my memory I can see all these ideas have been done in one form or another.

So much talk about ideation and execution and force multipliers blah blah.

Real key of the matter is knowing your opportunity costs and choosing the right thing. That actually takes time and experience to learn, albeit you can take the shortcut and finding the right mentors to guide you.

freehunter2• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who sees a giant and useless header on the site?

http://i.imgur.com/XQHyc2O.png

ignostic3• 13 years ago

That was your takeaway and most useful comment, huh?

freehunter2• 13 years ago

I hadn't read the article yet, the giant waste of space annoyed me enough that the content didn't matter. Besides, this is HN. Web design is fair game for discussion just as much as the actual content is.

snitko• 13 years ago

And not one of those ideas is Bitcoin related. It's 2014 for god's sake.

mrfusion2• 13 years ago

I'd be really interested to see a list like this of bitcoin ideas?

I keep thinking how revolutionary it is yet I can't seem to think of any ideas beyond payments :-(

nrs26• 13 years ago

You could create a twitter for bitcoin. ;)

pazimzadeh• 13 years ago

BitVote.

Every citizen is issued a unique "wallet" and can use it to vote. The underlying bitcoin infrastructure does need to be presented to the user, but one way that the app could work is that each candidate has a unique numeric identifier associated with him. If Obama's number is 0.05476 and Romney's is 0.02299 then when you click Vote for Obama, the app sends 0.05476 btc to a designated counting wallet. Several methods may be used to count the votes. Either each candidate has its own counting wallet and counting can be done by dividing the total btc in the wallet divided by the unique number, or all of the votes could be mixed into one wallet and the blockchain could be analyzed to determine how many votes of each type were cast. All of the votes are obviously public information on the blockchain, so there can be no funny business. As long as you don't tell anyone your wallet address, your vote is anonymous.

chaz• 13 years ago

Even for payments, I think Bitcoin is still missing its "killer app." So far, the only viable ideas seem to have been related to exchanges, mining, and The Silk Road. Are there other business ideas that take advantage of Bitcoin's unique properties?

I thought maybe micropayments for content, but I don't think people like to get nickel-and-dimed. Usage would probably be too low to build a real product/business around it. Ideas?

AznHisoka• 13 years ago

And I for one am glad about that!

ignostic3• 13 years ago

Whoa, let's tone down the negativity HN. The hate is already piling up, but I think there are some really good ideas here. Sure, many (probably most) of the ideas are already done, but he does give some thoughts on the angles of execution and niches. This would be a great place to start for someone looking to brainstorm or for someone looking for their first startup experience.

At least don't deride the author for sharing some interesting ideas. If you've thought about each and every one of these, good for you, but I had some interesting thoughts while reading.

xfour• 13 years ago

Yea it's really better than I thought possible considering the volume. Most of these I can't come up with something that will make it impossible, by the time I'm done reading, as I usually can do with most people's billion dollar ideas. A lot of these are what you might describe as small businesses done on the internet, which is not a bad thing, not every idea has to be a quick growth money burning exercise.

joelthelion• 13 years ago

I actually think this should be a monthly or at least recurring thread. I'm sure a lot of people have ideas that they don't have time to pursue and that they wouldn't mind sharing. In any case this makes for interesting discussion.

jonmrodriguez5• 13 years ago

Idea for a nonprofit: Sequence the genomes of the species that are going extinct, acting as quickly as possible.

1986v2• 13 years ago

I agree here, I see this as an online brainstorming session that the OP has provided. Yes, some have already been done but does that mean it cannot be done again? Competition analysis. As I see it, of there is enough reason to improve and clearly a market then why not look into creating an improved version?

thenomad3• 13 years ago

What's really interesting is that he's done minimal validation on a lot of them. That makes this list a whole lot more useful than just a stream of ideas.

marknutter• 13 years ago

Seeing posts complaining about negativity on HN is almost as annoying as the negative posts themselves. Mostly because they ignore the fact that most negative posts are voted down over time anyways. In fact, I'm having a hard time even finding the negative posts in this thread; maybe somebody can help me out.

kyro• 13 years ago

Totally agree. I almost never see highly voted comments that are needlessly critical on HN. And being a little self-aware by calling out that negativity is just such an annoying thing to do.

ignostic3• 13 years ago

Yeah, almost as annoying as posts complaining about posts complaining about posts. Check timestamps. When I posted it was nothing but negative.

AHconsidered• 13 years ago

I've been thinking about the "Sell my car" idea for a bit. I think it's ripe for new thinking. If you're interested and in the SF Bay Area, ping me at ahconsidered@hushmail.com

poulsbohemian• 13 years ago

Just a tangent here... I donated a car to charity this past year and was really pleased with the outcome. The charity was able to sell the car at auction for more than a dealer and a private party offered me locally - so everybody won. Chances are I will do the same in the future, and would encourage others to do the same, IE: it's an easy way to help a charity. That said, while you are thinking about new ways to move used cars, you might also consider how to get into the charity auction business for cars. Reason I say this is that I was able to donate my car to a large, well-known national organization, but I actually approached several local/regional groups first. The local/regional groups were horribly organized - didn't return phone calls, etc. Perhaps there is a social-good angle you could take, if you are exploring this market, as there are many worthwhile groups that just don't have the organizational skills to handle processing the cars.

dalacv2• 13 years ago

I like it! Good job.

dalacv2• 13 years ago

Add one more to your list: I had this one in 2012 and created a small app. There were a couple of lawsuits that I could have gotten "my fair share" on, but just didn't know about them in time. Didn't get too far with it, so I'm donating it in case someone else wants to "run with it": ClassAction website or app. Aggregate all current class action lawsuits. Use crowdsourcing to keep the list current. You have like 5-10 "standard" pieces of info: link to the official website where you can fill out the form, Date that you need to respond by, who is eligible to participate, etc. Not sure about payment model, but as they say, worry about that later. Solve the Class Action Lawsuit 'problem'?...

x00542• 13 years ago

How about a Patent Litigation crowd sourcing. I pitched this several times, but I just can't get around to get it going. A site were everyone being threatened with a lawsuit based on a given patent can pull together monetarily to invalidate the patent or defend against the suit. If any one is already doing it, please post a link. And, if any one is interested in starting it up and needs a partner with legal background, let me know :)

DefenseMob• 13 years ago

We're working on a similar concept. It's called DefenseMob (http://defensemob.com).

conductr• 13 years ago

Could be a good idea. I see a startup having two choices to focus on; let's call them B2B and B2C. Your description is the B2C side, your first focus is to build something for the end users - those filing a claim. Ultimately, they are just going to become an attorney's client and that is the B2B side, the business that is actively organizing the lawsuit.

I would attack it from the B2B side. TV is full of ads for this class action stuff, attorneys obviously have the budget to advertise, and really all they want is leads for those potential clients. Create a cheaper more effective way for them to find those leads by building and running online advertising campaigns. You could probably get high tech and use targeting algorithms to find the most likely clients/leads, etc. We know they don't have that, because they are spending so much on TV ads which are pretty untargeted and I would assume more expensive on a cost per lead basis. (How much is a lead worth to these law firms?)

B2B first gives a couple key benefits 1) the lawyer is paying to grow your userbase, maybe even profit if you want it - growing a sizable userbase is going to be expensive, this is not a sexy space so I wouldn't count on the crowd and virility 2) leads generated now, are also leads in the future - even if they didn't qualify for the lawsuit they signed up for, you can market future ones to them for basically no cost.

Once the attorneys start having you promote their lawsuits to find clients. You can then start maintaining the claim-to-client matching system; monthly emails of new suits, etc and generally approach the B2C side of it at that point. I think going straight B2C is going to come off spammy and you're not going to get the needed traction. I think you want to build trust with the users, so you have the opportunity to match them with multiple lawsuits and extend their lifetime value.

My $0.02, could easily be completely wrong.

revx2• 13 years ago

I'm already doing the "Rock Your CV" as a side business! Maybe time to step it up? http://handprintresumes.com. Would love some feedback from HN on prices, design, etc.

yannis• 13 years ago

I find them too busy and too colorful for my taste. You also need a few more examples and templates. You also need to add to your pitch a bit.Granted the examples have appeal to hacker type jobs, but would probably fail in other fields.

revx2• 13 years ago

Thanks! Yeah, I'm doing some friends' for free to beef up my examples and feedback section. But I'm also full-time employed so I'm not super invested in this taking off.

Sprint• 13 years ago

Unfiltered 20 minute feedback with random things that come to mind. Use or ignore as you like:

Landing page needs examples right in my face. I thought they would come when clicking "Next". Don't make me search them.

Website pushes ALL content below the fold on a 1024x600 screen.

Resumes would look a lot better with good font choices!!!(!!!!!)

Be careful relying on color. Up to 8% of men have some sort of color vision impairment!

Webdev:

Is too busy for me too. It looks crammed. I'd say half the amount of text would be ok on a page. Worship the white space! I would not center the top text lines but justify them (with hyphenation if needed).

Second page of webdev I don't like the color gradients. Might be personal taste. They seem muddy/dirty to me. "X University" and "National Merit" are on different vertical levels, sloppiness alert! Include the name/address on that page too, small, at footer or header. Imagine if someone accidentally mixed up many applications and has to reorganise them.

I like how the maps shows the applicant moving around quite a bit. As it is a playful element, I would add tracks showing the movement (with direction indicators). :)

Restaurant:

I would have called it Passion, not Enthusiasm but I am not a native speaker so that might be bullshit. Passion sounds nicer to me.

I like the idea with the 3 pillars/columns!

Move the subtitles closer to their children, more away form their parents. That way you get clear connections.

You misspelled "received". To the pit with you!

I would try to end up with more space on the sides. Right now it would be weird to read when printed out I think.

Student job:

Again the subtitles need to be moved lower. I looked at their decorative lines for a moment wondering why someone would want to add handwritten notes/signatures there.

I think you could drop the "Academics", "About me" and "Experience" titles completely!

In the word cloud you could (carefully! only blues or greys!) play with color so the words get more differentiable. I'd write out the "5" as word.

Phone number on top is aligned weird. Either center it on the page or between the text elements on its sides.

Academics is old->new while the others are new->old? Stick with one order!

-----

I've been thinking of offering this kind of feedback on demand, eg "0.x dollar per minute of unfiltered constructive feedback by a pesky perfectionist". Not sure if that would worth trying though. Open for any feedback! :)

visakanv• 13 years ago

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee

sajclarke1513• 13 years ago

Pretty certain that he'd at least be wary of the man who's practised 100 kicks 100 times each. A singular focus can create myopic vision

thenomad3• 13 years ago

I agree with the analogy, but not the specific example. You're training muscle memory: 100x repetitions are nowhere near enough to make a kick seriously effective.

10 kicks 1000 times, though, is enough to start being alarming. It still wouldn't worry Bruce Lee, but lesser mortals might start getting cautious at that point.

tzm• 13 years ago

GradFolio is very similar to GradFly.

notastartup• 13 years ago

I can see some patterns emerging in the list of ideas, some of which are quite okay. I think to me the value is seeing categories of the ideas and sort of what problems are on the horizon.

mikegirouard• 13 years ago

A note on bamboo eyewear:

I'm in the eyewear business. I've struggled with the idea of wood or bamboo for a while now. There seems to be a lot of interest in the area but I'm skeptical. Materials like these are porous and people sweat -- not the best combination.

I've been waiting for the acetate fad to fall out of fashion but we're still doing pretty well in this area.

callmeed• 13 years ago

There was a wood sunglasses company on Shark Tank a while back. IIRC they already had decent sales. I don't see any reason it wouldn't work for prescription glasses.

slash-dot• 13 years ago

In Finland you can buy these: http://pöllöt.fi

1986v2• 13 years ago

If I recall, Cartier has wood glasses BUT I believe they have a metal backing. I dig the wood frames but yes, I would be skeptical of having that drift wood feel over time. On the flip side, have you heard of anyone with negative reviews on wood frames?

dchuk• 13 years ago

My girlfriend got me a pair of wooden glasses for Christmas that I love and they seem really well made. Her friend's husband's company makes them, it's definitely possible to make nice glasses out of wood that are durable.

nawitus• 13 years ago

Also as a vegan some good vegan dishes!

Oh God yes.

clark-kent• 13 years ago

It's easy to come up with a 100 ideas when you don't have to execute any of them. I know it sounds dismissive but i'm speaking from experience. One idea will take a thousand other new ideas to turn it into a successful business, plus a ton of hardwork and persistence.

mattlutze• 13 years ago

And as a gift to the hackoverse he's given out a bunch of ideas that may spark the next thousand for someone else.

sejje2• 13 years ago

You should post another 100.

I'm interested!

grumblestumble• 13 years ago

I thought this article was satirizing every negative stereotype about HN, until I came in here and read the comments.

zaroth• 13 years ago

I like the style of these, in that most have low barrier to entry but for the hustle. Also, I don't think any idea is ever really "done", only incumbents waiting to be challenged. It does make sense to ask 'how is this different from X?' but often times the differentiation comes down to just being more hungry than your competitor.

These scribbles from my notebook may be a bit more tech heavy or have other barriers to entry;

  Student loan servicing
  Programmatic corporate founding docs, term sheets, seed rounds (legalese as code)
  Self managed SMB 401k/IRA/125/etc SaaS
  Crowd-based intermediation of credit [card] payments
  Single-click self-hosted [insert data-sucking, privacy violating SaaS here]
  SMS for every business
  Bid on anything (build the demand curve)
  Stop social fallout (crisis management as a service)
  P2P two-party escrow
  Telepresent expert hired by-the minute/hour (fix my ___)
  LouisCK as a Service (the way he sells his content, not him specifically)
  Self-hosted everpix
  Yours If You Want It - A way to buy a gift for someone, but only if they 'accept'
  Disciple - Subscribe to talks by geniuses in your industry

And the one I'm currently working on... passwords that can't be cracked.

Happy Hacking in 2014!

fourstar3• 13 years ago

The LouisCK as a service is the same idea I had pretty much but for script (movie) writers to find a production crew, directors, extras, etc. Like Rent A Movie Crew.

Best of luck on your current endeavor.

yitchelle• 13 years ago

After reading the post, a skeptical person might say that this post is a clever hack to sell domain names. The article has a few links to domain names available for purchase.

However, these are pretty good ideas. At the very least, they should inspire further tweaks to the ideas for execution. Great list!

strwbrry• 13 years ago

Nope - no affiliates and if you want any of the domains I have purchased you can have them for free. No hidden agenda, no hate - just love from me :)

thehooplehead• 13 years ago

I thought the same.

In my opinion, the article should have been edited down to about 10-20 great ideas. I liked the idea for a competitor watch service, I think it's much better than the one for 'Myspace 2.'

jonmrodriguez5• 13 years ago

The "Night time Delivery Service" sounds like it could be a big business. The trend in logistics lately is getting closer and closer to same-day shipping.

A "Night time Delivery Service" could help start in one city and expand to others. The existence of Luna in SF shouldn't dissuade anyone from starting the same thing in a different city, because it will take years for any one player to expand and colonize more locations. If anything, Luna is at a geographic disadvantage due to SF's high wages.

The way you use Luna seems very convenient, which is that the customer has the package shipped to Luna by any shipping service, and then once it arrives there, Luna does same-night last-mile delivery for $7. This is nice because it can interface with any existing shipping service without the need for Luna to win any contracts.

Eventually, once a company like this is starting to scale, they could aim to get a contract with UPS, FedEx, DHL, or USPS to pick up packages directly from the UPS/whatever warehouse, saving both time & money for all involved.

If the company wants to exit they could sell to Amazon.

The company might have to pay a wage premium because the work is at night, but then again, in this economy maybe the workers would just be happy to get a job (and the hours involved would make it a great 2nd job). Also, compared to daytime shipping services, the nighttime company would be more productive per hour due to its drivers facing less traffic.

fourstar3• 13 years ago

As much as I love this idea (being a night owl by nature), I find it hard to think that UPS, FedEx, etc. would give up the holding power they have to a possible competitor.

Btw are you talking about Luna as in the nutrition women's bar?

jonmrodriguez5• 13 years ago

Luna is the company linked to in the article. http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/12/03/lunas-moonlit-delivery...

yinyinwu• 13 years ago

I think it's an interesting concept, but it'll be difficult for Luna to work because you'll need to scale by building a warehouse in every new city. For consumers, you are also competing against free. Why pay $7 when UPS or Fedex will come back another day?

jonmrodriguez5• 13 years ago

you'll need to scale by building a warehouse in every new city

That didn't stop the existing players who are successful now, when they were first growing. Remember that a warehouse can start small and simple with maybe $1,000/mo of rent at small scale & non-prime location.

you are also competing against free

Yep, this seems like the main problem. I think the solution is to find additional ways to add value.

For example, one thing that is very frustrating when you have to receive a package that requires a signature is that the major carriers all REFUSE to call your phone to tell you when they have arrived. So if you don't hear the doorbell ring, or if the person can't get in to your apartment building, it's a missed delivery and you're out of luck. Luna could seize this opportunity by being the one last-mile service that WILL happily call your phone when they arrive.

thmcmahon2• 13 years ago

We're at an early stage of doing this exact thing in Sydney dlvry.com.au

We're not sure how it will work with labour costs and with a sinking Aussie dollar (which will reduce online shopping), but I think we'll learn a lot regardless as a first start-up.

jonmrodriguez5• 13 years ago

Awesome! Go kick some ass!

As I mentioned in a different comment in this thread, I feel like it would be a nice value add if you would be willing to have your delivery person call the customer's cell phone when he's at the building (if the customer requests this)

lukeholder• 13 years ago

My friend set this up as a night job in our small town and people love it. I told him to start getting other people onboard but he thinks its more fun than a business. http://ninjadeliveries.com/

lindig• 13 years ago

I would like this as a consumer but believe it is difficult to establish as a business. Delivery companies like FedEx, DHL or national mail services could offer it and there would be no way to defend your business against them. Also: wouldn't such a business have the same problem as existing companies with some customers not being around?

edwardliu• 13 years ago

A lot of these ideas are great. Perhaps executable for other countries as well. Thanks Scott!

sajclarke1513• 13 years ago

The best thing about this list is that Scott took the time to explain WHY he thinks these ideas can make money. In some cases, he even implies where the pain points lie. Scott aimed to spur people into action and I think that he's done a very good job of it. At least, these ideas can serve as fun weekend hack projects

Eleutheria• 13 years ago

MySpace 2 is exactly where the money is. Tons of it.

I like the idea of users monetizing it.

jbrooksuk• 13 years ago

Some of these are actually viable, that's the important thing. They seem mainly aimed at the UK market (finally!) and I'm going to have a proper read through later and figure out if any of them affect me and how I can break into the market.

andersschmidth• 13 years ago

I really enjoyed Scott's list and to be honest, I think it's great to see someone openly sharing business ideas for free instead of letting them rust away in some notebook.

I actually wrote Scott about the idea management software, since we at Brightloops (http://brightloops.org) provide a free alternative for social idea development to Danish highschools and colleges; he wrote back almost instantly, friendly and enthusiastic. Even provided some great inspiration. He's one to remember. :)

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