What's an idea or creation that you've had success with locally that I can copy?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7960581

by js7 • 12 years ago

176 105 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What's an an idea that you have implemented successfully in your local area that I can bring to my local area?

js78• 12 years ago

I'm thinking things like pizza price comparison apps etc

BorisMelnik• 12 years ago

I almost thought you said Pizza compression, but I think that was actually done in back to the future part II.

stoev• 12 years ago

Web crawler that collects comments on social and media websites and lets users analyse and visualise them. It's not very hard to build and provides a great service to businesses releasing PR articles and seeking feedback on them.

veb2• 12 years ago

Couldn't you use something like Google Alerts, but don't tell your customers that, just show the results in a more prettified and "tailored" way to them. ;-)

amanthei• 12 years ago

Or, use mention.com and export beautiful analytical reports directly.

EdwardDiego• 12 years ago

That's a great idea, with some very interesting facets to play with.

subhashp2• 12 years ago

Stoev, Great idea! Where can I get a PHP script which does this?

js78• 12 years ago

I can write you one if you can't find one

mwww• 12 years ago

http://www.mention.com

disputin• 12 years ago

Don't know about Ireland, but in the UK you'd need to pay the NLA (newspaper licensing agency) if you want to use news content. And London is crawling (sorry ;) with media monitoring companies.

grimtrigger• 12 years ago

http://getredditalerts.com

meritt• 12 years ago

There's thousands of implementations of this idea already.

abestic9• 12 years ago

Taxi/bus company rate comparisons. Most transit companies provide fare information on their website, as well as a search function which rarely includes a CAPTCHA, so getting updates is easy.

js78• 12 years ago

There's not many bus services in my city and the taxi situation is:

- Flag the taxi down - all the same price

- Hailo which loads of people use all the time now

- 20% discount taxis

- 25% discount taxis

So I don't think we really have a taxi problem

jordanwallwork• 12 years ago

Lucky you. Our taxis prices are all over the place, some charge a callout fee and others don't, and some hide the meter and charge whatever the hell they want - I'd use a price comparison service for this for sure

akumpf• 12 years ago

I haven't created one personally, but if you're in a maker desert (where there isn't great access to spaces/people/tools to build and hack things), consider starting a maker space.

I used to live a few blocks away from one in Seattle and it was awesome. Just a couple workbenches, a 3D printer, hand tools, wifi, and some electronic components can go a long way and get people in the community stoked. :)

pbhjpbhj2• 12 years ago

consider starting a maker space. //

I've thought of this many times - mainly cause I'm too poor to buy all the tools I want and even the tools I have I wish it were easier to lend them so they don't die of rust before their otherwise useful hours have been used up ...

But, I've always thought that this would need to be a government supported social enterprise, never that it could make enough money to pay for rent+wage(s) and equipment, upkeep, insurance, etc..

Anyone actually done this and willing to share some figures (privately if needs be)?

Thanks.

chatmasta2• 12 years ago

Our college has a "maker space" and it's been a tremendous success, to the point that engineering "recruits" cite it as a reason for choosing the school. Obviously this was school-funded, but my point is that the administration saw a direct value add from it, and continues to pour funding into the program. You may be able to pull data about municipal maker spaces in other cities, and use it to convince your own city to fund a project to build one.

mattmanser2• 12 years ago

We have a hackspace here that I've (shamefully) never actually gone to.

You could try contacting them and ask how they did it:

http://nottinghack.org.uk/

lun4r• 12 years ago

A lemonade stand!

js78• 12 years ago

Some university students did this in my city recently. I was disappointed that they overpriced it (1 euro for a cup of lemonade)

jtheory• 12 years ago

Charging 1 euro is practical (so they don't have to be giving out a ton of change during the day...), but it sounds like they should have made sure they were offering something that didn't look too cheap -- e.g., get decent quality plastic cups that aren't tiny, do some actual work for each customer (instead of just pouring from a massive pre-filled jug), include a lemon wedge in each cup, etc..

I can easily imagine a lemonade-stand lemonade that would seem underpriced at 1 euro; but obviously they didn't take that approach!

jonasvp• 12 years ago

Also, there's always money in a banana stand!

bemmu2• 12 years ago

Send local goods to foreign subscribers in monthly surprise shipments.

veb2• 12 years ago

Nice to see you around Bemmu! How is CandayJapan going?

you still owe me a free shipment for endorsing you ;-)

In seriousness though, this is excellent advice - have a taste of something that's just not local.

I know a well known YC company founder wanted to do something similar with whiskey... but ran into way too much overhead and administration issues with customs - costs, legality, shipping and way too much to list. Great wee idea if executed perfectly.

bemmu2• 12 years ago

Thanks it's doing great, I was planning on writing an updated post about it. Well, here's rough early draft: http://piratepad.net/bchs9UaK6A

I wasn't sure if you were joking about promising a free shipment or not, so I sent you a gift card over email just to be sure :)

riffraff• 12 years ago

ah! meant to do this for years (mostly cause I'd want the service), nice to know it has been tried and it works :)

js78• 12 years ago

That's a good idea. I guess I'd have to look into shipping food and other products

Scoundreller4• 12 years ago

Just a thought to represent how creative one could be and probably still make a viable business:

I've also been looking online for various toothpastes I bought in Croatia. They have these nice herbal flavours that make me feel like I brushed my teeth with a Ricola cough candy. Everything in North America is mint or cinnamon, and many of the interesting esoteric flavours are fluoride-free :(

edit: removed joke offer of ketchup chips from Canada.

eitland• 12 years ago

I'm on holiday in southern Europe and we got caught off-guard by ketchup chips. :-\

fredophile• 12 years ago

Skip the ketchup chips. Go for the all dressed chips instead.

psychometry2• 12 years ago

Has that been profitable? I've worked on a few "subscription box" startups and found that churn always surpasses customer acquisition at a certain point.

gadders5• 12 years ago

Out of interest, what would people want shipped from England? As a native I have no idea what people overseas would go for.

JohnMunsch• 12 years ago

Off hand I'd say native candies/foods (for example, I saw Kinder Surprise on a podcast the other day but I've never seen them in America) and Doctor Who stuff. Some merchandise makes its way to the US but it can be pricy and I'm sure just scratches the surface of what's seen over there. Similarly I'd pick out other things which have niche interest here (soccer clubs for example) but which are hugely popular in the UK.

mattmanser2• 12 years ago

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+food+do+you+miss+from+england

vishalzone20022• 12 years ago

me and my friend tried it with sweet submarine. Basically chocolates and candy boxes from around the world. Tried raising on indiegogo as well but didnt really worked out.

supercoder• 12 years ago

Middleman for a service that would connect men with women who would be intimate for an exchange of money

hypron• 12 years ago

I've heard that this isn't easy.

nicholaides• 12 years ago

And at the same time, some people say it is. I think you and they are both right.

tuxidomasx• 12 years ago

Do you know of any obstacles/challenges to doing this? Something like Backpage escort listings where you just offer craigslist-like functionality for the occasional listing fee. Seems like it'd be pretty straightforward, but I may be overlooking something.

gadders5• 12 years ago

Ha ha! Anything goes when it comes to hoes*

* Please don't hate me, I'm quoting lyrics.

wiradikusuma• 12 years ago

You mean like my website? (http://www.ngajakjalan.com)

randomvc• 12 years ago

Da Pimp business

kvee• 12 years ago

Gossip forum in a hacker school that became so popular that the administration demanded it get taken down yesterday. Now comments have to be approved, and only the most recent 5 rather than 40 comments are displayed. Seems like making these changes has already killed everything that was great about this little online community, so if you do something like it, don't shut it down ;)

girvo• 12 years ago

What was the rationale for neutering it?

jitbit2• 12 years ago

go through all the small local shops and offer them SEO services. most of them have terrible sites so "on-site" seo will work great. You'll make a couple thousand. Good way to make some money when you really need it after moving in

js78• 12 years ago

What do you mean "after moving in"?

That's a good idea. I always wonder: what if the site is already set up correctly or what if you can't make any movement in search rankings (due to competition, industry, anything)

SNACKeR992• 12 years ago

You sleep in their shops of course! "Oh, don't mind that woman sleeping beside the cans of soup, she is our SEO expert!"

By rotating where you sleep among your clients, you build stronger relationships and have better insight into their business.

jitbit2• 12 years ago

Sorry, I mean after relocating to a new area, that's a nice thing that helped make some small money FAST... I just moved, and was waiting for a payment from my biggest consulting client, but me & wife really needed some money. That's what I did.

facepalm• 12 years ago

How to become good at SEO, though? Or is it really just adhering to HTML 5 best practices?

draugadrotten• 12 years ago

Print kiosks where customers can print out a customized "newspaper" with a customized subset of news articles scraped from the web

abcd_f• 12 years ago

So how many customers do you have?

vijayr• 12 years ago

I can't tell if you are serious or joking. How can you simply scrape someone's content and sell it? It would be copyright violation.

kachnuv_ocasek• 12 years ago

Who's talking about selling it?

maaaats• 12 years ago

Why are you assuming there is no deal in place here?

xur172• 12 years ago

This could be kind of neat, especially for older people that are less familiar with computers, but still want to stay informed. Let them select their interests, and deliver a customized newspaper.

Falling32• 12 years ago

That's actually an incredibly cool idea... I would definitely read that newspaper.

tpinto• 12 years ago

Like this? https://www.paperlater.com/

porcuk0r• 12 years ago

Christmas tree delivery service by bikes: http://kantaa.hu/karacsony

renuxa• 12 years ago

nagyon jó!

xur172• 12 years ago

I thought about doing something like this last year. It was in more of a suburban area, so we'd use cars / trucks, but the idea was to allow people to order trees online, and then deliver them a few times a week at set times (between 9-12am on Saturday, etc).

kephra• 12 years ago

We did make a free beer mobile application in 1999, when cell phones had been still big, called Happy Hopper. The idea of the service was: You send an SMS to our server, we send you an SMS back to a pub in town, together with a riddle to solve in that pub. Solve that riddle and you get a free beer and the address of the next pub. The SMS also served as a ticket for the bus.

Success of this service was based on working with our local brewery, and local radio station to advertise it, and of course public transport. Happy Hopper did run two times during the Freimarkt and Osterwiese fair. So you also need a date, where you can expect lots of people who enjoy to get drunk.

js78• 12 years ago

That sounds great haha. I live in Ireland so it's bound to be popular!

ehurrell• 12 years ago

As a fellow Irishman I agree, it could work very well with tourists too, a drinking tour of Dublin where you have to solve the leprechaun's riddles markets itself!

playhard• 12 years ago

Brilliant!

yitchelle• 12 years ago

What a great idea for Vatertag in my corner of Germany. Some of the folks here still celebrate it as a day for drinking with other fathers during a really long walk in the forest.

nhebb• 12 years ago

An o-shibori (hot towel) service. They're common in Japanese restaurants, and when I visited Tokyo in the middle of summer, I looked forward to the hot towel almost as much as the meal. You could resell or lease the equipment and provide daily laundry / sterilization service.

alexhawdon• 12 years ago

https://medium.com/@nikkidurkin99/my-startup-failed-and-this...

From what I read, the idea was very sound and validated by some great initial success.

nkg• 12 years ago

A database management system for any structure who stores a lot of data. What I did was basically transferring a lot of repetitive tasks they handle with Excel to a PHP/MySql application.

D3_4dl1N3• 12 years ago

Inventory management softwares handle those kind of tasks. Is it your product/service ?

Falling32• 12 years ago

Most inventory management software is fairly generalized. If you're doing anything outside the box, it can be very difficult to rely on off the shelf solutions and, at best, companies may require additional software to interact with the inventory management programs.

sdotsen• 12 years ago

I concur, I created https://iKeepm.com and I get a lot of inquiries for a business version. I just dont have time to create one.

Theodores• 12 years ago

A local arts group with a big 'open studios' event once a year, an artists directory with mini portfolios, gigs, poetry readings, workshops and other events. With a bit of help from whatever groups are already there plus the council it should come together. A newsletter is what makes it all work plus a half decent CMS. Local artists cannot do these things by themselves much like how cats can't herd themselves.

As well as money from ticket sales there is also money as per the directory model. A side benefit is that you will have a wonderful social life with all of those gallery private views to go to.

Scoundreller4• 12 years ago

Had a hard time getting to a government office or other facility that lots of people have to get/go to on an irregular basis?

Write a blog article about it, but don't just provide the address and phone number, provide VERY specific instructions that one actually needs and doesn't get anywhere else, almost like turn-by-turn GPS. For example: "park by the X retail location, go inside the doors of the building under the Y sign, walk 50m just past the elevators, go up the stairs 1 level (the elevator takes forever), and you're there. You can park for free 1 block East on Y street."

I've done this for a few government offices. The earnings aren't high per month, but they have been consistent for 7 years, pretty good for an hour's work. It's doubtful the Yellow Pages, navigation providers or government website will provide such useful and detailed instructions.

amit_m2• 12 years ago

Can you share some numbers? e.g. approximate unique visitors and revenues per month per page.

Scoundreller4• 12 years ago

I'm usually reluctant to share any numbers, but it's a few dollars per month per article (on average). It adds up over the years and has been very consistent, which is why I like the segment a lot. Unique views is not a useful number in my opinion, it's all about total revenue. I suppose it's the hyper-local aspect that drives up the ad bid prices on Adsense. The content is also a great example of "Evergreen Content", unlike, say, a review of a World Cup game from yesterday.

I really see it as publishing my thoughts and notes, and things I would have liked to have known in advance. Typical entrepreneurial thinking, "Solve a problem that I actually had", but at a micro scale. Sometimes I end up reading one of my own articles in a few years time because I've forgotten the precise details of the process when I have to go back again.

(This has been one of my highest-upvoted posts on HN so far)

psychometry2• 12 years ago

Self-storage is getting big and can be done anywhere: https://angel.co/self-storage

taway98765• 12 years ago

well, none of these are really implemented (yet) but here you go

SW Only

1) An all-in-one transport app. You'd have a single credit wallet you could re-charge on a monthly/weekly/as-needed basis. You set in your profile for how long you are willing to wait for a ride(lets say +/- 15min), and how far are you willing to walk from your current location(lets say r500m) + other criteria if you please(like ferraries-only:). Rates could be something like few cents/km for "civilian" drivers(standard car-sharing - could be problematic depending on the legislature/generated profit for the driver), few bucks/km for cabs, pub transport based on routes/times and - dynamic pub transport routes per km as well. Lets say there is a after-work beer with colleagues planned so you can't drive to work by your self. During breakfast you just choose a destination(predefined for freq. places), desired time and a "hitchhiker sign". All drivers doing the same/similar route(with criteria compatible with yours) would be notified .. a few "accept" clicks away/maybe a quick look at the drivers profile(badges/km driven/reviews etc) and your off to work. No drivers available? Your app would show you all public transport possibilities(color coded based on compatibility with your criteria) + cabs in your area - few clicks away and you're set(either buying a ticket or ordering a cab). Double-validation for payments based on transport type - no more waiting on a bus stop for 2 hours watching 100's of driver-only empty cars going your direction + a public API would mean that bus companies could also use small 6-8 passenger buses and dynamically create new/amend existing routes based on the demand(200 people heading to a business park across town(C) from destination A, 100 from B to D(which is near C) between 0800 - 0900 > change route via B .. if time intervals are met(like 1h from A - C) ) ++ all the data flowing your direction could also be used as a waze alternative for even better routing +++ you could profit by selling api data/on % from commercial transport partners) + have awards for car-share folks like free oil/filter changes after 10k km/free coffee after 20km between 2200 - 0600 etc..). If you are in EU, these projects are highly welcomed..

2) We need a distributed decentralized(p2p), no-authority write once read many storage solution for "our civilizations data" like news/general knowledge. It has to support versioning, encryption, deduplication, store synapses between relevant data, be self-healing, layered, nodes monitoring/promoting(demoting)/caranteening each other if needed, role-based - build on premise that all* of the nodes are/can become malicious actors(..). Everyone should be able to run a node on his nas @home/mobile device, assign roles to his devices etc .. general storage for all things public.. + it should support anonymous document uploads(lets say an indenpended journalist from syria wants to get his/her story published / someone working in a big-co comes across some very interesting public-interest documents he;d like to publish and doesn't trust honey-pot assange/media) - all big problems on their own .. regardless of the client app using the data(if you are running a auto-moto/pro-(enter political party) website, you may apply as much filtering as you wish), the user should still be able to get/contribute to the "publicly-generated" synaptic nw of a news story as stored on the backend + this is the bare minimum for other systems we desperately need to reform(the "no-trust" premise of it) so a good way to dive into this problematic

3) services on top of 2) .. and there are many ..

4) DNS, routing, ssl/alternative, smtp replacement! .. + ton of things you could do to make this world a better place.. please just don;t waste it on another twitter app

5) Clouds are here to stay, what has to change is the way we look at and work with data + connected with 2) + a few old concepts ms thought about pioneering a few years back, maybe its time for - yet another - linux distribution, combining best of today's storage array internals, embedded systems, containers/vm technology and security(..). In combination with some dedicated (hopefully usb-sized) hw .. could be a interesting time-waster

SW + HW

1) Easy-to-use/build RF-net kits for low-bandwidth applications(irc/messaging fe) - pick a protocol/design your own, design a hierarchical topology of clients, ap's, retransmitters, keep an eye on per-country rf encryption restrictions and hope you'll never have to use it as your primary means of communication(eg no "accidents" on our main optic backbone)

2) HW keys to your cloud data/apps - turning your PC into an accessory/treating it the same like a cloud service provider with computing/storage services available based on the pc-os setup .. maybe the x-server architecture could finally become applauded ..

"HW" Only

1) The idea of public work-places is great! soldering sets, measuring gear, 3d printers, tools for lease, benches for alu/wood work etc - would probably be a hit anywhere(+ that equipment costs too much/takes years to gather at home.. ) - there is a hobbyist in most of us + in combination with a caffee/"fun" area/library and city funding, you may even get into some green numbers

2) In combination with 1) - electronics tuning shop - if you like to get your hands dirty(building hw slider switches into phones/nbs, custom cases/hw customization - router fw's etc) - you could get some traction if you;d presented your self as something underground/anti-establishment .. these days..

3) bio and localized farming - huge opportunities, really bad business models(we;re talking about real bio producers struggling with the rising regulatory pressure lobbied by the big guys, not the so-called bio farmers selling out to those big-co's) - monthly payments with 2x/4x a month "basket" deliveries of seasonal food to your doorstep with some it tech in the mixture + insurance coverage for the farmer +++ .. ok I'm hungry - sry for this half-baked not thought through / naive / unfeasible list and good luck ..

felixrabe• 12 years ago

Re SW 2 and 4: You might want to base this on http://named-data.net/ that builds an information-based alternative to the host-based IP protocol. AFAIK this work was started by Van Jacobson at PARC who is a central figure in the TCP/IP stack.

thruflo• 12 years ago

Really really good coffee.

amit_m2• 12 years ago

With all the international travel and global trade of this day and age, it amazes me how difficult it is to get a decent espresso in the US, even in major cities.

Beer OTOH has been completely revolutionised in recent years.

_puk• 12 years ago

Bog standard printing at your local store.

Seems it is easier and cheaper nowadays to buy a printer than replace an ink cartridge. Looking at £50 a time. I just don't print enough to warrant it.

None of the supermarkets / high street stores do bog standard A4 printing for a few pence.

I've found a print shop that will do it, at a cost, but the quality is far too good for simple stuff, hence the price.

My 'right this moment' problem.

aszantu• 12 years ago

I bought a second hand laser printer for about 30 euros. When the cartridge is empty, I'm cheaper off buying a new second hand laser printer than replacing the cartridge - at least was my last thought.

lucaspiller• 12 years ago

There is a place that does this opposite where a friend lives in the UAE. They are focused on business printing, but you can just walk in and do this for about 10p / colour page. They are always busy and open 24 hours so it must be profitable :)

stevekemp• 12 years ago

Fetish based dieting advice. I'm serious.

In brief you need a market of "kinky people", and you need a market of people who wish to lose weight, stop smoking, or similar.

You agree on challenges, you "punish" them if they fail, or succeed, on a case-by-case basis.

Very hands on. But there are a subset of people who will be in your target audience who are extremely wealthy..

thenomad• 12 years ago

There's already an exercise equivalent. Google "Slavercise". Appears to have lasted a few years at least...

hesselink• 12 years ago

This site (http://www.worldstartupwiki.org/) is tracking startup ideas that haven't been implemented in certain locations yet.

gadders5• 12 years ago

I've not done it, but I always toyed with the idea of doing a tampon-equivalent of the Dollar Shave Club - i.e. get sanitary products emailed out every month automatically.

vishalzone20022• 12 years ago

i had this idea and found that there are lot of these.. its a tough one to get successful in because amazon etc are already big time in it, unless you can reduce the product cost itself.

gadders5• 12 years ago

Yeah. I had the idea of basing outside of the UK/EU to make use of the Vat exemption for small packages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAT-free_imports_from_the_Chann...

wwwhatcrack• 12 years ago

Jacking off

What's an idea or creation that you've had success with locally that I can copy?

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