Ask HN: Anyone have any good startup ideas?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9852085

by aml183 • 11 years ago

16 43 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

My friends and I are in college. Just closed our last company. On to the next one, but can't come up with any ideas. Anyone have anything interesting they want built?

davismwfl3• 11 years ago

It is interesting, when I was young I felt like I had no ideas at times. The reality was I just wasn't recognizing all the opportunities ripe for solutions. Pick things in your lives that you are frustrated and passionate about, otherwise a startup is doomed to fail. I say that because passion is the only thing that will sustain you when life is sucking as it will occasionally in a startup.

At the same time, maybe this is a point you should get an internship or job to gain the experience to know what might be of interest. I personally never recommend that a college student go looking to start a company unless they already have a really deep passion for an issue and it is marketable. Otherwise, in my experience and opinion, your failure rate will be way higher, almost a guarantee.

aml1835• 11 years ago

Thanks for reply. We are all interning this summer, but have a lot of free time. Since we have experience with a startup. We realized that it's not just building the tech, but doing the selling, acquiring users etc.

Now that we know this, we are struggling to find an idea that we can build, but also have time to grow during the school year as well.

davismwfl3• 11 years ago

Cool.. My bet if you look around you'll find a bunch of ideas. Talk to friends, strangers etc and just ask what's frustrating them etc.

Since you are interning go and talk to the sales, marketing and business dev teams and ask them questions. As an intern you have the freedom to ask all kinds of questions and no one will really think twice. Just try to get away from the development group when you are asking a lot of the questions because they typically aren't seeing the opportunities only the items presented to them, and many times their presence will keep sales teams from speaking freely.

sjs382• 11 years ago

Can't find a seat at the bar? Hate doing laundry? Trouble finding a gift for someone? Have an hour free and wish you could sell that time for very-short-term work? Keep a journal of problems/obstacles you encounter every day.

Create/brainstorm solutions to all of these problems you encounter. And work through a realistic way to implement the solutions.

Some of these ideas/solutions will be terrible. Most won't make sense as a business, or won't have a market, or will be beyond what you think you're capable of. But something should stick. MVP it, and then iterate.

rorykoehler2• 11 years ago

James Altucher (or/and his wife) recommend coming up with 10 ideas a day to train your creative muscle. I have found this technique to be very valuable in times of creative drought.

sitkack• 11 years ago

10 is square man. Why not fractional ideas?

indoindo• 11 years ago

Dribble and cofounderlab combine for indie game developers with different skill set. e.g. I'm programmer seek a 3d animator/modeller

partisan• 11 years ago

Maybe try on the gamedev.net forums?

XaspR8d• 11 years ago

Just saw http://signup.metroia.com/ today in the public Game Development slack.

sidmitra• 11 years ago

Thanks for the mention. I've been working on Metroia. It'd be a platform similar to dribble to showcase anything related to game dev and also connect and collaborate.

gt565k2• 11 years ago

I'm gonna have to go with PG's advice here. Stop trying to start a company. You don't start a company just for the sake of it. Even if you have a project that's cool and useful, it doesn't mean it needs to be a company.

I'd focus on working on projects and rolling them out. See if people use them. If you can find a way to monetize, do it. Just build things to get experience. Don't try to start a start-up just cause.

astrodust2• 11 years ago

Couldn't agree more. Startup ideas are a dime a dozen. If you don't have any you're not even trying. I can usually come up with at least two or three a day simply by reading, observing, and thinking about how things work in combination.

The ones that are truly start-up worthy are those you personally believe in, have a considerable market opportunity, and the timing is right. Those are more rare, but if you make a concerted effort to keep thinking and re-thinking your ideas, you'll come up with one for sure.

Don't make a business to be successful, that's usually going to end in tears. Make a business to scratch an itch you have you can't ignore. Even if you fail you'll still feel like you've done something important, and if you succeed you'll be satisfied.

HeyLaughingBoy4• 11 years ago

Don't plan for failure.

HeyLaughingBoy4• 11 years ago

Why shouldn't you start a company just for the sake of it? Everyone's gotta eat, what if you want your employer to be yourself?

I guess my behavior is the exact opposite: I won't start a project then try to monetize it, I prefer to look at what people are likely to spend money on and then build that. That seems more in line with what the OP is trying to do.

gt565k2• 11 years ago

Most people try to start a company by forcing an idea they think is good. Just like one of my college friends, who doesn't understand the market, industry, or even the target audience for his idea. Like I said, you don't just start a company. You start a company when you realize that this is a product that can sell, until then, it's a side project.

I can't tell you the countless times my college friend came up with a "great" idea. Even went as far as registering an LLC. I quickly dismiss most of his "great" ideas with 5 minutes of googling.

Starting a company means you need to invest ALL of your free time into building the company, product, acquiring customers, etc.

Most people register an LLC with their crappy idea and think they are running a company. Unless you are willing to drop out of school and invest 80 hours a week building this company, it's probably not worth it.

The reason PG suggests to build things that don't scale, is because getting experience building applications is far more valuable than trying to force a stupid idea into a business. Building applications that already exist just for fun, will open your mind. Once you start connecting different ideas together, organically, an idea worth becoming a business will come to mind.

You can sit and brainstorm ideas all day, but the best ideas, the ones that can turn into a business, they just come to you out of the ordinary.

panjaro2• 11 years ago

I agree ! Don't start a company just to start a company !

miguelrochefort2• 11 years ago

Yet you comment just to comment.

tocs2• 11 years ago

Some to do with cabinets, like kitchen cabinets. There are a lot of CNC machines around that are not being used to there full potential. A business set up to let a handy man doing work around town or a home DIYer could walk into a businesses, give some dimensions for some cabinets, and walk out a couple hours later with all the parts to put the cabinets together could do well.

bko2• 11 years ago

A contract market for restaurant delivery.

Most restaurants in big cities offer delivery service by hiring and managing their own delivery people. Restaurants probably don't want to be in the business of hiring and managing these delivery people. It also doesn't make sense logistically as the delivery person has to make a round trip. Also, demand spikes and troughs result in a lot of delivery people sitting around or over-worked. There needs to be a more flexible labor-force.

It would be more efficient if you have delivery people be able to contact out to restaurants. For instance, a delivery person can pick up a package going from A->B and then pick up another package going from B->C, resulting in less time spent on the return. There would be a reputation aspect to the delivery people and everything would be pre-paid or, if cash on delivery, would be settled by the app.

The other good thing is that, although the idea benefits from network effects, it could work very well in a small geographically limited location. You could test the idea by signing up just two restaurants on the opposite side of town and work out any kinks.

Not sure if anyone is getting into this space, but considering a lot of wealth is created by specializing, it seems silly that restaurant managers should have to deal with a delivery work-force with (I imagine) high turnover. I could definitely see a Seamless or OpenTable get into this space, if not already involved.

pj_mukh• 11 years ago

DoorDash? Though they also centralize your restaurant and offer online ordering. For small restaurants that's probably a bonus?

bko2• 11 years ago

I didn't know about this service but I'm not surprised. Seems from the site that they are catering to customers rather than restaurants. That would probably bring them into competition with Seamless. If I were going to order, I have no reason to check out DoorDash when most restaurants I'm interested in is on Seamless anyway.

Also seems expensive. People aren't used to paying for delivery and would much rather have that baked into the price. I think focusing on restaurants as customers would be a better strategy.

bra-ket• 11 years ago

a taxi-hailing app

scottydelta• 11 years ago

uber?

HeyLaughingBoy4• 11 years ago

What was your last company? Can you leverage those customers? What problems did you encounter working with them? What did they ask for that you thought was out of scope at the time?

aml1835• 11 years ago

Skilled gaming company (Koalah) Not really. Didn't know how to acquire customers. In a market that had too much stigma. It was always associated with gambling even though it was legal. Not a common problem that startups face.

opendomain• 11 years ago

I have several:

NoSQL.Com - Big Data as a Service

Free-Fi.Com - Secure open WiFi without software (Not VPN)

4NY.Com - Local site for New York

LipoSculpture.com - Directory for Lipo cosmetic surgery

You can use these domains for Free if you support OpenSource.

Contact me HN AT OpenDomain dot Org

lucasjcm• 11 years ago

SaaS - Shabbat-as-a-Service

Challah right to your front door in minutes.

HeyLaughingBoy4• 11 years ago

Here: http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/t/opportunities-in-sme-reorde...

michaelw• 11 years ago

A white label uber like app for use by municipal taxi authorities.

There's no need to throw the baby (taxi regulation) out with the bath water (getting a taxi is usually inconvenient).

djokkataja• 11 years ago

I'd been thinking for a while that this would be nice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9785575

TLDR: Extremely high-res virtual "windows" that you can run on a flatscreen mounted on your wall, so if you want it to feel like you have a live view from, say, the top of Mount Everest (right in your bedroom/living room/wherever), go right ahead.

vishalzone20022• 11 years ago

1. deliver organic and healthy food at airports and hotels. When a user checks in for boarding pass, the delivery is ready. One delivery per flight.. 2. Hire a local "expert" to build your itinerary when you are visiting that local's town/city. 3. An new email platform built with UI in mind for non-personal emails like newsletters, marketing offers, etc. happy to work with or share more

aml1835• 11 years ago

I'd like to discuss these ideas more in depth. Can I email you?

vishalzone20022• 11 years ago

sure. my handle at gmail

panjaro2• 11 years ago

I'm thinking of starting a company which gives startup ideas. I have too many ideas but got no time to work on any of them !

lewisl9029• 11 years ago

Here's a recent Ask HN thread that might be relevant:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836508

vijayr• 11 years ago

Affordable immigration services that doesn't suck. For example, let's say I am a guy from an Asian or African country. I input all my basic data (nationality, age, qualifications, experience etc), it should analyze and tell me the best countries to look into.

This is a very hard thing to do, but extremely valuable. You can charge a flat fee of 50$ or something like that for a basic search (or even make it free), then do lead generation for lawyers. Bonus would be, compare and contrast various countries. For example country A and country B - compare and tell me the best choice for me. Take into account family situations and other stuff (can the spouse work? can you do freelancing/start a business, or are you tied to an employer? what are the waiting times?) etc etc.

miguelrochefort2• 11 years ago

Let's get real here. This post is the perfect example of what's wrong in the world. Startups for the sake of startups. A solution solution looking for a problem. Newsflash kids, that's not how things work.

There are so many problems out there, it's difficult to believe they're not obvious to you all. If you're one of those that just can't see, I recommend you stay away from starting things. I'd rather the world not be introduced to yet another disaster.

See the ideas from comments above? They're PERFECT examples of the worst possible thing humanity could build next. That echo chamber is unreal.

aml1835• 11 years ago

I don't understand this comment. Some of the world's most influential companies started as small, simple ideas. Twitter for example people discounted as just a dumb app where people shared what their cat was doing 24/7. It is now one of the most powerful tools on Earth and sparked a revolution in the Middle East and has given millions of people a way to tell their story to the world.

Based, on your comments nothing is worth building. We should encourage innovation, rather than knock people for just asking a question of what ideas they think are worth building.

tocs2• 11 years ago

It is a little late for a response to this question but I just had another thought.

Maybe a local Uber-like business. One that only servers one city.

Ask HN: Anyone have any good startup ideas?

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