What about the opposite, something that seemed like genius but turned out to be a terrible, terrible idea?
Secret, for example.
Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
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Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#12Facebook. I was convinced this was a terrible idea until about 2007 or so, despite being on it since 2004. Still think it's kinda a terrible idea, but a billion people disagree with me. (Or perhaps it's more like a billion people agree with me but use it anyway.)
I also thought it was going to be a fad. What is interesting is that everything people use Facebook for day-to-day existed back in 2005. We used email for sharing life updates, various tools for photo sharing, AOL Instant Messenger for chatting, mailing lists for groups, email and evite for organizing events, etc. The novelty of Facebook was profile browsing and poking each other. And if Facebook had just remained th…
I have a different experience. I don't know a single person who used to send life updates with email, or engage in mailing lists. At least to this individual, it was very obvious why Facebook was going to be a success when it arrived, it had all the basic 'tools' you needed to communicate and stay in contact with family and friends.
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#13Airbnb: can you trust other people to not trash your place or the host walking to your room drunk (happened to me lol).
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#14Twitter. To this day, I find it idiotic. I thought society reached rock bottom when politics started using it to convey their message (is there anything sadder than a political agenda that can be expressed in 140 characters?)
I really like the idea of a service designed to deliver concise epigrams. Twitter is great when people are doing that.
Of course, more often they're boiling political agendas down to 140 characters, or worse, splitting a page-length message up into 17 chunks tagged (1/17). C'est la vie.
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#15My mate had a university assignment several years back to come up with an online business idea.
His idea was to set up an online "home delivery" service for restaurants (including those that don't do home delivery but do take-away). He got a shitty mark because the lecturer thought the idea was "stupid".
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also thought it was going to be a fad. What is interesting is that everything people use Facebook for day-to-day existed back in 2005. We used email for sharing life updates, various tools for photo sharing, AOL Instant Messenger for chatting, mailing lists for groups, email and evite for organizing events, etc. The novelty of Facebook was profile browsing and poking each other. And if Facebook had just remained th…
I have a different experience. I don't know a single person who used to send life updates with email, or engage in mailing lists. At least to this individual, it was very obvious why Facebook was going to be a success when it arrived, it had all the basic 'tools' you needed to communicate and stay in contact with family and friends.
I think this is a very good example of why Facebook succeeded. Everything Facebook does was done (oftentimes better) by a niche tool with a niche audience of early adopters before. Facebook managed to cross the chasm with all of them and unify them together into a single social networking experience. It brought all these tools that were in use by small populations to the mainstream audience.
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#17Large scale Recommerce. Pretty hard to imagine to buy tons of junk and make profit out of it.
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#18Twitter. To this day, I find it idiotic. I thought society reached rock bottom when politics started using it to convey their message (is there anything sadder than a political agenda that can be expressed in 140 characters?)
Twitter is mostly made up of abandoned/inactive accounts, and it hasn't turned a profit. Despite popularity, I don't think it qualifies as a success.
As of this writing, Twitter's market capitalization is over $23 billion. That's a success by any sensible definition. If you know something the market doesn't, there's any easy way to put your money where your mouth is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_(finance)
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#19Yes I worked for a guy in 1998 who basically invented both salesforce and AWS and wanted me to join him as the technical lead. I thought he was nuts and told him no. Due to the geographical location of the company he couldn't find anyone else to do it and went back to fixing PCs. Now I look back with regret.
One missed hire shouldn't have been enough to stop him, which I think is why you're getting downvotes.
Re: Ask HN: Whats the worst startup idea you've heard, which turned out to be genius?
#20Twitter. To this day, I find it idiotic. I thought society reached rock bottom when politics started using it to convey their message (is there anything sadder than a political agenda that can be expressed in 140 characters?)
is there anything sadder than a political agenda that can be expressed in 140 characters
Well, at least it's a step up from bumper stickers.