An on-demand "Uber for babysitters" ... most of you shot it down but I still think it's a good idea https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7356497
Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
121–130 of 214 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#122An online-only bank (with ATM support of course) that lets you have as many "virtual" accounts as you want, and lets you set up programmatic rules for transferring money in between accounts on certain days/times, or triggered by events ("transfer $100 from B to A if account A goes below $100, and notify me by email"; "on overdraft from A, withdraw from B instead"). Then have a debit card that you can use to charge to…
I'd like to see a not for profit bank in the sense that the profit the bank does make, goes directly back into the local community surrounding the bank. The bank would have a physical presence but strong and modern on-line support.
Many of them around today pre-date the bigger banks by some years.
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#123Location based anon social network. I am working on it.
Secret exists to confess anonymously within your circle.
General social networks to connect to your connections (FB, LinkedIn, etc).
An insane list of failed startups that try to get strangers to connect but no one actively seeks meeting strangers for the sake of in general.
I am having a hard time seeing why I'd want to connect to anyone anonymously in my area that don't fall into the above categories but I'd love to hear why you think it makes sense
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#124Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#125Something with the Oculus VR tech. I think there's massive, exciting options opening up with the Gear VR or similar, and anyone starting now will have a substantial first mover advantage. I have two specific applications for VR: the metaverse, and really good porn. (These do not need to be combined though I suppose they could.) I would argue that Second Life failed mostly due to execution issues. I'd love to see a vi…
Phillip Rosedale, the guy behind Second Life, is working on a next-gen equivalent. Janus VR, meanwhile, is busy working at turning the Web into a metaverse, and getting some rave reviews.
As for porn, http://www.reddit.com/r/oculusnsfw/ is your source there... "Really good" porn is, of course, highly taste-dependent.
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#126Probably one of: - a "Rap Genius" for crowd-translating doujin manga (kind of exists on danbooru but not quite) - A collaborative gaming site for pen-and-paper RPG and boardgame players which would let you design and run your games as a virtual representation of the physical game (probably exists or else is a bad idea)
Re RPG Games: I have heard Roll20 is pretty popular and fun to use. I have never done it myself but it seems like a really cool way to play. http://roll20.net/
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#127Love this thread idea, had been considering posting one myself. - Tablets for seniors: when the elderly population sees an iPad ad, they're not captivated or entranced; they're intimidated and disappointed that they're left behind by technology. I envision the "jitterbug for tablets" -- built on Android with big, tactile buttons; a 'never get lost, take me home' feature; remotely controlled functionality (IE turn on/…
* based on IE7 so a lot of websites don't work/render properly. This does not seem important when the core of your users go on google/wikipedia and that's it. But my grandmother loves to order online but is limited to amazon because most of the other websites don't work properly. She would gladly pay more to be able to simplify most of the main websites UI for her and ease her order flow.
* Impossible to have more than one tab. This seems logical at first because it simplifies everything, but when she is ordering something as a gift and wants to look for an address she has to close the whole application and go in "notebook" and start over again. Same with the idea of having multiple tabs in IE.
* Email services really limited. Their idea is to avoid spam you have to whitelist every email address. But this is not negotiable, so when you order for the first time online you can't use your system's email because you'll never get the "confirm your email address". Or you use a gmail account for this which immediately make things too complicated for her.
* Most of the other features (games especially) are really limited/dumb such as having to recognize a banana. Creating games for her is something I'm planning to do but with the old browser inside the machine it makes things harder.
* Pictures management! We all send pictures to her by email but she can't organize them at all. I've been thinking of a UI for this but when I draw it/explain it I immediately see she would be completely lost. She needs a simple UI on top of explorer of something that would do "delete, crop, move, rename, add comments". And on top of that the main feature she needs is "print it for me and mail it to me". Websites already exist for this feature but she would have to understand how to upload photos and then use them which is clearly impossible.
* Keyboard! Another big issue for her is being able to raise her arms high enough for a long period of time to type an email on the screen with the tactile keyboard. At the same time, the keyboard delivered with the computer is not in alphabetical order. I've been trying to teach her but it takes her a long time to write so she mostly gives up and limit herself to a few words!
Hope this helps!
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#128I had this random idea today, that I'd totally do if I had any free time. There may already be somebody doing this - I haven't looked. But here ya go: An "eliza bot" like service that doles out Freudian dream analysis when you tell it about your dreams. Maybe even combine a logging service so you can log your dreams (ala the way some people keep dream journals). I really have few ideas for monetizing the thing, I mos…
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#129shazam for face recognition? Sometime when you see a movie, you can't make out who stars in it. take a quick picture and shazam it away to get the actor / actress name!
Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?
#130A sort of reverse kickstarter with combinations. Instead of just makers saying what they can do it would be based more on what people say they want, and attach a value to say they'd pay a certain amount for it. You could also declare that given x, y and z you could do a, b or c and thus giant chains could be resolved. All a bit GOSPLAN like though. I've also considered Tinder crossed with auctions: bid according to h…