Coveralls/TravisCI for code reviews w/ self-hosting option. I'm sick of Crucible and expensive alternatives that don't even work that well these days.
Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
61–70 of 91 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#62Apparently mine, based on the number of upvotes my Show HN is getting right now ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6374377
Agreed. Edit: Maybe that came off as rude, but I really don't get the idea. You pay somebody for something you want to see done? What?
No worries, it's a slightly confusing concept. You can basically crowdfund cash prizes for anything you want to see get done in the world. Teams then apply for the prize with proof that they've accomplished the prize's goals.
You basically can crowdfund your own X-Prizes.
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#63Crowdsourcing vigilantism (or random violent assault) - whoneedsabeating.com - snap a photo with your phone, location is tagged and timestamped, optional tweet with why the subject needs a beating. For free subscriber's beat-down requests are published only with city, photo and reason. Paid subscribers get street address published with beat-down request.
I had an idea for single mothers to post info about deadbeat dads for others to avoid. However, after thinking about it for a bit, I realized it would turn into what you were proposing and decided against it.
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#64When I first saw it at McDonalds, RedBox. Now I use it all the time.
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#65This thread is reminding me of how many ideas I've had that I never went through on.
Another one: Sponsor a homeless person. Crowd-sourcing getting someones life back on track. You get 100+ people to pitch in $5 a month to one person they "adopted". These 100 people have full transparency to how that person spends the money, can advise and help in other ways . If you see that they withdrew $50 in cash on a friday night, they have to show a receipt for a valid reason for doing so, or you can drop out as a sponsor.
Anyhow, it was a stupid idea because people are generally selfish, on both the giving and receiving end.
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#66Heard: for
I'm going to give this a serious response even though I know you're referring to a well-known cliche for startup ideas. I was talking to a fairly smart VC recently and he made a good point -- while everyone likes to use "Facebook for Cats" as a joke about bad startup ideas, it's not actually a bad idea. A lot of people REALLY like their pets. And they spend a lot of money on them. And they like to share pictures of t…
http://packlove.com/optimus-prime
This website gives customizeable one page profiles for your pets. Seems pretty heavily used, I signed up one time and I get emails every couple of days because another user "loved" my pet.
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#67Mine: replacing business cards
At some point I had the idea for an RFID bracelet. Ideally, it would be targeted to trade shows. I went to one previously the best tech they had was these cards that you had to go and manually scan at each booth. Anyhow, the idea was that each bracelet would have an RFID card, and an RFID reader. When you shook hands with someone, it would read their ID #. So, you're not only physically meeting someone, but logging t…
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Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#68My gf wants to make a mobile app that helps homeless/impoverished people share good dumpster eating locations.
It exists! http://trashwiki.org/en/Main_Page
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you be explaining the joke if you were to note that no non-trivial solutions exist for n?
For any fixed odd number of friends k you could keep the network consistent by only allowing people to join in groups (call them "cells") of m, where m is even and greater than k. (Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_graph )
"Sorry, Gary. Come talk to me when you have 558 friends. Gare? I'm sorry, Gare, those are the rules. Everyone has to be equal. It doesn't matter if you'll never have 558 friends and I only had to find 32. Everyone's equal! Don't you see, Gary! Gary? Gare? What are you doing. Sic semper what? Aughhhh."
Re: Ask HN: What is the stupidest startup idea you ever had/heard?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better Search Engine / Better Social Network - By definition, something that's better than an existing product that's wildly popular isn't stupid. I personally think that social networks are stupid, but by the time Facebook came out, it was obvious that most people didn't. Seamless Sync and Backups - This is an obviously useful concept, we just needed to wait for the technology to arrive. Short Status Updates - Agree…
> "By definition, something that's better than an existing product that's wildly popular isn't stupid", "This is an obviously useful concept, we just needed to wait for the technology to arrive." In retrospect, yes, absolutely. But when you first hear it, having seen many other attempts, it seems bound to fail or at least don't seem like a billion dollar idea. Hence the "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
It might have been foolish for Facebook if they had started out thinking that they were guaranteed to dethrone Myspace, but that's not how it happened.
The idea of having all of your stuff get automatically backed up and synced with all of your devices seemed like a billion dollar idea the first time someone mentioned it. It just didn't seem feasible until recently. That's not the same as it being a stupid idea.