Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund • Hacker News Board

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#211

Post by pg » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:20 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #105

pg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every idea worth having has been had thousands of times already. Even if this were true (which seems extremely unlikely) someone had to think of it first. So there would have been a point when it was possible to have new ideas. How can you be sure the present is not such a point, when we know there were such points in the past?

No, I think you're misunderstanding my statement. I did not say that people do not have new ideas. That is a blatantly ridiculous statement. I said that worthy ideas have already been had. My argument comes from looking at literary and philosophical ideas, and my comment was a jest in response to another jest, but there's truth in it. There's a persistent quest for originality in literature, and after some years of c…

Ok, replace "ideas" in my comment with "worthy ideas." Still applies.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#212

Post by jerry5 » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:22 PM UTC

foompy_katt wrote: post #208

jerry5 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Human Resource Investment" Oh yeah, humans just love to be called 'resources'.

Ok, objection noted. The name isn't important- you can call it "Pie Love" if you want. In case you couldn't tell from the post, I was talking about investing in the talent people have. I'm not talking about slave labor, I'm talking about doing the kind of stuff Y Combinator does, and making it even more personal and supportive over the long haul. A real partnership, so that people are even more likely to succeed in t…

No I couldn't tell, because I stopped reading at "human resources". But since you stand corrected I'll stand corrected too and wrote a thoughtful reply above.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#213

Post by pg » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:22 PM UTC

dcurtis wrote: post #77

pg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I was just saying that if you want to beat Google, that's their weak spot. Or at least a big one. Most people who read that one will think "huh?" But if someone reads it and thinks "Damn, how did he hear about what we're working on?" that's someone we'd really love to hear from.

As much as it pains me to say this, I think Google's lack of design sense might be their strong point in search. There's no extra crap to get in the way of search results. (Although I should say that in their other non-search products, it is most certainly a weakness.) There are of course new ways to view results, but with arguable advantage. A new startup I found recently, Viewzi ( http://www.viewzi.com/ ) does a pr…

Great design is the difference between Apple's version of no extra crap, and Google's.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#214

Post by ra » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:28 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #106

Leon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying .com is the king of the internet sounds like a response from marketing/management. I suspect it isn't all that important and that this will probably be dropped in favor of a practical solution in the future.

# of .com websites making at least $1mm/yr? 9999999999999999 # of .us/.info/.me/.biz sites making at least $1mm/yr? 8 Yes its marketing, but that's because consumers pretty much got taught that one of the major ways to see if a business is legitimate is to see if it has the .com extension. Blame all the affiliate spammers who put up the crappy sites on the .info etc domain names to try to make a few bucks by using th…

put simply, .com is a brand

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#215

Post by agentbleu » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:31 PM UTC

jerry5 wrote: post #187

agentbleu wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was so sick and tiered of hearing that capitalism is the best system we have, "theres nothing better", that I designed a new world order. It is better than capitalism by a very long way. It's a complicated idea, slightly difficult to grasp, but given any problem it will robustly yield the best result for the community. You can read it if your interested on the wayback. http://web.archive.org/web/20060613054329/http…

Sorry on the first 10 or so pages I saw just blah blah. Don't spam the forum here if you have nothing to offer.

To give you one idea about the design and how it would treat people like you within it, (I notice that your kama on HN (jerry5) is -10) The creatocracy recognizes that one size does not fit all, treats all according to their history and respect. You would find that your voice counted less with regards voting rights and you may well find that if your attitude became a burden on others that your tax level would rise higher than others.

Self organizing self regulating. Feedback is an essential component!

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#216

Post by pg » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:35 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #167

pg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slightly better question would be: when have I not found what I was looking for in a Google search? Or even, when was the thing I was looking for not the first search result? If you use satisfaction as the test, you may be letting the present state of things influence your thinking too much. E.g. I bet a lot of people were satisfied with pre-Google search engines, and just took their limitations for granted.

To make a go of that kind of thing in a startup though, you'd have to make sure that it's something Google won't or can't execute on, something I'm not sure I would bet on. Part of the idea of 'disruptive technologies' is that they aren't incremental improvements that the current leaders will just copy, but big changes that get ignored by the current leaders.

I certainly agree with that. The way to displace Google is to work on something they despise as inconsequential, the way the "portals" in the late 90s did search.

There are lots of things they despise as inconsequential: stupid consumerish stuff like celebrity gossip, cool design, things that aren't technically demanding, etc...

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#217

Post by foompy_katt » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:37 PM UTC

jerry5 wrote: post #210

foompy_katt wrote: post #170

30. Startups for startups. I think Y Combinator doesn't take its model far enough. What I'd like to see could be called "Human Resource Investment"- investing in people, not startups per se. This would be structured as a debt and/or equity deal. You find a talented person, and invest in them using money, technology, education, and social resources. Then you charge a high interest rate (for the reliable people), or ma…

This is pretty much what universities do, especially the more elitist kind. Alumni don't have a contractual obligation to pay x% of their income, but in practice they end up making donations to their alma mater for the rest of their life. However I don't like this idea at all, it's what creates elitism and closed circles in the first place. Our society already is institutionalized to the hilt, I wished people again f…

"I wished people again found their natural ability to create trust relationships, from scratch."

I completely agree with this. I don't honestly feel people of good faith need to deal with complicated rules or institutions. But not everyone is willing to go that route, so this is an idea which might serve the other 99%.

First off, it might be the case that anyone could be worth investing in (in time, money, energy, expertise, caring). I think if done right, it's true for everyone. I don't really have it as a goal that just the "talented" people are invested in. Just that that is the obvious place to start.

And I think that if someone who is talented is already well-connected or has a rich family, this would probably have little use for them. But, for someone who is ambitious and hard-working but starting out from a low place, this would be a boon- they need some kind of support, more than anyone else. If they could find others willing to create "trust relationships", presumably they would do it, since that is obviously a better deal. But few seem to manage it :/.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#218

Post by eugenejen » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:38 PM UTC

jerry5 wrote: post #210

foompy_katt wrote: post #170

30. Startups for startups. I think Y Combinator doesn't take its model far enough. What I'd like to see could be called "Human Resource Investment"- investing in people, not startups per se. This would be structured as a debt and/or equity deal. You find a talented person, and invest in them using money, technology, education, and social resources. Then you charge a high interest rate (for the reliable people), or ma…

This is pretty much what universities do, especially the more elitist kind. Alumni don't have a contractual obligation to pay x% of their income, but in practice they end up making donations to their alma mater for the rest of their life. However I don't like this idea at all, it's what creates elitism and closed circles in the first place. Our society already is institutionalized to the hilt, I wished people again f…

I disagree with you and I want to say most elite universities have done a bad job except Standford. Elite universities just can't give what market wants because of politics. But unfortunately the only thing matter for a startup to survive is demand and supply of market.

While a startup for startup has to meet what market wants, instead of protecting alumni, professors and students.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#219

Post by nperriault » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:46 PM UTC

To me you've forgotten the most important thing to achieve: true SSO and true web of data where you own your own (I mean data portability). Just imagine a true synchronizable address book on all the devices you own, with all your friends and family. Maybe the semantic web will help, but the industry must play the game, too...

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

#220

Post by jerry5 » Sun, Jul 20, 2008, 2:46 PM UTC

jerry5 wrote: post #210

foompy_katt wrote: post #170

30. Startups for startups. I think Y Combinator doesn't take its model far enough. What I'd like to see could be called "Human Resource Investment"- investing in people, not startups per se. This would be structured as a debt and/or equity deal. You find a talented person, and invest in them using money, technology, education, and social resources. Then you charge a high interest rate (for the reliable people), or ma…

This is pretty much what universities do, especially the more elitist kind. Alumni don't have a contractual obligation to pay x% of their income, but in practice they end up making donations to their alma mater for the rest of their life. However I don't like this idea at all, it's what creates elitism and closed circles in the first place. Our society already is institutionalized to the hilt, I wished people again f…

Also see this quote from this [http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.htm...] article: "the purpose of Yale College is to manufacture Yale alumni"