25 Startup Ideas for 2012 • Hacker News Board

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#31

Post by its_so_on » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:05 AM UTC

NOTE: the following is a joke. or is it. Read to the end and decide for yourself.

As a VC, I would never fund any of these. How about these twenty-five ideas for starters.

1. Combine local and real-time. (Google isn't)

2. Combine the cloud with viral marketing (Amazon isn't)

3. Disrupt green with crowd-sourcing. (Power companies aren't).

4. Curate blogging (the "blogosphere" is so wide it becomes meaningless. Get the stratosphere of the blogosphere).

5. post-pc disruption. (Fingerpaint for iPhone - 1 guy, VC-ready company. needed a mac to develop. give an Indian with no mac, no pc, nothing BUT an iPhone enough tools to disrupt post-pc)

6. scale photos. Flickr doesn't.

7. the Google of Facebook. (G+ is the Facebook of Google. Where's the Google of facebook?)

8. empower html5. (Where's the Adobe of HTML 5?)

9. the skype of documents. (Google Docs isn't it)

10. the apple of automobiles. ("iPod integration"? Give me a 'brake').

11. bring the cloud to ultramobiles. ("ultrabooks" are a joke, and the cloud is too big. Find a way to make ultrabooks/macbook airs the macs of iOS)

12. the reddit of shopping. (eBay is not it).

13. disrupt ad platforms, virally. People are sick of signing in and getting information collected (Google starting to suck)

14. one word: Firefox. (Firefox isn't it).

15. one word: Office. (Office isn't it).

16. one word: ultramobile. (MacBook isn't).

17. one word: ultralite mobile. (iOS isn't it)

18. one word: TechCrunch (TechCrunch isn't it)

19. one word: Banking (Banking isn't it)

20. one word: Trending (Analytics isn't it)

21. one word: Microblogging (Twitter isn't it)

22. one word: Dating (plenty-of-fish isn't)

23. one word: Family disruption, aka Whores. (craigslist isn't)

24. one word: disrupt paradigms. (YC isn't).

25. one word: cloud. (the cloud isn't.)

what is this, some kind of a joke? Can you even tell anymore. Disrupt this.

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#32

Post by irollboozers » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:06 AM UTC

agilebyte wrote: post #28

>> Build the database of biology We are running a biological data warehouse, with a clean API in 4 languages. The problem is that the source data are incredibly messy and you have a lot of "blank" values. People then do not know if data are missing or if there really are no data to begin with. Who does the curation?

Is that because you have lots of variation over different values? I've tried using websites like Bionumbers, but can't tell if it's curated or not, and is basically now useless. How is yours different?

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#33

Post by jsankey » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:06 AM UTC

jwegan wrote: post #10

mindcrime wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually kinda hoping this one doesn't happen. Well, sort of. If we actually had a holodeck, wouldn't that mean the end of all progress for humanity? I mean, who would ever want to leave the damn thing?

They said the same thing about the TV

And I guess they were, to a disturbing degree, right?

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#34

Post by frisco » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:07 AM UTC

agilebyte wrote: post #28

>> Build the database of biology We are running a biological data warehouse, with a clean API in 4 languages. The problem is that the source data are incredibly messy and you have a lot of "blank" values. People then do not know if data are missing or if there really are no data to begin with. Who does the curation?

Who is 'we'? (I'm curious!)

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#35

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:08 AM UTC

yurylifshits wrote: post #30

Some other big problems: Prisons Retirement for not-so-rich people Government procurement Shipping (in developing countries) Customs (in developing countries) Utilities prices in Northern countries Digital democracy (removing corporate influence on elections)

[deleted]

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#36

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:11 AM UTC

its_so_on wrote: post #31

NOTE: the following is a joke. or is it. Read to the end and decide for yourself. As a VC, I would never fund any of these. How about these twenty-five ideas for starters. 1. Combine local and real-time. (Google isn't) 2. Combine the cloud with viral marketing (Amazon isn't) 3. Disrupt green with crowd-sourcing. (Power companies aren't). 4. Curate blogging (the "blogosphere" is so wide it becomes meaningless. Get the…

[deleted]

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#37

Post by freyfogle » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:12 AM UTC

jhancock wrote: post #17

Good brain dump. This though: Bitcoin - "Let the IRS/FEDs be involved and stick to the law." You need to file under Things that will never happen . The U.S. will not permit a rogue currency .

Forget the US, focus on the rest of the world.

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#38

Post by tomjen3 » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:15 AM UTC

jhancock wrote: post #17

Good brain dump. This though: Bitcoin - "Let the IRS/FEDs be involved and stick to the law." You need to file under Things that will never happen . The U.S. will not permit a rogue currency .

Who is to say they will have a choice?

I am not being cute here, but the power of any government is their monopoly on violence. That assumes, however, that the government knows whom they are up against.

What if the next generation cryptocurrency was truly anonymous? Then you wouldn't be able to stop it, even if you wanted to.

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#39

Post by freyfogle » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:15 AM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #22

It's, er, interesting to see Wonga listed as something to emulate. The only context I've heard of them in before is people wishing fiery death upon them for exploiting the desperate.

That and articles about investors piling ever more money in because it's a cash machine.

BTW - people are working on this in the US, though it moves more slowly due to state by state regulations

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/former-google-cio-raises-73...

Re: 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

#40

Post by judegomila » Sun, Jan 29, 2012, 10:15 AM UTC

frisco wrote: post #19

judegomila wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I added some fun ones in there as well...though OpenPCR have made really good headway on the cheap desktop bio hardware front.

OpenPCR is totally different from "read/write cells" much less "read/write cells for under $1000". A truly useful "BioCAD" isn't an engineering problem yet: there's a very substantial amount of basic research required. Synthetic gene circuits evolve rapidly, for one: let's say you designed and "CAD-tested" your circuit, how will you keep it from mutating within a few days? Unsolved research problem. > Build a databas…

I would also love to see more startups in this area. It would be amazing to open biology to every engineer on the planet. I'm thinking of a arduino like revolution but for biology. Achieving read/write cells for under $1000 on the desktop would open up biology to an entire new set of people. I'm not a biologist, but I'm intrigued by what we can unlock in this field.

OpenPCR is a good example of frugal engineering applied to the space. I hope to see more attempts at making this hardware cheaper and accessible.

Regarding the spec on the Database. User friendliness would be a start, can you throw in what you would want to improve - I'm interested in your ideas?

The company "ion torrent" caught my eye regarding the in vitro DNA sequencing. It disrupts Halcyon Molecular and could cut the cost down even quicker.