Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas • Hacker News Board

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#131

Post by lusr » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:25 AM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #12

In my experience, Sand Hill Road does not want "frighteningly ambitious" startup ideas if substantial capital expenditure is involved. (In fairness, they are willing to hear those pitches – I guess that's something.) > Now Steve is gone there's a vacuum we can all feel. Pixar got funded only because Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs!) paid for it of pocket to the tune of $50 million total. It's Pixar that made him a billionaire…

Looks pretty interesting but I find myself having to guess what you're doing. It's important to be concise and reference things people already know ("Pixar") when you want to convey information quickly, but it's unclear what the value of the technology is in the 2 paragraphs I could find written about it. Everyone knows "Pixar" by name but I'm struggling to understand what you're doing. Is it animation software that maps photographs to the virtual world and renders it "almost-real"?

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#132

Post by HSO » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:26 AM UTC

"A New Search Engine": You don't need to compete head-on with the biggie(s) even if you want better search. You can vastly improve search by specializing, i.e. getting data that the biggie(s) don't yet have. Find something that is "universal" but where the necessary data is hard to obtain. Then innovate on how to obtain that data, rather than focus on how to search or match etc. Find a business model where you provide value for both those who generate/grant access to the data as well as those who use/search it. When you have that data, either build on it or sell it to one of the biggies.

"The Next Steve Jobs": Watching the TED talk by Cynthia Breazeal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAnHjuTQF3M&t=09m25s), it recently struck me that the next Apple will come from the robotics side. The engagement level and seamlessness you can achieve with the physical medium is on a completely different level from "devices". Even smartphones/apps require (at best) minimal cognitive facilities for interaction. Being able to I/O on a "reptilian brain" basis with body language, tone of voice, etc. could literally "change everything" by weaving intelligence into even the dumbest activity. People will not be able to do without such robots if they are well done.

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#133

Post by tomwalsham » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:29 AM UTC

samstave wrote: post #107

tomwalsham wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This perspective is interesting when applied to communications. Parlay. Courier. Pigeon. Mail. Telegraph. Telephone. Transatlantic Comms. Fax. Early Internet. Email. Text Messaging. Live Chat. Voip. Twitter. Facebook Messages. Video Chat. It's a naîve summary of communications history, but look at the persistence of some of the early players. Many have not been replaced to this day - snailmail, POTS, Fax, Email, Chat…

The breakthrough in your comm analogy will come with the translation of thought to word. We will wear a device which will be able to read our brainwaves and determine which word we are thinking ala dictation, then send that to the recipient. This will be wired-telepathy - the recipient will get a message which they can receive any way they choose; visually (email - they read it) audio playback, or thought-injection.…

Asher's Gridlinked supposed a limited set of society [operatives & wealthy] who could manage this fulltime connection, and even then it was perceived as unhealthy.

Wikipedia has undoubtedly changed how our generation views knowledge, but it's still a pull-technology. Outbound messaging will still be a push-technology (nobody wants to compose an email of their stream-of-consciousness, and brains are poorly wired to retain full structure in mental 'RAM')

Wetware doesn't add significant differences to the existing protocols - merely a more rapid input mechanism than checking your phone. Assuming contact is voluntary, people will not opt for the PubSub model for comms. If you choose to use it for trivia, caveat emptor.

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#134

Post by nl » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:33 AM UTC

TheCowboy wrote: post #122

nl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Search is another word for artificial intelligence. Email means a universal way for people to communicate. Lunar bases & flying cars aren't ambitious, they are just expensive. Personal robots are here now in vertical spaces[1] and there are at least 200,000 cyborgs walking around now[2]. I think both these areas are worth working in, but I think you underestimate the ambition of a word like search . [1] ht…

They're expensive because they're inefficient. To accomplish them efficiently is ambitious and elegant without a doubt. A startup that can chip away at what makes these things so inefficient is going in the right direction. Looking for inefficiencies, such as with present day email, is a good way to find a direction. Economics is still at its heart the study of the problem of scarcity. Economies, and all economic act…

Yes, I agree with that. SpaceX etc are doing well at the "chip away" strategy.

I also agree that a cheap lunar base would be a wonderfully ambitious project!

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#135

Post by stingrae » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:33 AM UTC

diego wrote: post #31

duck wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think email needs to be changed from top to bottom, but offering speed alone would be a hard sell to launch with. You can get the Microsoft offering (Exchange Online or packaged with Office 365) starting at $5 a user. Microsoft can afford to spend money on it. I've used it and it is a lot faster than GMail (although it wasn't enough for me to switch).

One thing I noticed is that email is a problem for "important" people who receive tons of messages per day. They must read/answer that one vital email right away. Kevin Rose talked about this a few years ago, and I've heard many high-profile investors complaining about this. For the vast majority of the people on the planet, GMail is just good enough. Yahoo Mail and Hotmail are still doing well. Perhaps email is perc…

People are like sheep. If you get the "important" people to use it, you have most certainly will have a large user base of "regular" people

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#136

Post by samstave » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:33 AM UTC

tomwalsham wrote: post #133

samstave wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The breakthrough in your comm analogy will come with the translation of thought to word. We will wear a device which will be able to read our brainwaves and determine which word we are thinking ala dictation, then send that to the recipient. This will be wired-telepathy - the recipient will get a message which they can receive any way they choose; visually (email - they read it) audio playback, or thought-injection.…

Asher's Gridlinked supposed a limited set of society [operatives & wealthy] who could manage this fulltime connection, and even then it was perceived as unhealthy. Wikipedia has undoubtedly changed how our generation views knowledge, but it's still a pull-technology. Outbound messaging will still be a push-technology (nobody wants to compose an email of their stream-of-consciousness, and brains are poorly wired to re…

Sure, but I was not saying that there will be compulsory receipt of info... though, given human nature and the already prevalent propensity for people to be overly responsive to the flood of alerts - I see a negative impact on conscious.

It will be very interesting to say the least.

Personally, I am already overly unacceptable to the karma endorphin boost from reddit, quora and HN. I was thinking about this just the other day; I was originally against karma being hidden on posts, but now, I like the fact I am less enticed to for bias based on that number.

We already continually scan for karma upticks on all our primary sites. This is bad...

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#137

Post by EGreg » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:35 AM UTC

I started off reading this essay a bit carelessly -- it seemed that pg was saying that these ideas are too nuts, and YCombinator would never back something like that. I was about to write a post completely disagreeing.

Our company for example is building a new type of social search engine, will in many cases replace email for messaging, AND long term have a third party platform that will enable websites to take advantage of our single sign-on and be instantly social, while safeguarding privacy. We have a patent application on this (yeah, I know...)

Is it too much to bite off? Maybe. But look at our usage already, after a year. http://qbix.com

And lastly, I am very much hoping to build value, and not just sell quickly. I haven't read Steve Jobs' biography yet, but I have heard he refers to such ambitious people as "real entrepreneurs". I don't know... all I know is, I am driven to accomplish this. And so far we've got some positive results.

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#138

Post by zem » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:39 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #117

nostrademons wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An idea I've been musing on: is there a fundamental set of problems of humanity from which all economic activity is derived? For example: "Shrink the world": couriers, seafarers, caravans, riders, roadbuilders, railroads, telegraphs, automobiles, steamships, dockworkers, truck drivers, aviation, telephones, email, social networking, videoconferencing. "Organize labor": lords, finance, education, recruiting, HR, manag…

"Find stuff to burn" is a pretty big chunk too.

"Control more energy than your body can produce"

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#139

Post by ghshephard » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:41 AM UTC

samstave wrote: post #127

pg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number of business email users? Tens of millions certainly. "Would I pay for this?" is a great question for founders to ask, because it combines two of the most powerful techniques for generating startup ideas: solving problems you yourself have, and using payment as a test of how much people want something. One of my techniques for helping founders to come up with ideas is to ask them what they need so much that the…

But there are decades of precedent against how much people will pay for email. Look at a large enterprise org - you think that Lockheed with 150K employees would spend $50/yr/user on email? Hell no. they dont spend 7.5MM per year on their email accounts for the employees. Thats the problem with enterprise scaling vs cloud/startup scaling. They are inverse; The enterprise wants the cost per unit to go down when scalin…

"Look at a large enterprise org - you think that Lockheed with 150K employees would spend $50/yr/user on email? Hell no. they dont spend 7.5MM per year on their email accounts for the employees."

Yes, I certainly do believe that any American corporation with 150K employees spends significantly more than $7.5mm/year on their messaging system.

These systems actually get _more_ expensive as they grow larger - Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, Sarbanes Oxley, Customer Service, SLAs, Data Loss Protection, Intrusion Detection - All these email services that the small enterprise doesn't worry about (that much) - add up significantly in larger enterprises.

Re: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

#140

Post by zem » Sat, Mar 10, 2012, 7:43 AM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #104

Does it bother anyone that "frightenly ambitious" begins with search and email? Seriously? This is the pinnacle of our contribution to mankind - building search engines and to-do lists? Where's the lunar base? The flying car? The personal robot? The cyborg? Meh, maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy. (To be fair I did like the other ones).

you are vastly underestimating how much email has changed the world. if a better email can do for this generation what email did for the last one, i'll back it against anything on your list for sheer bang for the buck.