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Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

swombat.com

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Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#31

Post by larrys »

swombat wrote: post #27
lisper wrote: post #3

This is a three-year-old blog post about a three-year-old HN comment about a different three-year-old blog post. Just sayin'.

I'm very tempted to write a blog post pointing to this comment, so that it might be reposted in 3 years - but I think it'll be neater if someone else does!

You could also re purpose that old content by updating with further thoughts and a new URL. Similar to what they do on "48 Hours" or with "60 Minutes" on CNBC "we last ran this story in..." [1] Just throw a coat of paint over it and let everyone feast.

[1] Analogies are just repackaged ideas.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#32

Post by ensignavenger »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #17

The problem with so many "startup ideas" is that they are a solution to the problem, "I want to create a startup and don't have an idea." Not surprisingly, this tends to produce copycat concepts, products with no real market fit, services that target sexy but oversaturated markets, etc. There are lots and lots of problems that are either unsolved or are being solved in ways that are less efficient and cost-effective…

I have come up with a lot of ideas to solve business problems, but I am reluctant to implement them for the concern that selling to such businesses would be a far more difficult problem than simply creating something that works better than what they are currently using. Business often make stupid decisions based on relationships with sells people or brand recognition more than merit of the solution. Of course, this problem exists in the consumer space as well, but the market is so much larger (everyone is a consumer, not everyone makes decisions on what solutions to deploy in a business).

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#34

Post by unono »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #28
unono wrote: post #7

Current thinking on this matter is to avoid the tired old web 2.0 hipster stuff. The current batch of YC is all about solving real problem for real people. Spoonrocket got the most applause ($6 meals delivered within 10 minutes).

i'm all for real ideas but the 7000th web food delivery service shouldn't get people that excited, especially not the most select group of entrepreneurs in the world.

Spoonrocket is pretty unique. You'd have to go to the 3rd world like India to get similar levels of service.

Spoonrocket's cars have builtin heaters that keep food warm, only 2 menu items a day, and really quick delivery. If they actually expanded nationwide they'd kill burger/pizza joints, or at least force them to innovate.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#35

Post by pestaa »

cstejerean wrote: post #11

It's interesting that both Twitter and Facebook evolved quite a bit from where they started. The newsfeed and chat have both altered how I use Facebook and made it much more like twitter for me. When twitter first came out though I don't really see how anyone could have claimed it was a Facebook clone.

By this logic... Facebook is actually a Twitter-clone? My head spins.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#36

Post by ef4 »

ensignavenger wrote: post #32
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #17

The problem with so many "startup ideas" is that they are a solution to the problem, "I want to create a startup and don't have an idea." Not surprisingly, this tends to produce copycat concepts, products with no real market fit, services that target sexy but oversaturated markets, etc. There are lots and lots of problems that are either unsolved or are being solved in ways that are less efficient and cost-effective…

I have come up with a lot of ideas to solve business problems, but I am reluctant to implement them for the concern that selling to such businesses would be a far more difficult problem than simply creating something that works better than what they are currently using. Business often make stupid decisions based on relationships with sells people or brand recognition more than merit of the solution. Of course, this p…

In my experience, you have the difficulty backward. It's just fear of the unknown that keeps too many technical people from attempting it.

If your product has a demonstrable return on investment, then it is far easier to sell to businesses. Because businesses actually make decisions based on ROI, and consumers mostly don't.

Remember that to make a fair comparison, you need to do it per dollar, not per sale. Even if it's 10x easier to sell to one consumer than one business, if a business customer pays 100x more money, then it is still vastly easier to sell to businesses.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#37

Post by telephonetemp »

icpmacdo wrote: post #18
namenotrequired wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully you've found one of the 52 ideas awesome enough to spend a little longer on. How enthusiastic / passionate you are about it is a big factor in how successful will be.

I really like the idea of making a web app every week and seeing whats sticks. Its seems like it would be a much more diverse learning experience.

A web app a week sounds like a pretty brisk pace to me -- but then again my knowledge of web development is rather outdated. What technologies would you use to build a web app in 7 days in 2013?

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#39

Post by nickpinkston »

unono wrote: post #34
untilHellbanned wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm all for real ideas but the 7000th web food delivery service shouldn't get people that excited, especially not the most select group of entrepreneurs in the world.

Spoonrocket is pretty unique. You'd have to go to the 3rd world like India to get similar levels of service. Spoonrocket's cars have builtin heaters that keep food warm, only 2 menu items a day, and really quick delivery. If they actually expanded nationwide they'd kill burger/pizza joints, or at least force them to innovate.

Neat implementation details and 'disruption' aren't what make a startup unique / important. For example:

'InstaToiletPaper is doing really unique things like drone delivery of toilet paper and a huge selection! If these guys succeed, they'd be out disrupting the $20B toilet paper market, or at least forcing the to innovate.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#40

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Xcelerate wrote: post #9

Assuming your goal is to have a successful startup company, I've often wondered what the optimal trade-off between time-per-startup idea and number of startup attempts is. For instance, I could spend a year working on two really big, elaborate ideas that I have, but if they fail (likely), then I've wasted ("learned what not to do" if you're the optimistic type) a year working on only two ideas. Or... I could invest m…

That certainly seems to be the trend - succeed once and diversify. You simply take the diversify first.

It's a nice idea - 52 startups.

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