Startup ideas • Hacker News Board

Re: Startup ideas

#11

Post by chrischen » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 8:19 AM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #7

Sure it's easy to come up with ideas, but it's much harder to come up with ideas that are good. If this list was vetted, I have a feeling it would be significantly shorter. For example, #2: "Incubator site providing office space, hosting, etc. for startups that are seed funded." Unless you franchise it, this isn't scalable at all. It's an idea, perhaps even a business idea, but it's not a startup idea. Or, #9: "Herba…

> Sure it's easy to come up with ideas, but it's much harder to come up with ideas that are good

And you can't prove/know they are good until they are executed. Harder in this sense would just refer to the work required to iterate until it becomes good.

So all ideas you just "come up" with will all effectively be of uncertain value.

Re: Startup ideas

#12

Post by tomjen2 » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 8:32 AM UTC

psawaya wrote: post #2

Rent-a-wife – a woman who cleans, cooks, does laundry, picks up dry cleaning, mail, etc but without the emotional relationship. Really?

Isn't that called a maid?

Re: Startup ideas

#13

Post by lionshare » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 9:12 AM UTC

This is an ugly post. really. For the people who are working on things right now, those who care about execution, you can help them by not shouting it in order to appear as a smart gut.

Re: Startup ideas

#14

Post by marcofloriano » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 9:13 AM UTC

# Tutorial videos for technological skills (word processing, internet applications, email) for people who don't know how to navigate technology but need it. #

Very usefull for me ... work on that right now.

Re: Startup ideas

#15

Post by nearestneighbor » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 9:22 AM UTC

daemin wrote: post #8

Just goes to show that the startup idea isn't worth a thing, but that it's all in the execution.

Depends on the idea. The average startup idea is indeed junk.

Re: Startup ideas

#16

Post by coffeemug » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 9:32 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #11

coffeemug wrote: post #7

Sure it's easy to come up with ideas, but it's much harder to come up with ideas that are good. If this list was vetted, I have a feeling it would be significantly shorter. For example, #2: "Incubator site providing office space, hosting, etc. for startups that are seed funded." Unless you franchise it, this isn't scalable at all. It's an idea, perhaps even a business idea, but it's not a startup idea. Or, #9: "Herba…

> Sure it's easy to come up with ideas, but it's much harder to come up with ideas that are good And you can't prove/know they are good until they are executed. Harder in this sense would just refer to the work required to iterate until it becomes good. So all ideas you just "come up" with will all effectively be of uncertain value.

While I generally agree with you, I don't think all ideas are created equal. Some ideas are obviously bad (going into an established industry with razor thin margins without a clear plan for innovation; fundamentally unscalable businesses; etc.) Some ideas are obviously good (planes that fly twice as fast at half the cost without compromising safety). Some ideas are really good but look really bad, others are really bad but look really good. Some ideas aren't iterable (if you spend three years and half a billion dollars on building a plant that brings cars to the masses and find out that the masses are perfectly happy with horses you don't have much space left to iterate).

It's hard. Really really hard. I don't think any given formula can capture the complexity of it all. The current model (fast iteration) has obvious flaws - there are plenty of businesses that turned out to be massively successful that were fundamentally not iterable.

Re: Startup ideas

#17

Post by mahmud » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 9:56 AM UTC

whatusername wrote: post #4

psawaya wrote: post #2

Rent-a-wife – a woman who cleans, cooks, does laundry, picks up dry cleaning, mail, etc but without the emotional relationship. Really?

There's an Australian business - http://www.hireahubby.com.au/ - where you can hire a "hubby" to do all the handyman jobs around the house...

I have seen those and I thought they were like "College Painters/Haulers" (i.e. hire a student who needs the money) meaning the "Hubbie" here implies a working family man, as opposed to a "lousy bachelor who might squander your money on booze".

Re: Startup ideas

#18

Post by prabodh » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 10:27 AM UTC

nearestneighbor wrote: post #15

daemin wrote: post #8

Just goes to show that the startup idea isn't worth a thing, but that it's all in the execution.

Depends on the idea. The average startup idea is indeed junk.

DropBox was an age old idea....The execution is what made its glory

Re: Startup ideas

#19

Post by Tichy » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 10:35 AM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #7

Sure it's easy to come up with ideas, but it's much harder to come up with ideas that are good. If this list was vetted, I have a feeling it would be significantly shorter. For example, #2: "Incubator site providing office space, hosting, etc. for startups that are seed funded." Unless you franchise it, this isn't scalable at all. It's an idea, perhaps even a business idea, but it's not a startup idea. Or, #9: "Herba…

Recently some startups started selling customized sweets. You could mix your own flavor in a web interface and then order the gums, build on demand. (I only know startups for chocolate, cereals and coffee doing this atm).

Re: Startup ideas

#20

Post by cmalabs » Mon, Nov 30, 2009, 10:45 AM UTC

For a bit of context, this was the product of an brainstorming exercise set by seth godin to his students during his "six month mba program". You probably should read anymore into these ideas than that.