Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

blog.eladgil.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 220 posts

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

#101

Post by jlees »

blhack wrote: post #40

I hope I don't come across as negative here, but I hate lists like this. Peopel are always raining on each others' ideas "Oh, what, you're going to make a myspace clone? Bahahahaha." (facebook) "Oh, what, you're going to make a facebook clone? Bahahahaha." (twitter) "Oh, what, you're going to make another dating website? Bahahahaha." (Okcupid, plentyoffish) "Oh, what, you're going to make another social bookmarking w…

You make great points for the engineering minded, and the original article was about nerds, so that's all grand.

However; when I inwardly cringe at these ideas being rehashed (possibly not the machine learning one), it's when someone non-technical is eagerly pitching me their Facebook for Dogs idea and trying to get me to code it up for free, it'll be the Next Big Thing, just you wait and see...

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

#102

Post by sedachv »

danielrhodes wrote: post #93
pg wrote: post #13

It's true that such ideas tend to be magnets for sloppy thinking, but I think most if not all of them could be pulled off if done right.

This just got me thinking that dating sites definitely fall into this category. Perhaps the answer is not a dating site but a dating tool, much like Facebook does not try to make you social connections, but facilitates the social connections you already have. You could write down the dates you have already been on, what you did/talked about, and compare notes with other people. Anyways, just a thought.

You mean like the whole pick-up artist community? Most girls aren't that interested in recording details of their dates, and definitely don't want other people knowing about their dating life (unless they're really young and want to brag that they're dating a football player, or in one recent case, have had the discriminating taste to sleep with half of the Duke lacrosse team).

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

#103

Post by storborg »

alex_c wrote: post #50
blhack wrote: post #40

I hope I don't come across as negative here, but I hate lists like this. Peopel are always raining on each others' ideas "Oh, what, you're going to make a myspace clone? Bahahahaha." (facebook) "Oh, what, you're going to make a facebook clone? Bahahahaha." (twitter) "Oh, what, you're going to make another dating website? Bahahahaha." (Okcupid, plentyoffish) "Oh, what, you're going to make another social bookmarking w…

Life is very, very short. Given the choice between not building anything at all and building a "Craigslist killer" that no one will use, I absolutely agree - go for it! Given the choice between building a cliche project and something a bit more off the beaten path - you may as well put a few extra days of thought into a project before you start, and come up with something unique (as long as you don't spend all your t…

The ideas are obvious because people want them.

Lots of people want a Craigslist alternative that doesn't have the shittiest search interface this side of 2004. Lots of people want a dating site with a 'market' that doesn't heavily heavily favor women. Lots of people want to exercise/lose weight in a fun game-like way. Lots of people want the concept of TripAdvisor but don't feel like they identify at all with the typical TripAdvisor reviewer.

It's hard to learn about why these things are difficult without actually trying to do them.

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

#104

Post by adambyrtek »

blhack wrote: post #40

I hope I don't come across as negative here, but I hate lists like this. Peopel are always raining on each others' ideas "Oh, what, you're going to make a myspace clone? Bahahahaha." (facebook) "Oh, what, you're going to make a facebook clone? Bahahahaha." (twitter) "Oh, what, you're going to make another dating website? Bahahahaha." (Okcupid, plentyoffish) "Oh, what, you're going to make another social bookmarking w…

Actually the author of the original article is not that negative about the ideas he mentions: "This suggests that either all nerds think alike, or alternatively, that they are unsolved problems that someone, someday, somewhere, may actually come up with a variant that hits big."

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

#105

Post by DanielRibeiro »

blhack wrote: post #40

I hope I don't come across as negative here, but I hate lists like this. Peopel are always raining on each others' ideas "Oh, what, you're going to make a myspace clone? Bahahahaha." (facebook) "Oh, what, you're going to make a facebook clone? Bahahahaha." (twitter) "Oh, what, you're going to make another dating website? Bahahahaha." (Okcupid, plentyoffish) "Oh, what, you're going to make another social bookmarking w…

Best comment on the site (by RFarahmand): All of these ideas seem perfect, and yes, we know them all... its all about execution. The fact is most of the nerds like myself ( 99.99%) don't get operational and don't execute. The 0.01% who aren't afraid of failure go to silicon valley and fail - maybe many times, among them lucky ones with better execution are the ones who make billions! with a bit of luck The harder you work, the luckier you get!

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

#107

Post by juliamae »

there wrote: post #32

is anyone still trying to innovate in the online dating arena? i thought okcupid has had it pretty much locked for a while.

i am! i was pleasantly unsurprised to see dating as number one! (read as "i thought it would be, and laughed when i saw it was"). the reason most dating sites fail is that people keep building the same site again and again but with different branding. i think the problem can be solved by completely changing the experience. that's what i'm staking my savings on anyway.

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

#108

Post by dlevine »

I think that all of these (or at least most of them) are reasonable ideas that could work. I think the biggest problem is that a lot of them are either technically difficult or involve entering crowded markets.

For example, the Craigslist killer can and has worked. The guys at RentHop and AirBnB are both attacking pieces of Craigslist's functionality.

The problem is that most nerds don't have the ability to pull these ideas off. Heck, most people in general don't have what it takes to build a successful company. There's a big difference between hacking on something for a weekend and building a company out of it (although you can't build a company without starting somewhere).

Overall, a lot of people (including many successful YC Founders) start out with stupid, unfocused ideas, and morph into something that's focused and solves a problem that people need solved. It's all just part of the process - if you wait for the perfect idea to hit you, you might never get started.

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

#109

Post by mysteryleo »

blhack wrote: post #40

I hope I don't come across as negative here, but I hate lists like this. Peopel are always raining on each others' ideas "Oh, what, you're going to make a myspace clone? Bahahahaha." (facebook) "Oh, what, you're going to make a facebook clone? Bahahahaha." (twitter) "Oh, what, you're going to make another dating website? Bahahahaha." (Okcupid, plentyoffish) "Oh, what, you're going to make another social bookmarking w…

wow. that's really insightful. thanks for the post. I guess you're right, there is room for improvement, but . . .

I wonder if the failure rate is higher, because those ideas are common, and everyone tries it. Yeah maybe the same number will succeed, but since everyone and their mom is doing it, it probably won't be you . . . dunno.

Btw, a news site should be on the list too. Even I have one of those: http://tech.rawsignal.com.

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

#110

Post by jallmann »

timf wrote: post #35

> Giant, Purposeless, Unfocused Machine Learning System. There's a YC company that does this in a general way but I would not label their use cases as "purposeless". http://www.directededge.com/

Directed Edge has some really insightful technical articles on their site. I did not know they were a YC company -- awesome.
Post reply on HN