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Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

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

#121

Post by kscaldef »

sedachv wrote: post #102
danielrhodes wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> Most girls aren't that interested in recording details of their dates, and definitely don't want other people knowing about their dating life

Publicly, I assume you mean. As far as I can tell, women talk with their friends about their dates and their dating / sex life in far, far more detail than men do.

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

#123

Post by ericd »

vaksel wrote: post #83
stevenj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what do you dislike or think can be done better with Craigslist? In other words, if you were going to build a Craigslist competitor what would you focus on doing differently?

better fraud control...my sister was looking for an apartment in Manhattan, and out of ~20 people she contacted, only 4 were real people.

This is a very real problem, especially in Manhattan, and especially at the lower end of the price spectrum (that's where the scammers are all fishing).

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

#124

Post by sedachv »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #117
sedachv wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Actually, a tool bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses might be useful. I know a guy who does record assorted details of approaches (various sketches/openers) and outcomes (dissed, phone number, base #, etc). He records them on paper, puts it into excel the next day and A/B tests. He is very successful. A tool that automates all this could be very useful for those of us less willing to devote large amounts…

The amount of time it takes him to put this into Excel is miniscule compared to just having a conversation with a single woman. What's really driving his success is his persistence (it's a numbers game).

The problem with "bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses" is the same as the guy/girl ratio notification tools. We're very poor in making comparisons based on absolute factors, so we make our decisions based on relative comparisons. This includes the decision of who, if anyone, to sleep with.

It's a zero-sum game. Anyone who realizes this realizes that it's in his best interest not to tell everyone about his pick-up technique or the large number of girls in the bar he's at, and anyone who doesn't probably doesn't have the social intelligence to sleep with those girls anyway (that's where the absolute factors come into play).

But I hear Mystery is a multi-millionaire, so there's probably a market for such a tool.

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

#125

Post by angrycoder »

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…

Lots of people talk shit, very few people do shit.

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

#127

Post by sedachv »

kscaldef wrote: post #121
sedachv wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> Most girls aren't that interested in recording details of their dates, and definitely don't want other people knowing about their dating life Publicly, I assume you mean. As far as I can tell, women talk with their friends about their dates and their dating / sex life in far, far more detail than men do.

Talking about it and writing it up are very different things. The reason has to do with later deniability (sometimes things are better forgotten; a lot of women feel that way about their ex-boyfriends). There's a reason why the few girls that keep them are very protective of their diaries.

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

#128

Post by yummyfajitas »

sedachv wrote: post #124
yummyfajitas wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, a tool bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses might be useful. I know a guy who does record assorted details of approaches (various sketches/openers) and outcomes (dissed, phone number, base #, etc). He records them on paper, puts it into excel the next day and A/B tests. He is very successful. A tool that automates all this could be very useful for those of us less willing to devote large amounts…

The amount of time it takes him to put this into Excel is miniscule compared to just having a conversation with a single woman. What's really driving his success is his persistence (it's a numbers game). The problem with "bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses" is the same as the guy/girl ratio notification tools. We're very poor in making comparisons based on absolute factors, so we make our decisions base…

I agree that data entry + excel time is not a lot. But coming up with sketch material and gathering enough data points for an A/B test to be statistically useful is a huge investment.

Success = P x A, with P = probability of success and A = # of approaches.

When A is large, it's a no-brainer to gather data and crunch numbers to improve P. Unfortunately, you can't improve P without a large A since your numbers won't be statistically significant.

A tool which crowdsources the data gathering/content creation and delivers modest improvements in P would certainly be worth $2.99 to me.

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

#129

Post by prewett »

binarymax wrote: post #19

Here are some of the other common one's I've heard: - A social-networking site that totally respects my privacy and lets me own my data! - An app store that lets anybody sell their digital stuff to anyone, not in some walled garden! - A drag and drop interface that lets you make any program you want...totally code-free! I could go on and on...

#3: National Instruments' LabVIEW is the best example of graphical programming I have run across. But after I used it for a while, it became clear that text-based programming is denser; I can see a lot more C++ code than LabVIEW code in one screen, and that makes me more productive in C++. LabVIEW is awesome for a quick app, but for something more successful, I don't think any form of graphical programming is going to be the best tool. Computers don't think in icons.

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

#130

Post by Tichy »

alex_c wrote: post #47
Tichy wrote: post #39

I don't see why 1 to 4 shouldn't work. How many failed dating sites are there? Also, many dating sites seem to simply be a matter of efficient advertising - even if you are a newcomer, if you can pour enough money into advertising, you are all set. Machine learning: I hope Directed Edge is doing well (YC startup). Social Travel: what are some good social travel sites? I don't know any.

>How many failed dating sites are there? That's the problem, we don't know, do we?

I know a lot of successful ones and no failed ones. But asking here, maybe somebody who knows a failed one could speak up.
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