Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

news.ycombinator.com

161–170 of 214 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#161
post #41

An online-only bank (with ATM support of course) that lets you have as many "virtual" accounts as you want, and lets you set up programmatic rules for transferring money in between accounts on certain days/times, or triggered by events ("transfer $100 from B to A if account A goes below $100, and notify me by email"; "on overdraft from A, withdraw from B instead"). Then have a debit card that you can use to charge to…

Would love this.

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#163

Identify damaged roofs via satellite imagery, match to addresses, and sell the list to roofers for marketing?

How do you identify a damaged roof? Is is super obvious?

Good question. I notice missing shingles around my neighborhood all the time. Most homeowners seem pretty oblivious, not sure why. That's what gave me the idea.

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#164
A system to retrofit an appliance into a smart home.

Example: My AC has its own remote. With my device I can record the wireless signals it outputs, similar to a garage opener in a car. Then with my mobile app I can create my own interface to power on/off, set temp, etc. I now use just my smart phone to turn on my AC. I press power on the custom UI I created in the app, it will send a packet to the hardware in my LAN, and that hardware sends the matching wireless signal to the AC.

Some things might still need physical fittings and cannot always be wireless devices such as power switches. New power splitters with this functionality would also be a good way to control appliances that just need to power on and off.

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#165
post #51

A store-to-kitchen cart. I carry it in store, checkout items from within the cart - mos t current carts are clunky, heavy - one that you can push onto your car trunk and carry out into your pantry/kitchen. Basically the iPod of shopping carts. Would save billion of shopping bags, no more "paper or plastic?"

I have used something like this for years: http://www.amazon.com/Folding-Shopping-Double-Basket-Capacit...

It doesn't let you check out from within the cart itself (is that really necessary? If that is what you need, why not just create an app like the Apple Store has?), but it does let you use the same cart both in and outside the store. I bought mine since it makes it a lot easier to walk my groceries home.

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#166
post #51

A store-to-kitchen cart. I carry it in store, checkout items from within the cart - mos t current carts are clunky, heavy - one that you can push onto your car trunk and carry out into your pantry/kitchen. Basically the iPod of shopping carts. Would save billion of shopping bags, no more "paper or plastic?"

I have used something like this for years: http://www.amazon.com/Folding-Shopping-Double-Basket-Capacit... It doesn't let you check out from within the cart itself (is that really necessary? If that is what you need, why not just create an app like the Apple Store has?), but it does let you use the same cart both in and outside the store. I bought mine since it makes it a lot easier to walk my groceries home.

I too have used that, but it's clunky & unwieldy. Need something more senior-friendly, better ergonomics e.g. something that folds up into your car trunk like a stretcher for ambulances. Make it fashionable to bring your cart to store.

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#168
post #7

A Verilog/VHDL killer.

There's Chisel (Scala based) the LowRisc team from Berkeley are using[1]. It can output Verilog and also compiles to cycle accurate simulators. There's also PSHDL from Karsten Becker[2] at TUHH. It's immature and seems to be focused on teaching at the moment. [1] https://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu/ [2] http://blog.pshdl.org/

Hi, just a quick correction - the Berkeley RISC-V team are not one and the same with the lowRISC team. We collaborate with them, and we have Krste on our technical advisory board. We are of course also using Chisel though.

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#169
post #41

An online-only bank (with ATM support of course) that lets you have as many "virtual" accounts as you want, and lets you set up programmatic rules for transferring money in between accounts on certain days/times, or triggered by events ("transfer $100 from B to A if account A goes below $100, and notify me by email"; "on overdraft from A, withdraw from B instead"). Then have a debit card that you can use to charge to…

Capital One 360 (formerly ING Direct) does nearly all of this. Anecdotally, I do much of what you describe and such a system is nearly my most valuable financial asset.

They do and it's very helpful, however, since they are technically "savings" accounts and CapitalOne 360 (like all banks) makes more money the longer we keep our cash in one place, they limit the number of transactions out of any of those accounts to 6 per month.

For that and other reasons, I think the proposed system is worth exploring.

I will say though, I'm a very happy 360 customer.

Re: Ask HN: What's your best startup idea that you're not going to pursue?

#170
post #110

Uber for digitizing, storage and disposal. I have boxes and boxes of tapes, disks, notebooks, books, and photos. All of which I'd prefer to have digital. Other physical things could be digitized with video, photographs, and scans. I would take them to my street corner and a driver would pick them up and deliver them to a digitizer. They could show up in the cloud a week later, or be delivered back to me in a hard dri…

Considering myself a minimalist I have tried to do this on a much smaller scale: for myself.

I ran into a big problem: how do I label/organize this mess of both physical/digital memories? What are your thoughts on that specific part of the problem? How would you solve it? More importantly, how would you automate it?

Post reply on HN