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

171–180 of 220 posts

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

#171

Post by jodrellblank »

dnsworks wrote: post #114

Geeks are so incredibly negative it's why I end up trying to convince friends to find a better career filled with happier people whenever they ask how to get into the tech field. There's nothing more pathetic then that guy who is the born skeptic and can't see beyond his own inability to find success, constantly putting down every idea his friends give him. I'm told that's what it's like trying to do a start-up in En…

I'm told that's what it's like trying to do a start-up in England.

That's what it's like trying to do anything in England.

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

#172

Post by nailer »

blhack wrote: post #67
treo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one advice: mod_python is more or less dead (Last Release in 2007) you should probably switch to mod_wsgi.

Thanks for the advice, I'll try that instead :)

Out of interest, are you on Twitter? I found your above post pretty insightful, like that you work on a whole bunch of stuff - I'd like to add you my list of cool people who hack Python and keep in touch.

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

#173

Post by chwahoo »

I think the wrong-headed idea that many nerds have is that creating a startup is mostly about having a brilliant idea. If someone comes along and creates something similar to their idea, they think "that could have been me."

I suspect that the real value comes from execution of the idea, perseverance, and willingness to let your idea evolve until you've created something that people want. Often folks fail to recognize that the ability to execute and evolve (and be willing to fail) are traits that we don't all have, and so it's very possible that it couldn't have been them.

While there are probably some ideas that are doomed to fail, I don't think that label applies to any of the ones from the original post.

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

#174

Post by ig1 »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #118
ig1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kijiji and Gumtree have also succeeded in this space (albeit in different countries). What's killing Craigslist/gumtree/etc in practice is their generality, they're no longer the dominant player in their most profitable markets (jobs, dating, housing) all of which are being carved away by specialist sites.

If Craigslist is getting killed, they sure are making a lot of money doing it.

TV killed the Radio, doesn't stop radio being a big business.

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

#176

Post by prawn »

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.

Anyone tried a dating site that works more like a deal-a-day site? I've had that on my list for a while. Figured that if you give people 100+ prospective partners, they will hunt for the best (who might be out of their league) and get nowhere. If you show them one at a time, they might make a "would I go on a date with this person" choice.

HotOrNot tries throwing people at you in a sequence, but do you really make a proper decision when you know there are countless more around the corner?

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

#177

Post by rick888 »

allwein wrote: post #6

In my day (I'm only 32), the startup ideas everyone always wanted to do were: 1. A better bug/issue tracking system 2. A custom CMS 3. A code library/platform for easily building Business CRUD apps. 4. A word processing app that has only the 20% features that 80% of Word users use. 5. A better classmates.com

It reminds me of the Joelonsoftware community. When the forums were actually active, there seemed to be another time tracking app popping up every few weeks.

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

#178

Post by rick888 »

juliamae wrote: post #107
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.

I've tried a few niche dating sites. I think a new dating site can work. However, you will always have the problem in the beginning of not having enough profiles.

For a dating site to be successful, you need to have lots of startup capital for marketing.

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

#179

Post by brc »

allwein wrote: post #6

In my day (I'm only 32), the startup ideas everyone always wanted to do were: 1. A better bug/issue tracking system 2. A custom CMS 3. A code library/platform for easily building Business CRUD apps. 4. A word processing app that has only the 20% features that 80% of Word users use. 5. A better classmates.com

Don't forget about 'better' ebays. I've seen serious money wasted on people thinking they could out-do ebay 7 or 8 years ago. Usually by companies already in the auction space who thought they could bring their experience and contacts to the game and win.

Nowadays nobody bothers, but the online auction space was very attractive for a lot of people.

ebay still has a lot of flaws but the name is a verb for selling something online. You don't see many people trying to take them on anymore.

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

#180

Post by JonnieCache »

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...

> - A drag and drop interface that lets you make any program you want...totally code-free

Many electronic music artists create enormously complex applications with visual drag and drop languages, doing everything from sound synthesis to video processing to interfacing with microelectronics, with complex user interfaces recently moving to multitouch.

The main two languages are Reaktor and Max/MSP

Post reply on HN