Pitch totally unrealistic Startup ideas.
Why do this? Well think of it like a brute-force brainstorming method. Very low SNR but hopefully a few of these will inspire someone to come up with a realistic/sane/good idea.
Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
1–10 of 209 posts
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#2I will start:
* Online Grocery shopping with Automated reordering. The service provides a small RFID scanner for the trash can, and all items are tagged with a RFID. Anytime it's thrown away, the items are reordered (such as milk/eggs/drinks). Would work with your local grocery shop.
* A everything recommendations system (such as Amazon's you might also like) except spans all things (not just things to buy, but also places to go visit, people, idealogies, match making, hobbies, cars, music, etc). Data sources would include websites you buy stuff, social networks, your bank information, gps info, phone calls, browsing methods, your private data, your photos, music, everything. (heh, privacy nightmare).
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#3I will start: * Online Grocery shopping with Automated reordering. The service provides a small RFID scanner for the trash can, and all items are tagged with a RFID. Anytime it's thrown away, the items are reordered (such as milk/eggs/drinks). Would work with your local grocery shop. * A everything recommendations system (such as Amazon's you might also like ) except spans all things (not just things to buy, but also…
This for washing clothes would be good. Put a reader in the hamper and track all dirty clothes going into it. Notify me when there is enough similarly coloured stuff there to do a wash, or when I'm running out of clean necessary items. Also, tell me to start washing stuff in advance of long trips away.
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#4Movie Software that provides stock footage of fixed sets (homes, gardens, etc) and places you in those settings perfectly. Also same with cars and so on - the software should be at a level where you could make a full movie without ever leaving your home.
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#51. Go on a diet.
2. Open [web|desktop] app.
3. Select diet plan (atkins; south beach; XYZ etc).
4. Select number of people in household.
5. Select number of people on diet.
6. Select dietary options (eg gluten-free).
7. Select budget.
8. Add credentials and payment details for preferred online grocery store.
9. App notes diet plan and previous shopping activity to reduce duplication, finds recipes and extracts ingredients
10. App creates shopping cart automagically based on the above (and probably more besides) and purchases.
11. App records purchases.
I've wondered for the last 4 or 5 years since I have had this idea whether this would actually be something to pitch to the retailers rather than the consumers.
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#6Hire a bunch of people to walk around large markets in other countries, such as India, with wireless webcams attached to their heads. Shoppers can then direct these people to various stands, barter, and purchase stuff through a web interface.
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#7Patented training method for teaching pets to do house work.
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#8Plastic bags that are not a pain to open.
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#9A washer/dryer combo that works as a single unit, so that you don't have to move things manually from one to the other.
I see it as a 2 story contraption, washer on top, dryer on the bottom. After the washer is done, a trap door opens and the clothes fall into the dryer, which then auto-starts.
As you can guess, I was doing laundry recently
Re: Brainstorm HN: Outlandish Startup Ideas Pool
#10Wikiocracy: instead of electing legislators, you use a wiki environment to build a corpus of legislation and manage legal cases, with limited commit ability (eg no more than monthly or so...don't want to make long post). For a small fee, contracts can be registered and arbitrated like a private arbitration service, minus the expensive pay-to-play which usually decides on behalf of the larger entity.
It quietly supplants the the private and later the public legal system by providing a superior open source alternative.