At some point I had the idea for an RFID bracelet. Ideally, it would be targeted to trade shows. I went to one previously the best tech they had was these cards that you had to go and manually scan at each booth.
Anyhow, the idea was that each bracelet would have an RFID card, and an RFID reader. When you shook hands with someone, it would read their ID #. So, you're not only physically meeting someone, but logging them as someone you met. When you got back to your hotel that night, you plug it into your computer and it pulls up everyone's bio (picture, name, company, email address, etc).
It's hard to explain. I try to understand why the person thinks the idea is good rather than try to figure out why the idea is bad. The realization that most ideas evolve over time also means that the initial idea you dismiss will most likely change.
It's really just about taking the time to better understand an idea, and trying hard not to dismiss it.
It never occured to me that celebrities would start using the platform. I still don't think that Twitter would be anywhere near where it is now if not for the endorsement by many celebrities.
For any fixed odd number of friends k you could keep the network consistent by only allowing people to join in groups (call them "cells") of m, where m is even and greater than k.
"Sorry, Gary. Come talk to me when you have 558 friends. Gare? I'm sorry, Gare, those are the rules. Everyone has to be equal. It doesn't matter if you'll never have 558 friends and I only had to find 32. Everyone's equal! Don't you see, Gary! Gary? Gare? What are you doing. Sic semper what? Aughhhh."
Color (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs). The idea behind the app was flawed (as in "why would anyone need this?"), and they made no attempt to hide the fact that the underlying idea was datamining/advertisement.
I don't think Color is a terrible idea. The concept of group photo collaboration, where many people who don't know each other can contribute to the same photo album (i.e. during an event/etc) isn't that bad. Their execution for the ludicrous amount of money they raised was most definitely embarrassing though.
For awhile, it was Twitter. Then someone came out with the idea of a Twitter you pay for (App.net), and since then it's been at the top of my list. Even when they're both making billions, I'll still believe they're stupid.
No worries, it's a slightly confusing concept. You can basically crowdfund cash prizes for anything you want to see get done in the world. Teams then apply for the prize with proof that they've accomplished the prize's goals.
Assuming I want, say somebody to build a new kind of genetically altered flower, I can ask all my friends and people around the world who would also like to have this kind of flower to pledge a certain amount of money.
A group of genetic engineers someplace in the world notice that me and my troop have collectively pledged, say $500k, and the genetic engineers actually spend some time and make such a flower. They send us a video, and we trust they've built it. We get flowers, and they get the money.
Yes, those are the broad strokes. For that prize amount, you would probably have multiple teams applying for the prize and providing proof of their accomplishments, and the donors would then vote on whose project best accomplishes the prize's goals.
All ideas that were the seeds for multi-billion dollar companies.
They sounded stupid^W bound to fail at first, especially before seeing the implementation / impact:
Better search engine with no sponsored listings, seamless sync and backups, short status updates blasted to your followers, better social network, animated movies that target adults, online book store (without a book store experience), $4 lattes ...
Some ideas that sounded awesome and turned out to be awesome:
Open source and breakfast bars.
To be fair, many considered open source to be blindingly stupid -- "Anyone can edit the source? That would be madness! And why would anyone just contribute hours and hours of their time? Why do you think Microsoft pays their programmers so much."
But then, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -Carl Sagan"
Better Search Engine / Better Social Network - By definition, something that's better than an existing product that's wildly popular isn't stupid. I personally think that social networks are stupid, but by the time Facebook came out, it was obvious that most people didn't.
Seamless Sync and Backups - This is an obviously useful concept, we just needed to wait for the technology to arrive.
Short Status Updates - Agreed.
Animated Movies that Target Adults - Animated movies originally targeted adults. Also, in Japan they have targeted adults for decades. The small group of anime fans in America gradually grew into a billion dollar empire. American companies waited for the business to be lucrative before they started making their own. How is that stupid?
Online Book Store - Might as well say the entire eCommerce industry is stupid. Selling stuff on-line is about as obvious and sensible as it gets.
> "By definition, something that's better than an existing product that's wildly popular isn't stupid", "This is an obviously useful concept, we just needed to wait for the technology to arrive."
In retrospect, yes, absolutely. But when you first hear it, having seen many other attempts, it seems bound to fail or at least don't seem like a billion dollar idea. Hence the "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
It might have been foolish for Facebook if they had started out thinking that they were guaranteed to dethrone Myspace, but that's not how it happened.
The idea of having all of your stuff get automatically backed up and synced with all of your devices seemed like a billion dollar idea the first time someone mentioned it. It just didn't seem feasible until recently. That's not the same as it being a stupid idea.
I'm going to give this a serious response even though I know you're referring to a well-known cliche for startup ideas.
I was talking to a fairly smart VC recently and he made a good point -- while everyone likes to use "Facebook for Cats" as a joke about bad startup ideas, it's not actually a bad idea.
A lot of people REALLY like their pets. And they spend a lot of money on them. And they like to share pictures of them with their pet-owning friends (go see /r/aww if you don't believe me.)
It basically hasn't been done right (yet), but I wouldn't be surprised if something that looks like Facebook for Pets does actually become a thing at some point.
This website gives customizeable one page profiles for your pets. Seems pretty heavily used, I signed up one time and I get emails every couple of days because another user "loved" my pet.
Mine: It's based on a Seinfeld episode where George makes up a fake charity and gives cards to people "A donation has been made in your name to Human Fund".
Say you want to gift someone but you don't know what they want / don't want to buy more stuff / etc. So you buy a card that has a message ("Happy Birthday!" or whatever) and a number of credits associated with it and you give it to someone. The person, then, can use the credits to give things to non-profits, like a shirt for the homeless, or some food for a orphanage.
That's not really a terrible idea. Well, except I'm too selfish and would be pissed if I had to give my birthday gift to someone else. I bet corporations would love that though. It LOOKS like they're giving the employee a birthday present but it's actually a tax deductible donation. Win-win.
Crowdsourcing vigilantism (or random violent assault) - whoneedsabeating.com - snap a photo with your phone, location is tagged and timestamped, optional tweet with why the subject needs a beating.
For free subscriber's beat-down requests are published only with city, photo and reason. Paid subscribers get street address published with beat-down request.
I had an idea for single mothers to post info about deadbeat dads for others to avoid. However, after thinking about it for a bit, I realized it would turn into what you were proposing and decided against it.
I actually feel like there could be significant value in something like this.
Imagine a platform where restaurants, bakeries, anyone with excess food that would otherwise go to waste, could get "points" for availing that excess inventory to those in need. It might be similar to the model used by Shelter Partnership (http://www.shelterpartnership.org/).
In a nutshell, they solicit donations from major manufacturers (think Johnson & Johnson, et. al.) for totally-usable products that can't be sold on store shelves for whatever reason - i.e. a typo on the packaging. They provide some receipt giving J&J the opportunity to seek some tax benefit for the donation at a discount of the retail-price, and needy people get the products for free.
I don't see a compelling reason why something like this couldn't work in major metro areas. Bakeries could get some off-set for donating bread; grocery stores could get some off-set for donating otherwise-spoiling fruits and veggies, etc.
I like the idea, physical distribution will be the problem though. Most stores don't mind donating things to the needy that would go to waste otherwise - but no one wants to have the homeless congregate around their store chasing away business.
There would be substantial value for this to exist in addition, or in cooperation, with food banks.
Definitely would need cooperation with food banks / other charities in order to handle distribution. It's important that i) the homeless folks aren't chasing away business, and ii) that you aren't supplying a population of potential customers turned dumpster-divers (i.e. physical separation from the location).
I could see this being a valuable tool for food banks to build relationships with willing-entities that otherwise wouldn't want to bother with setting up the relationship and keeping track of items donated.
If it were very simple:
- Bakery downloads App "Free Food"
- Plug in estimated donation
- Get matched with a willing food bank
- Pictures to confirm donation from both parties
- Some agreed-upon "value" (points) for said donation
- Food bank takes and re-distributes
Win-Win-Win
Bakery does good and maybe gets some benefit; Food bank gets more food (as long as the collection ROI makes sense); and hungry people eat food that would otherwise end up in the trash.
FlashFood, a student startup from Phoenix, is doing this. They have a network of vendors and volunteers who connect perishable food with existing infrastructure like food banks and soup kitchens.
Somewhat relevant... I had an idea to set up accounts for street performers. If you were near one it would send you a notification, you could easily drop them a tip through the app. They aggregated in an account somewhere until they were able to make it to a computer (hell, anyone can go into a library right?). You can rate people, find where they play, etc. Why not?
'Lets put qr codes on "welcome to $town" signs than when someone scans them with their phone, its loads a website advertising various things you can do/buy/participate in around town.'
You would be able to snap a picture of your barista, put in where they work and rate them on things like:
Skill
Speed
Attractiveness
Friendliness
It all started to feel kind of creepy, because I knew the "attractiveness" would become the most important thing, then you'd have guys using it as an excuse to be creepy. Anyhow, there are barista competitions so it seemed like something worth measuring. Also, a lot of times the quality of the coffee in many places is on an even playing field and the person making it starts to become more important. Never went through with it though.
App that you use to report empty parking spaces. That earns you karma points. You can then spend the karma points to get reports of nearby parking spots when you need them.
90 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 149 ms ] threadAnyhow, the idea was that each bracelet would have an RFID card, and an RFID reader. When you shook hands with someone, it would read their ID #. So, you're not only physically meeting someone, but logging them as someone you met. When you got back to your hotel that night, you plug it into your computer and it pulls up everyone's bio (picture, name, company, email address, etc).
After that, I changed the way I thought.
Twitter just allows them to communicate publicly.
People use knife to cook food, but also use to same to commit murder.
It's really just about taking the time to better understand an idea, and trying hard not to dismiss it.
That should be on the HN faq regarding "Show HN" posts.
It never occured to me that celebrities would start using the platform. I still don't think that Twitter would be anywhere near where it is now if not for the endorsement by many celebrities.
http://jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+January+2011+edition
I should do another one of these, it's been way too long.
(Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_graph)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6374377
Edit: Maybe that came off as rude, but I really don't get the idea. You pay somebody for something you want to see done? What?
You basically can crowdfund your own X-Prizes.
A group of genetic engineers someplace in the world notice that me and my troop have collectively pledged, say $500k, and the genetic engineers actually spend some time and make such a flower. They send us a video, and we trust they've built it. We get flowers, and they get the money.
Am I right?
They sounded stupid^W bound to fail at first, especially before seeing the implementation / impact:
Better search engine with no sponsored listings, seamless sync and backups, short status updates blasted to your followers, better social network, animated movies that target adults, online book store (without a book store experience), $4 lattes ...
Some ideas that sounded awesome and turned out to be awesome:
Open source and breakfast bars.
To be fair, many considered open source to be blindingly stupid -- "Anyone can edit the source? That would be madness! And why would anyone just contribute hours and hours of their time? Why do you think Microsoft pays their programmers so much."
But then, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -Carl Sagan"
Seamless Sync and Backups - This is an obviously useful concept, we just needed to wait for the technology to arrive.
Short Status Updates - Agreed.
Animated Movies that Target Adults - Animated movies originally targeted adults. Also, in Japan they have targeted adults for decades. The small group of anime fans in America gradually grew into a billion dollar empire. American companies waited for the business to be lucrative before they started making their own. How is that stupid?
Online Book Store - Might as well say the entire eCommerce industry is stupid. Selling stuff on-line is about as obvious and sensible as it gets.
In retrospect, yes, absolutely. But when you first hear it, having seen many other attempts, it seems bound to fail or at least don't seem like a billion dollar idea. Hence the "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
The idea of having all of your stuff get automatically backed up and synced with all of your devices seemed like a billion dollar idea the first time someone mentioned it. It just didn't seem feasible until recently. That's not the same as it being a stupid idea.
<existing social network> for <pet>
I was talking to a fairly smart VC recently and he made a good point -- while everyone likes to use "Facebook for Cats" as a joke about bad startup ideas, it's not actually a bad idea.
A lot of people REALLY like their pets. And they spend a lot of money on them. And they like to share pictures of them with their pet-owning friends (go see /r/aww if you don't believe me.)
It basically hasn't been done right (yet), but I wouldn't be surprised if something that looks like Facebook for Pets does actually become a thing at some point.
This website gives customizeable one page profiles for your pets. Seems pretty heavily used, I signed up one time and I get emails every couple of days because another user "loved" my pet.
Say you want to gift someone but you don't know what they want / don't want to buy more stuff / etc. So you buy a card that has a message ("Happy Birthday!" or whatever) and a number of credits associated with it and you give it to someone. The person, then, can use the credits to give things to non-profits, like a shirt for the homeless, or some food for a orphanage.
For free subscriber's beat-down requests are published only with city, photo and reason. Paid subscribers get street address published with beat-down request.
or you could have beaters bid on the job...
this could be bigger than eBay!
On a related note, has anyone actually tried building a cypherpunk-style assassination market?
1) Train fish to swim towards some chemical/compound whatever you want to detect
2) Put valves at different places in the tank, where you can put in the diluted sample
3) Detect the "swarm opinion" via webcam and computer vision
I never found a good application for this...
Imagine a platform where restaurants, bakeries, anyone with excess food that would otherwise go to waste, could get "points" for availing that excess inventory to those in need. It might be similar to the model used by Shelter Partnership (http://www.shelterpartnership.org/).
In a nutshell, they solicit donations from major manufacturers (think Johnson & Johnson, et. al.) for totally-usable products that can't be sold on store shelves for whatever reason - i.e. a typo on the packaging. They provide some receipt giving J&J the opportunity to seek some tax benefit for the donation at a discount of the retail-price, and needy people get the products for free.
I don't see a compelling reason why something like this couldn't work in major metro areas. Bakeries could get some off-set for donating bread; grocery stores could get some off-set for donating otherwise-spoiling fruits and veggies, etc.
There would be substantial value for this to exist in addition, or in cooperation, with food banks.
I could see this being a valuable tool for food banks to build relationships with willing-entities that otherwise wouldn't want to bother with setting up the relationship and keeping track of items donated.
If it were very simple:
- Bakery downloads App "Free Food"
- Plug in estimated donation
- Get matched with a willing food bank
- Pictures to confirm donation from both parties
- Some agreed-upon "value" (points) for said donation
- Food bank takes and re-distributes
Win-Win-Win
Bakery does good and maybe gets some benefit; Food bank gets more food (as long as the collection ROI makes sense); and hungry people eat food that would otherwise end up in the trash.
FYI, I wrote about this idea very briefly way back when: http://peterkimfrank.com/2013/01/21/doing-well-by-doing-good...
Ooops, forgot the topic -- that is indeed a truly idiotic idea.
Seriously I'm probably the worst person to ask. Almost every startup idea sound ridiculous to me.
You would be able to snap a picture of your barista, put in where they work and rate them on things like: Skill Speed Attractiveness Friendliness
It all started to feel kind of creepy, because I knew the "attractiveness" would become the most important thing, then you'd have guys using it as an excuse to be creepy. Anyhow, there are barista competitions so it seemed like something worth measuring. Also, a lot of times the quality of the coffee in many places is on an even playing field and the person making it starts to become more important. Never went through with it though.
http://uktv.co.uk/dave/article/aid/635224