Ask YC: Someone builds your idea in return for equity. Good idea? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Someone builds your idea in return for equity. Good idea?

prototypeinvest.com

17 pointsshabda16 comments

Aiee! How many times has this been submitted and voted up now?

I count three, now: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176381, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176381, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176055 and

This is getting silly. At least this particular submission linked to the actual website of the people doing it...

It would be nice if a moderator could combine these threads.

I had linked to the ReadWriteWeb summary because they seemed to have a better description of what the company did than the actual Prototype website.

"Tech start-ups with an inadequate or none existing prototype, seriously diminishes the chance of being clearly understood and fully appreciated by a potential investor."

Poor grammar and a lack of editing seriously diminishes the chance of being clearly understood and fully appreciated by a potential founder.

This is more realistic in the long haul: http://hashrocket.com/ "Your idea, implemented in 3 days. No joke."

The last time I checked it cost 30k... ideas are cheap and even counting the really good ideas, a lot of people tend to have the same ones. If the idea submitters have nothing to contribute besides the idea, I feel that you're creating a self imposed 'tax' on yourselves.

I guess it's useful to you guys if you think that you're not creative enough to come up with any good ideas on your own.

I would think that anyone smart enough to build a good prototype would have a drawer full of startup ideas.

So true. I have a book full of ideas that I keep. When I have free time I add them to an excel file, write a small vba script to randomize the list then pick the top one and work on it.

I think evaluating the economic potential of an idea against the effort it requires is a better plan.

I have a text file with a long list of business ideas/plans. I have ordered them pragmatically.

But, the good business ideas aren't quite as cool or interesting as the strange things I think up and hack together. So, I often do myself a great disservice by I getting excited about a new idea and start building it instead of picking one from the top of the list.

I'm curious: how many have you completed?

Do you find yourself re-ordering potential projects because one or another seems more promising or doable?

I've launched five of the ideas off my list in the last three years. http://NearbyGamers.com is the only public success (though it's small and growing rather than big and robust). I've got one idea currently in development and am actively exploring the design and market for two others.

I reorder the list probably every six months or so as markets change, I have new resources, and I finish things. With >30 ideas on the list I know I'll never get to them all.

To be honest I do. I also pick which ones to add based on how much free time I expect to have coming up and what I'm looking for and drop some off the list totally if after a few months I start to question it's feasibility.

For example in a few months I am relocating to Australia where I will be traveling with my girlfriend for a year before picking a city to settle in for a while. With that in mind my current choices tend to settle around smaller "set and forget" sites that provide steady if small recurring incomes and things that look good on a consulting portfolio as I will probably take a few contracts as well during my travels and like to have current projects to show off.

The only question to ask is :How experienced is the team in converting ideas to businesses ?

...and if not then it's like someone attempting to build a car factory without knowing what a gearbox is.

Isn't it like a box with gear in it?

I simply love the idea - can help a lot of people. Stop whining :-)

Hello, sock puppet.

I'd be worried that their landing page is written in .NET

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