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Comment by Red_Tarsius | Hacker News Reader

I'd give a read to Start Small, Stay Small (www.startupbook.net) and other startup literature. Study Paul Graham's essays (www.paulgraham.com).

Random ideas:

- Start something like skoshbox.com, but with Indian goodies. You may not realize it, but foreign countries crave Indian tastes and flavors. I would probably pay for a monthly delivery of Indian spices and sweets.

- Start a podcast on a passion of yours. Offer free newsletter and video lessons, then charge for premium content or up-to-date episodes and consulting.

- Omegle meets paint. A collaborative canvas for children of different nationalities to meet on the Internet. No chat, no video/audio – just the canvas. Revenue may come from ads, sponsors, educational programs within the platform.

EDIT: to whoever downvoted my post, may I ask why?

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The Indian goodies subscription service might be a great startup idea (a la Graze, Pact Coffee, Dollar Shave Club...), but its hardly a passive income? Its a high involvement logistics business with a small technology involvement.

You can outsource logistics to Amazon. The support burden might be high, though.

Start Small Stay Small is essential reading IMO. I have the e-book/audio book package and I highly recommend it.

A monthly delivery of Indian spices would be incredible. If you could get it past the Canadian food inspection agency, I'd definitely subscribe (and possibly get your logo tattooed on my arm)...:)

I had been thinking of starting this service. Good quality spices are expensive. Also I think shipping costs are relatively higher from India compared to developed world. Considering these points the subscription price would have to be slightly high. Do you think there would be enough interest at a relatively high price point?

I'm confused about the need. Although I live in a small English town (pop 110,000) which has a number of shops selling a wide variety of spices.

Would you be selling small kits of spices to prepare a meal, with a recipe delivered at the same time?

Me and my wife love quality spices and experimenting with different recipes. We had been thinking of starting our own business. Sending out Indian stuff monthly is one of the ideas we had been toying with. When one thinks of stuff from India, spices seem to come at the top of the mind. (honestly we haven't thought this through yet; the idea was inspired from a Japanese candy service). I am aware that spices are available in most places in the west these days. But I guess it is not easily accessible in all the places. Convenience can be reason for someone to subscribe to the service. Another value add is accompanying details introducing the spice, its properties, uses and some sample recipes.

This is a time intensive operation. As of now, I m not convinced the returns would be high enough.

I remember coming across a start up that did just this. I couldn't find that same one again, but I did find this: http://www.thespicery.com/pages/spiceboxes/nextmonthboxes.ht...

- Indian spices idea sounds great. If anyone wants to work on it, I can transfer a domain I have: spicetsunami.com

Love the monthly Indian spices idea, especially if they are paired with recipes. Tajbox? Spicebox? Spicybox?

Spiceb.in

Please no.

Me and my wife love quality spices and different recipes. We had been thinking of starting our own business. Do you think there are enough enthusiasts willing to pay for monthly exotic spices + exciting recipes? I am trying to do market research of sorts :) If there is enough interest, will roll out the service pretty soon.

Interesting how many [realized] ideas we are unaware of... e.g I've never heard about skoshbox or Omegle.

- Also love the Omegle meets Paint idea. Easy to code, hard to market.

It's especially hard to maintain a website suitable for children on an Internet full of criminals.

I actually built this a while back with things I learned while building Flockdraw. Never released it for various reasons. Trolls are definitely a problem.

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