Ask HN: Anyone have any good startup ideas?
My friends and I are in college. Just closed our last company. On to the next one, but can't come up with any ideas. Anyone have anything interesting they want built?
I'd focus on working on projects and rolling them out. See if people use them. If you can find a way to monetize, do it. Just build things to get experience. Don't try to start a start-up just cause.
I guess my behavior is the exact opposite: I won't start a project then try to monetize it, I prefer to look at what people are likely to spend money on and then build that. That seems more in line with what the OP is trying to do.
I can't tell you the countless times my college friend came up with a "great" idea. Even went as far as registering an LLC. I quickly dismiss most of his "great" ideas with 5 minutes of googling.
Starting a company means you need to invest ALL of your free time into building the company, product, acquiring customers, etc.
Most people register an LLC with their crappy idea and think they are running a company. Unless you are willing to drop out of school and invest 80 hours a week building this company, it's probably not worth it.
The reason PG suggests to build things that don't scale, is because getting experience building applications is far more valuable than trying to force a stupid idea into a business. Building applications that already exist just for fun, will open your mind. Once you start connecting different ideas together, organically, an idea worth becoming a business will come to mind.
You can sit and brainstorm ideas all day, but the best ideas, the ones that can turn into a business, they just come to you out of the ordinary.
The ones that are truly start-up worthy are those you personally believe in, have a considerable market opportunity, and the timing is right. Those are more rare, but if you make a concerted effort to keep thinking and re-thinking your ideas, you'll come up with one for sure.
Don't make a business to be successful, that's usually going to end in tears. Make a business to scratch an itch you have you can't ignore. Even if you fail you'll still feel like you've done something important, and if you succeed you'll be satisfied.
Obviously you'll push for the best possible outcome.
The alternative is like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute and hoping to hit a haystack. It's probably not going to happen. Most startups implode before they get any traction, it's a fact.
Most restaurants in big cities offer delivery service by hiring and managing their own delivery people. Restaurants probably don't want to be in the business of hiring and managing these delivery people. It also doesn't make sense logistically as the delivery person has to make a round trip. Also, demand spikes and troughs result in a lot of delivery people sitting around or over-worked. There needs to be a more flexible labor-force.
It would be more efficient if you have delivery people be able to contact out to restaurants. For instance, a delivery person can pick up a package going from A->B and then pick up another package going from B->C, resulting in less time spent on the return. There would be a reputation aspect to the delivery people and everything would be pre-paid or, if cash on delivery, would be settled by the app.
The other good thing is that, although the idea benefits from network effects, it could work very well in a small geographically limited location. You could test the idea by signing up just two restaurants on the opposite side of town and work out any kinks.
Not sure if anyone is getting into this space, but considering a lot of wealth is created by specializing, it seems silly that restaurant managers should have to deal with a delivery work-force with (I imagine) high turnover. I could definitely see a Seamless or OpenTable get into this space, if not already involved.
Also seems expensive. People aren't used to paying for delivery and would much rather have that baked into the price. I think focusing on restaurants as customers would be a better strategy.
At the same time, maybe this is a point you should get an internship or job to gain the experience to know what might be of interest. I personally never recommend that a college student go looking to start a company unless they already have a really deep passion for an issue and it is marketable. Otherwise, in my experience and opinion, your failure rate will be way higher, almost a guarantee.
Now that we know this, we are struggling to find an idea that we can build, but also have time to grow during the school year as well.
Create/brainstorm solutions to all of these problems you encounter. And work through a realistic way to implement the solutions.
Some of these ideas/solutions will be terrible. Most won't make sense as a business, or won't have a market, or will be beyond what you think you're capable of. But something should stick. MVP it, and then iterate.
Since you are interning go and talk to the sales, marketing and business dev teams and ask them questions. As an intern you have the freedom to ask all kinds of questions and no one will really think twice. Just try to get away from the development group when you are asking a lot of the questions because they typically aren't seeing the opportunities only the items presented to them, and many times their presence will keep sales teams from speaking freely.
Your smart to not just jump on an idea, if you don't like it or don't feel totally energized by it then it isn't a good fit for you. Doesn't mean someone can't do it and be successful, but you likely wouldn't if you aren't totally engaged and super energized.
Keep it up and Good luck!
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Maybe a local Uber-like business. One that only servers one city.
There are so many problems out there, it's difficult to believe they're not obvious to you all. If you're one of those that just can't see, I recommend you stay away from starting things. I'd rather the world not be introduced to yet another disaster.
See the ideas from comments above? They're PERFECT examples of the worst possible thing humanity could build next. That echo chamber is unreal.
Based, on your comments nothing is worth building. We should encourage innovation, rather than knock people for just asking a question of what ideas they think are worth building.