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20,000 Startup Ideas

461 pointsby overlordsover 5 years ago

61 comments

davidwover 5 years ago
You could generate even more startup ideas by running a Markov chain thing on these!<p>* Check with customers to determine their usefulness.<p>* Inoculate animals against various diseases, such as internships.<p>* Review product promotional materials, and physical fitness.<p>* Monitor computer-controlled test equipment, using germicides and sterilizers.<p>* Transpose music to alternate keys, or to towers.<p>* Operate farm machinery, such as espresso machines.<p>* Document software defects, using hand and horn signals.<p>* Prepare bank deposits, or performing arts.<p>* Run errands, such as animal dehorning or castration.<p>* Forecast staff, equipment, utensils, and silverware.
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Geeeover 5 years ago
These are not startup ideas, but activities that people do. A startup-idea might be to find a way to make these activities easier.<p>To make this list more useful, there should be two additional datapoints: 1. How many people does the activity impact 2. How much does the activity impact each person. The product of these would be the total impact. Sorting by the amount of impact would give the most valuable areas for innovation, and there should already be a plenty of businesses focused on these activities.
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fencepostover 5 years ago
Even without the list being suitable for mockery, ideas are <i>EASY</i>. Ideas are like opinions, everybody has one. Take a shower, have some ideas. Go out for drinks, hear a bunch of drunk people talking about the great idea they just had. Winnowing out the chaff (not done here) is harder because not everyone agrees on what&#x27;s chaff, and building a successful company for any of many definitions of success is harder still.<p>The idea is when an egg is fertilized. Producing a baby is a lot more work, and producing a successful adult is a lot more beyond that.
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jcadamover 5 years ago
&gt; 4678. Develop transactional Web applications, using Web programming software and knowledge of programming languages, such as hypertext markup language (HTML) and extensible markup language (XML).<p>Where has this list been all my life? I could have been a zillionaire....
colinwilybover 5 years ago
I enjoy how some of them run together. 10933 and 10934 as an example:<p>Clean, shape, and polish fingernails and toenails, using files and nail polish.<p>Remove bones, and cut meat into standard cuts in preparation for marketing.
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eloisantover 5 years ago
Well, considering ideas are a dime a dozen this site is worth 20,000 &#x2F; 12 * $0.1 = $167.<p>Maybe less actually :)
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hermes0over 5 years ago
Looks a bit random.<p>If you give the start of this list to transformer<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;talktotransformer.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;talktotransformer.com&#x2F;</a><p>the generated ones look as good as those, example:<p>5.Evaluate a vehicle&#x27;s operation and use of the system and record information on the system, such as the number of miles driven, total mileage, speed, and odometer reading. 6.Prepare and administer reports to provide data on vehicle performance, and to support vehicle performance maintenance and repair.
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dpcanover 5 years ago
Could a massive list like this help stop frivolous patents from being viable, or granted? Perhaps if all people could just add their ideas to this list, over time, we could prevent the ability for anyone to patent anything if the idea already existed.<p>Or do I still not understand patents?<p>Could this list exist at a stop-patents type website where even the patent office could do a quick search to see if an idea is unique and original, or has been thought of easily already and put on big list?
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BlameKanedaover 5 years ago
&gt; 10799. Align wheels.<p>Okay.<p>&gt; 11031. Transport the deceased to the funeral home.<p>I think we&#x27;ve found another use for robots.
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orangepandaover 5 years ago
&gt; 7384. Prepare customers&#x27; nails in soapy water, using swabs, files, and orange sticks.<p>Some are oddly specific
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xntrkover 5 years ago
&quot;524. Solicit new business.&quot; how did i never think of this before...
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AaronNewcomerover 5 years ago
Word Cloud: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;2Tjjo6S.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;2Tjjo6S.png</a>
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bepitulazover 5 years ago
Idea 20100, make a filtering and full text search service for all of these ideas for better reading experience.
whalesaladover 5 years ago
This is hilarious. The first one that caught my eye was helping passengers leave and airplane.<p>Was this an ML project? This looks like the output of a very basic machine learning project.<p>The commentary here is the best part of this. As (un)valuable as this list may be, it definitely gets the wheels turning in your mind.
marvielover 5 years ago
&quot;883: Design computers and the software that runs them.&quot;<p>Seems to check out
hilmarhover 5 years ago
&gt; 12064. Manage leasing of facility space.<p>Sounds profitable.
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cabaalisover 5 years ago
Just prepend &quot;Uber for &quot; or append &quot; for developers&quot; and this is indeed a startup idea list.<p>Also:<p>&gt; 20. Carry messages or documents between departments.<p>&quot;I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can&#x27;t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?&quot;
saalweachterover 5 years ago
Unsurprisingly, contains some duplicates:<p>#11755: Separate scrap waste and related materials for reuse, recycling, or disposal.<p>#11784: Separate scrap or waste materials for recycling, reuse, or environmentally sound disposal.<p>#11997: Identify or separate waste products or materials for recycling or reuse.
kuuover 5 years ago
<p><pre><code> 2948. Deliver babies.</code></pre>
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_Nat_over 5 years ago
To clarify, is this meant as a joke of some sort?<p>Just not sure if it&#x27;s just a satirical thing -- like, &quot;<i>Hah, look at the silly word jumbles my script generated!</i>&quot; -- or if it&#x27;s meant as a tool for something.
vincent-toupsover 5 years ago
This combined with the WeWork news is not doing anything to counter my opinion that startup culture is both practically vacuous and morally bankrupt.
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Rainymoodover 5 years ago
&gt;1556. Enter data into computers for use in analyses or reports<p>Literally scale.ai
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homonculus1over 5 years ago
A few of these are totally ripe for disruption!<p>&gt;51. Conduct raids and order detention of witnesses and suspects for questioning.
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hnal943over 5 years ago
Is this what people mean when they say that start up ideas are worthless? Or is this a joke?
k__over 5 years ago
I subscribed to a few newsletters that would send me startup ideas and problems to solve on a daily basis.<p>But somehow that didn&#x27;t do anything for me.<p>Some even would offer to connect me to people with the problem, but I had the feeling even with people who would say &quot;I have problem X and I&#x27;d pay for a solution&quot; the whole process was still too abstract for me.<p>I think this has more to do with the business side of things than with talking to potential customers and implementing a solution.<p>How do I start? What are good first steps if you don&#x27;t know anyone, don&#x27;t have a network etc.
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martin_aover 5 years ago
&gt; 7819. Participate or assist in raids and arrests.<p>Yeah, well, not sure about this one.
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chrismorganover 5 years ago
The five shortest ones (11, 13, 13, 13 and 13 characters long):<p>&gt; 874. Carve meat.<p>&gt; 5221. Dig trenches.<p>&gt; 8361. Graft plants.<p>&gt; 10799. Align wheels.<p>&gt; 16441. Shampoo hair.<p>And the five longest ones (291, 305, 308, 317 and 332 characters long):<p>&gt; 6231. Keep abreast of government regulations and emerging Web technology to ensure regulatory compliance by reviewing current literature, talking with colleagues, participating in educational programs, attending meetings or workshops, or participating in professional organizations or conferences.<p>&gt; 12863. Design, develop, select, test, implement, and evaluate new or modified informatics solutions, data structures, and decision-support mechanisms to support patients, health care professionals, and their information management and human-computer and human-technology interactions within health care contexts.<p>&gt; 7530. Keep abreast of game design technology and techniques, industry trends, or audience interests, reactions, and needs by reviewing current literature, talking with colleagues, participating in educational programs, attending meetings or workshops, or participating in professional organizations or conferences.<p>&gt; 4806. Direct environmental programs, such as air or water compliance, aboveground or underground storage tanks, spill prevention or control, hazardous waste or materials management, solid waste recycling, medical waste management, indoor air quality, integrated pest management, employee training, or disaster preparedness.<p>&gt; 5895. Compute, retrace, or adjust existing surveys of features such as highway alignments, property boundaries, utilities, control and other surveys to match the ground elevation-dependent grids, geodetic grids, or property boundaries and to ensure accuracy and continuity of data used in engineering, surveying, or construction projects.<p>---<p>My method for determining these things (which may be of interest to some), using just my favourite text editor, rather than slurping it into a REPL for some programming language and manipulating it thus:<p>1. Copy the whole document to the clipboard;<p>2. Paste in Vim (and note at this point that lists lose their markers in favour of just a tab character, so the numbers disappear);<p>3. Manually remove everything that’s not the list;<p>4. Manually remove the tab at the start of each line with `:%s&#x2F;^\t&#x2F;&#x2F;` or block selection (this could also be done in the next step with slight modification, matching `^\t\(.\+)` and using `submatch(1)`);<p>5. Prefix each line with its length and the line number using `:%s&#x2F;.\+&#x2F;\=len(submatch(0)) . &quot;\t&quot; . line(&quot;.&quot;) . &quot;. &quot; . submatch(0)` (I actually used asterisk instead of \+, but HN formatting hates unmatched asterisks; see `:help sub-replace-\=`; another approach for the line number part alone would have been to block-insert `1.\t` on every line, then block-select all but the first, and use `g&lt;CTRL-A&gt;` to increment them, see `:help v_g_CTRL-A`);<p>6. Sort by line length with `:sort n` (since I had put it at the start of the line for convenience);<p>7. Optionally strip the character counts out again with `:%s&#x2F;^\d\+\t&#x2F;&#x2F;` or similar.<p>sub-replace-\= and v_g_CTRL-A are among my favourite not-so-well-known Vim features. They’re not useful very often, but when they are, they’re <i>really</i> great.
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marceloabsousaover 5 years ago
Great stuff - however, one thing that is missing is the ability to discuss these ideas in a forum-like medium. This is why I created the GH repo: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;marcelosousa&#x2F;million-dollar-ideas" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;marcelosousa&#x2F;million-dollar-ideas</a>. I might code a script that pushes each item as an issue to the repo to at least allow for that.
tbritschover 5 years ago
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thisstartupdoesnotexist.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thisstartupdoesnotexist.com&#x2F;</a>
rorygibsonover 5 years ago
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ideasarecheap.net" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ideasarecheap.net</a><p>^^ I built this more or less on a bet about a year ago. Give it a dollar and it will give you a startup business idea.<p>(No Markov chains here, it&#x27;s a couple of arrays of industries and keywords and a JS function that uses Math.random()... )
frobozzover 5 years ago
&gt; Shape shoe heels with a knife, and sand them on a buffing wheel for smoothness.<p>&gt; Adjust felt hammers on pianos to increase tonal mellowness or brilliance, using sanding paddles, lacquer, or needles.<p>&gt; Review filed tax returns to determine whether claimed tax credits and deductions are allowed by law.<p>Three adjacent ones there, could be rewritten as:<p>* become a cobbler<p>* become a piano technician<p>* become an accountant
tabtabover 5 years ago
&quot;Implement dynamic relational&quot; is <i>not</i> listed. Fooey! In fact, it doesn&#x27;t even contain the word &quot;relational&quot; or &quot;RDBMS&quot;.<p>In general the IT-oriented items seem like variations of &quot;fix my goofed up spreadsheet&quot;. Did they scrape the tech support logs?
foucover 5 years ago
&gt;It maybe is even the listing of approximately all startup ideas.<p>I wasn&#x27;t able to find cloudflare in there
adpirzover 5 years ago
What would make this for more useful is to have a list of even mildly _validated_ ideas, even by showing that there are existing competitors or a market for it. Or pointing to a gap where it exists.<p>Validation is the first step to product market fit.
bengarveyover 5 years ago
There are only 18514 ideas there
TeMPOraLover 5 years ago
I wrote an app that turns those into proper startup ideas. Source here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21126901" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21126901</a>.
starikovsover 5 years ago
A startup idea: an app to generate a startup idea (based on this list).
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morpomorpoover 5 years ago
Replace xylophone bars and wheels.<p>Watch out guys we&#x27;ve got a unicorn over here
itaiboover 5 years ago
I like it. I created this mini API. Throws random ideas: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;startup-ideas-api.btl.es" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;startup-ideas-api.btl.es</a>
layoutIfNeededover 5 years ago
20 001: collect, organize and rank a library of startup ideas
geonicover 5 years ago
&gt; Select sizes and types of molds according to instructions.<p>Fair enough
georgewsingerover 5 years ago
Title should be: &quot;20,000 incremental startup ideas that will waste years of your life and generate mediocre returns for your investors&quot;.
forgotmypwd123over 5 years ago
&gt;524. Solicit new business.<p>Genius!
ArPDentover 5 years ago
6835. Provide testimony as a witness in court.
luxuryballsover 5 years ago
“Perform oral practice periodontal surgery on the jaw or mouth.” Dude! I even have a spare room, we can totally do this one!
milsebgover 5 years ago
&quot;Process or book convicted individuals into prison.&quot; AirBnB and Uber for prisoners. Sounds legitimate :)
rodrigopetterover 5 years ago
768. Measure and mark cutting lines on materials, using a ruler, pencil, chalk, and marking gauge.
Accujackover 5 years ago
Ideas are a dime a dozen; Everyone has them.<p>What is rare is the hard work needed to make an idea a reality.
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shaneprrltover 5 years ago
How old are some of these? For instance, is #402 even relevant today?
ajmarshover 5 years ago
&quot;Splice or solder cables together or to overhead transmission lines, customer service lines, or street light lines, using hand tools, epoxies, or specialized equipment.&quot;<p>No...no no don&#x27;t do that you will stand a good chance of being electrocuted.
morpomorpoover 5 years ago
Replace xylophone bars and wheels.<p>Watch out you guys we&#x27;ve got a unicorn
eejjjj82over 5 years ago
&quot;117. Buff defective areas of inner tubes, using scrapers.&quot;<p>what?
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ttulover 5 years ago
Oh no. There is a banner ad now at the top of the list.
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codefreqover 5 years ago
2413. Google maps
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codeulikeover 5 years ago
15728 would be an organised crime startup
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utopcellover 5 years ago
this is an outrage: there are only 18,514 startup ideas in there.
pratioover 5 years ago
haha &gt; 5131 Move and arrange furniture and turn mattresses
foobar_over 5 years ago
Unreadable.
moonlighter1over 5 years ago
ideas are cheap
sixQuarksover 5 years ago
These are so useless
nqzeroover 5 years ago
REQUEST FOR IDEA:<p>i have a backend tech stack that i believe is scalable and efficient (REST or websockets). i&#x27;d like to prove this out with a demo or app. i can do a pure-js SPA frontend (eg fitno.us) but i&#x27;m terrible at UI so it&#x27;s not gonna be pretty<p>is there a free service that i could provide that people would use at high scale ? there doesn&#x27;t need to be a way to eventually monetize it<p>required: store data to database optional: rest calls to 3rd parties<p>anyone have an idea they&#x27;re willing to share ?
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