> A village in china that paints portraits of pop culture icons as various dog breeds. Look, Obama as a GreyHound!<p>If your ideas are retarded, of course they're a dime a dozen.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, but great ideas are not. Some ideas are better than others, and some are much better than others. It would be easy to argue that someone who could consistently come up with the much better ones would be worth just as much if not more than a great executor.
I don't understand all this pooh-poohing of these ideas.<p>None of them is <i>great</i>, but the point is that every one of 'em (well, all the ones I've read) <i>could</i> be, if executed correctly, a perfectly viable business. Picking out a few at random:<p><i>Presentation Consulting - Teach companies how to improve their presentations</i><p>That's not a bad idea. Is somebody already doing it? Possibly, but that doesn't mean you can't do it too.<p><i>Online flower shop with one-hour delivery</i><p>Sounds tricky, and you'd need to restrict it to a couple of major and dense cities, but again there's no reason it's not a viable business. Market it correctly by encouraging men to send their ladies flowers spontaneously, and you could surely make some money.<p><i>Build Your Own Back Pack Shop</i><p>Damn you, random numbers! I don't much like this idea, but there's gotta be somebody out there (schoolkids, I guess) who would love to build customized backpacks for themselves. Great idea? No. World changing? No. Profitable if you get the product and the marketing right? Sure!
For what it's worth, here is the subset of the ideas I came up with from that list:<p><a href="http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2009/02/68-free-business-ideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2009/02/68-free-bus...</a><p>The point of the exercise is that most people think of five or ten ideas, and then go with the first decent idea they come up with. But if you actually force yourself to come up with 100+ ideas then it's more likely that your idea will legitimately be a good idea. Which is important since the first .1% of the work you do on the project has a large influence on whether the next 99.9% will make you either millions or zero.<p>Fred Wilson also recently said that he would use one of the 999 if someone made it, in case that means anything to those perusing the list.
Corollary: Some ideas are vastly more lucrative than others. Which is why it's useful to spend a week listing your top 999 ideas. Execution is a PITA so choose carefully.
Interesting list but the notion that "ideas are only valuable when someone (like you) makes something happen" can only go so far. If you have a bad idea that you make happen it doesn't automatically become valuable.<p>This story might prove that ideas are a dime a dozen, but one can argue that good ideas are not.
My favorite, #469: "A YouTube VC firm, that will invest money in people who are willing to do stupid stuff on video in hopes that the video will go viral and they will make a profit."<p>Could happen, in today's angel investment climate...
I have read a couple of hundred of them and thats the most useless ideas I have ever seen.<p>Most of them seem to be a solution to really mundane everyday consumer quirks. None of them attempts to use basic human needs such as need for communication and approval. Its just "somebody could do my laundry" and "somebody could write something on a website".
I'm sure I saw this here first, but "Ideas are just a multiplier of execution." <a href="http://sivers.org/multiply" rel="nofollow">http://sivers.org/multiply</a>
"Microbrewery with high-octane beers with boutique labels that cost as much as good wines"<p>32% beer at £35 a bottle:<p><a href="http://www.brewdog.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.brewdog.com/</a>
<a href="http://flippa.com" rel="nofollow">http://flippa.com</a>, where you get a stream of business ideas that are mostly proven to work. Due diligence required as usual to identify scams, future market demand, revenue/effort, competition, profit margin, etc.
This list is actually pretty awesome. I had my doubts, but wow, very nice.<p>Funny:
#120 A travel company that arranges people to stay at others houses.
Ideas matter. So does luck, timing and many other things.<p>Not ideas like "I want to create a backup tool" but rather ideas like "I want to create a backup tool that allow the user to simply drag and drop the files they want backed up into a folder on their machine". In other words ideas that are followed by an insight.<p>When people walk around saying ideas are a dime a dosen and execution is everything they forget that execution in itself is empty. You need to execute on something and that something is ideas.
#8: A gadget to cook beans/lentils/vegetables/rice for the same amount of time (quicker than what can be done in a slow cooker.)<p>Ah dang, I was just about to re-invent the microwave too!
My response: <a href="http://www.nbashaw.com/2011/06/09/ideas-matter-too.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nbashaw.com/2011/06/09/ideas-matter-too.html</a>