Nov 6, 2014

Sixty Ideas for Businesses, Startups, Hobbies or Whatever

oooh, lightbulb!

What is an idea? 

It is the first step on a journey that can take you anywhere you want. 

The destination can change before you get there. You might not even complete the journey. You might get eaten by trolls and your self doubts while on the way. There is an even bigger chance that you ignore the idea because it looks like too much hard work and who has time for that? Right? Wrong?

I have no idea, but you can have some.

All I am going to do here is give you a spark.

60 sparks, if we are going to be exact.

60 ideas.

They're all yours.

You can make something of them, or maybe someone else will. Can these ideas be startups? Full blown Businesses? Hobbies? NGOs? Jokes? Failures? World wide successes? No one knows, not you, not me, not Elon Musk, not Tim Cook, not Bezos, not anyone.

The only way to measure the success or failure of anything is by doing it. Because when you do it, the gods align themselves in your favor.

I'll just say two more things before the list begins.

We're living in volatile times.

  • An app called YO got crazy funding, it does just one thing, and that not too well. 
  • Ten years ago, even the idea of twitter would be called crazy by almost everyone. 
  • People are buying selfie sticks and using them too. 
  • There are plastic orifices that are designed to look like the biological orifices of your favorite pornstar, and people are buying them. 

So, if you tell me that any of these ideas is so crazy that it won't work, I'd dare you to prove me wrong.

Do it, fail and tell me that – shit, Pallav, your idea was so crazy that it didn't work. Because then we'd both learn something new.

Last thing: you get into any kind of legal trouble or any physical or mental trauma by using these ideas, I will not be held responsible. You become successful or a complete failure by trying anything mentioned in this list, I will not be held responsible. I don't want anything to do with your success or failure. You don't like any of these ideas, that's totally your problem. Close the tab and go back to Twitter or Facebook. Anything else, I absolve myself of any responsibility. Now to the meat of the post.



THE LIST

100 startup ideas

1) men's club: membership only. Men can gather and do activities like read, play video games, play pool etc etc

2) localized app for book sharing. Book buying, book renting, book lending, book reviews, but limited to an area, like a city or a locality.

3) on call legal services for simplified legal information

4) one feature app that tweets your location every time it's opened. nothing else.

5) live storytellers/ newsreaders for old people. Employ young kids looking for part time work. Old people in retirement homes, living alone etc

6) tech help for old people. Setting up phones, Skype, downloads, printers etc. same target market as point 5

7) an app to remove all baby/marriage/honeymood pics from your timeline

8) an app that removes all selfies from your Instagram feed

9) an app/website for only playing contests. Like contests2win back in 2000. So contests can fuck off from twitter. It should filter your feed for only contests. Like mute/block in reverse.

10) text only twitter feed, like instapaper for twitter. No vids or pics

11) a theater where kids are not allowed

12) a pet only transportation service that transports pets in a humane way. Most airlines do a not so good job of it and it's always a tension on a pet owner's mind. It's a long shot, but it can be figured out.

13) training for pet owners who want to keep pets

14) training for kids who want to keep pets

15) life skills seminars for kids: opening bank accounts, saving money, small repairs, buying groceries, booking tickets, washing dishes, etc etc etc

16) supermarket where food is arranged according to nutritional value.

17) 3D malls (like google's maps), where you can browse the mall, visit shops, pick products and get them delivered to your home. (!)

18) know your roots seminars for kids who want to learn more about their religious and cultural roots. Target: NRI kids

19) an app that automatically takes you off the grid with one click. No mobile connection, no email, no internet, no nothing.

20) a service to deliver international products to India. for example: energy drinks, mountain dew flavors, international magazines, candies, chocolates, gadgets.

21) service: pre-packaged travel packs. clothes, toiletries, etc etc. frequent travelers can take membership and travel without luggage and pick their clothes+stuff pack at their destination. this can be tried on a national level and then taken international. but it has to be flawless, cuz the client would be traveling without any assumed luggage and even one mistake can cost a bomb to the company that decides to do it. advantages are no luggage check ins, no lost luggage, no damaged luggage, no forgotten luggage, etc etc etc (!)

22) disposable clothes. One time wear and throw it away. Looks good, feels good, disinitigrates in a week or so. Cheap.

23) clothes that don't get dirty. No need to wash them or iron them, just wear them in and out. repels water, oil, dirt, ink, color, ketchup. looks like branded clothes, feels like home.

24) training for parents who want to home school their kids and then further information on home schooling. Schools these days are piss poor when it comes to almost everything. Kids are in an unhygienic, uncouth, stupid environment that destroys their spirits, and schools cost a bomb but teach shit. Plus, at home, kids can be taught to become better people, for schools, they will always be a roll number on the register. MORE info on homeschooling.

25) Website to tell a new laptop's compatibility with the latest linux derivatives. This can also cover the root-ability of latest phones, tablets and jailbreak information for iphones. (not sure about the legality of the second part)

26) handwritten letters for people you love. Get students with good handwriting to write actual letters to people from your side. Write an email, they'll hand write it and send it off via courier. because receiving a letter is awesome.

27) Product: universal charges. It should charge every fucking gadget that you plug it in, nationally or internationally. The last charger you'll ever need to buy.

28) an energy drink in tablet format. Because drinking that shit can get tiresome at times.

29) a mount for your cellphone that makes it into an instant go pro. an app to go with it that films in high def, wide angle

30) Website that lists the small shops and supermarkets of a new place you're about to visit. Most websites focus on tourist destinations and attractions, but some visits that are for a longer duration, the visitors would benefit from information about the local place they're staying at.

31) a mirror on rent for selfies at parties. a full length, awesome fucking mirror.

32) photographers in restaurants who'd click your pic and send it to you so you can post it on the social network of your choice. Each photograph gets billed in your bill.

33) one click website creation, for birthdays, weddings, corporate meets. Fill data, pay, click and done.

34) beer app that tells you everything about a beer once you click a pic of that beer. Or anything about what kind of beer is available around your location

35) Go autos that don't say no.

36) App to check auto fair from a to b destination to avoid getting duped

37) pre-set birthday gift/card service. Add all birthdays once and the service will send them gifts every year. Choose gifts or go random as per your budget.

38) public database of autos in a city. Input an auto number to know where the auto is. App/website

39) an aeroplane shell converted into a restaurant. If it can be suspended in the air with cables that would be great

40) wheelchair with tank like treads to climb stairs.

41) reversible jeans that get cleaned when in contact with skin.

42) custom made jeans that have the designs that you want

43) app with list of traffic lights and their times so that you can leave home to time it acc to green lights with some margin of error

44) robot dogs for blind people. Voice controlled. With maps of home and cities they live in. (!)

45) database of startups in every city so that skilled people can share skills with each other.

46) a way to calculate how many drinks or would take to get you drunk. Will include data sets for a person's weight, drinking capacity, the kind of alcohol on offer and etc etc. Useful for parties, or times when you don't want to drink beyond your capacity

47) phones on rent! when you wanna show off, or you need a spare phone for a small time or you want a phone for testing purposes. full payment and you get refunded after a small rent and any damage to the phone is chalked off.

48) on-site data destroying service for corporate offices. totally crunch the hard drives into mashed spare parts. for confidentiality and privacy.

49) printing courier service. send docs to an email, pay via debit card, get them printed and handed to your office or home locally. for people who can't be bothered to set up printers or buy them or who do not have working printers in their office. complete confidentiality.

50) meal replacement tablets for those who do not want to eat food or don't want to waste time eating food. pop a tab at breakfast, lunch and dinner to get all the required nutrients, vitamins and whatever the body needs.

51) book storage for people who do not have a lot of space for their books or who want to keep books in a safe place under expert guidance. Subscribers can call the storage space for the book they want and it'll be delivered to their house easily. [city based]

52) surrogate shopping experts: Many people do not have the time or the inclination to go shopping. So surrogate shoppers go to the shops with go pro cams and live feeds enabled, on call with the shoppers and they can do all the shopping for the guy or the girl or whatever. They can pick clothes, books, groceries and what not. Go to malls in lieu of the person.

53) pets for rent: for anxiety relief and tension, pets on rent. Trained pets that are sent to corporate office so that employees can play with them and just be around them. Will need social pets so that it's not anxious experience for pets either.

54) stress relief through breaking things: Rent a place outside city limits, buy unused and useless appliances from junk sellers, and arrange everything in that place. Like a room or something, with computer, tv, cabinets, etc etc. Get corporate employees or anyone else who wants to release some steam, and set them loose in that room with a baseball bat, tell them to break every thing.

55) telescopes on rent, with a team of space enthusiasts who can show people the new stars or old 
stars

56) shelters for street dwellers where they can get in by depositing a certain kgs of garbage. this will help to clean up the streets and also provide them with shelter in summer in air conditioned shelters, and in winter they can sleep in heated shelters -- not sure about the legal or human aspect of it.

57) an app that tells you whenever someone mentions you on twitter without using your @ handle.

58) an app/service that alerts you when your favorite paid apps go free. You register, make a list of paid apps that you'd like to download for free, and then you get alerted by SMS, email or social media that the app is free. This can be further expanded to include Kindle, discounts on products on amazon, flipkart. The whole idea is to get the user to make the list of products he/she wants.

59) everyone wants to know about their future. But what about the future of their gadgets? How long can a gadget be expected to work? Will the battery need to be replaced in three years? Will the system be upgradable to the latest in two years of time? Will the spare parts still be available in a year from now? Is it easily serviceable (ifixit sorts)? How much can you sell a gadget for after a year of use (kinda like quickr/olx but to get a fair estimate?

60) phone chargers on vehicle. Like those bicycles dynamos we had back in the day, with a light bulb attachment. But this can be a dynamo that can be attached to any vehicle's wheelbase. Then have an all day battery pack that you can use any time.



That's it! Yay, the shit list of ideas is finally over!

I am glad you made it this far down the list. So are these people!

These people have been paid to look happy. Not by me!


Want to discuss any of these ideas? Hit me up on twitter @69fubar, email me pa11av at live dot com or find me in Delhi and pay for my coffee. We can talk things over. 

*Edit 
61) someone make me an app to get the fucking formatting of this shit right the first time over.