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Ask HN: What are 100K dollar ideas but not million dollar ideas?

• autotune 4y ago
  I work in the trucking and consumer banking industry industry. A $100K idea is buying your own truck and becoming a trucker, shipping goods from one state to another. This is a billion dollar industry right now and is booming like crazy.
  • SuoDuanDao 4y ago
    tangential question, does buying an electric truck seem like it would make sense due to lower fuel costs?
    • autotune 4y ago
      Depends on the range, as long as its within 260 miles or so for anything available on the market right now. Tesla claiming up to 500 miles in the future but who knows if they are actually working on that given Musk's current distraction.
  • hindsightbias 4y ago
    I watch a few of those YT channels and it seems like a race to the bottom. Truckers in debt and driving at prices just to make payments, brokers taking advantage of everybody and every truck built in the last decade with all sorts of electrical and emissions issues. Now, if I had a $1B to disrupt that industry with some Uber model…
    • autotune 4y ago
      Any videos you specifically recommend? Would be interested in learning about it more on the practical side, my org just does invoice factoring to help truckers get paid more quickly.
      • hindsightbias 4y ago
        Years back, I’d met a couple that did team driving (they could go 20 hours a day). They were raking it in. $300-400K/yr as owner-operators. Sounded sweet. I don’t watch older guys lately, lots of grousing. Gas prices, inflation, Mexicans, Biden, etc. Those that have a lot of time and long-term relationships with brokers have it good, others who seem like asses probably explains why they’re always whining. younger guys who I watched under the assumption “I lose job, what would it be like”: https://www.youtube.com/@DrivenTrucking/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DrivenTrucking/videos https://www.youtube.com/@ALEXTHETRUCKINGGUY https://www.youtube.com/@ALEXTHETRUCKINGGUY https://www.youtube.com/@alexnino_ https://www.youtube.com/@alexnino_ https://www.youtube.com/c/smigclick/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/smigclick/videos I think if you’re young, can get ratings and work for non-sociopath corps you can make a decent salary now. But a lot of people who try to be owner operators get over their heads very quickly, trucks are super expensive now, don’t know how to work on their truck, and lose their shirts (or drive for $2/mile and ruin it for everyone else). I think it’s like any industry, shippers of old were loyal and now everything is commoditized. It’s a giant traveling salesman problem where it just seems like it shouldn’t be so hard, but shippers/brokers are failing/retiring and n00bs take over and efficiency is out the window.
• leobg 4y ago
  Gotta reply with an old Elon joke: Start with a billion dollar one. :-)
• urfired 4y ago
  > What are 100K dollar ideas but not million dollar ideas? Paying $8 for Twitter Blue
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• valdiorn 4y ago
  My startup ideas :) I've been designing and building audio software and hardware components for musicians since I was a teenager. VST plugins to start, then moved on to digital guitar effects and now Eurorack synth modules. I've also built custom midi controllers, traditional guitar pedals, you name it, I've designed and built it. I have absolutely no doubt that I could build a small, semi-successful company around these products, that would turn over 200-300k per year, with a nice profit margin. In fact, I've made quite detailed business models which make me very confident in that. My problem, however, is that I am extremely well employed (like probably many other readers here :) and that just won't compete with my current paycheck; which also comes with job security, low stress, and vacation days (I'm on the UK). These ideas would also be very difficult or impossible to grow into million dollar+ annual sales, as they are targeted at very niche audiences. So I've been stuck in this half-way place, where I have a bunch of products, mostly finished, even polished (and I work on this stuff because I LOVE doing it, that's the only reason), and every time I have to make a decision whether to open source it and give it away or try to monetise it. So far, it's all gone the open source way, but I have a couple of projects I'm holding back because I think I might be able to sell them to another company for a decent amount. Thinking about all those meta/alphabet/twitter employees being let go these days, I wouldn't be surprised if we're about to see an explosion in cool, scrappy tech startups, from people who've been in my situation, and decided to use this as an opportunity to build their little dream startup - I hope so!
  • LadyCailin 4y ago
    I’ve always been interested in writing VSTs, but haven’t really known where to start (I also need a motivating idea for one, but I’m sure that would come.) Do you have any resources that you would recommend for an experienced programmer and composer?
    • smallerfish 4y ago
      https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE
      • 4y ago
• protoduction 4y ago
  I think the main direction of $$$K dollar ideas are those in the area of consulting, do those count? It can scale well beyond that, but at that point you're an agency. I believe that coming up with product ideas that can work at the indie level (bootstrapped/without raising millions) is a matter of training, validating the idea is the hardest part (and not falling into the trap of building it first). The main target of those ideas is often something that can sustain you with under a hundred customers, which rules out building a new social network. One idea I had recently is on the edge of consumers and businesses: it might make sense to have groupon-like websites for niches. These could be geographical, or around a certain activity. For instance if you are into craft beer, why not create a "deal" website for it? Call up shops that sell brewing equipment, walk in to local bars and ask if they would like to come up with some craft beer tasting event. The model is here that you get a kickback if people take you up on your offers. The more niche the better.. It could be as specific as "young parents who love craft beer and live in New York". That sounds like it could be in the 100k range. A small plug, for fun I've been writing up some ideas that fit this description [0]. [0]: https://indieideas.substack.com/archive?sort=new https://indieideas.substack.com/archive?sort=new
• rozenmd 4y ago
  Uptime monitoring (imho as founder of OnlineOrNot)
  • mrpadie 4y ago
    This space feels pretty crowded to me. Out of interest, what makes you think there's still money left on the table in this domain, given all the existing products? Or rather, what do you feel all the existing products lack?
    • nottorp 4y ago
      There may stil be space for a few 100k ideas even there wouldn't it?
    • rozenmd 4y ago
      To be clear, a 100k business only requires 170 customers paying $49 a month. There's always underserved customers that are somehow dissatisfied.
    • z9znz 4y ago
      This is one of those examples that I liken to the dry cleaning business. In any given city there may be lots of dry cleaners available. Some will be much better than others (service, performance, etc.). Some will be much cheaper than others. Some may be the perfect combination of all these things. Unfortunately, we often don't know where the best one is. And perhaps because of another person's suggestion "affiliate marketing", it is now virtually impossible to search online to get actual reviews of things (as there are now more SEO-d review sites which are just thinly veiled affiliate marketing sites). So we use the service we see nearby or stumble upon. It may not be the best, but we don't really know better. The same applies to so many things in life, business or otherwise (people, friends, relationships). Thus, yet-another-monitoring-service can succeed if it gets enough customers, even if there are much better services out there.
  • krageon 4y ago
    This is a problem that is so incredibly solved it has spawned a giant industry of SaaS providers preying on the fact that a lot of engineering managers don't really understand simplicity. Raking in the cash without doing much of anything.
• dismalpedigree 4y ago
  Work for somebody else. No startup stress. No need to take it home with you. Consistent schedule. You can easily clear $100k just keeping your head down in a big company.
  • hutzlibu 4y ago
    "You can easily clear $100k just keeping your head down in a big company." But when having to choose between 100k and keeping your head down and 100k and keeping your head high, I know what I would choose. Of course the latter comes with more initial stress and risk so you have to know what you want.
    • A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      I hear what you are saying, but the stress and how a given individual handles it is not a small factor. In fact, I am slowly starting to discover, it appears to be one of the bigger ones. Running your own business is stressful. It requires a level of organization apart from the skills you need to make a viable and successful product. It is not a common combination. I guess I would not automatically equate "keeping head up high" = running your own business. I assure you even when you run your own business, you have people to answer to.
      • hutzlibu 4y ago
        "I guess I would not automatically equate "keeping head up high" = running your own business." Oh, for sure not. Depending on your customers and your money flow, it can also mean keeping your head very low to not loose the last contracts. And there are probably some companies, where you can keep your head high or are even encouraged to do so and no sociopath from management bites your head off for it, but values your opinion.
  • omeysalvi 4y ago
    No need to take it home with you. Consistent schedule This is not always guaranteed and you may not have a choice regarding this once you pass a certain stage in your career. It also depends on your industry and the part of the world you live and work in. Work life balance is notoriously non-existent for a vast portion of the world's IT workers.
• lucozade 4y ago
  Putting 10k down at 10-1 on the first race at Chepstow.
• gnrlst 4y ago
  Plugins for various things - browsers (Firefox / Chrome extensions), apps (Figma), and platform providers (Salesforce, Shopify, etc). Find a feature that is needed but not offered, build a plugin for it, sell. Some of these have built-in monetization infrastructure so you don't need to roll your own.
  • z9znz 4y ago
    This is probably an underserved area, actually. There are a lot of patterns of behavior we each have which involve our browsers, and there's probably room for some usage optimization extensions. Do you know of a good site that focuses on browser extension reviews and discussions? I now realize I could probably find things which would improve my life, but I don't feel like doing a random walk through the general extension page of Firefox.
• 3pt14159 4y ago
  Call around 100 high net worth individuals. Tell them you're looking to build an app to help them manage all aspects off their life. Relationship with spouse, how to handle vices, deal flow, whatever. The point is that there are a lot of high net worth people that want something to simplify their life. For example, "when I get in the car and it is after 6pm but before 9pm and the car is headed west on the 401, text my wife that I just got on the highway and I'm headed home." Charge $8k per month. Someone will take you up on it.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    This is actually a job - a personal assistant - and almost anyone who can afford $8k per month for one already has 2 [=
    • arcturus17 4y ago
      Yea they’d likely do a better bloody job than an app too…
      • 3pt14159 4y ago
        You say that, but the nice thing about an app is that they don't go to sleep.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• s3000 4y ago
  The fair ticket sale auction from this [1] submission. Sell concert tickets in a Dutch auction to prevent scalpers. This will remain small because the profitable real estate is locked but it could be an option for the remaining small venues. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33666013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33666013
  • theGnuMe 4y ago
    You could lobby Congress. The Taylor Swift fiasco has Rep Ocasio-Cortez looking at investing Ticketmaster.
• raunometsa 4y ago
  Not looking to promote my site here but I will do it anyway because it may be useful for you: https://microfounder.com https://microfounder.com There are currently 200 founders making $1.6M per month with their solo startups.
  • jdthedisciple 4y ago
    Question: How can your platform help me besides rendering me in awe of other founders?
    • chinathrow 4y ago
      Motivation? Show that it's possible?
    • raunometsa 4y ago
      One thing is motivation – to show that it's possible and many solo devs are running profitable interent startups. But also, you can read Q&A-s with the founders about how they started, got their first customers, etc.
      • PM_me_your_math 4y ago
        Yet, people don't need motivation. They need to make movements. Deciding to do something is not the same as doing it. I can still see the value in learning what others are doing. It may offer ideas and most of them market-related, such as letting you know that, yes - there is an active market here for similar ideas/audiences. To me, that's the biggest take-away and perhaps the greatest question since it is foolish to build something and then struggling to find an audience for it. This contrasted with finding the market first, studying them, and then building out a solution around what that audience has objectively expressed as needs and wants.
  • mathverse 4y ago
    Why should i join microfounder and not stick with indiehackers which is free?
• hamilyon2 4y ago
  Win a government contract is the easiest and most straightforward one I can think of. Support some legacy codebase, take care of big company stuck with old software, help them transition or offer infinite support.
  • bityard 4y ago
    This is something that would be right up my alley but I am under the impression that government contracts (in the US at least) are not easy to land because the barrier to entry is high and the competition is fierce. The process is so bureaucratic that most of the business effort is landing the contract in the first place, producing the thing under contract is almost an afterthought in comparison, and that part is often sub-contracted out. This is part of the reason we hear stories about millions of dollars and months of effort being spent on 30% of a CRUD website that a talented full-stack developer could have whipped out in under a week. And in the IT space, your competition is companies like Lockheed Martin... Although you might have a leg up if your company is veteran-, woman-, or minority owned, see Offices of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.
• pjc50 4y ago
  I think unfortunately here is exactly the wrong place to ask: we're in the center, and close to the pure-tech world. The small business ideas left are, almost by definition, in communities that aren't quite so online and well-connected.
  • monero-xmr 4y ago
    There are plenty of good ideas in pure tech. I believe they are mostly in the small niche communities that are online that just aren’t well known - build something that a small die hard group will pay for. I’m more a fan of subscription money / fee-for-service than ad money which is inconsistent and requires lots of eyeballs. I own a handful of profitable small online businesses and I’m building another in my spare time. You can tell by my user name where a lot of opportunity for small time programmers are (crypto in general really) but HN is ideologically opposed to that industry despite the profit opportunities being massive. And finally I don’t want to reveal any here because I believe Peter Thiel when he writes that “every business has a secret”. On the surface level they are selling XYZ but the reason they win in a competitive market is only known to those running it.
    • klakierr 4y ago
      Curious about your products, mind to share just one, perhaps one in which the secret isn't such an advantage?
      • monero-xmr 4y ago
        In the crypto space the long tail of projects suffer from lack of devs and there is always a need for new tools. Often the DAOs running the treasury can vote to provide you money to build it. In the traditional space I had a fairly profitable tool that was for a puzzle-like F2P game (think similar to Words with Friends) that ranked highly on Google. That was ad supported but the hardcore players of the game would use it. I wound up selling it for $5k on an app flipper website when the traffic started to decline as the game got older.
• yuppie_scum 4y ago
  Kitten mittens
  • z9znz 4y ago
    I think kitten-hair mittens would be big. And if they were also shaped like kitten paws, it would be HUGE.
    • nnoitra 4y ago
• afigkka 4y ago
  in the UK most villages/small towns without a school have very old residents with no real village population replacement (people die of old age and the big old cold houses are bought by increasingly wealthy retirees leaving urban environments). The current residents need increasing amounts of care and infrastructure but there isn't anybody nearby of working age (compounded by the fact that NIMBY policies have driven village houses to unobtainable prices for average families and rentals are usually very rare). more of a socio-economic observation but it's a problem that needs solving for each village - the current solution is government subsidy from urban areas to pay for care workers and pharmacy to drive around all day in the countryside to see people for a few mins each I'm thinking if each rich old person in the village paid a subscription for a dedicated local care team who lived together in a nice house in the village (like 30x people paying £1000 a month to support 5 people) then that would be a balance for a very decent care wage + consistent high quality care
  • z9znz 4y ago
    This idea could be scaled (and likely is implemented somewhere) to big $$$. This is essentially a last-mile care system which could be contracted by governments to do what, in this case (not all cases), private industry can be more efficient at doing.
    • afigkka 4y ago
      I don't think it has to scale though, maybe it can but it might just perpetuate poor conditions for care workers I think it could be as simple as a few standardised processes and contracts. If a village wants to try it they follow the steps and set it up themselves
  • lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Aka, increasing taxes and increasing pay to quality of life at work ratios for healthcare workers.
    • afigkka 4y ago
      government involvement is the root of the problem, care used to be familial and community responsibility which we abandoned. I'm already paying the highest average tax rate since the war to pay for current pensions that are unfunded and thereby expect future generations to give me their money when I'm old. Poor outcomes
• hnfong 4y ago
  I'm involved in maintaining a dictionary website for Cantonese. We're not strapped for cash since expenses are minimal, but if we did put up ads there (according to Google's estimate) the yearly revenue might be in the say 10+k range. So the business itself at "10 P/E" would be a roughly 100k dollar business. (FWIW, I believe the estimate is probably higher than the would-be real numbers, but then we haven't finished the dictionary itself yet.) I think there's a lot of small-medium sized websites that fall into such a category.
  • komadori 4y ago
    What's the website? I can only think of CantoDict.
    • hnfong 4y ago
      Didn't post a link since it's not supposed to be an ad, but since somebody asked... - https://words.hk https://words.hk - if you haven't heard of this yet, probably because the site is in Cantonese (yeah, this is a novel thing, a Cantonese-Cantonese dictionary...) - https://cantowords.com https://cantowords.com - This is an English version recently launched this year. The page rank or whatever SEO thing isn't up to speed yet, so there's not a lot of page views for this one yet.
      • throwaway2037 4y ago
        BTW -- For these types of discussions, I think it is fine to share links. Don't feel bad. You can also add a disclaimer: "Sorry if this looks an advert." People will respect that here. :) And good luck with your business!
  • ac29 4y ago
    > the yearly revenue might be in the say 10+k range. So the business itself at "10 P/E" would be a roughly 100k dollar business That would be P/S (price to sales), not P/E (price to earnings/profits). Not sure about web stuff, but for other small businesses no one would pay anywhere close to 10x P/S (or P/E for that matter but profits are more valuable than revenue).
• helsinkiandrew 4y ago
  The best of these would be something related to a lifestyle business you are interested in as a hobby or would do for fun anyway. So if it doesn't generate a lot of income you are still having fun - importing/selling wine, something to do with antique motorbikes etc. Your question implies you are looking for tech ideas and your skills are in building software or services. The other side is applying high tech to areas of business that aren't very high tech at the moment - think about all the small or local businesses that still thrive that can barely get a website together and couldn't afford to hire a decent developer or even have the skills to manage a software project - if tech can improve that business you can differentiate yourself.
• vcryan 4y ago
  Ideas that don't have good marketing.
• motohagiography 4y ago
  There was one I looked into building to solve a problem, which was gasket printing. If you are having motorcycle or other engine repair done, waiting for a gasket can take a week or sometimes more depending on supplier location, and it's something printed from gasket paper. A website where you can print aftermarket gaskets on demand, and even do it with CAD files or derive them from edge detection in photos would make its money by shipping faster than OEMs, and without worrying about inventory. Retooling an existing custom sticker printing business would do it. Unit margins are like 100x the cost of the paper, and shipping cost margin is the other one.
  • buddhistian 4y ago
    Custom gaskets and orings seems like a great and relatively simple business. Have you tested the idea?
    • motohagiography 4y ago
      Other than asking my mechanic if he would buy from me (answered strong yes), no, I have not tested it. I look forward to seeing the Launch HN or product hunt launch if you or someone runs with it. It could be run out of a small town near to an airport somewhere, 2-3 employees. Website could have where in the queue your job was. Complementary goods for extra margin could be in small, specific lubricants (food grade, heat resistant, etc) in mini bottles and packs, assorted washers and bolts, basically small stuff that you order while you are getting something else that saves you a car trip.
      • bityard 4y ago
        I had this same idea a few years back while rebuilding my classic Suzuki GS850 motorcycle. Parts and gaskets are not hard to find for most old Suzukis (thankfully) but there are plenty of older motorcycles, cars, and other engine-related equipment where if you need a gasket, your only option is to make one. Many gaskets are intricate enough that making one by hand is extremely time-consuming, and that's assuming you have the tools and skill to make a gasket. (Even many experienced mechanics don't.) I hit on the idea when my wife bought a vinyl cutter, which is basically a 2D plotter with a knife instead of a pen. I don't know if anyone makes an affordable cutter that can cut through gaskets (the material is thick and full of knife-dulling materials like fiberglass, metal, and carbon) but if they do, this is a totally doable business. I envision a web site where users can select an existing gasket from their database and have it cut and shipped. Or, if the gasket they want isn't yet in the system, they can draw it out using a vector tool (perhaps tracing over an uploaded photo or scanned image of the gasket). Select the material, provide credit card info and shipping address, and you get a gasket in a week or less. I wouldn't mind working with someone on this. My strong suit is not coding but I'm okay at project management, research, and architectural stuff. If anyone is interested in chatting about it, feel free to contact me.
• dsr_ 4y ago
  There's always room at the bottom in logistics and scheduling. Find a local business that currently depends on guesswork, intuition and experience in managing their inventory or supplies or other shipments. Every bakery and independent pizza shop has point-of-sale software now, but how many have back-end software that reads the sales figures and can tell them to order [sugar, flour, cheese] before they run out? Even better if it looks back at previous years and suggests appropriate increases for holidays, school graduations and similar periodic events. Once you've got the structure and interface right, start customizing according to requirements. Does a rural area run on delivered kerosene and propane? Schedule deliveries to customers according to the local temperatures and a per-client adjustment reflecting their historical usage. Most of all, make it easy and obvious for your clients to use every day. Talk to them about their professional networks -- is there a forum or a mailing list where they discuss the business side? Get mentioned, get recommended. Be easy to talk to.
  • kristianp 4y ago
    The bakery reminds me of my annoyance at a local bakery that often runs out of wholemeal bread by 11am or midday. Don't they realise that if people don't get the product they want when they want it, they'll go elsewhere?
    • dsr_ 4y ago
      Note that by definition, they sold all that they made. It could be that efficiency -- usually oven space or mixer capacity -- causes them to make it in lots of, say, 50 loaves. If they make one lot and sell out, they make two lots -- but if the second lot doesn't sell out, they go back to making one lot a day. Better to be in demand than taking a loss on unsold product.
      • mgkimsal 4y ago
        The psychological impact of scarcity probably continues to help the daily ru not always sell out.
  • unsupp0rted 4y ago
• yen223 4y ago
  If your company is paying you $100,000 a year, then whatever it is you're working on this year is worth $100,000 to your company.
  • HPsquared 4y ago
    *worth more than $100,000
  • blackbear_ 4y ago
    Not really, that is just a lower bound. Companies are incentivized to pay the least amount possible for labour regardless of productivity, so long as it profitable. If a company pays somebody 100k a year, it means that (1) the value produced by this person is larger than 100k and (2) the company is confident that they can find somebody else to do the job for 100k in case the worker asks for a raise.
    • asalahli 4y ago
      > the company is confident that they can find somebody else to do the job for 100k in case the worker asks for a raise. More like, the company is willing to pay more but won't do so until the worker asks for a raise, in my personal experience.
  • smilebot 4y ago
    Worth way more. In theory if you’re writing product software, you helped build a money generation machine for the company that can run forever.
    • jokethrowaway 4y ago
      That's a big theory, there is plenty of waste in product companies and a small portion of the developer effort is easily responsible for the majority of revenue. If you're talking web agencies or subcontractors, that make more sense, as the client is paying for the waste, regardless.
• themoonisachees 4y ago
  10k idea at best: I am the creator of 2bored2wait [0], a proxy that does stuff that is useful if you are a regular player on the minecraft server 2b2t.org. the current implementation is buggy, slow, in javascript and has a lot of tech debt. An interesting fact about 2b2t is that because it is an anarchy server, it has not rules against using cheats and players won't get banned for using them. This means that there is a subset of players with too much money that likes to spend it on some flavor of paid hacked clients, some with monthly subscription. I think there is a business somewhere to rewrite 2bored2wait in a faster language, integrate it well in a hacked client and/or as a service and sell that for a monthly fee or whatever, but i haven't even had the drive to do it for the sake of open source, even less so for creating a saas product that at most 100 people would use.
• throwaway0asd 4y ago
  Things that have to do with code, but not product, that uniquely qualify your existence are your 6 figure ideas. Examples: * Architecture - Most people writing code cannot plan, write, or envision an original solution to something wildly ambitious. This takes practice and with enough practice it gets comfortable and easy, but most people writing code will never get to that point. A mastery of architecture is possibly the only way to produce a superior product compared to the competition provided that business requirements remain unchanged. * Performance - Astonishingly most people never measure anything unless they are forced to. Learning to measure things (everything) is a cognitive skill and the result is the difference between a 2 hour work day and an 8 hour work day. Measuring things is also the only way to write fast software, because everything else is guessing (and probably guessing wrong by several orders of magnitude). At the end of the day performance is not about how fast something this, but how much faster it is than something else. * Writing, especially bridging the gap between technical writing and narrative writing for common people.
• moneywoes 4y ago
  Affiliate marketing
  • z9znz 4y ago
    Ugh. Don't we have enough of those already? The target markets haven't increased in size, unless you're in developing countries with upwardly mobile populations. So more affiliate marketers just means more duplication of noise, with everyone gaming ways to get the same business (or direct the same business to your companies). If I have to watch another NordVPN ad baked into a youtube video, ...
• shireboy 4y ago
  I have often thought someone could make solid income going around to storage facilities, garages, attics etc and scanning in old photos and memorabilia. My dad has his mothers’, grandparents, and maybe further back in storage. Doesn’t want to send it off but does want it digitized, but doesn’t have time or equipment to do himself (nor do I). Some of it could probably be sold on eBay. So it sits and collects dust and storage fees with an uncertain future. Seems like the perfect job for a entrepreneurial student or retiree. Would be hard to scale though unless you built up a crew of people doing it.
  • julian_t 4y ago
    I'm just sorting out my late father's stuff. He was an avid photographer and so I've got hundreds - probably a couple of thousand - 35mm slides, along with a load of printed ephemera. I do have a slide scanner but it only works one at a time, so there's no way I'm going to do all those. There are a couple of places that will do it but prices are prohibitive, so I'd definitely consider a service like this.
    • cityzen 4y ago
      Have you seen DigMyPics.com? I knew the owner in Phoenix, he built the whole pipeline custom. Very smart guy and cool business.
      • shireboy 4y ago
        Got dad a gift certificate for them a few years back but he’s hesitant to send the stuff off for various reasons. I disagree with him but I have to think there are plenty of people who would want the service on-site.
      • dmd 4y ago
        +1 for DigMyPics. I digitized more than 10k slides and photos with them and they did a phenomenal jobs.
  • hindsightbias 4y ago
    When I look around at the insane increases in physical storage units in the US, planning for virtual storage for the next generation seems like a good opp.
• karterk 4y ago
  Every billion dollar idea is a million dollar idea. Every million dollar idea is a 100K dollar idea. There are always smaller segments within large segments that you can go after.
• chiefalchemist 4y ago
  It depends, but it's likely a slight bit too small. If you're single, intend to be, and care bear the risk, it's doable. Otherwise, if you hit by a bus (as the saying goes) you're screwed. Worse, your customers are left for dead. It's the morals / ethics of the latter that make such a size tough. You want a size that can support two or three total employees. If you're going to serve customers you want some redundancy. Sure, others don't take such precautions, but that doesn't make it right.
• somtingserve 4y ago
  Not in terms of 'bodyshaming', but the lockdown had done something to many people, hint: i saw some 'superfat' (obese) now i thought 'selfdriving refrigiators' maybe a thing, and yes (with few thousand paying customers a month) it may scale to a million-dollar bizz... ^^
• baybal2 4y ago
• leros 4y ago
  My favorite $100k idea to share is starting a landscaping business. The startup cost is small, you grow through hustle and good work, and the ability to expand to multiple employees/crews is there as you expand. I think it's something just about anyone can do as it doesn't require special training.
  • le-mark 4y ago
    > the ability to expand to multiple employees/crews is there as you expand. Finding reliable, motivated employees who will work for you and not themselves is the challenge that makes this type of business exceptionally hard to scale, from what I’ve been told.
    • leros 4y ago
      You're well beyond $100k/yr at that point. A single person with a lawn mowing company can make $100k/yr.
      • bitcoinmoney 4y ago
        How much is profit on that?
        • leros 4y ago
          It's mostly profit. You have the upfront cost of equipment but then you're just paying for consumables like fuel. Its basically a manual labor job of converting your time and effort into money.
    • zach_garwood 4y ago
      I think it's kind of implied that a 100k _doesn't_ scale.
  • tdiggity 4y ago
    This idea is a good one for local, but can be crowded. Search Reddit for starting a maid service or lawn service for templates and experiences. And google “maid/lawn service <city>” for your city and adjacent ones and you might find people using that playbook.
• 1970-01-01 4y ago
  An app that inventories all your tools and checks them out when they are borrowed. SMS messages constantly nag your neighbor to return said tool(s) after a specific time interval. Sell with ads or go ad-free for $.99
  • yummypaint 4y ago
    I have wanted something like this that is voice controlled, but laser focused on remembering where things are stored. I don't think it would slow anything down to say things like "im putting a 1tb micro sd card in cabinet 4, shelf 2" while physically doing it. Then months later saying "im looking for an sd card" and being told out loud where to check. It could use entirely pre-set commands, be always listening but with 100% local processing and storage, and simplicity of the interface would be it's strength. I would run it on some kind of simple dedicated hardware as part of the space it inventories, rather than on a phone.
    • theGnuMe 4y ago
      I really like this idea.
• tyingq 4y ago
  You could try working in small walled gardens. Like, for example, extension stores for various shopping cart software. Lurk around the forums for something like opencart, shopify, etc, and you can usually find some niche that isn't covered. Like a module for a lesser known payment gateway. Or find a popular addon that's overpriced, buggy, etc, and release a competitor.
• cranium 4y ago
  I would say any itch you get during the day could be a 100k idea, but don't forget to search if there is a suitable solution. I think too many programmers want to code the wheel when something already exists. And if it's unwieldy to use, try to acquire the product and repackage it for a non-dev audience. And look at https://tinyprojects.dev/projects https://tinyprojects.dev/projects, it has some 100k ideas (imho).
• andyish 4y ago
  So long as you can sell you just can just about turn any basic business process into a $100k idea.
  • fuzzfactor 4y ago
    And that's with just a desk, a landline, and a Rolodex.
• deleted 4y ago
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• drdrek 4y ago
  Stand up from the computer and walk out the door, pretty sure you'll find your local problems there. Do local brewers need better distribution to stores? Can you connect local handymen with clients? Can you organize local neighborhood cleanup days, maybe supported by local businesses? You'll be amazed what can be done with the technology of outside, its like the internet just with real people! :) Some call it web 4.0
  • zach_garwood 4y ago
    Web 0.1-alpha?
  • zdragnar 4y ago
    > Do local brewers need better distribution to stores? Probably, but state laws (varying from bad to worse) make alcohol distribution one of the more heavily regulated things you could try to "fix".
    • aynyc 4y ago
      NJ has entered the chat!
      • karmakurtisaani 4y ago
        X has entered the chat is a funny meme and all, but most of us have no idea what it is referring to. If there's something interesting behind the meme, it would be nicer to elaborate on it.
  • leobg 4y ago
    I like the suggestion. But learning about other peoples problems is hard. How do they even know it’s a problem if they have no idea that it can be solved, i.e. that life without that problem is even thinkable? It’s a bit like Ford’s saying that, if you had asked customers what they want, they’d said they want a faster horse. In an ideal world, i would love to walk you to random people in the street, invite them to have a coffee with me, and let them tell me about their life and their work. And i am sure that, eventually, in pretty much all of those conversations, I’d find something I can help them with. Do you see a better way? If I dropped you off in some city, and you’d have to find ten high value business ideas merely from talking to strangers about their real world needs, how would you do it? Or, if anyone here has done it in actuality, how did you do it? Thanks.
• HermanMartinus 4y ago
  I work on 2 $100k ideas Bear Blog (https://bearblog.dev https://bearblog.dev) JustSketchMe (https://justsketch.me https://justsketch.me) Both are profitable enough to keep me quite comfortable while being niche enough to not appeal to any company with VC funding.
  • bmitc 4y ago
    How do you make money with Bear Blog? Are you able to give any details about the finances (i.e., revenue and how much time you work on it after the initial development)? How do people find the solution?
  • nnoitra 4y ago
• hardwaresofton 4y ago
  I've got a whole bag full of em: https://unvalidatedideas.com/archive https://unvalidatedideas.com/archive The only problem is I can't tell you which ones are the 100k ones... I've got a hunch that this one is solidly 100k and not million+: https://unvalidatedideas.com/editions/11 https://unvalidatedideas.com/editions/11 Got all the hallmarks of an idea that is hard to profit/scale: - selling to developers - content-based (so often very manual at the beginning) - absolutely boring (to some people) niche [EDIT] - wait no I could see this one possibly getting big, if you strike the right "compliance and security posture" tone.
  • bityard 4y ago
    There are lots of players in the enterprise space for compliance and security of software, e.g. Black Duck. I think the trick would be to figure out where those solutions are lacking for smaller dev teams and try to serve them
    • hardwaresofton 4y ago
      Thanks for mentioning black duck — yeah this would definitely start out looking like a consultancy at first I guess
• softwaredoug 4y ago
  These are probably products that come out of freelancing. You see a pattern of a problem that needs to be solved in a domain and couple the product with you consulting. You get a bit of revenue from the product, but maybe also from an ongoing consulting relationship.
• rdtwo 4y ago
  Some ideas I had: Launching boats as a service. I pick up your boat, launch it and all you have to do is get in. Comes with a matching extraction and cleaning service. Online dating management service. Have a process takes photos, creates the profile and then a recurring subscription to have a person do messaging for you and arrange dates. Hire college gals to generate the initial leads. A service to tack all the local kids classes and events, keep track of sign up dates and such. Have a super premium service that signs people up automatically when the spots open. Extra Garbage pickup as a service. While everyone is required to have basic garbage service you can easily undercut the garbage company for anything non standard or extra. Rental service for high quality tools. Let people rent festool, sawstop, and other high end items.
• gofreddygo 4y ago
  For months now, I've been thinking and backing off from building a virtual queue for small shops (think barbers, food stalls at events, anything where people queue up) Scan a qr code, get in line. Or via a url or app. Sounds simple enough, useful enough. Friends easily pointed out issues with how this could go wrong and with very little extra time after work, I dropped it. Comments on this thread just stirred it all up.
  • leobg 4y ago
    Had the same idea for a cafè at the beach we visit often. Reserve your place in the queue without having to actually stand there. Then again, if people don’t have to pay the price of standing in line, wouldn’t the line just get longer and longer? Maybe a better approach would be to send in orders. And the business accepts them based on availability and order size. If it’s busy and you just want a coffee, you won’t get a seat. But you will if you’ll order three burgers plus drinks.
    • melagonster 4y ago
      so this is Uber eat now. I can't connect before read your comments haha.
  • lambdatronics 4y ago
    I like it. Some restaurants hand out little pagers, this could substitute for those.
  • ravin_gees 4y ago
    I feel like you could align a lot of the incentives here with an X cent “line charge” or something similar? You get 10min, 5min push notifications, then if you aren’t in the store within 1 min of your spot in line being called, you forfeit the X cents. But if you are then they give you a discount on whatever your buy so the “line charge” nets out. However, I’m not sure if there exists an X such that A) you’ll risk it for the convenience but B) it’s enough to actually compensate the store if you don’t go (Could be some interesting behavioral econ approaches there, maybe?) Fun to think about, thanks for sharing!
• fuzzfactor 4y ago
  >What are 100K dollar ideas but not million dollar ideas? It's the kind where it's so common you think of one every day. It's also not that much, 100K USD has never been lower in value, so that trend is moving in your favor too. That's why they say ideas like this are worthless, but they're wrong. In perspective, though, when a company pays somebody 50K it really costs the company about 100K anyway, and there are companies all over the place where that's what they pay people who are not expected to produce anything at all. We all know how many bullshit jobs there really are. So there's lots of people every day who have ideas more wortwhile than their actual job. Every once in a while it's a million dollar idea but it can be kind of hard to tell and usually slips under the radar. Since it requires a different type of action to get the ball rolling either way, 10X remains just as far out-of-reach as an uneconomical venture. Now the 100K amount is a good example benchmark, but you can also think about things like 250K etc.
• suzzer99 4y ago
  Retro-themed hipster mini-golf, with glowing balls, good food and an alcoholic Icee machine. Ideally called Astro-golf, with a bunch of old rocket-ships and space stuff scavenged from a long defunct mini-golf or similar amusement park from the 50s-70s.
• deleted 4y ago
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• samsquire 4y ago
  Let me share an idea. Imagine lifestyle subscriptions. You have an app that is a digital catalogue where you type in your salary and then it tells you what packages you can buy with your salary. Think of it as a life personal trainer and adviser with a shop attached. * Coffee at Starbucks every other morning on way to work * Gym once a week * You could get a job at these companies if you tried. * I drink coca cola or Pepsi with my pizza * I drive a Prius and I want a max 1 hour drive * Move to X neighbourhood * I am a vegan or I am vegetarian * I cook at home * I go to a restaurant once a month * I subscribe to Netflix only * I am learning to play the piano. Here's the address of the place you can learn and practice. Use recommendation algorithm and futures to reserve restaurant tables. Allow user generated curriculum to get your desired lifestyle. Integrate with calendar and meetup.com It's a one stop shop for following any dream Schedule your life to work towards a goal
  • Kinrany 4y ago
    This seems like a good idea. The consumer gets a discount, the store gets high quality info about future demand.
    • samsquire 4y ago
      The company would be a logistical powerhouse and person expert They would know how to produce good results from people subscribing to be musicians or vegans for successful outcomes. They could send you instruments or food parcels. They would schedule your week socially and free time. Watch this show. They would be measurers. They would be marketing experts. The goal is to sell someone a dream and to live the dream.
• robocat 4y ago
  $100k financially makes little sense for any professional because it completely ignores the risk attached - I suspect you are between 1 and 2 orders out (although you are very unclear how much time you are looking at spending). I suspect it is easier to think of it in time invested and returned: if you invest a year of time at a 10x risk, you need to get 10 years of early retirement to cover that risk. That is easier to back-calculate how much you need to bank to reward your risk - 10 years of after tax income is a huge figure for most people (far far more than your $100k). VCs target 30-times return for each individual investment to cover their risk, and they spread their risks over multiple investments. You usually have only one concentrated investment, so a sensible target profit for yourself alone could easily be $10 million if you have high earnings, and the revenue target is probably much much higher than that (depending on profit margin, and dilution, etcetera). There are a few mitigations that could lower the multiplier. I regarded starting a business as university-of-practicality, so I also valued learning. I had also said no to previous valuable opportunities in my past, so I knew the regret and opportunity cost of saying no. If you can do something on the side and slowly ramp up the proof-of-profitability, you can dramatically reduce risk and so far lower profitability is needed (but beware of the slow ugly death at one_second_per_second of time wasted on a failing business). Many people value autonomy highly (although beware that it is common to make clients your boss, and end up with a lack of autonomy in your own business). Background: I founded a business over a decade ago that has let me semi-retire, however in hindsight I am still unsure it was worthwhile, because there are other serious costs and risks beyond my time investment.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • hamdouni 4y ago
    Maybe the point isn't about the amount but the type of businesses that do not scale well and interest few people ? And 100k can be huge in some places if you think at the earth scale ;-)
• Axien 4y ago
  A “Jump to Conclusions” mat.
  • kristianp 4y ago
    That is the worst idea I've heard in my life Axien.
• gbruins 4y ago
  A 'house doctor'. Perhaps a subscription service where someone routinely (annually?) inspects your home for potential issues before they become a bigger problem: termites, roof/gutters, electrical, plumbing, yard drainage, foundation, etc.
• smarri 4y ago
  A colleague of mine buys and sells art in his spare time and makes $100k per year
  • jamiek88 4y ago
    A mate of mine does similar but with golf putters of all things.
• mamcx 4y ago
  I work on a niche eCommerce app (https://www.bestsellerapp.net https://www.bestsellerapp.net) that I only sell in Colombia for now. Is mostly about making orders/invoices for small companies. A LOT of people are like me that work in this space that you never heard of. Doing the "same" kind of apps that have a bigger brand but because we serve locally can do a better job there. --- Other option is open source. I think https://tablam.org https://tablam.org could become an Access/excel option for my customers for the same reasons. Open source itself is not very profitable (heck, I love to work more on TablaM than my ecommerce app but that one is what bring food).
• thinkmcfly 4y ago
  There is shitloads of money to be made in Idaho off of the national nuclear labs there. Can you machine simple parts and secure an American supply chain? Can you get security clearance? Can you handle living in that state that has such horrible governance?
• xmr2saturn 4y ago
  [dead]
• tengwar2 4y ago
  One area I find interesting is ergonomic computer keyboards. My daily driver is a Kyria (https://docs.splitkb.com/hc/en-us https://docs.splitkb.com/hc/en-us) running 20cN choc switches. That's one you make and customise yourself, but there are quite a few companies that make their own designs for sale (e.g. https://shop.keyboard.io https://shop.keyboard.io). These would be of about the scale you mention.
• ano88888 4y ago
  The problem is that building and selling a product to 5000 people are probably the same effort as to 5 million . This is the hard part. (software related)
• bengtlovisa 4y ago
• lakotasapa 4y ago
  It's clear to me that very few of the HN'ers have children. As I have a 3yr toddler and trying to help him navigate this somewhat unforgiving ugly world as of now. It's hard for me to find him that isn't ADHD or Corporatized msgs. $100k idea? Make small but meaningful children apps. Just tonight alone trying to steer him away from ADHD inducing mindless apps and videos. I spent $20 more meaningful content for him. I'm looking into this myself as... Necessity is a mother of all inventions.
  • umen 4y ago
    Can you give more concrete examples of good apps, i have kids but they allready far from this age ..
• thejohnconway 4y ago
  Managed Mastodon hosting/professionally run and moderated paid-for instances. There are more people joining now than can fit, and there’s definitely a market for both of these things.
• entropicgravity 4y ago
  This question would benefit from a few more orders of magnitude. It's rarely good strategy to start on an idea that can't scale.