39 ms·

Show HN: I built a 100% free startup idea generator

51 points by dvolkhonskiy 2y ago

bradley13 2y ago
Ideas are cheap. Ask ChatGPT and it will give you dozens. Heck, ask almost any random person, and they will have business ideas. What's hard is (a) finding a good idea, (b) investing the time and effort to make it reality, and finally (c) marketing it successfully.
- spxneo 2y ago
  that is the waterfall pmf approach and its super hard. every step of the way is a struggle with unknowns. its a large reason why the failure rate is 99%.
- jfoutz 2y ago
  I kinda think you’re out of order. Market it. If that gets some traction, maybe it’s a good idea, and maybe try to execute.
- grobgambit 2y ago
  I have an idea for the PlayStation 6. How to build it, the labor, the design, the marketing and the capital? Thats where you come in! Classic Sacha Baron Cohen joke.
jschveibinz 2y ago
It's great that you are thinking about this. Here is another potentially more valuable tool to consider: a problem generator. The goal is to identify problems, tunable complexity from mundane to moonshot, in a selectable field. You also select the customer, a tunable value for the customer (low to high), and the field/industry. You could prototype this with a well-developed prompt in your favorite AI and discover other parameters that could be important, e.g. now vs. future or something like production vs delivery vs support vs etc. For example: suppose you select "bakery" as the field/industry, "medium" as the complexity, "high" as the value and "delivery." You might get potential problems such as: - low cost direct to customer delivery - rapid point-of-sale - improved warmth of baked goods upon delivery - etc. This approach could of course be applied to all sorts of fields.
- tester457 2y ago
  Paul Graham's article How to Get Startup Ideas [0] is this approach. > The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself. > The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way. > Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. His article Schlep Blindness [1] is good too. > There are great startup ideas lying around unexploited right under our noses. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness. Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It means a tedious, unpleasant task. > The most striking example I know of schlep blindness is Stripe, or rather Stripe's idea. For over a decade, every hacker who'd ever had to process payments online knew how painful the experience was. Thousands of people must have known about this problem. And yet when they started startups, they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events. Why? Why work on problems few care much about and no one will pay for, when you could fix one of the most important components of the world's infrastructure? Because schlep blindness prevented people from even considering the idea of fixing payments. [0] https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html [1] https://paulgraham.com/schlep.html https://paulgraham.com/schlep.html
  - yobbo 2y ago
    I don't see the difficulty as finding the problem (schlep blindness) or an idea of the solution. Rather, it's always imagining realistic ways of implementing a solution. In payments, for example, the problem is never "building the thing". It will always be gaining permission (whatever it means for your application) of hooking into the system. It might require depositing some amount of capital; and it's usually an amount larger than any startup can reasonably get. Most such barriers are there by design.
    - 2y ago
unsupp0rted 2y ago
Not being snarky: has anybody ever actually generated profitable startup ideas from one of these tools? I mean: a person who otherwise wouldn't have come up with something that good or that easily, uses a generator tool, picks an idea, builds a business and all goes well. Does this ever happen? Does it happen fairly regularly?
- throwawayUS9 2y ago
  Got the below idea from this tool. We built it a few months back already. I gave Mobile App and Social Media as the inputs Check it out https://neighar.com https://neighar.com >>>> LocalBuzz — Neighborhood Social Network An app that connects residents of the same neighborhood, allowing them to share local news, recommendations, and events. Capital required: Complexity:
smikhanov 2y ago
I got this. Juicy marketing-speak! DataNet Connect — People-Centric Networking Solution A networking solution that prioritizes people connections over traditional network protocols. It offers a human-centric approach to networking technology, enabling seamless communication and efficient data transfer between individuals and organizations. This technology aims to enhance collaboration and productivity in diverse work environments. But how do you prioritize people connections over network protocols? Clearly, not a time to worry about our AI overlords yet
sjducb 2y ago
I love it, I think this one has legs. > HealthWealth Analytics — Bioinformatics Wealth Management Integrating bioinformatics and financial data to provide wealth management solutions tailored to individuals' health profiles, enabling proactive financial planning in the face of potential health risks.
- consumer451 2y ago
  I recently created a GPT-4 system prompt[0] to help me deal with larger problems, and just tried it out on this. Its response is actually slightly useful. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40161810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40161810 [1] https://pastebin.com/hE9yQqcC https://pastebin.com/hE9yQqcC
deadbabe 2y ago
I entered that I was good at nothing and it gave me a list of infeasible ideas anyway. Why?
- dvolkhonskiy 2y ago
  Because ChatGPT still believes in you!
OutOfHere 2y ago
A while back, I had built a rudimentary Custom GPT for this purpose: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-G0v3MIT6z-tech-startup-idea-generator https://chat.openai.com/g/g-G0v3MIT6z-tech-startup-idea-gene... Here is an output example: https://chat.openai.com/share/9ebf9234-137e-4da5-aba6-927b9ab97093 https://chat.openai.com/share/9ebf9234-137e-4da5-aba6-927b9a...
peppertree 2y ago
In my 20's I thought startup was a quick way to make a million bucks. I had a list of ideas. Copied and spun others' ideas. Some of them made money but none was wildly successful. Now I'm older and money is less of an issue, I realized starting a business is more about finding the people you want to help, working with people you like, and being the right person to solve the problem at the right time.
- anonu 2y ago
  This is a great insight. People make a great business - and life is too short to surround yourself with people who you need to drag along with you.
- spxneo 2y ago
  thats on the left side of the spectrum. on the right, businesses and people are nothing more than balance sheet entries to be traded.
  - bonestamp2 2y ago
    Even in the balance sheet mindset, a business is still just the efforts of a bunch of people. Without the people who made the business and keep it running, you don't have a business. Sometimes all or some of those people are replaceable, sometimes they're not. Any or all of those people can leave at anytime as well. So, it's important to remember that the value behind the balance sheet is because of the people. That seems to be one thing many CEOs, Private Equity firms, and sometimes managers forget, or simply take for granted -- it's not always something that can be ignored (and sometimes it is).
    - spxneo 2y ago
      from what I've seen: the human side of things is almost always ignored on this side of the fence. im not sure who is right.
      - bonestamp2 2y ago
codeonline 2y ago
Clearly this just a marketing tool to push the Saas template but it's a good idea for a bit of cheap engagement. Well done. I bet this already exists but I don't want to verify that. >> PooPeer — Poop Comparison Community A mobile app that allows users to compare their bowel movements with others, providing insights into digestive health and identifying potential issues
- ozim 2y ago
  I knew a guy that wanted to break into health(tech). He made an app where you upload a photo of a poop and rate it on specific parameters so that a physician could make diagnoses. I hope that counts. He made bunch of other features but that one was standing out. Unfortunately making startup in health care takes more than implementing some rules, so guy did not end up running the company - but I have funny story to tell about.
- taway789aaa6 2y ago
  This is wonderful. I would use this!
throwawayUS9 2y ago
Got the below idea from this tool. We built it a few months back already. I gave Mobile App and Social Media as the inputs to the generator tool. Check it out https://neighar.com https://neighar.com >>>> LocalBuzz — Neighborhood Social Network An app that connects residents of the same neighborhood, allowing them to share local news, recommendations, and events. Capital required: Complexity:
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
[dead]

51 points by dvolkhonskiy 2y ago

Ideas are cheap. Ask ChatGPT and it will give you dozens. Heck, ask almost any random person, and they will have business ideas. What's hard is (a) finding a good idea, (b) investing the time and effort to make it reality, and finally (c) marketing it successfully.

spxneo 2y ago
that is the waterfall pmf approach and its super hard. every step of the way is a struggle with unknowns. its a large reason why the failure rate is 99%.
jfoutz 2y ago
I kinda think you’re out of order. Market it. If that gets some traction, maybe it’s a good idea, and maybe try to execute.
grobgambit 2y ago
I have an idea for the PlayStation 6. How to build it, the labor, the design, the marketing and the capital? Thats where you come in! Classic Sacha Baron Cohen joke.

jschveibinz 2y ago

It's great that you are thinking about this. Here is another potentially more valuable tool to consider: a problem generator. The goal is to identify problems, tunable complexity from mundane to moonshot, in a selectable field. You also select the customer, a tunable value for the customer (low to high), and the field/industry. You could prototype this with a well-developed prompt in your favorite AI and discover other parameters that could be important, e.g. now vs. future or something like production vs delivery vs support vs etc. For example: suppose you select "bakery" as the field/industry, "medium" as the complexity, "high" as the value and "delivery." You might get potential problems such as: - low cost direct to customer delivery - rapid point-of-sale - improved warmth of baked goods upon delivery - etc. This approach could of course be applied to all sorts of fields.

tester457 2y ago
Paul Graham's article How to Get Startup Ideas [0] is this approach. > The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself. > The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way. > Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. His article Schlep Blindness [1] is good too. > There are great startup ideas lying around unexploited right under our noses. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness. Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It means a tedious, unpleasant task. > The most striking example I know of schlep blindness is Stripe, or rather Stripe's idea. For over a decade, every hacker who'd ever had to process payments online knew how painful the experience was. Thousands of people must have known about this problem. And yet when they started startups, they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events. Why? Why work on problems few care much about and no one will pay for, when you could fix one of the most important components of the world's infrastructure? Because schlep blindness prevented people from even considering the idea of fixing payments. [0] https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html [1] https://paulgraham.com/schlep.html https://paulgraham.com/schlep.html
- yobbo 2y ago
  I don't see the difficulty as finding the problem (schlep blindness) or an idea of the solution. Rather, it's always imagining realistic ways of implementing a solution. In payments, for example, the problem is never "building the thing". It will always be gaining permission (whatever it means for your application) of hooking into the system. It might require depositing some amount of capital; and it's usually an amount larger than any startup can reasonably get. Most such barriers are there by design.
  - 2y ago

unsupp0rted 2y ago

Not being snarky: has anybody ever actually generated profitable startup ideas from one of these tools? I mean: a person who otherwise wouldn't have come up with something that good or that easily, uses a generator tool, picks an idea, builds a business and all goes well. Does this ever happen? Does it happen fairly regularly?

throwawayUS9 2y ago
Got the below idea from this tool. We built it a few months back already. I gave Mobile App and Social Media as the inputs Check it out https://neighar.com https://neighar.com >>>> LocalBuzz — Neighborhood Social Network An app that connects residents of the same neighborhood, allowing them to share local news, recommendations, and events. Capital required: Complexity:

smikhanov 2y ago

I got this. Juicy marketing-speak! DataNet Connect — People-Centric Networking Solution A networking solution that prioritizes people connections over traditional network protocols. It offers a human-centric approach to networking technology, enabling seamless communication and efficient data transfer between individuals and organizations. This technology aims to enhance collaboration and productivity in diverse work environments. But how do you prioritize people connections over network protocols? Clearly, not a time to worry about our AI overlords yet

sjducb 2y ago

I love it, I think this one has legs. > HealthWealth Analytics — Bioinformatics Wealth Management Integrating bioinformatics and financial data to provide wealth management solutions tailored to individuals' health profiles, enabling proactive financial planning in the face of potential health risks.

consumer451 2y ago
I recently created a GPT-4 system prompt[0] to help me deal with larger problems, and just tried it out on this. Its response is actually slightly useful. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40161810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40161810 [1] https://pastebin.com/hE9yQqcC https://pastebin.com/hE9yQqcC

deadbabe 2y ago

I entered that I was good at nothing and it gave me a list of infeasible ideas anyway. Why?

dvolkhonskiy 2y ago
Because ChatGPT still believes in you!

OutOfHere 2y ago

A while back, I had built a rudimentary Custom GPT for this purpose: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-G0v3MIT6z-tech-startup-idea-generator https://chat.openai.com/g/g-G0v3MIT6z-tech-startup-idea-gene... Here is an output example: https://chat.openai.com/share/9ebf9234-137e-4da5-aba6-927b9ab97093 https://chat.openai.com/share/9ebf9234-137e-4da5-aba6-927b9a...

peppertree 2y ago

In my 20's I thought startup was a quick way to make a million bucks. I had a list of ideas. Copied and spun others' ideas. Some of them made money but none was wildly successful. Now I'm older and money is less of an issue, I realized starting a business is more about finding the people you want to help, working with people you like, and being the right person to solve the problem at the right time.

anonu 2y ago
This is a great insight. People make a great business - and life is too short to surround yourself with people who you need to drag along with you.
spxneo 2y ago
thats on the left side of the spectrum. on the right, businesses and people are nothing more than balance sheet entries to be traded.
- bonestamp2 2y ago
  Even in the balance sheet mindset, a business is still just the efforts of a bunch of people. Without the people who made the business and keep it running, you don't have a business. Sometimes all or some of those people are replaceable, sometimes they're not. Any or all of those people can leave at anytime as well. So, it's important to remember that the value behind the balance sheet is because of the people. That seems to be one thing many CEOs, Private Equity firms, and sometimes managers forget, or simply take for granted -- it's not always something that can be ignored (and sometimes it is).
  - spxneo 2y ago
    from what I've seen: the human side of things is almost always ignored on this side of the fence. im not sure who is right.
    - bonestamp2 2y ago

codeonline 2y ago

Clearly this just a marketing tool to push the Saas template but it's a good idea for a bit of cheap engagement. Well done. I bet this already exists but I don't want to verify that. >> PooPeer — Poop Comparison Community A mobile app that allows users to compare their bowel movements with others, providing insights into digestive health and identifying potential issues

ozim 2y ago
I knew a guy that wanted to break into health(tech). He made an app where you upload a photo of a poop and rate it on specific parameters so that a physician could make diagnoses. I hope that counts. He made bunch of other features but that one was standing out. Unfortunately making startup in health care takes more than implementing some rules, so guy did not end up running the company - but I have funny story to tell about.
taway789aaa6 2y ago
This is wonderful. I would use this!

throwawayUS9 2y ago

Got the below idea from this tool. We built it a few months back already. I gave Mobile App and Social Media as the inputs to the generator tool. Check it out https://neighar.com https://neighar.com >>>> LocalBuzz — Neighborhood Social Network An app that connects residents of the same neighborhood, allowing them to share local news, recommendations, and events. Capital required: Complexity:

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

[dead]