Business Ideas for 2014 (opens in new tab)

Yea it's really better than I thought possible considering the volume. Most of these I can't come up with something that will make it impossible, by the time I'm done reading, as I usually can do with most people's billion dollar ideas. A lot of these are what you might describe as small businesses done on the internet, which is not a bad thing, not every idea has to be a quick growth money burning exercise.

Seeing posts complaining about negativity on HN is almost as annoying as the negative posts themselves. Mostly because they ignore the fact that most negative posts are voted down over time anyways. In fact, I'm having a hard time even finding the negative posts in this thread; maybe somebody can help me out.

What's really interesting is that he's done minimal validation on a lot of them. That makes this list a whole lot more useful than just a stream of ideas.

I actually think this should be a monthly or at least recurring thread. I'm sure a lot of people have ideas that they don't have time to pursue and that they wouldn't mind sharing. In any case this makes for interesting discussion.

I agree here, I see this as an online brainstorming session that the OP has provided. Yes, some have already been done but does that mean it cannot be done again? Competition analysis. As I see it, of there is enough reason to improve and clearly a market then why not look into creating an improved version?

My friend set this up as a night job in our small town and people love it. I told him to start getting other people onboard but he thinks its more fun than a business. http://ninjadeliveries.com/

I would like this as a consumer but believe it is difficult to establish as a business. Delivery companies like FedEx, DHL or national mail services could offer it and there would be no way to defend your business against them. Also: wouldn't such a business have the same problem as existing companies with some customers not being around?

I think it's an interesting concept, but it'll be difficult for Luna to work because you'll need to scale by building a warehouse in every new city. For consumers, you are also competing against free. Why pay $7 when UPS or Fedex will come back another day?

We're at an early stage of doing this exact thing in Sydney dlvry.com.au

We're not sure how it will work with labour costs and with a sinking Aussie dollar (which will reduce online shopping), but I think we'll learn a lot regardless as a first start-up.

As much as I love this idea (being a night owl by nature), I find it hard to think that UPS, FedEx, etc. would give up the holding power they have to a possible competitor.

Btw are you talking about Luna as in the nutrition women's bar?

I'd be really interested to see a list like this of bitcoin ideas?

I keep thinking how revolutionary it is yet I can't seem to think of any ideas beyond payments :-(

And I for one am glad about that!

In Finland you can buy these: http://pöllöt.fi

If I recall, Cartier has wood glasses BUT I believe they have a metal backing. I dig the wood frames but yes, I would be skeptical of having that drift wood feel over time. On the flip side, have you heard of anyone with negative reviews on wood frames?

My girlfriend got me a pair of wooden glasses for Christmas that I love and they seem really well made. Her friend's husband's company makes them, it's definitely possible to make nice glasses out of wood that are durable.

There was a wood sunglasses company on Shark Tank a while back. IIRC they already had decent sales. I don't see any reason it wouldn't work for prescription glasses.

How about a Patent Litigation crowd sourcing. I pitched this several times, but I just can't get around to get it going. A site were everyone being threatened with a lawsuit based on a given patent can pull together monetarily to invalidate the patent or defend against the suit. If any one is already doing it, please post a link. And, if any one is interested in starting it up and needs a partner with legal background, let me know :)

Could be a good idea. I see a startup having two choices to focus on; let's call them B2B and B2C. Your description is the B2C side, your first focus is to build something for the end users - those filing a claim. Ultimately, they are just going to become an attorney's client and that is the B2B side, the business that is actively organizing the lawsuit.

I would attack it from the B2B side. TV is full of ads for this class action stuff, attorneys obviously have the budget to advertise, and really all they want is leads for those potential clients. Create a cheaper more effective way for them to find those leads by building and running online advertising campaigns. You could probably get high tech and use targeting algorithms to find the most likely clients/leads, etc. We know they don't have that, because they are spending so much on TV ads which are pretty untargeted and I would assume more expensive on a cost per lead basis. (How much is a lead worth to these law firms?)

B2B first gives a couple key benefits 1) the lawyer is paying to grow your userbase, maybe even profit if you want it - growing a sizable userbase is going to be expensive, this is not a sexy space so I wouldn't count on the crowd and virility 2) leads generated now, are also leads in the future - even if they didn't qualify for the lawsuit they signed up for, you can market future ones to them for basically no cost.

Once the attorneys start having you promote their lawsuits to find clients. You can then start maintaining the claim-to-client matching system; monthly emails of new suits, etc and generally approach the B2C side of it at that point. I think going straight B2C is going to come off spammy and you're not going to get the needed traction. I think you want to build trust with the users, so you have the opportunity to match them with multiple lawsuits and extend their lifetime value.

My $0.02, could easily be completely wrong.

I find them too busy and too colorful for my taste. You also need a few more examples and templates. You also need to add to your pitch a bit.Granted the examples have appeal to hacker type jobs, but would probably fail in other fields.

Unfiltered 20 minute feedback with random things that come to mind. Use or ignore as you like:

Landing page needs examples right in my face. I thought they would come when clicking "Next". Don't make me search them.

Website pushes ALL content below the fold on a 1024x600 screen.

Resumes would look a lot better with good font choices!!!(!!!!!)

Be careful relying on color. Up to 8% of men have some sort of color vision impairment!

Webdev:

Is too busy for me too. It looks crammed. I'd say half the amount of text would be ok on a page. Worship the white space! I would not center the top text lines but justify them (with hyphenation if needed).

Second page of webdev I don't like the color gradients. Might be personal taste. They seem muddy/dirty to me. "X University" and "National Merit" are on different vertical levels, sloppiness alert! Include the name/address on that page too, small, at footer or header. Imagine if someone accidentally mixed up many applications and has to reorganise them.

I like how the maps shows the applicant moving around quite a bit. As it is a playful element, I would add tracks showing the movement (with direction indicators). :)

Restaurant:

I would have called it Passion, not Enthusiasm but I am not a native speaker so that might be bullshit. Passion sounds nicer to me.

I like the idea with the 3 pillars/columns!

Move the subtitles closer to their children, more away form their parents. That way you get clear connections.

You misspelled "received". To the pit with you!

I would try to end up with more space on the sides. Right now it would be weird to read when printed out I think.

Student job:

Again the subtitles need to be moved lower. I looked at their decorative lines for a moment wondering why someone would want to add handwritten notes/signatures there.

I think you could drop the "Academics", "About me" and "Experience" titles completely!

In the word cloud you could (carefully! only blues or greys!) play with color so the words get more differentiable. I'd write out the "5" as word.

Phone number on top is aligned weird. Either center it on the page or between the text elements on its sides.

Academics is old->new while the others are new->old? Stick with one order!

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I've been thinking of offering this kind of feedback on demand, eg "0.x dollar per minute of unfiltered constructive feedback by a pesky perfectionist". Not sure if that would worth trying though. Open for any feedback! :)

Pretty certain that he'd at least be wary of the man who's practised 100 kicks 100 times each. A singular focus can create myopic vision

And as a gift to the hackoverse he's given out a bunch of ideas that may spark the next thousand for someone else.

You should post another 100.

I'm interested!

Nope - no affiliates and if you want any of the domains I have purchased you can have them for free. No hidden agenda, no hate - just love from me :)

I thought the same.

In my opinion, the article should have been edited down to about 10-20 great ideas. I liked the idea for a competitor watch service, I think it's much better than the one for 'Myspace 2.'

That was your takeaway and most useful comment, huh?

The LouisCK as a service is the same idea I had pretty much but for script (movie) writers to find a production crew, directors, extras, etc. Like Rent A Movie Crew.

Best of luck on your current endeavor.

Just a tangent here... I donated a car to charity this past year and was really pleased with the outcome. The charity was able to sell the car at auction for more than a dealer and a private party offered me locally - so everybody won. Chances are I will do the same in the future, and would encourage others to do the same, IE: it's an easy way to help a charity. That said, while you are thinking about new ways to move used cars, you might also consider how to get into the charity auction business for cars. Reason I say this is that I was able to donate my car to a large, well-known national organization, but I actually approached several local/regional groups first. The local/regional groups were horribly organized - didn't return phone calls, etc. Perhaps there is a social-good angle you could take, if you are exploring this market, as there are many worthwhile groups that just don't have the organizational skills to handle processing the cars.