We have 5 ideas and can't decide on what to build, so we made this site(ideafunnel.co)
ideafunnel.co
We have 5 ideas and can't decide on what to build, so we made this site
http://www.ideafunnel.co?s=hn
64 comments
As someone in the arts administration world, I can tell you that the ticketing app is not a great shot. I'd never heard of Guestlist, and EventBrite is fairly new but used, but most people these days are using bespoke solutions (TicketMaster, Tessi, etc...) and most midsized organizations I know have floated to Brown Paper Tickets.
However, I think I can safely say most midsized resident arts organizations would love a social media reporting app. Most non-profits can only hold a social media intern for the summer, and they dip off and seem awkward during the main part of their season. To alleviate this would be awesome.
However, I think I can safely say most midsized resident arts organizations would love a social media reporting app. Most non-profits can only hold a social media intern for the summer, and they dip off and seem awkward during the main part of their season. To alleviate this would be awesome.
Recent detail on the ticket industry: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/business/12tickets.html
But Eventbrite was in this place just a few years ago...
Nice idea, but you're not really asking the target audience for each of those products are you. Best ask the people with the chequebooks in question.
Very good point! Feedback from other entrepreneurs is usually arbitrary, and you usually have to qualify the advice based on each person's unique history/background. It's nice to see if entrepreneurs agree with your idea, but it all comes down to the market agreeing.
Hi everyone I'm Pablo Tirado, the bald guy on the right with the glass of bourbon.
First of all I'd like to thank everyone who has voted for the story, and particularly to the commenters, which we'll be responding to individually; because we really want more feedback.
Second I'd like to give some background on what this is.
Last weekend we spitballed a list of 37 ideas which we thought could be made into something. Some were brand new, some we'd worked on for some time but most were harebrained.
This list of 5 are the survivors of our own elimination process. We made this landing page to send to friends in the industry whose opinion we trust. Giovanni (flexterra) decided to post it on Hacker News to see what the community thought and here we are.
We have other projects that are very close to launch (receiptsloader.com [if your purchase receipts are a mess, you want this]) and this 5 piece voting site, is to help us decide on what to concentrate our efforts on next.
Again, thanks to everyone for commenting and voting.
First of all I'd like to thank everyone who has voted for the story, and particularly to the commenters, which we'll be responding to individually; because we really want more feedback.
Second I'd like to give some background on what this is.
Last weekend we spitballed a list of 37 ideas which we thought could be made into something. Some were brand new, some we'd worked on for some time but most were harebrained.
This list of 5 are the survivors of our own elimination process. We made this landing page to send to friends in the industry whose opinion we trust. Giovanni (flexterra) decided to post it on Hacker News to see what the community thought and here we are.
We have other projects that are very close to launch (receiptsloader.com [if your purchase receipts are a mess, you want this]) and this 5 piece voting site, is to help us decide on what to concentrate our efforts on next.
Again, thanks to everyone for commenting and voting.
Add to the site a textbox where people can add their own ideas. Allow them to make it public or private(hidden).
Personally I think you'll get much better ideas than the ones you've listed.
Personally I think you'll get much better ideas than the ones you've listed.
Okay, I'll bite. I've researched and critiqued dozens of ideas; I've also had my ideas ripped apart by others. So here's my feedback; playing devil's advocate here because there's no mention of these ideas being a true passion for your team.
Customer Service a la Zappos
I like the area that you are targeting, I think there's opportunity, but I don't see/understand what you're providing that's new. Are you managing/offering awesome people to provide the customer service or is it software that will help guide an existing company's support staff to be awesome? Perhaps a training program with some sort of systematic reminds of how to be awesome (could be interesting).
While You Were Out Notes
I know people use different hardware/software for communications but I don't see how there's any value here. Making voicemail accessible outside the office? If someone visits, do they need to know YOUR system for leaving a note or is someone in the office going to add it to this unnecessary system? There's a thing called email, and it works if you don't suck at it. Not convinced there's a pain/need here.
One Click Social Media Reports - My pick
Another area that is appealing to me, but I'd like to know more. List the kinds of things you'll be collecting. I do think there's data missing from other related services/tools.
Recurly for Dummies
Not to say there isn't a market/possibility to make money here, but doesn't Paypal offer subscriptions. Not everyone is accustomed to using/managing their subscriptions with Paypal but how will you make it any easier with your service?
Online Ticket Sales
Again, with limited information it's hard to see how you're going to approach this differently than Eventbrite. I think the opportunity here is the promotion aspect, but how you accomplish this is a mystery. I just feel a lot of people aren't aware of events in their area until it's too late. However, getting them to subscribe to your service to receive updates about events is going to be hard. You have to solve the relevancy/quality issue in addition to marketing to these people who don't search out for things on their own. Maybe some sort of partnering/incentive program can make this more possible. Make it fun and rewarding.
Customer Service a la Zappos
I like the area that you are targeting, I think there's opportunity, but I don't see/understand what you're providing that's new. Are you managing/offering awesome people to provide the customer service or is it software that will help guide an existing company's support staff to be awesome? Perhaps a training program with some sort of systematic reminds of how to be awesome (could be interesting).
While You Were Out Notes
I know people use different hardware/software for communications but I don't see how there's any value here. Making voicemail accessible outside the office? If someone visits, do they need to know YOUR system for leaving a note or is someone in the office going to add it to this unnecessary system? There's a thing called email, and it works if you don't suck at it. Not convinced there's a pain/need here.
One Click Social Media Reports - My pick
Another area that is appealing to me, but I'd like to know more. List the kinds of things you'll be collecting. I do think there's data missing from other related services/tools.
Recurly for Dummies
Not to say there isn't a market/possibility to make money here, but doesn't Paypal offer subscriptions. Not everyone is accustomed to using/managing their subscriptions with Paypal but how will you make it any easier with your service?
Online Ticket Sales
Again, with limited information it's hard to see how you're going to approach this differently than Eventbrite. I think the opportunity here is the promotion aspect, but how you accomplish this is a mystery. I just feel a lot of people aren't aware of events in their area until it's too late. However, getting them to subscribe to your service to receive updates about events is going to be hard. You have to solve the relevancy/quality issue in addition to marketing to these people who don't search out for things on their own. Maybe some sort of partnering/incentive program can make this more possible. Make it fun and rewarding.
These are great observations. I visited your website, and you have a pretty cool, trajectory. I'm gonna shoot you an email, I'd like to pick your brain a little more.
What about turning http://www.ideafunnel.co into a web app to allow other entrepreneurs to ask the same question?
I am not sure people would pay for it though.
I am not sure people would pay for it though.
I built http://www.sparkmuse.com just for that purpose. We've gotten nearly 100 ideas now, but not alot of traction, so I wouldn't build another :)
You don't have a lot of traction because you don't show how you add value. If you need a signup before getting to the app, you're already behind the 8 ball. The best you can do is to make the landing page really sell me on why I should do that.
I saw your website in the past but I wish I could see screenshots of what you intend to provide with your service before asking me to sign up.
There might be something there, thanks for the suggestion.
I totally agree, could be like formspring.
I am a big fan of these guys. While engineers are underpaid and schools don't promote the startup culture at all in Puerto Rico, they have stayed loyal to hack and build stuff in their own in the island. They deserve at least your vote or advice.
For your ticket sales idea, I believe Ticketmaster has exclusivity agreements with many venues that will block you out. I remember reading some time ago about a startup (this was long ago, can't remember the name) trying to upset Ticketmaster that ran into that problem.
Your Recurly idea will also probably be a headache regulation and compliance-wise.
Not to say they aren't great ideas, but probably not something you'd want to get in to without investor backing and a specialized team in mind to maximize your chances.
Your Recurly idea will also probably be a headache regulation and compliance-wise.
Not to say they aren't great ideas, but probably not something you'd want to get in to without investor backing and a specialized team in mind to maximize your chances.
"Your Recurly idea will also probably be a headache regulation and compliance-wise."
What if you simply run on top of Paypal?
What if you simply run on top of Paypal?
That might work depending on Paypal's TOS, but then again building your main revenue stream on someone else's API is asking for a headache too. Think Twitter or Facebook apps, but even more sensitive because it involves cash transactions.
Plus Paypal's reputation might make them think twice, depending on how they plan on implementing things.
Plus Paypal's reputation might make them think twice, depending on how they plan on implementing things.
I'd be very careful recommending PayPal for "recurring professional services billing" without doing a lot of research first...
PayPal is great if you're selling physical objects delivered within a day or two preferably with trackable delivery methods - thats PayPal's most favored transaction type since it minimizes their possible fraud losses about as far as you possibly can. The further away from that you move, the more likely you are to end up being another one of the many PayPal horror stories that are all too common. Things that can't be confirmed "shipped" by a disinterested 3rd party raise a flag. Things that can't be verified as having been delivered to a specific physical address raise a flag. Things that have long delivery lead-times raise a flag. I suspect recurring billing rasies a flag. I suspect high dollar amounts both raise a flag and act as a multiplier on other flags...
I strongly suspect this idea would end up with the PayPal account being stuck in the "can't make withdrawals for 180 days, but we'll continue taking your customers money so you're still on e hook for providing the goods/services right now" state, pretty much permanently...
PayPal is great if you're selling physical objects delivered within a day or two preferably with trackable delivery methods - thats PayPal's most favored transaction type since it minimizes their possible fraud losses about as far as you possibly can. The further away from that you move, the more likely you are to end up being another one of the many PayPal horror stories that are all too common. Things that can't be confirmed "shipped" by a disinterested 3rd party raise a flag. Things that can't be verified as having been delivered to a specific physical address raise a flag. Things that have long delivery lead-times raise a flag. I suspect recurring billing rasies a flag. I suspect high dollar amounts both raise a flag and act as a multiplier on other flags...
I strongly suspect this idea would end up with the PayPal account being stuck in the "can't make withdrawals for 180 days, but we'll continue taking your customers money so you're still on e hook for providing the goods/services right now" state, pretty much permanently...
"I suspect" "I suspect" "I suspect"
I have both recurring payments and one-off payment for virtual services on my website and never had any issue with Paypal.
I have both recurring payments and one-off payment for virtual services on my website and never had any issue with Paypal.
Yeah, it is all suspicion - Paypal (necessarily) keep details of their fraud detection algorithm very opaque.
And I too, have many happy clients who've never had Paypal issues, even ones doing some of the things I listed above.
_BUT_, if you think Paypal in general are _not_ a source of _major_ headaches for some people, "I suspect" (there's my phrase again) that you've not been here long. Paypal account freezing has a long history of being discussed here (and elsewhere). I've been through that particular drama myself, in fact I've got one client who it happens to annually when he starts accepting pre-orders in Sept for a book that gets printed every December...
And I too, have many happy clients who've never had Paypal issues, even ones doing some of the things I listed above.
_BUT_, if you think Paypal in general are _not_ a source of _major_ headaches for some people, "I suspect" (there's my phrase again) that you've not been here long. Paypal account freezing has a long history of being discussed here (and elsewhere). I've been through that particular drama myself, in fact I've got one client who it happens to annually when he starts accepting pre-orders in Sept for a book that gets printed every December...
Event promoters need a service that will allow them to sell tickets and promote their events online.
I disagree. There are kick-ass startups already doing this, e.g. TicketFly, Eventbrite, and TicketLeap. That isn't to say that you couldn't beat those folks, but I don't get the sense that there's a desperate need in the marketplace that those companies aren't filling. The real battles for promoters are structural and legal (Ticketmasters long-term exclusive contracts).
I disagree. There are kick-ass startups already doing this, e.g. TicketFly, Eventbrite, and TicketLeap. That isn't to say that you couldn't beat those folks, but I don't get the sense that there's a desperate need in the marketplace that those companies aren't filling. The real battles for promoters are structural and legal (Ticketmasters long-term exclusive contracts).
ok not a fan of the ticketing idea, reasons have been rehashed here a dozen times (venue lockout, ticketmaster/eventbrite, brown paper tix, etc)
Social media reporting, this is a tough one, as someone who built an early social media reporting tool years ago, I'd say the market is tough to get people to pay for the functionality. However, if you can get the right clients they will pay large sums. The market for this is very fickle and competition is tough (salesforce/radian6 for one). One key thing I learned: small business/midsize biz don't have enough chatter to validate spending on reporting yet (imagine how many people are talking about John Doe dry cleaner in San Juan on twitter on a given day).
recurly for dummies, can't you do that with a paypal widget that is an embed code anyway? right now my fav of the ideas though
i don't see value in while you were out notes system. maybe the way its presented doesn't make sense. i could definitely see a use for a push notification of incoming things (i.e. voicemail to your desk line, package received via fedex at front desk, etc)
zappos customer service one is tough to do, as a huge part of zappos customer service is not the crm they are using, but the policies they've put in place.
Social media reporting, this is a tough one, as someone who built an early social media reporting tool years ago, I'd say the market is tough to get people to pay for the functionality. However, if you can get the right clients they will pay large sums. The market for this is very fickle and competition is tough (salesforce/radian6 for one). One key thing I learned: small business/midsize biz don't have enough chatter to validate spending on reporting yet (imagine how many people are talking about John Doe dry cleaner in San Juan on twitter on a given day).
recurly for dummies, can't you do that with a paypal widget that is an embed code anyway? right now my fav of the ideas though
i don't see value in while you were out notes system. maybe the way its presented doesn't make sense. i could definitely see a use for a push notification of incoming things (i.e. voicemail to your desk line, package received via fedex at front desk, etc)
zappos customer service one is tough to do, as a huge part of zappos customer service is not the crm they are using, but the policies they've put in place.
social media reporting is also very costly to do now. Most social media tools license the data and costs for licenses are very high right now.
very very true. anyone who wants to sell a "complete" report has to get twitter firehose. or talk to gnip. that will run you $2k/month EASILY.
Build all of them.
One at a time.
Until you win.
You don't know which one is the best idea, so just pick one you most want to finish and build it. Market it. And if it doesn't work pivot or move on to the next idea.
The way I look at it is you build ideas into products and sell those products. Always charge. That way it is relatively easy to turn a small, but meaningful profit. Then, keep building products until you find a "hit".
Even if you don't get to your home run you have some nice cash flow so you can keep doing what you love.
Think of yourself as a band. You love making and performing music. The first record might not be a hit but you keep making music until you come up with something that resonates. Your startup is a band. Keep cranking out albums until something resonates.
One at a time.
Until you win.
You don't know which one is the best idea, so just pick one you most want to finish and build it. Market it. And if it doesn't work pivot or move on to the next idea.
The way I look at it is you build ideas into products and sell those products. Always charge. That way it is relatively easy to turn a small, but meaningful profit. Then, keep building products until you find a "hit".
Even if you don't get to your home run you have some nice cash flow so you can keep doing what you love.
Think of yourself as a band. You love making and performing music. The first record might not be a hit but you keep making music until you come up with something that resonates. Your startup is a band. Keep cranking out albums until something resonates.
"Build all of them."
I hear so many people saying "just build it". Do these people have so much time in their lives that what they build is irrelevant because they will have time to build everything anyway?
Time is a precious resource to me and if I must build something, I'd rather increase my chances of success by picking the one people need more.
I hear so many people saying "just build it". Do these people have so much time in their lives that what they build is irrelevant because they will have time to build everything anyway?
Time is a precious resource to me and if I must build something, I'd rather increase my chances of success by picking the one people need more.
[deleted]
The difficult part is knowing what people need more.
It's just an opinion until you find out for real. We all bring our own biases into what is essential/pain point for people.
Until the rubber meets the road, you never know.
It's just an opinion until you find out for real. We all bring our own biases into what is essential/pain point for people.
Until the rubber meets the road, you never know.
This is only good advice if you don't care about potentially wasting years of your life.
It's fine to fail, but don't set out to fail. Failure can be forgiven, but somewhere people got it into their heads that they should brag about it.
Lots of people wore bellbottoms, too. Doesn't mean it was an idea for the ages.
It's fine to fail, but don't set out to fail. Failure can be forgiven, but somewhere people got it into their heads that they should brag about it.
Lots of people wore bellbottoms, too. Doesn't mean it was an idea for the ages.
You can do a fair bit of work up front to get a pretty good idea though I think. At least about which of them don't stand a chance. People just don't like doing it, including me, because it's hard.
I have gotten opinions both ways.
People who do not want to critique an idea until they see something they can lay their hands on aka demo.
And the other side where people who want to make sure the idea has market before they write a single line of code.
I am not sure which one works. Being a coder and as someone who tends to code before evaluating, I would like to know specifics on how to do evaluation before execution.
I am not sure which one works. Being a coder and as someone who tends to code before evaluating, I would like to know specifics on how to do evaluation before execution.
If a prototype is trivial to build then absolutely. But I don't think there's ever an excuse for not going out and asking people who might have these problems some good questions. "Would you pay for this?" being one of them.
You don't need to build all of them and could still see which one people would buy. You could make 5 websites with some decent SEO, set up a little pitch/video for each application with a download button and see how many people click download on each. You just have an error message when they click download saying sorry, the product is currently unavailable. But you collect the data and see which one wins. Also you could have a comments/suggestion on each to let customers tell you if you're close but they really want something else.
This is what people call "ghetto testing" or the Tim Ferriss method.
That doesn't seem ethical, and the tactic may violate U.S. truth in advertising laws.
To quote the great Piet Hein:
A Psychological Tip:
Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping.
A Psychological Tip:
Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping.
None of them. The only suggestion listed that you seemed vested in was away notes, so do that one if any.
None of the others really cover the main problem you're aiming to fix, and you don't sound like you are excited about the task they exist to help with.
You don't have to be personally invested in a problem to build a winnning application solving it. But you need to have became excited by the possibily that you could solve it - that suddenly, you will be making someone's life better. Withouth this, you'll just repeat the existing mistakes with what's on the market.
None of the others really cover the main problem you're aiming to fix, and you don't sound like you are excited about the task they exist to help with.
You don't have to be personally invested in a problem to build a winnning application solving it. But you need to have became excited by the possibily that you could solve it - that suddenly, you will be making someone's life better. Withouth this, you'll just repeat the existing mistakes with what's on the market.
Hefty competition on all fronts, I'd probably try looking for another not so congested market if I was you, unless you have some marvelous mechanism big players won't be able to implement.
But if you must I'd possibly look at the social networking reporting for a couple of reasons.
- The market is hot and you might be able to get funding or flick it easy
- It looks like all the other projects are going to need an decent advertising base, and (as long as you build carefully) you'll be able to re-purpose parts of the social networking... so can look at as an investment
But if you must I'd possibly look at the social networking reporting for a couple of reasons.
- The market is hot and you might be able to get funding or flick it easy
- It looks like all the other projects are going to need an decent advertising base, and (as long as you build carefully) you'll be able to re-purpose parts of the social networking... so can look at as an investment
I strongly suggest one of you start using a Windows PC, at the very least to experience your app like many of your customers will- that font doesn't turn out so well with Windows' ClearType.
This was my first thought (FF4 on Win7) - looks really bad.
None. Continue brainstorming, guys ;)
"Customer Service a la Zappos" strikes me as the most interesting of the lot.
The Ticketmaster clone won't work due to venue lock-out, as others have mentioned. "One Click Social Media Reports" seems kind of vague. "Recurly for Dummies" - the name is kind of a turnoff. One would also need a high volume of recurring payments to make such a service attractive. Then it also has to interface to existing accounting systems. "While You Were Out Notes" seems a bit too trivial. Who will pay for it?
The Ticketmaster clone won't work due to venue lock-out, as others have mentioned. "One Click Social Media Reports" seems kind of vague. "Recurly for Dummies" - the name is kind of a turnoff. One would also need a high volume of recurring payments to make such a service attractive. Then it also has to interface to existing accounting systems. "While You Were Out Notes" seems a bit too trivial. Who will pay for it?
The problem I see with recurly for non-technical people is
that non-technical people will find it complicated to embed a widget, tab, javascript etc into their sites.
Yeah, it comes down to execution. But if you can execute it so well that it is dead easy and doesn't require any technical know how, you might win over even technical people.
Yeah, it comes down to execution. But if you can execute it so well that it is dead easy and doesn't require any technical know how, you might win over even technical people.
But if you make it easy to embed in Facebook, or Wordpress, or other social networks, it may catch on.
Ticket Sales - http://www.eventbrite.com is doing similar, might want to see how they stack up to your ideas before going that route.
For a second I thought you made a site where people could contribute their ideas and try to gain public support. At which point I would have just pointed at Kickstarter.
I've found does not matter what you do, what matters is how you do it. IMHO you should ask yourself "Which of these we can make the most kick-ass ever in the world!?"
While You Were Out Notes, a stupid idea. Email simple done and existing support for push notifications
I would start by changing the text so its legible
The text is quite hard to read in Chrome on Win7: http://i.imgur.com/CQM9Y.png
You need to randomize the positioning of each idea, whatever you put in the top left will most likely get the most votes regardless. Randomization helps account for this.
Isn't "Recurly for Dummies" just...Recurly?
I like the ticket idea. If well built and reliable, the described would be a great system.
s/Costumer Service/Customer Service/
Perhaps they wanted to service people who make/sell costumes. A very niche market indeed :)
thanks
I'm a friend of http://guestlistapp.com/ folks and it's a great alternative to EventBrite and TicketMaster. It's fairly minimalist and is still a huge undertaking for several people.
I suggest that you step back, take off your programmer visors and start listening for people who say "I wish" a lot. Chances are that if it's obvious enough to brainstorm, someone has already lost a lot of money discovering that the customers love it so long as it's free. You need to find something that's niche and causing great pain.