I thought speed dating online would be pretty cool. But I tried to join speeddating.com (or something like that) one time just to see how it worked and they basically instantly try to push you into chatting when you're just starting to fill out your profile. And they just keep badgering you. Really annoying.

Any thoughts on this idea...

Partner with businesses that operate on time slots. These would be hair salons, car detailing, maybe all the way up to doctors and dentists. If these businesses don't have appointments all day, then they are losing potential revenue that they can't make back.

Do you think it would be feasible for both the businesses, customers, and myself if I offered them the ability to tap into a database of potential customers when they needed to. It would work something like...

A salon doesn't have anyone booked for 2:30. It is now 2:00 and they don't think that anyone is going to do a walk-in. They use my service to send out a text to a database of users for X% off that one appointment. First person to claim it online gets it.

The salon might not make everything they would on a regular appointment, but they make some money and have a chance to introduce a new customer to the brand.

Building the database would be a pain, but is doable.

Thoughts?

I cant remember the name, but there is company something like "Soft Doc" that does the appointment setting for small doctors/dentists offices.

I think you are talking about Zoc Doc. Really cool startup but not exactly what I am thinking.

Havent used them before, but I believe the premise is you find doctors and book appointments online.

My concept would expand past doctors and solve the problem of unfilled slots.

Yes, it is Zoc Doc. They just expanded to my area and got backing from Amazon?.

I think you have a good idea which is essentially an appointment setting platform with a client and a user interface. The client can set up their business and schedule, the users can search within industries or for specific clients.

The key is in making a platform for this with a really good user interface and easy to use for the client. Way way harder than it sounds.

My idea is kinda of raw yet.

Cliffs:
-students have an app that 'tags' them in at bars/clubs
-users see a list of which other users are out in the vicinity.
-boys could click like/dislike on girls profile they think are hot and vice versa. Or same sex also if profiles are set up for that.
-mutual +ve likes get matched up (now both safe in the knowledge the other has voted them as being hot)
-App combined with a website where personal stats are stored and also containing reviews of best places and lists of upcoming events.
-revenue form app sales, advertising the local clubs/bars or commission from ticket sales.

--------------------------------

I run a couple of student nights and have to spend a fair amount of time creating events and such on facebook for advertising and guestlists. With the increasing trend of people tagging themselves in at various places, clicking 'attending' on events and basically willing to publicise where they are on nights out, I feel like it could be possible to create a real time list of which people are in which club/bar/etc each night. My idea started out as a mobile App 'hook up' service which is targeted at the student market here in the UK.

The service would need to quickly get enough traffic to populate these lists by getting users of the App to created simple profiles. The vision being, for example, that a student could tag themselves at a venue and then be able to view a mobile database of the other users who are also in the venue or perhaps within 'x' proximity.

I think this could be a fun thing to check on a night out as it would be easy to see if there is someone you want to bump into is out. It will also give estimates of how busy each venue might be, estimates of the ratio of girls/boys, weekly trends and peak traffic times for different places.

The 'hook up' part will be a service on the app similar to what the 'hot or not' website is/used to be (you see users pics and can vote if you think they are hot or not). To avoid embarrassment or worrying about looking uncool by clicking 'hot' on a person, the person who gets voted as 'hot' will simply receive a running total of their positive hits (negative hits will not be compiled).
People will only find out the identity of those who have hit the hot button if they have also hit 'hot' back to the same user (mutual +ve votes = matching up the users profiles).

The idea exploits the fact that people may feel too embarrassed a lot of the time to open dialogue with strangers on a night out, yet being drunk enough to find this amusing and less socially risky. Perhaps it can be a less risky way of indicating to a friend that you would like to be more than just friends. There would probably initially be a measure of competition with how many hits are got each night or w.e also.

Revenue can come form the sale of the app. A website could be used as a hub to upload historical app data,view stats, check out reviews of venues, share photos or other cool stuff (its really easy to link this in with FB).
Advertising money could also be gained from the local bars/clubs. Ticket sales could be made through the site on a commission basis.

Once a large, focused user base, such as students between 18-25 in 'y' city, is developed the scope to expand the website in directions away form the 'hook up' side of things is quite big. As someone pointed out earlier in the thread things such as Facebook events are very poorly organised.

Apart from the finding the investment needed to create the app, the major challenge I think would be getting the right people to use it initially and make it cool. I'd try and roll it out in a similar way to FB, making it popular at one uni or city and then expanding rather than spreading focus on too wide of a demographic.


any feedback/criticism is cool. :-)

Enjoying the thread.

Here are some ideas:
"Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund" by Paul Graham

"100+ Web Start-up Business Ideas" by Steve Poland

A rough idea I currently have.

It could possibly be the interruption to the online dating site as it would make meeting people irl, much easier- as i have seen MANY people have a hard time randomly striking up convo with someone at a bar/event. It is a app/site that allows single people or people with certain interests to check in at a bar/store/event, etc.

In their profile they would mention if they are single and looking and what some of their interests are which would make small talk/introductions much easier.

To encourage people who are slightly embarrassed by the whole online dating scene to make a profile, the app would only make it available to people with fully activated accounts with pics/info- this will eliminate people from spamming.

another aspect to it could be using gps on smartphones to show where people are located and then have a link to their profile. i.e. there are 5 people within 5 blocks of you using Xapp- check out their profiles now and meet up with them! now this would have to be an opt in service and only used in public to avoid people from stalking people at their homes.

Also, another option based on the same idea is that if two people both "like" each others profiles and see potential, they will reveal their location and give them the opportunity to meet in public.

I am starting up a personal finance website where the main market is Malaysia.

The website will be similar to http://www.sorted.org.nz (getting a team to build a clone website and then tweak from there)

Main contents will be personal finance articles, savable goals and various calculators worksheet, information on the current bank loans available on the market, information on personal tax, credit cards, insurance etc

Starting target audience will be college students/fresh grads.

My main aim is to spread the importance of managing personal finance at a young age to have a more secure financial future.

How will I be making money from this? From being an agent selling insurance to financial products

Any criticism is much appreciated

A pill that will increase the size of that special organ.

That's sort of what zocdoc does; they allow docs to put their schedules online and allow open appointment slots to be booked.

The founder did an interview on thisweekin maybe a year ago.

I have two ideas related to the fishing industry.

Remote control fishing lure

I bet someone has already done this or is trying to do it but meh. Putting a lure in the right location is critical to getting bites. Especially in bass fishing. It would be cool if you could throw a bait towards a dock and then remotely swim it into the dock to trigger a strike. Could also design a bait that doesn't swim but just kinda quivers or shakes at the touch of a button on your reel.

Artificial current machine?

I don't know what to call it lol. Whenever I have fished off the shore and even in a boat spots where there is current ie a river or stream coming into a lake there are fish there and they are normally feeding. I thought it would be cool to design some kind of mobile pump system that bank fishermen could take with them and set up to artificially make the current. In theory it could bring the fish in.

lol I actually bought a pump for the second idea. Thinking about rigging something up and seeing if it will work. I put the chances of it working at less then 1% but you never know.

A software for barbers and hair stylists that creates a database for clientele. There would be a picture of before/after the haircut, in addition to blade used, where and how scissors were used, and any miscellaneous comments including improvements for next time the client visits.

It'd be beneficial for the client-side because they don't have to remember all that stuff themselves, and can better explain to the stylist how the client wants his or her hair cut next time, given the before/after pictures. Stylists would want this to attract more customers.

Feedback and/or comments would be great.

An iPhone/Android app that allows you to exchange unwanted gift certificates for cash. Don't plan on using that $50 iTunes gift card you got for Christmas? Cool, spend it on my app and I'll send you a check for $45 or something.

thats basically blendr

A website that shows poker room data from all poker rooms. It would take info like this: http://www.theborgata.com/poker_live_data.cfm I know some casinos dont list it online but you could have someone to enter. It would be similar to pokerscout but for live blokes.

Ok, so a few things on this thread.

1) We've been posting ideas here for about a month. Does anyone really feel like their idea is no longer viable because someone else has taken it and run with it? Is there anything currently stopping you from starting a successful business that does XYZ because it got talked about in this thread? I sure don't think so, but maybe someone feels differently.

2) It's awesome that so many more people have been throwing out ideas. I'm hoping to set aside some time next week to go through them all and comment on them. After all, there's no point in sharing an idea unless you get feedback too, right?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/27...phone-1113154/

I think this is a tad simplistic perspective. For one thing, people throwing out ideas itt != people sharing ideas that they are actually planning to implement and were worried about being stolen. Secondly, the amount of time this thread has been going is nowhere near enough to draw these types of conclusions even if the content is what would be required which I don't think it is.

I agree, overall, that people are generally too protective of their ideas. Almost 100% of the time people don't even do anything with their ideas which is what really makes secrecy silly. However, there is merit in many cases for not being an open book, especially on a public forum.

I find it annoying that every time someone itf is protective of their ideas, they get jumped on with the same tired line about how ideas are worthless and execution is everything, so give us the details! Oftentimes, people would be well-served to reveal all and get some constructive criticism. That may even be true in the majority of cases, but that doesn't make it a rule.

Ideas aren't worthless and execution isn't everything, at least not in the way people throw the phrase around itf.

Prediction Tracker for Forums

I got this idea primarily from reading the Sports and Politics forums here on TwoPlusTwo.

The idea would be a web site that keeps track of predictions, bets, prop bets, etc. that people make on forums. For example, I recall last year during the NBA season, somebody posted that he thought the O/U on # of championships that Lebron James would win was 5. This of course sparked some debate and people taking each side.

My idea is that somebody would create a "page" on the Prediction Tracker website that hosts this prediction. Then you could use a URL shortener to post a link to this "page" on the forum. People click the link, and choose which side of the prediction they want to be on. The page would display who is on which side, exact terms of the prediction/bet, etc. Then, when the event is settled, it would show who was correct. That way, people can check back sometime in the future to see who was right.

Some thoughts associated with the idea:
- You could treat it like a game and give "points" to people who make correct predictions. Or badges. Or something to make it fun.
- It could be used to keep track of real money bets. It could show if the money has been paid or not, to let people know if certain posters are trustworthy or not, almost like ebay user ratings.
- The site could be organized into subsections for specific forums or for specific categories. I.e. there could be a section of the site specifically for predictions made by people on Twoplustwo. Or specifically made by the RealGM Miami Heat forum. Or whatever.
- Allow random people to search for predictions/bets (e.g. search "Lakers" and see all open predictions/bets about the Lakers). Allow predictions to be open/closed to the public.
- Have a rankings system, leaderboard, or chess-like "rating" to keep track of how good people are at predictions.

Agreed. I have some proprietary things in my business that I'm not going to roadmap for the world to see, although I'm pretty open about a lot of other things.

Zocdoc works. I run a medical practice and we use them with great success. $250 a month per doc. If you get 1 new patient a week, you break even.

Here is my idea.

Open worker's comp clinics.

Average customer acquisition cost is $1,000 per patient. Rent is minimal since you operate in low-cost areas. No other costs since the doctors are operating on a lien too.

Average $20,000 in medical treatment per patient which really isn't that much.

Give half to the docs, half to the house.

Profit.

stupidcoaches.com

Every year coaches do really stupid ****, constantly, in every sport. Especially football. Do a firejoemorgan type site, sell ads, profit.

There's no way I'm ever going to do this, but I would like to buy it. Hopefully, someone will run with this.

Selling half-loaves of sandwich bread. As a single guy, I never eat a whole loaf of bread before it goes bad. Sell me a half a loaf at a marked up price so I don't have to waste the other half by throwing it out. I have no idea why no one has done this yet.