Have you guys seen this business cherry.com? Basically you use your phone to GPS pinpoint your car and then you pay for a car washing service via the app. Their team comes out and washes your car on the spot.

I think there are a lot of problems there and would probably bet against this company succeeding, but I think the concept is kind of cool.

Are there other things that can be used in this way? Could you do the same with oil changes? It wouldnt be focused so much so on "leaving your car parked on the street and get an oil change" rather people could come to your car at your home, office, whatever and do it there. It is more about taking the hassle out of going to get your oil changed (driving there, waiting, maybe having a friend pick you up, etc) and less about having it done in crazy places.

Concept is definitely interesting, I agree that it's unlikely that company will succeed, but feels like something that may be good in a few years once the kinks have been worked out and people are more used to the idea and ready to sign up in droves.

That site is funny, doesn't even BEGIN to describe what areas they service, I'm just going to take a wild guess and say it's probably just in certain areas of San Francisco or wherever the company is located, so maybe NYC. And I know some people are happy to pay $29 for a car wash, but I think saying "Just $29" is a bit much in the site copy haha (please no replies talking about how much car washes cost in big cities or something, I am sure tons of ppl are happy to pay $29, just hinting that it's JUST $29 is funny to me).

It's funny, of all the car-related services I'd like this for, car wash is the last, it's so easy to just go to a gas station with an auto car wash and go through it. A few weeks ago I would have said this would be good for an oil change, but I went to Jiffy Lube for the first time since then, and it was insanely fast and convenient, I had no clue it would be like that.

Anyway this model is cool in theory, but really it's just "we come to your location and do a service" dressed up to look more revolutionary because it's wrapped around an iPhone app. Clearly, very few services have made a go of "we come to you", but if you cater to people in big cities with higher incomes and less free time, I can see this working with certain things, you just have to jack up the prices and keep a nice big margin.

BTW If I was that site, Cherry.com, first thing I would do would be to hire a good, sneaky social media agency to make a viral video where the guys show up to wash the car and then some crazy stuff happens around them, like a parade of people in weird outfits doing something unexpected ala ImprovAnywhere or something. Their target market seems like exactly the kind of people who are refreshing Laughing Squid all day looking for funny Star Wars videos or whatever, the right video would make people aware of their services pretty damn fast since it'd be an integral part of the video.

so not really a fleshed-out idea, but kind of

I'm amazed how relatively "unintelligent" word processing software has remained over the years

I dream of a program that has some serious (and feasible) tools and features that would actually be useful to a professional writer

examples:

1) a clean, collapsible space accessible below any given sentence for working on sentence variants, which can be sketched here using spoiler tags:

[Candidate final sentence] "{subject} {verb} {adjective} {object}"



2) a robust 'semantic field' exploration tool: you click on a verb, noun, adjective, or adverb, and a menu / box pops up that lets you efficiently search for synonyms, related terms, definitions, antonyms, etc.

3) some kind of sentence diagramming functionality if you want to really map out how your prose is flowing and what patterns are there

4) just a more flexible and simpler way of grabbing and moving words, phrases, and sentences into different places, with the rest of the text expanding and contracting around these adjustments

5) advanced word searching and reports: are we overusing a particular verb or noun or whatever? can we get a look at frequency and patterns of typical sentence lengths in our text? what about the same for word types (syllable count, vocabulary level, Latinate-versus-Germanic)?

6) inclusion of style guidelines (like the CMS) for questions regarding punctuation use, quotations, parentheses, dashes, citations, dialogue formatting, and so on

7) advanced grammatical assistance: show me all the possible modifier slots in a given sentence; highlight all the verbs in this passage so I can focus on them; same for adverbs and adjectives; etc.

8) bonus magical fairytale wish: include a 'figurative language dreamatorium' module, where users enter a separate area with tools and resources and models and examples available to help them craft decent similes and metaphors and whatnot


okay, now make it happen, internet!

I see what your saying.. but that is why I would have the availability of software instruments.

examples:
If you pick drums then certain keys on the keyboard would represent each unit of the kit (e.g. F = bass drum, J = snare, I = hi-hat, etc.).

If you pick keys then then A-; would be the white keys and Q-P could be the black keys.

I am struggling to figure out how to do guitar and bass.

I agree with the randomness of it a voting system would work real well. User's could rate each other.

Word processing software idea is brilliant.

With the amount of blogging, twittering, etc., a web based program that carries out those tasks would be even better.

This link came up on HN today and I thought it was a great read. Its a post by Joel Spolsky on figuring out splitting equity in a startup.

http://answers.onstartups.com/questi...ly/23326#23326

I figured it'd be relevant to this thread

One of my ideas is to start a one-stop condo furnishing company for landlords. Many of the condos here are purchased by investors overseas and they simply have a local property management company take care of renting it.

The company would take care of scoping out the condo, sending a proposal with various options, delivery, and installation. Everything that the landlord can't take care of from overseas.

Fully furnished rentals generally go for $500 (1-br) to over $1,000/month (2br) premium over unfurnished rentals here. These are long-term rates (6-12 months), not for weekly or monthly rentals.

The property managers generally get 10% or one month's rent commission for an annual lease. If they can convince the owner to furnish the unit, that's an extra $500 or $1,000 profit for the agent.

I believe the premium would cover the price of furnishing in just a year (in most cases), so most landlords would see it as a sound investment.

At first, I'd try to make a deal with a local wholesale distributor, but if things worked out, I'd rent a warehouse and order furniture wholesale myself. I've purchased some furniture direct from the manufacturer before (through a friend's license) and the markup on furniture is quite absurd.

Things like linens, cookware, and basic electronics would be bought locally with a flat-rate shopping/delivery/installation fee on top.

Any advice/criticism is appreciated.

Do it then? Easy $200k profit a year? If it's fact, in one year from now you will be sitting on $200,000, minus $2,500 to produce them at quoted $5 each.

clocks in top of ski poles

My idea list is hit over 150 different business ideas this week. I realized it was ridiculous that I have so many ideas but not doing anything with them. I am guilty of thinking and thinking about ideas without taking action.

I am pretty determined to change this and start another side business on top of what I currently have going on. I started by narrowing down my list to 14 ideas that are half way feasible and I think have potential. I then wrote them all out and put them on an old blog I have. I am going to continue to narrow them down until I can test the market on 2-3 of them and then ultimately build one of them out.

I wanted to share a link to my ideas if anyone is interested...

http://matthewbizblog.com/2012/01/23/idea-list/

Hopefully by posting this online, it will give me some accountability to continue to move forward. I would really love to have the whole process from idea to making $$$ documented in real time on here. It might be inspirational for someone else.

Anyways, if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions about my ideas I would love to hear them on my comments!

My idea has been talked about to some extent so I know its nothing novel, but I haven't heard of it spoken in a global context:

I would like to create a site that contains several games of skill ranging from poker to monopoly, starcraft, halo and everything else in between that allow people to play for money in HU, SNG, team and tournament type formats. The exceptions would be any game that can be [easily] solved by computers to help eliminate bot problems.

A lot of the predominately skill games could have modded luck variations built in (I've thought of examples for starcraft) that allow amateur players to win vs skilled players due to chance every now and then. This keeps both the recreational and professional players happy.

The obvious problem I see with such a site is maintenance of such a grandiose website. Pokerstars seems to have enough on its shoulders just developing its own poker platform let alone 30 concurrent games of skill. Additionally you would need to get a monstrous player pool to make a site like this successful which would not come easily so this whole thing could only work with a huge amount of capital behind it.

I really hate the whole badge system and it saddens me that people seem to be motivated by getting little ego-badges for contributing to someone's business idea, however I think it would work really great here and would serve to motivate people in a way that would benefit themselves as well.

At some point for any given idea there had to be a person who thought of it for the first time.

imo this is the best idea in the entire thread.

captures something I have thought about wanting but was never able to articulate exactly what it was until I just read it here.

awesomeness

I know 15 years ago you could use the TI-83 on AP Calculus exams, so you are wrong. But not the TI-89.

re: writing software idea

I pinged my sister and another author friend and here is the wall of text I got back:


Items 2, 3, 5, & 6 would be the biggest draw for me. One of the biggest pitfalls I see in writing is overuse of the same word- such as Twilight's 268 mentions of the word "eyes" in 152 pages. Of course, I do it too (my current novel uses the word "cloak" 95 times in 140 pages. This is where the synonym finder could come in handy...).

There are tons of writing software programs out there, and a lot of them are crap. Most are designed to help would-be writers feel good about themselves, and offer a lot in the way of character development or plot development tools. The closest thing that I've seen to what you describe is Scrivener. It hits on items 1, 2, and 4, but especially focuses on letting a user keep multiple versions of a manuscript up at the same time. When I'm working on a project, I usually have three or four documents at the same time: one for the work itself, a second for cut chapters and passages that I'm not quite ready to delete outright, a third for quick-sketching ideas, and a fourth as a back-up copy of the work (because I've lost days of work to a file corruption issue before, and I won't have it happen again). Scrivener offers tools to put all those different files into one screen, except for the back-up issue.

As far as I know, there are no real competitors to Scrivener. There are online websites that offer similar things, but they're pretty shady. Some control your work through sneaky end-user agreements, and others force you to assign an ISBN to your work (which automatically makes your work "self-published" and greatly reduces the chance of it ever finding a mainstream publisher). There's also the issue of it all being online, which invites fears of server crashes, hacking, and other writer paranoias.

If someone could create a software that combines the expansive note-taking elements of Scrivener with everything else on the list, perhaps throw in a few writers-block-busting elements (word games, writing prompts, etc- similar to what NaNoWriMo.org offers in November), and keep the price under $60, I'd say it stands a substantial chance of being a best-seller (haha, book jokes).


Also, a link to this site: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/writing-software/

And a little more feedback on the writing software

Hello all! Just adding my comments to what Katie has already mentioned -- I'll start by saying that the idea of this has me rather excited, hah:

100% agree. One program I have started using for my articles is "Omm Writer" (http://www.ommwriter.com/) which takes control of your whole screen to eliminate distractions (it also has lots of customizable options for background color, sound, music, etc). I bring this up because once I start using it, I'm in the zone like nothing else. BUT, if I have to stop and close out and access my web browser to get to the Thesaurus ... oh look, gmail, twitter, facebook ... 30(00000) minutes later I return to my writing. So, integrating some of these functions, like a Thesaurus, into a program like Omm would be fantastico! Because writers loves distractions

I'm also attracted to the tenses thing. I am kind of THE WORST about changing tenses, especially in my reviews (much more so than a novel). It would be nice to have something check back over it for me (and I've done an ok job so far because my editor no longer edits my posts, but still. When I find it, it drives me craaaazy).

Used to write movies like "Transformers" I think. Or did it even have a script?

Amen - same here. I have a folder full of documents for my novel that are as organized as I can make them, but really just scattered everywhere and difficult to flip between. Something that would help organize these "versions" would be incredibly helpful.

yep yep yep yep yep

Word games and prompts and a NaNoWriMo-type challenge built-in would be a good thing. Overall, I would easily pay up to $60 for it. Probably not more though, because like most writers I am poor

BTW, there is already apparently some pretty decent screenwriting software out there, so I think that a focus on just prose writing for this idea would be the best way to start, but perhaps if it took off to offer either an upgraded version with screenwriting/playwriting functions (this is mostly a formatting thing) or make that a separate bit of software. But, for people like me who are all over the place, it would be nice to have it all in one!

MAKE IT SO! hah

This was fairly eye-opening, including what readers mentioned in the comments section. It seems there are several smarter-than-Microsoft-Word text processors that have existed for a while, though none with the range of stuff I fantasized about. Still, if you look at all of the tools and grammar software and style checkers and project managers out there, it does appear like the technology is available (or nearly so) if someone were to attempt the kind of program I have in mind.

Heck, I'd take a crack at it, but I'm a huge noob in most of the skill sets one would need, nor do I possess a bunch of capital to fund other people with.

That's right I ended that sentence with 'with.' Bite me.

Twitter #milliondollaridea has tons of ppls ideas.

https://twitter.com/#!/search/realti...liondollaridea

@rynosgolden
Ryne Acevedo
#milliondollaridea: Take the investors from the show Shark Tank put them in an actual shark tank, call it, "****! I'm in a shark tank!"

lolol

Can someone tell me if this already exists?

Foursquare but for pictures of food

The app would work like this. People take pictures of food or dinner they are having while at a restaurant. You would checkin to the restaurant just like you do on foursquare, then you would upload the picture of your meal and tag what you are having. Other people could then check in to the restaurant and see pictures of what other people ate and review them and see what looks good.

I have no idea how it would make money, but I have no idea how foursquare or yelp make money either.

Edit: Yes it exists. http://www.foodspotting.com

Also, I think Oink by Kevin Rose's iPhone apps company is like a foursquare for individual items.

Twitter for emotion - http://moodstir.com/

Moodstir is where you give the world a snapshot of your emotions.
Tell the world you're [frustrated] because of [traffic], or search [Jersey Shore] to see the variety of moods the popular TV show causes people to share [pity].

two ideas for campuses, both might suck, but here we go.

1) nap shack. a small area that could be put on any campus, that includes, bed, private area, and personalized wakeup time.
-niche market, as college kids get very little sleep and sometimes are on campus all day catching naps in awkward places/positions. for a nominal fee, based on a per hr basis, you could sleep comfortably inside a plush bed and be woken up by an employee.

2) online service to buy and sell books. all campuses have book stores and student union consignments, but that **** is messy and expensive. if u cud hook up ppl with a site that u can search sellers/buyers for specific books u need at reasonably set prices, you would feed another niche market. the revenue stream could be several things, like selling email addresses/info (facebook does this), advertising space, or sell it as a subscription for each term.