Ideas do have value. But most ideas also require the right team to execute. Sometimes that team includes you, and sometimes that team doesn't need you.

If you are an expert programming and have a techie idea, you can probably share your revolutionary idea all day and no one will be able to copy your idea because they can't execute.

On the other hand, if your idea is so simple that you - and everyone else - can easily execute, then it also doesn't matter. The second your idea gets any sort of traction - and notoriety and press - you will have a dozen copy cats. You are just slightly delaying the inevitable.

They key is to find the right idea that is a good match for you.

why would anyone use a matching service? enannysource.com has 23 nannies for a manhattan zip code with a 10 mile radius. that's not a ton of nannies to sift through. matching seems like overkill. my gut instinct if i was looking for a nanny would be to behave like an employer would: sift through the resumes (of which there are not a lot of here) and interview who i like. i don't need a matching service for a population of 23 resumes.

one of my ideas:

a service for famous or semi-famous people to have their wikipedia page monitored so that false information and vandalism can be quickly removed.

I couldn't find if it's against wikipedia's rules to have someone who's an agent of the subject edit the article, but if it is then the provider could just quickly notify administrators or editors if editing is needed.

i believe there is a "watch" button on wikipedia that will automatically notify you when a certain page is modified. either way, way too narrow of an idea but the broader "online reputation defender" companies are certainly doing a lot of business.

Understood. But there is almost 20% annual turnover of nannies, which is a lot when you consider that these are people you are hiring to watch over your children.

That's true, if you believe that all the available nannies are on enannysource, which is another problem. Here are just a few examples of firms in NYC that do nanny matching

http://www.nycnannyfinder.com/apply/index.php
http://www.profnannies.com/who.html
http://www.achoicenanny.com/nyc/
http://www.nannyauthority.com/

I think you would be surprised how quick false info/vandalism is removed already!

Smart razor and smart toothbrush.

All our electronic devices are going to be hooked up to the internet eventually so a razor and toothbrush seems like a natural progression. People already wear devices while they sleep to look at their sleep patterns and and heart monitors that they can look at all the data on their phone.

The idea would be that you could look at your phone and look at how long you brush your teeth on average, at what times you brush, if it were smart enough, how you could improve your brushing technique. You could get points for flossing etc.

Similar stats for shaving. Maybe it could monitor how fast your hair grows or how much of it it's cutting off. What your avg shave time is etc.

You could even add an adapter to hook up to use your phone's batter for power in case you're traveling and don't want to carry around both a razor charger and electric toothbrush charger. Only problem is you would need a protective case for your phone because nobody wants slobber on their already bacteria infested cell phone.

The brushing points\game thing sounds more valuable for mothers than adults. I can't picture anyone I know buying the razor or toothbrush for themselves

Only problem is you would need a protective case for your phone because nobody wants slobber on their already bacteria infested cell phone.

just make the cable long enough seems an obvious solution

agree it would make much more sense to market it towards mothers, seems like there is a market for tools like this with the profilation of the 'watch over your kid in every way possible'-attitude (cellphones for very young children, kids in leaches, kids that carry a tracker, ...)

dentists might promote it too

*edit* how will this not be copied fairly quick by the big players in the market though?

I have an idea I'd like to share that I started working on even though I'm not a coder.

A website / app that maps out a person's food taste palette and then recommends restaurants and recipes based on the history. Hunch.com offers similar service but this would be food related only.

Cts,

Those of us who are very internet savvy and aware often forget how uninformed/apathetic people are about these things. I think you'd be surprised how uninformed about wikipedia most people are. I actually already do some freelance "wiki consulting" for a couple of actors who have no clue how easy it is.

Gullanian,

It's more about removing un-cited info the subject doesn't want and cleaning it up to highlight the info they like.

hey Tony, for sure -- hopefully the "watch" feature makes your consulting easier

ISign. Online verified Signature Service. So you can sign your deals through IPhone/Ipad/etc., you can send a copy to each ones e-mail and keep one copy at your database.

ICook. Sells access to videos (can be other form) of chiefs that will guide you trough recipes. The ingredients, the final product and a resume from the chief are available before buying, different price ranges. Preferentially chiefs get a cut.

IKnow. Sells lessons on varied subjects, initially aimed at school and college. Parents more willing to buy an IPhone and guys in college would be able to rationalize the cost.

This is what I managed to came up in 10 minutes. Had expanded a little more but I logged out (was 4, forgot one). My mind obviously wandered about IDeas.

I think there is some understanding of secrecy when someone is passionate and seriously working on an idea. People can and will steal your ideas.

I also think there is some instances where the sharing, feedback, and soundboard process of a business or idea is important....everything is situational.

Plenty of business ideas have been stolen, and a majority of businesses are simply changes, or improvements to another existing business model or idea.

Getting it off the ground first in some respects could be everything....hanging on to ideas in secrecy you think are great but will never act on is kind of worthless.

I used to order discount coupons from Restaurant.com as far back as 6 years ago if my memory serves me correct: I would pay $10 for $20 of food at select restaurants, and I originally found them on Ebay I believe, and would receive regular emails about new businesses offering coupons.

Sounds Familiar?....just sayin'

Groupon.com

"Launched in November 2008, Groupon features...."

"We came up with the patent-pending idea for Groupon....."

An authentic creativity website

Malcolm Mclaren Ted talk here

Ted Talk link

A website for creatives, resource, creative tools, innovative ideas. Not somewhere anybody can contribute, kind of the opposite of facebook. Would have to be operated, maintained by a non elitist but exclusive membership. You have to make a contribution to be accepted as a member.

eg. If I was a member and wanted to look up movie reviews, I would know, that the reviews came from artistic, articulate, intelligent reviewers.

It's all very vague, and Malcolm does drone on a bit, but worth a look.

Woo!

Very happy to see this thread started. I will be contributing ideas and responding to other ideas for sure.

One thing that has been helpful skimming the thread so far has been the new ideas in bold. Would be nice if we could continue to do that imo.

I'm curious as to why you would want to organize it by university... most people don't apply to just 1 out of the top 10 and there isn't too much differences in their applications.

I do think there is a market for this service though. I knew people in college that had gone to the ultra fancy prep schools where something like 30% of people go to ivy league schools and parents of kids a few years younger were willing to pay quite a bit per hour for general application preparation help. So kudos on the idea.

I'm a huge fan of devices that gather data like this.

I think one of the major reasons that Zeo (sleep pattern device) has been successful is that it's an interesting "story" to sell to people. Sleep is still a mysterious field that we don't know a lot about, so the ability to gather data about sleep is interesting and exciting to people.

(it's also passive - you just put the headband on at night and you have data when you wake up)

I think it would be much harder to get that excitement factor from brushing teeth or shaving, which people see as chores. You would have to rely on the practical side of it a lot more. Or turn it into a game and possibly market toward parents, as you/others suggested.

Maybe Smart Sex Toys?

I actually had the idea to make a website/blog that did the same thing as this thread, so that further proves your original point lol

One possible explanation could deal with the phenomenon he discussed where former question-askers stick around after they get in to school and answer questions about the admission process. In that scenario, it could be useful for them to break it up by school.

Lots of forums do this type of thing with specified threads though.

Good post. The whole "ideas are useless" thing is a cliche these days, although it has it's usefulness. I have had 4 people I know pitch me the exact same website idea in the last 10 years, all thinking they have stumbled on something amazing, and it's useful to explain this to them in a non-jerky way, but I think the whole "YOUR IDEA HAS NO VALUE" sort of rhetoric is just cliched.

I've been reading up on Fitbit lately, which this is somewhat similar to (fitbit just tracks exercise/calories, but same theory), and I like this idea. Some guy gave a speech at a video game conference maybe 1-1.5 years ago, and I wish I could remember his name and find the video, but he basically laid out a big scenario where every aspect of everyone's life becomes tracked and game-ified, with achievement badges and all that sort of thing. So you get points for exercising regularily, brushing your teeth, whatever, and you can give access to your data to organizations if you want, so for instance the government might decide to give a tax credit to people who exercise regularily, in order to lower health care costs, etc.

I think it's a better than 50% chance that the smart razor/toothbrush will be tried by someone in the next 5-10 years, although I wonder if it's a bit too early for them and people need to get used to this idea? Like, right now the only networked devices I can think of like this are:

- Fitbit (and the competing Body Bugg)
- There's a line of scales I just learned about yesterday that are networked and can track your weight loss on their website.
- Nike has that thing that goes in your shoe and hooks up to your iPhone and tracks your running on their Nike+ site.


Would love to hear more things, I'm sure there are some, but anyhow, these are all specifically fitness things, which seems like a good niche for this sort of device to start with. I think the concept of networked devices of this sort may need to gain a lot of traction, to the point where people are really familiar with the concept, before something as specific as a razor/toothbrush takes off. To me, it just doesn't seem like one of the first household items you'd logically pick for this. Or is it? I don't know. Just seems too early to me (albeit a cool idea).

I wonder how much it would cost to get these manufactured. Clearly a huge amount, but I wonder what an actual ballpark would be to hire good industrial designers, technical people who can create/program a device like this, and then have them made.

Collegeconfidential.com was the nuts

thing about the "eHar-nanny" on the application...if people lie, it would skrew up the matching and provide people searching with some false info? i dunno just a thought...

My idea:

Send pregnant Chinese people from China to America so they can give birth to american citizens (shut up about the politics of this, this is the business forum, you can crucify me in politics which is <---- that way).

Im actually fine with posting this because afaik, besides me, 0 of you are in china.

Why i can do it better than other companies:
1. Im white, chinese people would prefer to see a white face on this kind of stuff
2. My parents are both well known OB/GYN doctors
3. We have good connections in the hospital.

thats all i got.