I’m bored: You tell this app how long you have to wait in line (DMV, Disneyworld, for your partner to finish in the bathroom, etc…) and it comes up with some challenge that will last that exact amount of time to keep you entertained.
Rooms you want to escape from: It’s like a regular escape room, but instead of mystery scenarios, you are put into very awkward situations (like a long claustrophobic elevator ride with strangers).
Duolingo, but for accents: It is one thing to impersonate an Australian accent. It is another thing to impersonate the Australian accent well. This platform would train you in accents, so it’d be easy to speak like a Brit or Northeastern or French or Southern character.
Eating competition but everyone is on Ozempic: Takes some extra willpower to eat more if you’re biologically induced to feel full.
Under 6 foot basketball league: A basketball league where everyone is under 6 foot. Gives opportunity to people who are very skilled but cannot compete with the height of the NBA.
Pokemon stay: App tracks your location. Pokemon go except the pokemon come to you. The longer you stay in one place, the more rare the pokemon become.
Flake Button: you have plans to hang out with a group. If you secretly don’t want to go, press flake button. If a majority of the group also pressed flake button then the event is canceled. If not then nobody knows you pressed it and you can go stress free.
Competitor as a service: We build a fake competitor landing page you can use to motivate the employees at your company.
Anti-organic-food-brand: Pro-GMO grocery store. Think Liquid Death style branding but for all types of foods—blue chicken breasts, miniature watermelon, blueberries that taste like beef.
Fortunes inside of banana peels: Like fortune cookies, but put the fortunes inside of banana peels. Makes eating bananas more fun.
Lawyers for non-legal settlements: Perhaps you are in an argument with your friend. What you want is someone like a lawyer who could provide a fair, unbiased assessment of who is in the right (even though the situation does not deal with the law).
Natural deli: A lot of vegan people do not eat meat for moral reasons (i.e. they feel bad about killing animals). Create a deli where all the food comes from animals that died of natural causes (i.e. a cow that broke its leg but the filet is still fine).
The Great Wall of Air Fryers: Replace your oven with a modular Wall of Air Fryers. If you already own an air fryer, this idea is obviously great. If you do not, get one, and then you will understand.
Personality Saver: A service that makes your child temporarily unattractive in middle school + early high school so they're forced to develop a good personality and then re-glows them up once they have a good personality.
Free ideas calendar: Someone should make a calendar that has a free idea on each page. Perhaps that someone should be us.
Workaholics anonymous: Like AA but for people who work too much.
AI Guardian: For those with focus issues, Anthropic’s computer use API can watch your screen and prevent you from navigating away to Twitter if you haven’t finished doing your task for the day.
Club runs: Like run clubs, except it’s a group going between several different nightclubs in one night.
Pokemon go but for finding new friends: App where if you’re walking near someone who has also opted-in to meeting new friends and perhaps has similar interests, it sends you a notification connecting the two of you. Everyone on the app has been interviewed and background checked.
PRESSED: A mac app that counts your total key presses. Kind of like Strava.
Free problems: Forum where people post problems they have in the work place / their lives that a company could fix. People peruse it to get company ideas and if someone builds a company around your problem maybe you get royalties or some % of the business. Worst case your problems get solved.
Gravy Train Restaurant: a restaurant like a sushi train but replaces it with a river of gravy. Food comes in gravy boats, customers have a ladle to use.
Standing room: Service you pay a small amount for and then get free access to concerts that aren’t sold out. Helps venues smooth demand fluctuations, help people go to cheap concerts, and helps artists seem like all their shows are sold out.
Dehydrated meal delivery service: When you do like long backpacking trips you can do dehydrated meals and just boil them. But why not turn this into a regular meal delivery service with much lower shipping costs.
Art subscription service: for $30/mo we will mail you a print from an up and coming artist.
Oregon donors: like organ donors except it’s people in oregon who own land who donate some of their land.
Midlife Crisis: Enforce that everyone has a mini-retirement for a year, maybe when they’re 43 or so. Social Security can pay out during this time.
Prediction tournaments: In-person, competitive prediction making across a wide variety of categories. Two parts, where step one is watching professionals make predictions and step two is seeing 12 months later if the predictions were correct. Basically competitive gambling of sorts. Meta is that you can also bet on the event.
Human blinders: Horse Blinders, but as glasses for humans. For focusing.
Follow-through Score: Social credit score but for tracking how often you do what you say you’re going to do.
Partiful for weddings: Sometimes you want to coordinate flights, lodging, etc. to a wedding or other event, but you’re not sure who’s going. And it’s awkward to ask in case they weren’t actually invited. So basically Partiful but for weddings too.
Loading screens for LLM apps: People spend lots of time waiting for LLMs to generate tokens. Would be nice to have something to do in the meantime. Maybe label data, maybe watch an ad, minecraft parkour video, etc.
Discount services: You know how you can get cheaper dental or haircuts by going to dental students or cosmetology students. we should have more of this. psychologists in training, pilots in training, etc.
Freenets.net: take a picture of a basketball hoop in a park, if it doesn’t have a net we’ll mail you a net.
Text Time Machine: Time machine that pulls up a text exchange that you had 10 years ago, so you can cringe and stay humble.
Simulated Twitter: Pick a topic and then an LLM will simulate a twitter feed so you learn all about that topic.
GeoGuessr Game Generator: Game generator that uses GeoGuessr’s format as a template. Guess movies from a frame, songs from a 15 second clip, sentences from particular essays, etc.
Single use gorilla glue: Like a tiny ketchup packet that holds just enough for one use.
Coffee shop but it’s bone broth: Make sure there are interesting bowls.
Old Spelling Bee: The spelling bee but not just until 8th grade - let’s see the pinnacle of good spelling. Maybe there could be a version for people older than 80 years old as well. Another idea is to host spelling bees at bars and pubs — see how people perform on fairly basic words under the influence.
Roast me: a service where you have to answer basic questions about yourself, upload photos, and people roast you in a really serious way.
Dictionary with no quit: It looks like a typical webster’s dictionary except the word quit has been removed. Good gift for friends who may be running a marathon.
Slack plugin called “slack direct”: translates all your messages from fluffy corporate speak to direct communication (e.g. hey is now still a good time for you to connect on Q4 planning? —> where are you? the meeting started 4 mins ago). it also works the other way where you can send a “direct” message and it will add appropriate corporate fluff.
Honey Lavender Ice Cream: Ice cream shop that only has the best flavor: honey lavender. But it has the full spectrum of full honey to full lavender, so there’s something for everyone.
Pure barter services marketplace: Instead of paying cash for a task rabbit you’d have to be able to offer a service in return that’s valuable for them (e.g. they hang your TV and you give them a piano lesson).
Zoos with robots instead of animals: That’s the idea.
Better Maps: Add semantic search over maps. E.g. I want to find “a neighborhood that is safe, close to public transportation, within 10m walk from one of these gyms, and has good bars & restaurants.” (Via Oscar Hong)
Garbage In, Health Food Out: Collect all the sht in sf and compost it and make a restaurant that serves veggies grown in that soil. (Via Christian Hales)
ESPN for the tech industry: Cover the hottest companies - all of their big meetings, last minute partnership deals, key signings/firings, and more. Eventually create the ability to trade talent: “I’ll trade you my CTO for 3 sales directors.”
Doordash but for last minute gifts: They will do cakes with writing on it, balloons, bottles of wine, sports jerseys, tickets, etc. — all within 5 minutes.
Physical therapy office that has you pick 4 types of frozen fruit: when you get there to put into a bag to ice your injury and then at the end makes you a smoothie from the contents of the bag.
Choose your own adventure book: Audience votes on what happens next in a book, then the author continues writing it.
GaaS (gaslighting as a service): Service that temporarily convinces you (gaslights you into thinking) that something has happened either in the world / in your life to give you more perspective / make you more grateful.
Service / pill that gives you hyper targeted amnesia: so you can read a book / watch a movie for the first time again.
Captcha but for robots: only robots can pass it. (Via Jared Rosner)
Instagifts: A service that connects to your partner's Instagram and collects any ads they're shown coming up to the holiday period, giving you a super easy list of gift buying ideas. (Via Matthew Fitch)
Paying attention filter: Zoom overlay or filter that makes it look like your eyes aren’t moving when you're not paying attention, but your camera can still be on.
Negotiation database: People can share what negotiation tactic they tried, in what kind of scenario, and how effective it was.
Silent discos but with audiobooks or podcasts: dance + learn.
Uber for quests: Click a button, get sent a quest. What’s a quest? Someone comes to your door, knocks three times, you open, they say: “Would you like to go on a quest?” (Straight face). You say yes and go on an adventure of a lifetime. Maximum 1 per year. Alternate version where instead of quests the prompt they ask you is: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”
Baptism sauce: Sure you can do your baptism with water. But what if you could mix in some of your favorite sauce: tikka masala, barbecue, ranch, etc. the list is endless.
BeReal for Invisalign: So people on Invisalign can keep track of the progress of their friends’ teeth as they improve and stay motivated to continue.
Misled: A book that covers academic subjects and fields that have changed so dramatically over the years that what you were probably taught in middle and high school is now incorrect.
Marsupial Shirt: A shirt for parents that has a kangaroo pouch. You can feed the baby through the pouch. (via Jared Rosner)
Soup dinner party: A dinner party where everyone brings a soup ingredient, then you enjoy it. Should reduce how late people are. But if you are late, you better bring an ingredient that cooks fast.
Workout rewards: Barry’s workout class but you earn additional smoothie ingredients based on how hard you run.
Writing hackathon: A hackathon of sorts where your objective is to produce an essay or a book in a short period of time.
Foundation model for ASMR: A foundation model for different sounds could be useful for sound effects, yes, but also ASMR.
Suno for memorization: Generates a catchy song about something you want to memorize. Easier to remember song lyrics than straight up terms and definitions. Could be great for pre-med students.
Tongue cover: Attachment that goes over your taste buds, so picky eaters can eat anything.
Simple stylist: A website where you upload a few photos of yourself and some of your basic characteristics (height, occupation, preferences) and you are sent 10 articles of clothing you should purchase. Ongoing, you give it feedback and it continues telling you what to buy.
Simple Video Rules: Describe (in natural language) a rule or trigger for a video stream, e.g. “alert if this lever ever falls off the assembly line.” Can be useful in factory, home, or public space settings. (via Oscar Hong)
Competitor Listener: Notifies you if any of your competitors have changed anything on their website, e.g. pricing terms, features.
World record recommender: Ingests everything about you and gives you the world record you have the best shot of breaking.
Terminal Conversations: A marketplace of sorts where you can speak with people with terminal illnesses. Gives you a lot of perspective. Could even have a Cameo-esque feature.
Necklace of silence: A globally accepted necklace you can wear when you actively do not want people to talk to you. It lets people know that you would prefer silence. Perfect for Uber rides or the dentist or when you are getting a haircut.
Gene-edited racehorses: Horse racing records haven't been broken since Secretariat in 1973, so we’ve hit a limit. Competitions are also great for advancing innovation—we can advance our knowledge of CRISPR, while also getting faster horses.
Memory palace constructor: Converts anything you want to remember (list, numbers, speech, etc.) into an AI-generated visual memory palace and walks you through it using the best known memory training techniques. (Via Oscar Hong)
Fast Super Casual: A restaurant that just cooks up batches of Trader Joe’s frozen meals in bulk and loads them into old cottage cheese containers. More variety than you’d probably have at home. Grab and go. Good enough. Costs 5 bucks or less.
Placebos, for everything: There have been many studies showing that placebos can be effective even when you know they are placebos. Therefore, we should all we be taking a personalized placebo pill every morning that helps us achieve our goals. This service would allow you to easily choose what type of placebo pill you’d like to take and send it via mail.
A-cow-ntability: It would be a license, like you would need to have in order to drive a car, specifically enabling people to eat beef. To get the license, you have to kill a cow (while staring it in the eyes). You are then given your very own beef license and are free to go and eat as much beef as you would like! More details here.
The Big Bang: A movie that’s just Christopher Nolanesque footage of epic explosions of all sorts. In Hi-def. Lots of slow-mo. Amazing sound design. 2 hours long. No plot. iMAX. (via Christian Hales)
Pal: A wearable collar for your dog that uses AI to translate its heartbeat, barks, and movements into messages you can read on your phone. (via Ben Goldberg)
Reverse AGI movie: A movie where robots invent humans, and deal with all of the problems with humans (emotions, etc.) - as opposed to the other way around.
Endangered meals: Typical idea is to protect endangered animals by protecting their habitats. Alternative idea is to hire chefs to make really great recipes out of endangered animals (i.e. bald eagle tacos or black rhino wellington). This will drive demand and lead to innovation in breeding / producing more of these endangered animals.
Reverse flash mob: Large groups of people go to crowded areas designed for dancing (clubs, bars, etc.) and pull out their laptops / start taking work calls at an arranged time.
Wager: App for friend groups where everyone in the group anonymously bets on milestones (first kid, first marriage, etc.) and then totals get paid out as the milestones happen.
Karaoke, but only Pop Smoke: It’s a karaoke bar, but the only type of music you are allowed to sing along to is from Pop Smoke.
Fake busy notebook: In meetings, oftentimes the best thing to do is not talk. Create a notebook that is full of real-looking notes so that you can just trace the notes and look busy and engaged without having to actually participate in the meeting.
Personal standup: Build a service that calls you every morning and asks you how yesterday went and your goals for the day. Log all the data from the calls in a simple app and beautiful dashboard with sentiment analysis.
Rugby basketball: A new version of basketball where there are no fouls or goaltending. Think UFC + basketball. Everything is worth 1 point. Final scores are often low scores like 3-1.
Objection!: You can hire someone to go to the weddings of people you hate and object to the marriage. This is pretty rude, though.
Strava for writing: Mac app that tracks how many words you write a day. Make it easy to share with your network. Perhaps also tracks keystrokes.
Mental gym/bootcamp: A gym that focuses on mental fitness. You go to the gym and they have a curriculum to help you get mentally tough. You go and do mental workouts like writing, reading, speech giving, problem solving, etc. Helps you confront your fears directly.
Medicine ball volleyball: Make a volleyball style game where instead of using a volleyball, you use a medicine ball and the objective of the game is to throw the ball back and forth over the net and see who drops it first. Probably painful/dangerous but so is football.
Used: create wishlist and get notification when a certified refurbished version becomes available across reputable platforms (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.).
Running by weight class: Marathon/running races but the leaderboard is organized by weight classes (like boxing).
Internal podcast for organizations: Every company should have an internal podcast that every employee listens to. Interview the founders and random people from across the business. It will indoctrinate the team with ideas, stories, and culture. And it will be fun. Start it before the company is big. So people can listen to episodes from early on. Spend 15 minutes a week recording it early on.
Vintage tech brand swag: Sell clothing that companies gave to early employees. Apple t- shirts, google sweatshirts, etc.
Reverse life coaching: Older ppl in mid life crisis getting counseling from young naive adults.
Mr. Does What He Says He’s Going To Do Man: Superhero series where the main character’s power is just to do what he says he is going to do. Ultra-reliable. Could be an inspiration for people at work. Another power is the ability to communicate when he’s not going to hit a deadline.
Make $1000 class: Make a class in school (or outside of school) where the whole objective is to make $1000. There’s not a lot of instruction. You pass if you make $1000 and you fail if you do not. The only constraint is that you cannot sell your time for money directly—you have to make a thing of sorts that generates revenue.
Rodeo drive rodeo: Host a big rodeo on rodeo drive.
Young people language: Young people should create an entirely new language that old people don’t understand at all. Imagine everyone under 30 speaking a totally different language.
Mormon life insurance: I own mormonlifeinsurance.com. Feel like Mormons live longer, so they should get cheaper life insurance.
You can lose weight: An app that texts you an unflattering picture of yourself daily motivating you to be healthy. Optionally it also sends to a group of your friends.
BS detector: Grammarly, but detects when your writing is using lots of buzzwords and sounds like bullshit.
Intro finder: You type in a company, and it tells you your best path(s) to get an intro to the founder by scanning your Linkedin/Twitter connections.
The great startup survey: Build pave.com for all the other questions/prompts relevant for startup founders (outside of just how much cash/equity to pay people). Think questions like – at your current revenue, with your geography, industry, growth rate, etc. – how/what are others doing benefits, PTO policies, etc.
Gift giving consultancy: You tell us about your target gift receiver, we curate the perfect gift.
Flash card chrome extension: Chrome extension where you pick a topic from a library and then every time you open a new tab it has a fun fact / interesting thing for you to memorize from. Learn skills or languages that way.
6-pack living: Guaranteed 6-pack. We live in your home (or you live in our specialized apartment complex) and we decide what you eat. That’s it. If you cheat, we kick you out of the program and you lose your $10,000 deposit.
Dictionaries for organizations: Very few companies have dictionaries to define what they mean by certain words. Even seemingly simple words like “success” and “long-term” and others should have organizationally-specific definitions to reduce coordination errors. These organizations should create dictionaries.
Compliment delivery service: You pay to have a person deliver an in person compliment to a friend in another place.
Hold the mayo: Mayo is gross. Restaurant that by default puts mayo on everything (your burger, your fries, your water). You have to remind them “no mayo,” otherwise you have to deal with a glob of mayo on everything.
UberBreakup: You call an uber to go to your ex’s house and they pick up your belongings for you.
Master credit card: enter all your credit cards onto a platform. Swipe your master credit card and it will auto choose whichever card gets the most points on the purchase.
Motivation while running/lifting: App that broadcasts to your friends when you start a workout. They can send you audio messages to motivate you that automatically get played during your activity.
Conversation simulator: Chatbot that you interface with before having a conversation with someone. For those of us who need to practice empathy ;).
Transparent funders: Create a database of all of the limited partners involved in venture capital funds. Find out where the money is actually coming from.
Weird-looking credit cards: There are a lot of “innovative modern fintech companies” making credit cards. Sure they are shiny, but they all look like rectangles. Make credit cards that look like orbs or put them on keychains, etc.
Lateral olympics: Get professional athletes to compete in sports they are not professional in, and see how they do. They have a month to train. Lebron running the mile. Phelps playing baseball. Etc.
Horseback gym: A mechanical horse gym so ppl can practice horseback riding + cowboy moves without needing to own a horse.
Course on how to be an adult: Build a masterclass course on how to be an adult—including things like personal finances, taxes, insurance, buying a house, having kids, schools, etc.
Hibachi for other foods: Why not like Hibachi for all types of foods where they cook right in front of you? Why just tableside guac? Give me hibachi breakfast. Tableside pancakes.
Accountable: Schedules a randomly generated obscene tweet that you have to wake up and disable (makes sure you are awake by x time).
Live Streamed company: Company that live streams all of their work publicly. Every employee has a twitch channel, too.
Backstory: When you order meat, the restaurant gives you the backstory of whatever animal you are eating (where they lived, how long they were alive, what their life was like).
Scenic Route: GPS that only takes you on routes that are nice to walk/run/bike on vs. just fastest way there.
Ultimate global hackathon: Create a hackathon with “famous” tech founders: Zuck/Gates/etc. Everyone has 24 hours to build something epic.
New food: We need a new widely popular food. We have bread, meat, vegetables, etc. What’s next? What does the new building block/element look like? Not Jello. Jello is a gag food. We need something foundational here. (via Adaobi)
Baby Olympics: You enroll your baby in a series of athletic competitions and the winning baby gets a college scholarship.
Cancel-finder: We look at your Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin for old posts that would get you canceled. Sell to employers when hiring candidates and also for their current employees.
Monster run club: Run club where you are being chased by someone in a monster or gorilla suit. People trying to scare you the whole run.
Sommelier course for water: Not all water is created equal okay. Train your palette to detect different types of water.
Knock on wood, wood: Slab of wood you keep near your desk you can knock on whenever you need to knock on wood.
See the ingredients: scan the ingredients section of any food and it tells you if any of the ingredients are terrible for you (seed oils, xanthan gum, etc.) .
Guidance: Match young kids with elderly people to have weekly conversations. Older people get companionship and younger people get guidance.
Posture-reminder: Wearable that buzzes you every 15 minutes reminding you to fix your posture. Could shock you physically if more effective.
Table for four: community that schedules four person reservations in your city on Tuesday nights at good restaurants. Way to meet people and try good restaurants.
Road Trip generator: Put in the starting point and destination and it finds you the prettiest route, best value hotels, best restaurants, etc..
Accountability alarm clock: you make a pact with a friend to wake up at a certain time and your phones both ring at that time and you talk to each other. Good way to start the day and stay accountable.
Under 6 foot bar: Bar for guys under 6 foot. The door to get in is shorter.
Your top priority: Mac app that sticks your top priority in the top right corner of your screen all the time so you are reminded of what to work on.
Space for your suitcase: When you go to stay at someone’s house, and you don’t know where to put your suitcase. Like it just lies open face somewhere in the corner. So awkward and inefficient. There should be a solution to this.
Pushup beeper: Beeper physical device that you have on your desk that randomly, throughout the day, beeps and tells you to do 20 pushups. You click a button if you’ve done it and it logs your streak.
Syllabus generator: Type in a topic and the app pulls together a collection of essays, books, activities, videos, shorts, music, prompts, things etc. for you to do in order to learn ANY topic. It does this by pairing everything the app knows about you—what you like, how you learn, what you are good at, what you are bad at, etc.—with the best information on the topic to create the absolute best way to go about learning anything.
Curious people survey: Create a survey that asks people questions about what they like and promise you will match them with one interesting person a year. For free. Send it to 10 smart and curious people you know, tell them to take it seriously, and make sure they each send it to 10 smart people they know. Tell them to make sure the 10 people they send it to also send to 10. You now have 1000 people.
Debate series: Record professional debates between famous world leaders of countries and organizations. Host live viewings. Big macro topics but also niche trivial ideas.
Videotaping the kitchen: Restaurant where there’s an always on feed of the people cooking your food. Watch the footage before you consume your food to make sure it’s clean.
Better umbrellas: Unclear the solution but umbrellas are just not that good. Like I always get at least a little wet. Do better, please.
Gratitude reminder: Log one thing you’re grateful for every day and then get random notifications of previous entries throughout your day.
Reverse delivery: Restaurants that pay for your uber to come to them (as opposed to sending you the food to your home).
Pastabilities: Like Chipotle, for pasta. Mainly for the name.
Best best man speeches: Best man speeches as a service. Note: they are the best.
Direct advertising network: What if you built an advertising network where viewers/listeners of the ads actually get paid? For someone with a compelling product, they would probably pay something to get the opportunity to pitch a prospect? (I mean, we know they would because they currently pay Google/FB/etc. this).
Intern: program you get accepted to where you work 12 jobs at 12 companies, each for a month the year after college (or high school) to get a better understanding of the landscape of jobs.
New electrification company: There are many government subsidies for “electrifying” communities by installing HVACs, heat pumps, etc. You could build a services business that specializes in electrifying homes (installing the above equipment) for FREE to people using government subsidies. And then convert them into a subscription once you are in their home.
New type of gym: Gym that you have to pay a lot more if you don’t show up.
New easy button: Instead of saying that was easy, have the button say: “that is bullshit.” Click it in meetings when you know people are just bullshitting you.
Random funny trip: You and all your friends meet at the airport. Split into teams of two. You all start with $2000 in your bank accounts. The objective: go to the most random possible place within 24 hours and facetime each other. Most random location/activity wins.
Alley oop: Dating app where people in relationships make profiles for their single friends and connect with people their actual friends with to see if they can make good set ups.
Feedback giver: Someone – or group of people – who you pay to give you honest, genuine feedback. Can be on very micro interactions. Key is getting complete honesty from people on the little things. They will tell you what you actually are like to interact with.
Once a day email: Email that only shows you new messages once a day so you are not checking it all the time.
DJ booth nightclub concept: Fun night club you could build that would have dozens of 10 to 100 person rooms that have a DJ booth in them. You and your friends can rent out a room where you get to take over the AUX. The rooms can be themed and you can throw parties in them.
Pay by weight airline: Airline where you are charged by how much you + your bags weigh combined.
Cross country: App that connects people who want to transport their car long distances to people who want to do road trips. Ship car for free and rent car for free
Group chats for people born with the same name: We will go out and find people with the same name as you and put you in a group chat.
Successful parenting: A book with detailed interviews with the parents of now successful figures throughout history.
Birthday cover song: An app for your friend groups that chooses a song when it’s someone’s birthday, assigns everyone a part, prompts recordings, and generates the song to send the birthday boy / girl on their special day.
Different shot put: Shot put competitions where you have to throw weirdly shaped objects like a blender or chair.
Youth sports coaching, sport: You and your friends all sign up to coach youth basketball/soccer/baseball. See what happens. The league lets you draft players/etc.
Document editor with transparency: A writing platform that, when you publish an essay, also shows all of the iterations that went into the piece, so the reader can see what the writing process is actually like.
Adult bar mitzvahs: Bar mitzvahs were/are great fun. Just should have them as adults.
How it could all change: A deep dive blog detailing how things we accept as needed in today’s society (our water system, having Amazon, etc.) could completely change within the next 100 years. A practical route for this change actually happening.
Anti-portfolios: Founders should publish lists of all the venture capitalists that said no to them. Create a list of all the anti-portfolios/companies that funds missed out on.
Shutdown Kit: A company that makes it really easy for you to shut down your company.
Courier: A cheaper alternative to overnight shipping. Platform that matches you with someone traveling to a city where you want something shipped in the next 24 hours to courier your parcel at a fraction of the cost.
Popularizing dance battles: We need a better way to settle arguments. Dance battles are the solution. There should be more public dance battles.
Data dating app: Shows your bank account balance, credit score, IQ, personality test, etc.
Fridge lock: Fridge locks every night at midnight unless you solve a puzzle.
Unsexy summer camp: A program where you get to work as an apprentice doing manual labor in traditionally unsexy industries like plumbing, restaurants, and oil.
Steroid sports league: Run faster. Hit further. Punch harder. A sports league where any performance enhancements are allowed.
360 interviews for your life: Service that goes and interviews 10 people around you in your life and delivers organized anonymized feedback.
Fantasy venture capital: Like fantasy football, but for investing in startups.
Pre-college semester: After high school, everyone should go to college at Arizona State for one semester. Just to see what it’s like before going to some boring school like UChicago.
Food fight venues: Like ax throwing, but for food fights. Rent out for birthdays and team-bonding events.
Job board with hiring managers: The quality of your manager plays a big role in whether or not you will like your job. Create a job board that is organized by who the hiring manager is and talks about their background.
Superlative maker for your friends: App that makes it easy to vote on superlatives amongst your friends.
Yard sale consultant: help people optimize layout / pricing / marketing for yard sale and take a % of sales.
Clean your closet: Marketplace of people who are really good at selling your clothes online on places like Depop. They will take the photos and list them as a % of revenue.
Documentaries as a service: Submit all the footage from the trip you took with your friends and we turn it into an epic documentary. (See https://yearlylegacy.com/)
References as a service: Loop in a service that does a detailed analysis/reference on a candidate before you hire them. Goes and talks to their former manager and friends so you get a detailed view of their capabilities.
Fast and the furious heist experience: Everyone should experience a proper heist, at least once in their lives. Experience you can sign up for so you and your friends can execute a simulated heist, just like they do in Fast and the Furious. Maybe it’s just me.
Annoyingly tall person prank: Prank your friend by hiring a really tall person to follow them around and intimidate them all the time.
Text Message Bankruptcy: if you are bad at responding to texts you can add a bot where if you don’t respond manually in 3 days it just sends an auto generated text back.
Super super senior: there should be 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, and then everyone goes back for a 5th year of high school after.
Spotify vinyl: At the end of every year, it sends you a vinyl with your top 20 songs of the year.
Bring back Rollercoaster tycoon: Not really a new idea, but kids these days don’t play enough rollercoaster tycoon. And it shows.
tHAAS: the hangover, the movie, as a service where you pay them and they come kidnap the groom at the beginning of the bachelor party and set up an elaborate scavenger hunt for the group to try find him.
Electric Hairbrush: toothbrushes went digital but hairbrushes are still analog. seems not fair. would prob feel great if your hairbrush vibrated.
Peecoat: like a peacoat but has a built in system that lets you urinate while out and about and harnesses the warmth from it to make you warmer. more convenient bathroom access and more warmth.
Who let the dogs out: Free petsitting platform. Crazy that people have to pay to have their dog walked / looked after when there are prob so many people who would pay to do that / do it for free.
ecir: a reverse rice maker. you put unused cooked rice in it and it dehydrates it and turns it back into the version that’s easy to store.
Shmells: Shazam for smells.
Wheelchair treadmill: Elite wheelchair racing is a thing. Where do they practice? Should have wheelchair treadmills at every gym.
Moneython: Like a hackathon, but the goal is simply to try and make as much money as possible in X amount of time (legally).
College for adults: I know people have said this idea before but please someone explain to me why you can’t just run a fully functioning college for adults?
DateMyFriends.com: A website where you can post a gallery of profiles of your friends who are eligible for dating. And then people apply and you can approve introductions to your friends. You can probably pitch your friends better than they can pitch themselves. Make money lots of ways - by for example promoting profiles. Someone should build this! Email us if/when you build this.
Brok-in: Service that breaks in shoes for you.
Fish Stroller: A purse you can carry a fish in.
Marketing copy finetuned LLM: ChatGPT doesn’t write good copy and sounds too cringe or generic. Use https://milled.com/ or scrape your own marketing focused copy - marketing email, IG captions, TikTok scripts, etc. Could try out separate models per medium or one. Could also continually finetune based on metrics that your users send back. Sell to all ecommerce brands that spend lots of money on ads and need to write copy.
Paparazz-me: A service where you can pay a paparazzi to follow you around and take pictures of you. Useful for travel. Also there’s a mode where they can send 30 photographers and greet you outside of a restaurant. For when you want attention.
New jukebox: Manager of the coffee shop sets acceptable vibes and LLM filters out song requests that don’t fit vibes.
Dating gaps: An incubator to incubate new dating apps, trying to find gaps in the market.
Craigsagent: An AI agent that will scrape Craigslist for apartment listings, apply, and filter out the ones trying to steal your SSN.
Poly Market: A market/dating app for people in open/poly relationships.
Unethical idea we do not endorse: emergency room triaging can really impact your experience. you may go to the ER and wait for 6 hours. to get higher up in the queue, itd be better for you to for example be bleeding / have visible damage and look older. this is a service that dresses you up to get higher up in the queue.
Department More: When you arrive at a mall or department store, you are often overwhelmed by options. The place is huge! A better experience could be the following: you arrive to the department store and you select a stylist to work with you. You pay them an hourly rate (starting at $100/hour). Rather than go walk around a massive store (which is also expensive for the store to maintain real estate for), they take you into an office type structure that has a dressing room in it. Inside, they have a massive TV screen and an Ipad you and they can search for items with. They interview you and help you find your style, and then bring you loads of options. No walking around wasting time. It all comes to you. On the backend, they’ve optimized a warehouse full of clothing. Once you clothes come, you then try on the options, they give you honest feedback, and you leave with actually great outfits. If you spend a certain amount, for example $2,000, the department store will cover part of the cost of the stylist. Everyone is happier. That’s department more.
A-LOUD: App where you can order someone to come by your location and play a song really loud on the streets. this happens a lot when I don’t want it to, might be fun it could happen when I do want it to. Could also be used as a way to troll other people.
mirror mirror, on the call: A mirror that shows you when your friends who also have that mirror are in the bathroom and you can facetime them from the mirror and chat while you’re getting ready in the morning or winding down in the evening.
YAP: Provide high-quality, legal voice conversation data
Framed: A simple website where you upload an image and you will get a framed print in the mail for your apartment.
r: A satirical movie that explains history by showing how the following idea is core to humanity’s evolution…for thousands of years, humans all thought that correlation equaled causation. This led to most all historical events you may now be familiar with. But then out of nowhere in the 1700s it was discovered that indeed correlation did not equal causation. This changed the makeup of the world.
Playpad: Playdoh mousepad.
What happened to Pears?: A satirical book written about how Pears have lost time and time again in the Pear versus Apple debate. Starting with the Garden of Eden when Adam nearly chose a Pear but instead chose an Apple and continuing when Steve Jobs last minute switched from Pear to Apple before launching the company. Also covering why “Apple Sauce” is so popular and not Pears. Also Pear Pie? Johnny Pearseed? What’s going on here? WHAT HAPPENED TO PEARS?
Left forever: A service that partners with restaurants - if you have leftovers that you don’t really want to take home, you can tell the restaurant and they’ll call a service to come box up that food and bring it to a homeless person who is hungry. That way your food isn’t left forever or thrown away.
Loom for Audio: Loom is a video recording software that lets you record videos of your screen and share with teammates. One of the best features is the ability to comment on particular timestamps. Any app that allows for audio messages should copy this feature - allowing you to respond to particular moments in time.
Dove island: Like the show love island but birds instead of people. Narrated by one of those discovery channel guys but also the Love Island hosts.
Pre-dentist dentist: Do you ever feel have anxiety about going to the dentist because you are worried they are going to judge you? We have the solution: a pre-dentist. Someone who is SUPER CHILL who does a quick inspection/check for your teeth just to correct any low level issues. Then you can go to your normal dentist and get the serious stuff taken care of. (via Mack)
The Black Box: If a plane crashes, the first thing investigators do is recover a black box that’s in the cockpit that records everything and can be used in case of an emergency to see what happened. There should be a Black Box in other situations - like for example during surgery because you never really know what the surgeon is doing.
FeedWAYback: A writing app that lets you “request a critique” from a bunch of famous writers. What would Hemingway say about this blog post? What did he find confusing? What did he like? (via Sharif)
T-Rex Meat: Like Impossible Beef but T-Rex. It’s supposed to be impossible so why not have some more fun with it.
High agency summer camp: summer camp for kids where there r no activities planned so they have to figure it out for themselves.
Food canal: A restaurant like a sushi train but replaces it with a river of gravy. Food comes in gravy boats, customers have a ladle to use. (by Hippy Ted)
Motion for Emotions: Bot scans attendees’ prior meetings to flag potential “baggage” or conflicts, helping you anticipate mood and communication challenges before your current call.
judge-able book covers: a library where you all the book covers represent the books sufficiently well that youre able to judge books by their covers
ozempic for your brain: clears you of bs headlines
match made in heaven/in the air: airlines but you can only go on if you’re single and looking to date
clapquest: map app that plays a round of applause when you arrive at your destination (like the people who clap for pilots when the plane lands)
Agree Guy: A guy you bring with you to business meetings who just agrees with everything you say.
Subwoofer Subway: Subway cars should all have their own distinct songs playing in each car that you can bluetooth connect to so every subway car is it's own silent disco.
Try Hard: A gym for tri-athletes. Has a pool, track, and loop to cycle.
Dance Delivery: Doordash but for flash mobs - I should be able to order one to wherever i am that arrives within 20 mins.
Uber Party Bus: Why not.
Holy Foods: Whole foods but Kosher.
Avocadont: Avocados that are like shishito peppers, where one in every batch is spicy.
Divorce insurance: pay a monthly subscription. The insurance company covers your divorce in the scenario that it happens - but then they give you access to therapy and other measures to help you avoid divorce.
Armstrong Airlines: similar to southwest in that there’s no assigned seats and you just have a boarding order. excited your boarding order is determined by your performance in a push-up contest with all the other passengers at the gate
youth sports coach-ella: there are 6.5m youth sports coaches in the US. music festival just for them.
A reverse Costco: a place you can buy very small amounts of specialty ingredients. [Saw online]
Classpass for Religions: you belong to all religions, pending what you need help with, you visit a church or mosque or temple.
Meditation minute: Sort of like HQ trivia but for meditation - you get a push notif and you meditate for 15 w everyone else on the app.
Dirty pills: With robots everything will be clean all the time and so people won’t have built up strong immune systems - so dirty pills help you build that.
Who up: Find my friends but for if they’re awake.
Reverse cereal: little balls of milk you can pour into like blended cereal + water.
Finished: Acquire.com for books in incomplete series.
Active river: Like a lazy river, but for exercise. Swim upstream.
Reverse conveyor belt sushi: People move and the sushi stays put.
“Taxpayer” funded matchmaking service: If you join the service and get married, you owe 1% of your paycheck in perpetuity. This funds operations for future marriages. Alternatively get the government to actually fund this in service of increasing fertility rates.
See World: It’s like Sea World, except there are no animals. And nothing really to do with the ocean. It’s just a museum type experience where you can visit mini exhibitions showcasing different parts of the world.
AI handheld translation devices: For hospitals or other businesses that would benefit from more translation.
Costcold: The entire store is like the walk-in-fridge section.
Flash: Every time you open your laptop, it should take a picture of you - that way you get a video of how your face evolves over time.
One Stone: An olympic event where you have to hit multiple objects with one stone. (For example, two birds, one stone).
Soviet Hold ‘Em: Like Texas Hold ‘Em Poker but it does not matter who wins, you always have to split the pot evenly.
Avogadro toast: avocado toast that is exactly 6.022 inches by 6.022 inches as a nod to the great scientist.
Flapquest: A map app that gives you directions from A to B “as the crow flies.”
Gabbaghoul: halloween themed italian restaurant.
ShittyHuman: An email client that forces you to get through email way slower. You miss emails. They are hard to read. Etc.
Subprime: Like Amazon prime but the opposite - as a fun surprise, your package comes some time in the next 5 years. You do not know when.
Avocoaster: A coaster for your beverages made out of avocado hide. Yes the skin of the avocado - we’re calling it hide.
Hole foods: Like Whole foods, but all the food has holes in it.
Tinderella: remake of cinderella except she’s gen z and meets prince charming on a dating app.
BadReads: Goodreads is a place people go to find books similar to the ones they’ve read before. BadRead is a place people go to find books that they’d likely heavily disagree with…because life is too short to only read things you already agree with! You upload your previously read books and it gives you suggested books that you’d probably hate, which means you should probably read them.
ReadIt: A service you can pay someone to do reddit research for you before you purchase an item. So you give them a prompt: find me the best water bottle based on these preferences, and they scour reddit and present you with a proposal and all the reasons you should buy a particular water bottle.
Around the world in 30 days: A trip you sign up for that takes you around the world in 30 days, making sure you touch every continent.