Comments on: Biz Ideas: The First Twenty Losers

By: David Larsen

David Larsen — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:13:23 +0000

I like #28. I’ve dabbled in stocks and options over the past few years. While the online stock charting and screening tools are continually improving, a tool that targeted programming types could be an interesting niche. In my mind, it would be focused rather than multi-function. Ideally, you could define a pool of securities (or options for that matter) and apply the formulas to entire lists. If the tool was extensible or I had reasonable assurance that the tool would have ongoing development w/ mostly free updates, I’d buy. Price would depend on quality of features.

By: meme

meme — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 17:07:49 +0000

I think #15 is your most original and needed idea. The government sector is probably the most non-computerized area in 2006. Elections and all that have not seen the true power of the Internet. I also think many politicians get by on saying things because they know most people just don’t know the truth anyway. If the people had access to a site that *somehow* gave stats like you described, that could be a really powerful thing. But scraping and digitizing all those gov documents? Not to mention making it all relational, which even Google has yet to perfect. uhg

By: Oliver Townshend

Oliver Townshend — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:31:34 +0000

I love #4. If you don’t do it, I will… Well I might. Maybe.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:33:53 +0000

I’ve vaguely considered the “budget buddy” idea before, though went nowhere with it. (Just didn’t excite me enough. ;) Here’s a thought I had, though: partner with the financial advise services that providing budgeting help to people with limited resources (i.e. help out families with financial problems). If it’s cheaper than buying Excel then they can (gently) push it to their clients. Even at a small profit per unit, the marketing benefit would be significant – probably better than first place in google search results.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:28:33 +0000

I vote for #6 and #15. Those are the only two i’d use out of the choices given… the big difference between the two would be profit and glory (Beltway Analytics) vs money and fun (AI-Coder). No one but hard core geeks will use the AI-Coder, but it would be a lot of fun to develop and could develop a reasonable business. A government analytics program, say the equivilent of finance.yahoo.com for politics could be a HUGE hit. Especially around election time…but it will still be a nightmare to develop.

By: Max Ischenko

Max Ischenko — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:46:32 +0000

Personally, ideas #1, #4 and #28 are most appealing to me.