List of Ideas

Having talked about how to think about ideas, the natural next step is to list them down in one place. That’s what this page is all about. It includes the results of both thought processes (that I described in the previous post).

This is the always up-to-date list of ideas. I continuously add ideas here, and mark off the ideas that have died.

This particular list include a dump of all the technologies that match my background. Essentially:

  • Read the list of technologies / trends
  • Map to my work experience — does anything fit?
  • List everything, filter later

Bitcoin/Blockchain

  • [Consumer] Remittance network across borders

Machine Learning

  • GE : Can be used to diagnose problems with critical machinery (the way the Machinery Diagnostics folks used to do when I was there, and still do).
  • Canvas.bh: Image effects, enlargement without loss in quality. There’s an opportunity to make real magic happen with Machine Learning and Imaging.
  • White/Payfort: The most obvious one is anti-fraud, from both the transactional side as well as the merchant on-boarding side.

Insurance

  • Payfort [B2B]: Crowdsourced insurance against chargebacks from merchants themselves as opposed to some 3rd party.
  • All [Consumer]: Founder/startup insurance, where you get a payout if your idea fails to get traction to keep you alive until the next thing (or until you get hired). This could be funded by hiring companies.

Human Augmentation

  • Goals app The way that large companies propagate high-level goals down from leadership to employees across the company is broken. It ends up becoming a formality, done over Powerpoint slides twice a year (beginning and end, during performance reviews). This is a lost opportunity, one where goals could serve as the glue that ties employees daily work towards a greater company objective. Coupled with transparency, employees can see exactly how they impact the greater goals.

Financial Services

  • White [Consumer / B2B]: Payouts, Inc. Essentially, a TransferWise across the region (can be either B2B, B2C or both). Create a web of bank accounts at all popular banks and facilitate instant transfers across all the banks (even cross-country) via a simple API.

Other, random ideas

  • “Wasoot” — automatically follow people that have similar interests.
  • “Google Analytics for SaaS” [B2B] — a map of the path that your user takes when interacting with you application. See exactly what actions are taken, and which ones result in your users dropping off.
  • Online community for the competitive startup founders [Consumer]; those motivated by competition. Focus on transparency, learning and most importantly: results .
  • RealEstate 2.0: How can you make it 10x easier to get a property sold? How can you make it 10x better for sellers/buyers?
  • Simple Workflow tool (like SupportCentral @ GE, KissFlow) that makes it easier to get stuff done inside teams. Drag and drop, done.
  • Private photo sharing, with the Middle East in mind [Consumer]. I suck at sharing photos that I take — and usually see sending them over Whatsapp as such a chore (it’s a bad UX either way, for both sender and receiver). Better way?
  • GoogleForms++: A forms app that works on mobile and is offline. Maybe include an Android widget so you can tap, tap, done.
  • The Validator: A simple tool that helps you validate an idea quickly. No more slogging through creating a landing page, hooking up Intercom, etc. A/B testing messaging and testing experiments. This tool has all the best practices built-in, and makes the process smooth as silk. $99/month (you’ll save so much time and money!)
  • A smart sprinkler system (with a single sprinkler) that can cover a wide area of greenery by intelligently aiming the nozzle (varying the nozzle width, for larger distances — and the direction to sweep through the area). This would save money on additional sprinklers and save water. It would also mean you can do cool things like sprinkle into a pot (or group of pots) in the area.
  • “Marketplace glue ideas” where you can patch supply with demand in a much more streamlined way. Examples include:
    • Canvas art, where you offer a mobile app where customers can upload pictures from their recent vacations, and they are printed and delivered from local canvas printers (at a margin). The advantage is that you can expand geographically anywhere you have a few key local suppliers. Also, you don’t worry about inventory, etc.
    • Home repair services, where you take a photo / video of whatever needs fixing and send it off to local repair shops (plumbers, electricians, etc.). You have a handyman in your pocket, with reviews to keep off the bad folks.
  • Insurance over Ethereum. The question is how you get “real world” input into Ethereum.

It’s clear that I’ve got A LOT of ideas, and this list will only grow larger with time. Hence, I need to figure out a way to validate ideas quickly. I’ll put a process in place once I’ve tested a few of these ideas out.