Vyrotek

Today you can find quite a few sites that list off random ideas for startups, but how often do you find a list of ideas from a venture firm that are all web2.0 related?

Check these out. They describe what they’re looking for and why. Do any of them sound interesting?

http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

1. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom
2. Simplified browsing
3. New news
4. Outsourced IT
5. Enterprise software 2.0
6. More variants of CRM
7. Something your company needs that doesn’t exist
8. Dating
9. Photo/video sharing services
10. Auctions
11. Web Office apps
12. Fix advertising
13. Online learning
14. Tools for measurement
15. Off the shelf security
16. A form of search that depends on design
17. New payment methods
18. The WebOS
19. Application and/or data hosting
20. Shopping guides
21. Finance software for individuals and small businesses
22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid
23. More open alternatives to Wikipedia
24. A buffer against bad customer service
25. A Craigslist competitor
26. Better video chat
27. Hardware/software hybrids
28. Fixing email overload
29. Easy site builders for specific markets
30. Startups for startups

I recently read a really interesting article written by Marc Andreessen. You can find the article here. He starts off by saying ”A startup’s initial business plan doesn’t matter that much, because it is very hard to determine up front exactly what combination of product and market will result in success.” And concludes with ”If Thomas Edison didn’t know what he had when he invented the phonograph while he thought he was trying to create better industrial equipment for telegraph operators…what are the odds that you — or any entrepreneur — is going to have it all figured out up front?” Intrigued? You should be! I thought it was a pretty good article.

That blog article reminded me of another one I read a while ago that can be found here. This second article goes over some similar ideas. He suggests that you probably wont get it right the first time so it’s probably not a good idea to develop a whole idea in stealth mode and then try to release it to the world. He suggets that you develop some of your project, let users play with it, listen to their feedback, make changes that will keep your users happy and then repeat the process. If you’re trying to provide some sort of service to users, then best thing you can do is listen to what the user wants. That sounds like some good advice to me.