Startup ideas we’ve all heard before
As a VC and a founder, I met my share of founders. I have heard many many ideas for companies. There seems to be a conglomeration around some ideas. I will share some that I heard multiple times.
Whenever I mention to a friend that there are some ideas that I keep hearing over and over, the person in front of me stares at me with wide eyes in all eagerness to hear it. It is just silly and entertaining.
Two more things to point out. 1.“Ideas” tend to move in trends. 2. However, when an idea is heard over and over again, investors and users become desensitized to them, making them harder to scale.
1. A Mental Health Marketplace
There is less stigma now on mental health due, in part, to the COVID pandemic and the effects it had on all of us. With this, many have jumped quickly on their pain point of finding a therapist. Sometimes people would create some version of this for a certain niche demographic (e.g., creators or mums).
People who pitch they idea, have identified that people are burnt out, and finding a good therapist is difficult. Both are indeed legitimate problems. But what they fail to see is that a patient-therapist relationship is monogamous. Once you find one you like, you stay with them for long. The investment cost of one session is high (unlike dating), so you tend to truly verify if the therapist is good (usually through referrals from others). This combination of factors would make it very hard to have a high LTV from their customers who will flee the marketplace once they find a therapist. There are people who are building tools or materials on top of the marketplace to retain the relationship on the platform, but at this point, the USP is not the marketplace anymore.
2. An NFT Marketplace
This one gets me. After two “Whys” to the founder, I realize that they answer is greed/hype.
NFTs as they are have a lot of shortcomings. You can’t store the actual digital artwork in a blockchain; because of technical limits, records in most blockchains are too small to hold an entire image. So now, when someone buys an NFT, they’re not buying the actual digital artwork; they’re buying a link to it. And worse, they’re buying a link that, in many cases, lives on the website of a new start-up that’s likely to fail within a few years.
There is no viable underlying value as of now of turning things into NFTs.
They are built on an absolute house of cards constructed by the people selling them. Read more here. An article by the creator of the concept of NFTS and the original tech, still in use.
3. Some sort of an auxiliary service for content creators
Content creation democratized fame and money. It is no longer up to some executive on who becomes famous. It became more achievable to obtain fame, and the fortune that comes with it.
When there is a movement or a new segment of “revenue generating entities”, people think: how can I build x for this new segment? x being some existing service company.
However, sometimes there is no need to customize the service for the niche of creators (e.g., we don’t need a mental health marketplace for content creators!)
A recent survey from Higher Visibility found that 1 in 4 people between the ages of 16 and 25 want to become influencers. In Los Angeles, 30% of Gen Z is drawn to Internet fame.
If 1 in 4 will influence, who will be influenced?
4. An app to meet people in a new city
A problem as old of time: finding friends. Usually trigger by moving to a new city. Today, almost everyone in this day and age has been there. And a lot would think “what if there is an app that would help meet people?”.
There are. Multiple.
But you’re not always in new places, are you? And once you get the hang of things, will you still use the app to meet new people? Look, loneliness is a real problem. Finding out what to do when you have time is a real problem. I have googled “things to do this weekend in x city” tens of times. But this is a non-repeatable problem.
5. App to find things/people to hang out with when you are bored
Like I mentioned, loneliness (and boredom) are real problems. If you are in startup ideation phase and get bored or lonely, you think “I wish there was an app for me to find people to hang out with/ things to do now”.
Just like meeting people when moving to a new city, others have developed apps to meet people in your city.
It so hard to monetize such events. You are either chasing small scale events, which hosts need to consistently update. Or you are competing with the large events tickets sellers.
6. Carbon Footprint Counter Chrome Extension
Over the years, we have grown more conscious of and concerned for the environment (I hope). We realize that we know very little as consumers. Aha! A problem! The solution: a carbon foot print calculator. Usually in the form of a chrome extension.
A for effort, but it is super hard to quantify the carbon footprint especially for so so many products. At what point do you start counting? What about the shipping, how do you get this information?
Also, it comes too late in the consumer’s decision making process, right at check out. If I did my research and decided on something to buy, most likely I won’t let the carbon foot print stop me. However, early on, when I am deciding what to buy, I would choose a sustainable option or pool of options (e.g., impossible meat vs real meat).
7. Duolingo for Web3
Similar thought process to the carbon footprint chrome extension. Someone hears about the Web3 gold rush. They want to get in. They get overwhelmed and realize they don’t understand most of what is happening (I don’t blame them). So their “Web3” idea is to educate fellow muggles about Web3. And of course, in no standard other than the gold standard of education apps” Duolingo.
BUT, Web3 education is not a set group of skills like a language. It is like writing a book or honestly, an article or a YouTube video. We don’t need an app to learn about Web3.
Side note: Duolingo’s app might not be their best creation. Their TikTok page is a pretty strong competitor.
8. Unbiased news feed
I actually had a wealthy person pitch me this idea to start in their accelerator. His point of view (as that of other entrepreneurs who pitched this to me): Fake news is rampant. We know they are there. People have been vocal about the dangers of biased media. It is a real problem.
However, people who are aware of the problem most likely don’t need the product. People who are unaware or are in denial, will most likely not want to use it. On top of that, who defines “unbiased”.
Maybe a variation of one of those ideas/themes will workout for someone at some point in time. And that, would actually make me really happy. For now, when thinking about a startup idea, try to think beyond the “surface” problems and think about how likely would users keep using it. Because some problems, don’t need a startup to solve them.
