It seems to be the cool lib thing to do. I'm a software dev. What do you want to build?
An app that's like uber but for designing apps that are the uber of things
Uber, but instead of ride-share, it's goat-share because lawnmowers are counter-revolutionary bourgeois revisionism.
I'm truly sorry to have to break this to you, but smart toilets already exist in droves.
"We're going to be the Uber of smart toilets! The toilet will recognize when you're almost done, and alert one of our gig contractors to show up and hose down your butthole! It's called Wypr."
The toilet* is free but you pay a monthly subscription for 30* flushes. Get the platinum package to activate the bidet, and get a deep learning vision system to suggest dietary changes based on the texture and color of your feces.
Run out of flushes? No problem, top up with your phone or buy Flush Cards (TM) at your local Walmart.
*only compatible with Flush Brand Water
*extra flushes for as low as $1.25/flush
Sounds like "Unauthorized Bread" by Doctorow: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/
Dating app based on the political compass. Everyone has to take a compass test and you can change your settings to vary who you get matched with. Also there's fun quadrant forums where you can talk with all of your quadrant buddies UwU
Can you imagine the shitshow lmao
I'm also a software dev and have been legit thinking about quitting my job next year to do a VR game startup seeing as how headsets are getting cheaper (standalone VR is now the same price as a Nintendo Switch) and the VR space is greatly lacking in content.
A silly idea I've been toying with would be a gatcha game but with VR support so degenerates can actually do degenerate stuff like holding hands with the waifus they collect.
The gatcha game seems pretty easy to make from a programming perspective. It would require quite a lot of 3D modeling though, and would run into licensing issues unless you made up your own IP
One workaround that comes to mind for the modeling thing would be if the characters were all androids or something. So they'd all have the same body base but with varied proportions and then their head would just be a 2d screen with a face. Cosmetic changes that require additional 3D modelling/animation could be added later as in-game purchases.
Besides that though, for VR where people are expecting high end experiences unlike with casual mobile games, a lot of resources would still probably be required to have compelling story/gameplay/characters especially if not working on an existing IP.
I'd love to write naratives and stuff for VR games. It seems like such an interesting way to tell a story. Also, I like the waifu idea.
Unfortunately the agencies that keep this data on you require you to physically mail in forms and provide a copy of your ID and other stupid loopholes. This can't really be automated.
I dont have any skills and i probably live on the other side of the earth but i have a vision
Hey fascism is gaining support among the working population dont you think the rich people need a safe place to hide when shit goes down?
Uber but for tandem bicycles, basically the quibi to Uber’s netflix
you could do a political encyclopedia app with current politicians by state/county, as well as those running in current races that keeps track of platform, how much lobbying/super pac cash they've recieved from year to year, etc. as well as a list of controversies.
it'd be a fuck ton of work, but it'd be nice to have for voting in local elections.
i know fuck electoralism and all, but that shit can actually matter on the local level.
have all the platforms be based on a table, rather than their giant wall of texts where you have to decipher their stances. you'd probably need loads of money unless you had a large team, otherwise you'd have to go wiki style, which leads to tons of astroturfing for this kind of thing.
nvm.
how about just like a daily motivating quote app that just only quotes from a leftist perspective? nice, easy, more effective.
yeah, something like that, but instead of based on something you have to look up, it starts with a map and you can click a state, then a county.
Part Labor SALT / part social media. You download the app and it connects you with people that also have it. You encourage coworkers to download it, making it possible to discuss Unionization in an encrypted program; chats are deleted after everyone exits the app; certain things needed for labor organizing are saved behind a passcode or encrypted keys; screenshots are not permitted. In preparation for unionization, you can collaborate on union demands. You can also rehearse the voting process. This lets you do it all quietly and under the noses of the boss. You surprise the boss with a union vote, and union demands. Lastly, the app lets you organize labor strikes, it pings every app user in the area (with high priority to your coworkers).
Something that collated daily news items like https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/ (except more oriented around labor / activism / class struggle), summarized the day, and quoted a relevant excerpt from Marxist / Anarchist theory would be pretty cool. It could just be a website, but it would be trivial to do an app as well.
F5 O'Clock wasn't curated. Maybe it is now but last time I heard about it, it was just a tool which monitored r/Politics and gave notifications when there were hot threads (so it was terrible for anything but unhinged blueanon Muellerites). I'm thinking of something with a lot more editorial input. Practically speaking, the work in curating it would be more than the work to lay the technical foundation.
I had an idea for something like that. But like a Duolingo for Marxist philosophy.
https://twitter.com/redditships/status/1280975449485651969?lang=en Soup tubes.
Honestly the bank-style delivery tubes wouldn't be an awful thing for houses to have. Someone is physically walking and delivering shit to your door every single day. Often it's several people. To automate that process and get stuff extremely fast would be a huge benefit to the environment.
Check out Paul Graham's old articles or Y Combinator's Startup School. They provide a whole bunch of good advice to build up your trust, so that you won't question it when they tell you that you need venture capital (in an industry with no capital requirements). Ignore that part and make a coop instead. I think there's a lot of potential to hybridize this sort of built-for-growth startup with cooperative ownership. Imagine how much better off we'd all be if Google/Amazon/Apple/Facebook were worker owned.
(I'm already building one of these, but everything is shuttered for the pandemic. Startup stress + pandemic stress is too much for me. Also my target market is fucked until the pandemic is over.)
Some ideas for what to make:
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Productivity software. Nobody has made any huge strides in this since Adobe and Microsoft in the 90s, it's a stagnant industry with no ability to respond to innovation. VC focuses on things like Uber because they're capitalists and further commoditising labor is their lifeblood. But you can make stuff that makes people's jobs easier and they'll pay you for it, that's still a real business model.
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What software sucks ass in your industry? I know dependency management is horrible at almost every software company. I hear from chip designers that VHDL is terrible and Verilog is even worse, maybe that's an opportunity.
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Something you or your org has needed for organizing. I know folks who'd insist on paying more than whatever you're asking for Brace Belden's spreadsheet as a website, good mailing lists that aren't tied to Google, and templates for flyers.
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Not video games. It's a horrible hit-driven industry. Indie gamedev is just Steam outsourcing all the risk to random hopefuls. Fun hobby, bad job.
I appreciate the genuine response. I went through the whole startup school stuff when it first came out forever ago, and I've actually applied to YC twice (and almost made it one of the times). PG is good at what he does, but he only does it because it's self serving and made him billions. Or did, rather. He's not very involved with YC anymore in my understanding.
I like your ideas - theses are all things I've visited over many years. The problem is that unless you're in an industry and using their software, it's really difficult to see which ones suck and can be improved. Additionally, your first sales are all going to be network effect. Knowing the person who actually controls a budget that has thousands a year to spend on your software. It's hard to get the attention of those people and have them be willing to transition their operations over to your stuff instead. It's so easy for people to be like "whatever what we have now is working fine".
You should build things for industries you've been a part of, or at least get help from someone in an industry that sees problems with what they have. There's a long history of software devs patronizingly trying to fix things that aren't broken. But you've presumably had some sort of work experience with bad software, so that's a source.
And... yes, convincing people to use your stuff instead of what they have is hard. But you can do hard things.
I've tried the partnering-with-someone-in-an-industry many times. The problem is either that they don't have the ability to sell the software, or they're wanting to give me like 15% for something I'd charge $150/hour to the tune of $100k+ and they're really not bringing anything to the table. And I'm not working for free for half a year for 15% of nothing.
Another common issue is the scope is way too massive. They're wanting to compete with software that has dozens of full time developers and ten years of work on it. Yeah it sucks that it's expensive or could maybe be prettier, but it's just impossible to deliver value close to what the competition can in that situation.
I have work experience in agency settings, which means I am paid to fix problems for industries, but I never really get entrenched into the industry beyond the app that I've made. And the problem is that for all the ones I'm aware of, it'd be super shitty of me to essentially compete against my former employer for the exact same clients with the same sort of software. And half the time in an agency I'm building software that's dumb and isn't actually solving anyone's problem.
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