first post, perhaps the first time I actually have something to contribute :).
There are two startup-ish things I do that are not websites, but are largely disseminated via the web:
a) my main job is represented at gmatdaily.wordpress.com. I sell study materials for the GMAT ...I worked in the industry for a few years, discovered a multitude of problems, and am slowly solving them all.
b) i collect, package, analyze, and sell college baseball statistics to major league teams ... my partner and I had a website for this (collegesplits.com) where we gave away a lot of the data for free, but eventually took it down because the maintenance wasn't worth it. My web presence in the field made it easy to line up customers, and I suppose I could set up a members-only site to deliver the data (and thus the business would be a website), but that's not what the clients want.
Now, perhaps one of these days I'll work on something that IS a website :).
Our product is not a website, but it is web-based (it is installable web-based system administration tools). I dunno if that qualifies by your definition.
So we have all of the pain of developing a web-based application (browser incompatibilities, limitations of the medium, etc.) with all of the negatives of installed applications (high barrier to adoption, lower volume, etc.). But it does give us a business model that everyone can easily understand: Give us money, we give you software, you install it, we support you. Next year, you give us money again and we keep supporting you.
Web applications are the most fun to build, but there's an awful lot of room for technology in non-web spaces. Large retailers a huge users of technology (and their websites are generally not even a blip on the radar, as far as technology expenditures go--I was involved briefly in a $2.7 million content distribution deployment for Lowe's...I'm certain they haven't spent more than a tenth that much on their website).
Lots of areas for high tech to make a huge impact on peoples lives (and thus make a huge impact on your bottom line): Medical records and billing, legal services, banking, accounting, warehouse automation, etc. There are businesses working in all of these spaces already, of course, but there's still plenty of niches left unfilled.
I'm fascinated by businesses that still deal in physical goods or services, but are enabled because of the web. The two best examples being netflix and city carshare-type businesses.
oh, i totally agree, far33d... those make for the coolest companies. anyone know anything about sensor networks? lately i've been thinking that a sensor network plus an accompanying web app could be useful in lots of domains.
for example, here's an idea that's been kicking around in my head. (i'm not the right guy to start this company, so i'll just throw out this there.)
you know how people at the gym often track their workouts -- "3 sets, 10 reps, 150 lbs" -- with pencil and paper? that's so 20th century. why not build a sensor network for exercise equipment? you get on a scale or weight/cardio machine. it knows who you are -- RFID in your membership card? -- and it wirelessly uploads your workout data from that machine to a server.
as a gym member, you get a login to an accompanying web app, which is automagically populated with your data. you can set goals, track your workouts + results with pretty graphs, etc. no more paper+pencil tracking -- just work out and log in.
sell this sensor/software platform to gyms (or perhaps the equipment manufacturers), and you've got yourself a business.
where does the internet come in? well, aside from the tracking app for individuals, with all this aggregate data, you'd revolutionize exercise science. is interval training really better than marathon cardio sessions? more weight+fewer reps, or less weight+more reps? even basic collaborative filtering would be cool: "people with bodies like yours got these results with this workout plan."
it'd disrupt the (absurdly lucrative) personal training industry.
point is, out there in the "real world," there's tons of data that's just waiting to be aggregated and analyzed. that'll certainly be the basis of many interesting companies.
Yes, we are working on a wireless startup -- not an application but infrastructure. This includes hw, sw and fw.
soldering irons, oscilloscopes, etc. ;)
I have plans for two projects dealing in physical goods. For one, I'll probably use cafepress for production & fulfillment until volume justifies reshuffling my supply chain.
For another, I'm going to advertise a blog we already have that has a small but growing audience. We'll have a small inventory with a limited number of skus. We'll probably make the items ourselves. I'm not sure how I'll handle the commerce (ebay, yahoo store, paypay...). We'll do fulfillment ourselves too. Once we establish a microbrand I have what I think is a clever bundling idea to increase our average transaction size by about 2-5 fold without needing to bloat our inventory. At that point, I'm not sure exactly what's next, we might try it on a small scale, continuing doing our own manufacturing, or we might line up offshore manufacturing and outsourced fulfillment and make a big push. I think we'll probably do a blend of the two. Start rolling out the evolved business model while still making the items ourselves at the same time we're lining up manufacturing and fulfillment with the goal for having them on-line in time for the holiday shopping season.
I also have ideas for web apps, but I'm cautious about both ad revenue and hoping to be bought out. I do have an idea for a service that would be monetized by transaction based revenue, but I have quite figured out how to put it into practice.
I'm helping my dad design a replacement for the Digital Signal Processor. Actually, it's already designed and it actually works through the Phase I testing. Talk about years of painfully drawing up electric engineering diagrams and deciphering electric engineering language to a way that you would understand it to draw the diagram and write the description out. It's like having a crash course on 4 years of EE education in a week. (I'm not an EE major). Not to mention making suggestions upon the improvement of the design and have your dad say "no it won't work" only to find out days later that your proposal actually works but your dad is just too proud to admit it. I think the closest he got to an offer was from Nokia but he chickened out and didn't pursue it. Sucks for him and especially for me who spent days finding a personal contact information to someone at Nokia.
Too bad, he's one of those guys who just likes to invents to see if it works. Not much of a 'start a company' guy...I think he just wants to sit back and enjoy the rest of his life as opposed to dealing with the politics of a company. 9 years on working on something and the fear of someone stealing your idea keeps you from sharing it to the world. It's a shame but oh well. It's his 'baby'
I cannot tell you in very concrete terms what we're doing (it has to do with data integration), but I can tell you the reason why we will probably NOT do it as a web app. It's not the UI capabilities, it's the data hub problem and economics.
Anything you do on the web has to funnel every piece of data through that web app because browsers cannot access anything other than their originating server (They might soon be able to do that via Flex/Silverlight type plugins). Even if they could, it just doesn't make sense for many data centric interactive applications to buy a lot of servers when a huge number of powerful PC clients does almost nothing.
I reckon, if I have some algorithmic data analysis stuff and I can distribute that to client machines to some degree, I can make my service cheaper and maybe even architecturally simpler in some cases, because there is a natural partitioning scheme. Ok, now I see this argument becomes quite obscure without going into further detail so I'll leave it at that.
Web is certainly where the money can be at. But everyone probably realizes that there are plenty of other things you can do and still create a startup. The advice in Paul Graham's essays and YCombinator's library holds just as true if you're not working on a webpage startup.
For example, I read about someone who created a startup selling knife sheaths on EBay. Even if he were to create a website advertising his knife sheaths, he still wouldn't really have a webpage startup.
So, is anyone working on a non-webpage startup, and if so, what're you doing? :)
There are plenty of startups that make cool software. Trolltech, Sleepycat (now Oracle), VMWare, Coverity are just a few that come to mind. I think the main difference between software startups compared to web startups is that there is a lot more depth to them. I don't think an average kid out of college is capable of something like this.
"I don't think an average kid out of college is capable of something like this."
I've done both desktop/server software and web software, and IMHO good web software is harder. With web software, you have to explicitly think about many things that just aren't an issue with conventional software, like how to distribute the load of a million users over dozens of boxes. It helps that user expectations for UI responsiveness and robustness are somewhat lower with webapps, but that's changing with AJAX. You also need to know many more technologies to build a successful webapp: CSS, HTML, Javascript, a web scripting language, SQL, database performance, server administration & shell scripts, and any libraries necessary for your problem domain.
It is a completely different skillset. With conventional apps, you need to know how to architect a large single app instead of architecting a large collection of collaborating servers. You need to know C++, Java, or C# instead of PHP/Python/Ruby. You need to know intimately the particular toolset that your app fits into - VMWare can't live without device drivers; Sleepycat can't live without transaction algorithms; one desktop app I worked on needed an intimate knowledge of TCP, including Winsock LSPs and Linux kernel hacking. You get much more out of deep knowledge with conventional apps, while webapps require a more shallow understanding of a very broad range of topics.
Also, the technologies you need for desktop apps don't have zillions of articles on them plastered across the web, and the documentation is often poor quality. But if you take a professional software engineering job, you'll be expected to make sense of it and figure out how everything works (possibly through prototypes, debuggers, and a lot of pain and patience). It's not taught in college, but that doesn't make it particularly difficult.
Is my first post. Yes at the moment I am working on 2 different business plans.
One has to do with recycling ink cartridges. I have found by the research I have done that there is quite an interesting and virgin market for that here in Spain.
The second is a company which has been working for 2 years but I am remodeling the system of production. This one is about Selling school planners.
We just got an angel round for a destop sw startup. It is a visualization tool that is OpenGL heavy and I'm not sure how I'd deliver that over the interwebs.
www.uuorld.com
We're using trolltech's Qt and releasing on Win32, OS X, and Linux. If anyone knows of any mature packages for interactive 3d over the web, I'm all ears.
They are general purpose game building frameworks. I am currently working with it in MMO form, all implementation code in Python. It is a mature package for interactive 3D over the web if I ever saw one.
Hmm.. there may be something to that.... hey thanks! :)
There are some food items that I would love to import/produce in the US, from Italy. I'll see about it when/if we ever move back to the states. Food has a lot of legal requirements, and more capital to start something up. On the other hand, it's the thing I'm most certain of in terms of I know people would like this stuff.
Yeah I make orthodontic software and just finished a prototype 3d scanner (structured light style thing for those in the know). That sort of my day job, although I own a 1/3 of the business. I really want to do some web2.0 ideas I've got on the side - which is really the main reason I come to news.yc
In addition to some web applications, I am slowly developing several products in the chemical sector. (I am a chemical engineer by training). But, the barriers to entry are so high and the risks are so great (often including literal physical danger) that software is decisively more attractive.
I know what you mean (biomedical engineering). In health care, it's standard practice to have at least 100x price mark ups, but a fair amount of barriers.
After talking to a couple people in biotech start ups, it seems pointless to pursue something unless I am a cofounder. The marriage of science and business is often not pretty.
hi, me too (chemist), working on some ideas in the energy field. i'm always jealous of web designers who can buy a $500 laptop, download a pile of open source software and start producing. i've got to raise at least two more zeros before i can actually do anything... ;-)
yes. A middleware communication protocol and its infrastructure. It is a new communication tool with, of course, added value compared to existing solutions. new tools = better ways = new applications = new opportunities.
Protocol is named DITP (distributed information transfer protocol) and uses IDR (information data representation) as encoding rule (it's binary). The infrastructure is named DIS (distributed information system).
Some usable code will be out in a few weeks. The system is original in many ways and the curently forseen business model might be too. Coming out will be announced on Y Combinator news.
I do work on rating algorithm and forecasting algorithm that I intend to implement as some sort of service or library. There will be website but just for advertising purposes.
I'm in a small startup developing a cross-platform desktop IM client. In Python. It's going to kick the pants off of Adium, Pidgin, and especially Trillian ;)
[+] [-] jsackmann|19 years ago|reply
There are two startup-ish things I do that are not websites, but are largely disseminated via the web:
a) my main job is represented at gmatdaily.wordpress.com. I sell study materials for the GMAT ...I worked in the industry for a few years, discovered a multitude of problems, and am slowly solving them all.
b) i collect, package, analyze, and sell college baseball statistics to major league teams ... my partner and I had a website for this (collegesplits.com) where we gave away a lot of the data for free, but eventually took it down because the maintenance wasn't worth it. My web presence in the field made it easy to line up customers, and I suppose I could set up a members-only site to deliver the data (and thus the business would be a website), but that's not what the clients want.
Now, perhaps one of these days I'll work on something that IS a website :).
[+] [-] SwellJoe|19 years ago|reply
So we have all of the pain of developing a web-based application (browser incompatibilities, limitations of the medium, etc.) with all of the negatives of installed applications (high barrier to adoption, lower volume, etc.). But it does give us a business model that everyone can easily understand: Give us money, we give you software, you install it, we support you. Next year, you give us money again and we keep supporting you.
Web applications are the most fun to build, but there's an awful lot of room for technology in non-web spaces. Large retailers a huge users of technology (and their websites are generally not even a blip on the radar, as far as technology expenditures go--I was involved briefly in a $2.7 million content distribution deployment for Lowe's...I'm certain they haven't spent more than a tenth that much on their website).
Lots of areas for high tech to make a huge impact on peoples lives (and thus make a huge impact on your bottom line): Medical records and billing, legal services, banking, accounting, warehouse automation, etc. There are businesses working in all of these spaces already, of course, but there's still plenty of niches left unfilled.
[+] [-] jason13|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] far33d|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] altay|19 years ago|reply
for example, here's an idea that's been kicking around in my head. (i'm not the right guy to start this company, so i'll just throw out this there.)
you know how people at the gym often track their workouts -- "3 sets, 10 reps, 150 lbs" -- with pencil and paper? that's so 20th century. why not build a sensor network for exercise equipment? you get on a scale or weight/cardio machine. it knows who you are -- RFID in your membership card? -- and it wirelessly uploads your workout data from that machine to a server.
as a gym member, you get a login to an accompanying web app, which is automagically populated with your data. you can set goals, track your workouts + results with pretty graphs, etc. no more paper+pencil tracking -- just work out and log in.
sell this sensor/software platform to gyms (or perhaps the equipment manufacturers), and you've got yourself a business.
where does the internet come in? well, aside from the tracking app for individuals, with all this aggregate data, you'd revolutionize exercise science. is interval training really better than marathon cardio sessions? more weight+fewer reps, or less weight+more reps? even basic collaborative filtering would be cool: "people with bodies like yours got these results with this workout plan."
it'd disrupt the (absurdly lucrative) personal training industry.
point is, out there in the "real world," there's tons of data that's just waiting to be aggregated and analyzed. that'll certainly be the basis of many interesting companies.
[+] [-] danw|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] startupper|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] especkman|19 years ago|reply
For another, I'm going to advertise a blog we already have that has a small but growing audience. We'll have a small inventory with a limited number of skus. We'll probably make the items ourselves. I'm not sure how I'll handle the commerce (ebay, yahoo store, paypay...). We'll do fulfillment ourselves too. Once we establish a microbrand I have what I think is a clever bundling idea to increase our average transaction size by about 2-5 fold without needing to bloat our inventory. At that point, I'm not sure exactly what's next, we might try it on a small scale, continuing doing our own manufacturing, or we might line up offshore manufacturing and outsourced fulfillment and make a big push. I think we'll probably do a blend of the two. Start rolling out the evolved business model while still making the items ourselves at the same time we're lining up manufacturing and fulfillment with the goal for having them on-line in time for the holiday shopping season.
I also have ideas for web apps, but I'm cautious about both ad revenue and hoping to be bought out. I do have an idea for a service that would be monetized by transaction based revenue, but I have quite figured out how to put it into practice.
[+] [-] Leonidas|19 years ago|reply
Too bad, he's one of those guys who just likes to invents to see if it works. Not much of a 'start a company' guy...I think he just wants to sit back and enjoy the rest of his life as opposed to dealing with the politics of a company. 9 years on working on something and the fear of someone stealing your idea keeps you from sharing it to the world. It's a shame but oh well. It's his 'baby'
I have my own 'baby' project to work on.
[+] [-] fauigerzigerk|19 years ago|reply
Anything you do on the web has to funnel every piece of data through that web app because browsers cannot access anything other than their originating server (They might soon be able to do that via Flex/Silverlight type plugins). Even if they could, it just doesn't make sense for many data centric interactive applications to buy a lot of servers when a huge number of powerful PC clients does almost nothing.
I reckon, if I have some algorithmic data analysis stuff and I can distribute that to client machines to some degree, I can make my service cheaper and maybe even architecturally simpler in some cases, because there is a natural partitioning scheme. Ok, now I see this argument becomes quite obscure without going into further detail so I'll leave it at that.
[+] [-] palish|19 years ago|reply
For example, I read about someone who created a startup selling knife sheaths on EBay. Even if he were to create a website advertising his knife sheaths, he still wouldn't really have a webpage startup.
So, is anyone working on a non-webpage startup, and if so, what're you doing? :)
Shawn
[+] [-] boris|19 years ago|reply
I am working on software development tools: http://www.codesynthesis.com
[+] [-] nostrademons|19 years ago|reply
I've done both desktop/server software and web software, and IMHO good web software is harder. With web software, you have to explicitly think about many things that just aren't an issue with conventional software, like how to distribute the load of a million users over dozens of boxes. It helps that user expectations for UI responsiveness and robustness are somewhat lower with webapps, but that's changing with AJAX. You also need to know many more technologies to build a successful webapp: CSS, HTML, Javascript, a web scripting language, SQL, database performance, server administration & shell scripts, and any libraries necessary for your problem domain.
It is a completely different skillset. With conventional apps, you need to know how to architect a large single app instead of architecting a large collection of collaborating servers. You need to know C++, Java, or C# instead of PHP/Python/Ruby. You need to know intimately the particular toolset that your app fits into - VMWare can't live without device drivers; Sleepycat can't live without transaction algorithms; one desktop app I worked on needed an intimate knowledge of TCP, including Winsock LSPs and Linux kernel hacking. You get much more out of deep knowledge with conventional apps, while webapps require a more shallow understanding of a very broad range of topics.
Also, the technologies you need for desktop apps don't have zillions of articles on them plastered across the web, and the documentation is often poor quality. But if you take a professional software engineering job, you'll be expected to make sense of it and figure out how everything works (possibly through prototypes, debuggers, and a lot of pain and patience). It's not taught in college, but that doesn't make it particularly difficult.
[+] [-] far33d|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicomarchesotti|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uuilly|19 years ago|reply
www.uuorld.com
We're using trolltech's Qt and releasing on Win32, OS X, and Linux. If anyone knows of any mature packages for interactive 3d over the web, I'm all ears.
[+] [-] blats|19 years ago|reply
"Mature packages for interactive 3D over the web"
They are general purpose game building frameworks. I am currently working with it in MMO form, all implementation code in Python. It is a mature package for interactive 3D over the web if I ever saw one.
Hmm.. there may be something to that.... hey thanks! :)
[+] [-] gyro_robo|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greendestiny|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falsestprophet|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yubrew|19 years ago|reply
After talking to a couple people in biotech start ups, it seems pointless to pursue something unless I am a cofounder. The marriage of science and business is often not pretty.
[+] [-] jgamman|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] musiciangames|19 years ago|reply
http://www.free-music-games.net/valkyrie-invaders.html
[+] [-] chmike|19 years ago|reply
Protocol is named DITP (distributed information transfer protocol) and uses IDR (information data representation) as encoding rule (it's binary). The infrastructure is named DIS (distributed information system).
Some usable code will be out in a few weeks. The system is original in many ways and the curently forseen business model might be too. Coming out will be announced on Y Combinator news.
[+] [-] aquarin|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kilowatt|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbraford|19 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rnc000|19 years ago|reply
Looking for ways to license visual search technology.
[+] [-] jeffrese|19 years ago|reply