Four free startup ideas for you
Because there's not enough startups in this world
Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking: If these startup ideas are so great, why don’t you do them yourself? First of all I never said they were great (I just said they were free) and second of all: Because I don’t wanna (and I don’t have the time)! That being said I do think these are pretty solid and if you want to found your own startup but don’t have any good ideas on what problem it should solve, feel free to use one of these.
Disclaimer: These are just some ideas/problems I had and how I would solve them, I haven’t done any market validation or competition research for any of these (but I also don’t know of any tools/startups that do exactly what I’m describing below, if you know some please send me a message!). These ideas are also not revolutionary in any sense, just random thoughts.
I wrote two parts for each idea: the first one is a kind of problem/solution explanation mixed with an elevator pitch to potential customers, the second one is the first of a set of questions I think you should always ask yourself when thinking about a startup idea, that I call the three Ys (and yes I just made that up and shamelessly stole parts of that from somewhere, but don’t remember where): “Why now? Why me? Why this?”
#1 Why is now a great time to do that? What changed in the world that makes it a good idea now?
#2 What makes me more qualified than other people to develop that idea?
#3 Why do I want to do this instead of something else?
Obviously #2 and #3 you have to answer for yourself (or don’t and just start doing stuff, also a valid and not appreciated enough option).
1. AI programming tutor/book
What it does (problem/solution/elevator pitch)
Learning to code is actually not super difficult. What’s hard is knowing how to learn and staying motivated while learning. That’s why we at AI-Coding-Tutor (yes I’m great at naming things) offer a 10 week course teaching you web development in a fun and engaging way. Every week, while you learn coding, you’ll develop your own little game or website that you can then immediately share with your friends. You only need a browser and while you code you’ll always have your own AI tutor at hand to ask questions and help you write your code (or just write most of the code for you)!
Why now?
Two main reasons why now is a great time to launch this startup:
Programming is popular: That’s been true for a few years now, but it’s still true today and at least in my opinion AI won’t change that in the next few years
AI tools are actually really good at coding: At least for small web games or one page websites, they are actually great (of course you should always use GPT-4 or better), can now help you debug and point out most beginner mistakes, write code themselves and give suggestions on how your code could be improved
2. Graph generator API
What it does
Beautiful graphs in seconds! Just plug in any kind of data and get a customisable, interactive and responsive graph back. Works on the web, on your phone and as an API. Also supports creating graphs using natural language (check out our custom GPT now available on the GPT store?).
Why now?
Hmm. Not sure honestly. I just want something like that and haven’t found a good one yet. I suppose you can easily use it with ChatGPT now and it’s one of the things Chad can’t really do (at least not in a good looking and interactive way). Also great to combine with lots of other AI tools that are already popping up or will soon (like a good AI presentation generator). Also Data is the new gold which makes data visualisation tools that much more valuable.
3. The Data Database
What it does
We have all the data you need! Lot’s of data in an easy to access format, accessible via an API! Search for lots of different things programmatically (and of course we support vector search for everything). Products, books, history, physics, biology, statistics, songs, recipes, movies, restaurants, events and anything else you can image. Integrates tightly into your favourite AI bot to instantly turn it into an expert in your chosen field.
Why now?
Again mostly it boils down to AI and data being the new gold. Also something I personally want, so you have at least one customer. But no kidding, one of the big problems of LLMs is that they just make shit up and yes Chad can search the internet but the results kinda suck (and it’s sooo slow), what all those AI tools need (and lots of other startups creating stuff with AI tools) is some kind of ready made database that’s easy to integrate with their AI tools. I read somewhere that ResearchGPT (which basically let’s Chad search lots of research papers) or whatever they are named now is one of the most successful custom GPTs now available on the GPT store. You should probably also start with one type of knowledge (ask your fellow AI hyped startup people what databases they need) and expand from there.
4. Your personal AI assistant
What it does
Yes, it’s that weird rabbit device, except without the unnecessary device (and with an actual realistic subscription based business model). Access it from the device you already carry around with you everywhere (yes, it even has a microphone, so you can use your voice!) or in any browser (a browser you say? 1990s here we come). It answers emails for you, reserves restaurants, flights, searches your documents, adds events to your calendar, sets alarms, saves any kind of stuff in your Notion or whatever and does lots of other stuff, that you are too lazy to do!
Why now?
Umm, because of AI. Also gotta be fast before Apple and Google launch their way better integrated assistants. Why should I do that if there’s that level of competition you ask? First of all competition means it’s a good idea and second of all, yeah, you gotta differentiate yourself somehow (maybe sell your own weird little hardware device?), figure that out for yourself, I’m not doing all the work for you!
Now go forth and found!
Obviously a great idea is not worth a lot (but feel free to send me some of that sweet, sweet equity!) without you actually doing the work. So go on…