Learning From Goofy Business Ideas

Posted by Zach Baker Wed, 15 Aug 2007 04:30:00 GMT

I saw this article about ten goofy business ideas that worked at Y Combinator’s newly-renamed Hacker News (and realized I had read it before) and thought it would be fun to analyze.

So okay, this list has some problems, but let’s just accept it for a moment for analysis. Here’s some positive factors I see in these businesses:

  • Newsworthy (back-page news potential)

  • Good Branding (unique name/keywords)

  • Novelty (low competition of supply at introduction)

  • Broad Customer Base (wide actual demand)

  • Engaged Customer Base (deep/loyal demand, customer word of mouth)

And here’s how they stack up:

  1. Million Dollar Homepage – Newsworthy, Good Branding

  2. PickyDomains – Novelty, Engaged Customer Base

  3. Doggles – Newsworthy, Good Branding, Novelty, Engaged Customer Base

  4. LaserMonks – Newsworthy, Good Branding, Broad Customer Base

  5. AntennaBalls – Newsworthy, Good Branding, Novelty, Engaged Customer Base

  6. FitDeck – Good Branding, Novelty, Engaged Customer Base

  7. PositivesDating.Com – Newsworthy, Novelty, Engaged Customer Base

  8. Designer Diaper Bags – Broad Customer Base, Engaged Customer Base

  9. SantaMail – Newsworthy, Broad Customer Base, Engaged Customer Base

  10. Lucky Break Wishbone Co. – Newsworthy, Broad Customer Base

The totally statistically insignificant results:

  • Newsworthy – 7/10 (some bias here of course)

  • Good Branding – 5/10

  • Novelty – 5/10

  • Broad Customer Base – 4/10

  • Engaged Customer Base – 7/10

Honestly, these companies all come out pretty well here, apart maybe from Designer Diaper Bags. Skip Hop is the real Gen-Y diaper bag success story anyway (and are the one with the real product novelty).

You can see why The Million Dollar Homepage is the canonical “I can’t believe that worked.” It had no supply innovation (there are lots of places to buy internet ads and no reason why you’d want to do it per-pixel) or demand innovation (nobody really wants another Million Dollar Homepage, or even the first one anymore). It’s just sheer newsworthiness, branding and public curiosity.

You can also see that companies apart from MDH either have a broad customer base or novelty. Good luck getting both! But you probably need one or another.

Also, note that none of these businesses are technology innovators, unless Doggles has patented some improvements to dog-glasses-design that we don’t know about.

But what I most want to emphasize about this list is that it shows how important it is to be newsworthy (and get free PR) or to get an engaged customer base (and get free word-of-mouth). As a small business without one or the other of those, you tend to be a nobody. Hackers need to overcome their disdain of marketing. It is the complement, not the competitor, of innovation.