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Request for Startup — Share and discover great startup ideas people actually want
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@to Shouldn't be. Perhaps only for a brief moment (seconds) when deploying updates. Mind trying again?
Like I'm sure many of you I often see problems worth solving, or come up with product ideas I'd really like someone to pursue. Occasionally I tweet about them, but even if the idea resonates it disappears really quickly due to the real-time nature of Twitter. That's why I created Request For Startup: a nice overview of all the ideas people share on Twitter, sorted by popularity. Here's how it works:
Have an idea or request for a startup? Simply tweet it and include hashtag #RequestForStartup. It will automatically get picked up and added to the site. Any retweet or favorite on your tweet will count as a vote and will move the request higher up in the list so more people will see it and makers will know there's a real market there.
Maker and looking for an idea? Browse the site to discover the most popular requests. In the near future we'll make it possible to "claim" a request by sending a link of your finish product to the original tweeter. Once he or she confirms it matches the original request all upvoters (the people who favorited/retweeted the tweet) will be notified and you'll get an immediate customer base for your new product.
Upcoming features:
1. Trending requests. Right now we only have "NEW" requests which are unfiltered and sorted from new to old, and "TOP" which are the all-time most popular requests. Right now that's fine, but once we get more requests coming in we'll want an overview of trending requests a la Product Hunt's homepage.
2. Commit 💰💰💰 to your request. If you want something bad enough, you'll likely pay for it, right? Therefore I'm considering adding an option to add a payment/funding commitment to your tweet. Simply mention a dollar amount (e.g. $25) and it will be attached your request. Other people can chip in too, and the running total will be shown on the site. This will be a great incentive for makers. They can claim the bounty, after which the upvoters will be asked to verify the request was indeed fulfilled.
3. Filters. For example, only see RequestForStartup's from investors or other influential people in the industry
4. Notification when request is fulfilled. If you request a startup, you'll want to get notified when it's made, right? Something we're working on.
5. API. So you can build cool stuff on top it.
6. Weekly newsletter with the most interesting requests. You can already sign up on the site, but we aren't sending emails yet.
7. User profiles. For example http://request.betalist.com/@mar... could show all my requests, those I upvoted and the ones I fulfilled.
Comments, questions, feedback are more then welcome!
I created this from scratch last night, so there are likely quite some bugs to be squashed and improvements to be made, but @levelsio pushed me to launch this quickly, so here I am :)
I'm the founder of BetaList hence the domain name request.betalist.com – I couldn't find a good standalone domain in such a short notice, and Request For Startup actually ties in nicely with what we're doing at BetaList and especially our future plans.
P.S.
The name was inspired by Y Combinator's "Request For Startups" and I've seen @DanielleMorrill use the hashtag #RequestForStartup exactly for this purpose, so thanks to them for the inspiration!
@webhat Once people start building requested startups we'll definitely look into integrating with platforms like Product Hunt and of course our own BetaList :) (it ties in nicely with some upcoming changes)
@marckohlbrugge this is pretty neat Marc! Do you think a bookmarklet would help in this? Cause lot of ideas originate during reading as well. Just a thought.
@marckohlbrugge this is pretty neat Marc! Do you think a bookmarklet would help in this? Cause lot of ideas originate during reading as well. Just a thought.
🚀 New domain name: http://requestforstartup.co
🚀 Trending requests on homepage
I love this new trend to have public-facing roadmaps. Ello does/did the same thing. Why do you guys do it? Accountability? Teaser? Elicit feedback?
@taykcrane All of the above, plus I'm not sure what features are most desirable (if any), so I figured I'd put it out in the open. I even considered creating a #RequestForStartup tweet for every feature idea and then have the community vote by favoriting/retweeting, but it didn't seem essential to the MVP so I left it out for now. (Like I said, I literally created this whole thing last night.)
Definitely a fan of the concept. My friend and I launched a blog (http://businessideas247.com/) a couple years ago for the same reason - we constantly have startup ideas that we would love someone else to pursue :)
@marckohlbrugge Neat! I've always had a bunch of ideas of things to create, but I find it very hard to take the bet that my idea is something that people will like. By posting an idea on an open fora like Twitter/RfS, I'm concerned that people will take the idea and make it a huge success :) What are your thoughts on this?
One thing I would like to see is a closed fora where potential founders can pitch ideas to VCs, angels, founders etc. Think of it as a reverse filter of what you mentioned in 3), where only the aforementioned can read about the idea.
@hanspeide The idea of RFS is actually for people to take your idea and build it. If you plan on building it yourself, I wouldn't recommend using the service. I recommend talking to potential customers instead. Their feedback is way more valuable when it comes to validating market demand. Additionally, I recommend building out your professional network of founders/angels/etc for non-product feedback. (For example you wouldn't ask customers for feedback on your pricing strategy.)
@marckohlbrugge Then I misunderstood. I thought it was meant as a tool for validating a potential market for the person posting the idea. What you wrote makes sense, and I think we're on the same page :)
hey @marckohlbrugge! Can you give details on post mortem? I will love to hear about what not did so good
Will be sharing this with a couple of friends! With all the information on the internet it is even more difficult to find the correct information from qualified professionals and researching a bunch of forums doesn't really help to find the solution to your particular problem. Nice job!
Stacks Accelerator