Looking for a startup idea? Here you are. You’re welcome.
Like many of us at Stanford, I was drawn here by the mystique of Silicon Valley. Although I’m digitally illiterate, I smelled tech wealth and hoped to bathe in serendipitous cash flow. I know now that most of the valley denizens don’t hit the jackpot, and none of my classmates seem on trajectory to breed billion-dollar unicorns.
Although Plato elevated the world of forms over its shadowy manifestation, I value earthly execution over ideas. So I offer these inklings for tech knights to breathe life into them. As I come from a family of dismal entrepreneurs (we’re better at healing and nurturing), however, take them with a grain of salt. If similar startups exist, I’m sure you can do better. Google and Facebook weren’t first movers either.
If you need a sinecure co-founder, I am ready. I was an entrepreneurship ambassador at Wharton, and had stints at Ashoka: Innovators for the public, and StartX, a Stanford-based accelerator. I also studied intellectual history, a useful degree for elevator pitches. Unless I drop out with you, I will earn an M.A. in East Asian studies to help you penetrate the world’s biggest market populated by beautiful people.
- Reciprocity Ring: During the most popular class at Wharton, we embodied the concept of reciprocity ring by sharing our wish list in class. Then we ambled around and jotted our name if we could help other students fulfill their wish. Mine was to meet a travel writer, and I got introduced to a New York Times travel columnist. Every community harbors untapped social capital, and an app to facilitate matching communal resources with the desires of its members could unlock smiles and hugs.
- Running Buddy: Although there is a plethora of apps like Strava to track mileage and pace, apps for finding fellow runners are more rare. As a decade-long runner, I know that runs are more pleasant when shared with other thumping hearts. While some are solitary wolfs, many prefer running in packs. The app need not be complex. Just a few questions about location, time, distance, and hobbies to break ice for friendship will do. We don’t need a fitness Tinder though, because sweaty ain’t classy.
- Blue Days: None of us are immune from mood swings, and isolation can deepen our melancholy. Reaching out to loved ones can feel Herculean when depression reduces us to feel like a gadfly. What if there were a platform to share the literature, music, and film that provide solace during darkest hours? If we can see how our friends and role models rebound from failures and tragedies, perhaps that will also sublimate our grief. If you’re skeptical art can sooth broken hearts, check out the popularity of the Blue days book and this Reddit thread.
- Geo-based Travelogues: Although blogs and photos of globetrotting friends often pop up on our Facebook newsfeed, they are not organized by location. If they were, perhaps we can have a richer experience gallivanting around the world as we can contextualize our escapades against those of our friends and celebrities. Although numerous apps facilitate sharing travel plans, few apps help disseminate and tag post-travel reflections. Travel can be expanded from a dialogue with physical travel buddies to encompass friends worldwide and even bygone writers and artists.
Although the heyday of Web 2.0 may be over, the rise of the sharing economy has reinvigorated demand for niche social networks. If you can alchemize these ideas into cash cows, please remember your muse, the starving writer. I will not ask for equity or copyright, but I can be hired.
#Studentvoices
*Edited by LinkedIn Education & Millennials Editor Maya Pope-Chappell
Economist-Central Bank of Kenya
9 年Hi Annete .Happy new year dear.
creating a leading security culture @Euroclear
9 年That Reciprocity Ring thing is great
Co-founder at Polarsteps - We're hiring!
9 年Nice article! We're a new startup working on your geo-based travelogues idea. It's called Polarsteps, an iPhone app that automatically tracks your route and places you've visited while you are traveling. You can download the app here, curious about your feedback! https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/polarsteps-automatic-travel/id947925763?mt=8
Director at Dab Hands Just Cuts Limited
9 年I think if I copied and pasted this into Google Translate I think it would just say, 'Er, what?'. Why complicate basic English with riddles and nonsensce? Is this a sales pitch?