Steal My Ideas! 40 Startup Business Ideas + Idea Frameworks

The first step in becoming an idea-generating machine is recognizing what people want and what people are willing to pay for. As soon as you can solve a problem that someone will pay for, you've got yourself the makings of a business.

This video will review the seven things that people want and will pay for.

If you can generate ideas that touch on these seven human pain points, you'll be able to create a great company.

One of the key skills to become an idea generator will be your ability to recognize problems as opportunities. The best businesses are born from the frustration of a problem. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of looking for solutions, but we're here to tell you that in order to be successful, you must start with problems.

AirBnB wasn't just created out of thin air. The founders had a problem and their resulting solution to that problem led to the creation of AirBnB.

The founder of Dropbox recognized a major problem which was that he couldn't easily share digital files with classmates while in college. He turned the solution to this problem into a massive business.

We will help you start to recognize problems for what they are--businesses in disguise.

This framework is all about pattern matching. When you don't want to "wait" for a problem, you can go idea shopping by matching industries to business models.

This framework teaches you had to take an idea and apply it to a different set of users, a different group, a different geographic location, or a different use case.

Jim Barksdale said that he only knows of two ways to make money: to bundle, or to unbundle. This framework will teach you how to look at businesses and industries and see opportunities to either bundle or unbundle certain features or functions to create new companies.

Don't be discouraged if the ideas you come up with don't seem 100% "original." The chances are that none of us will invent something that's totally new. Many of the best entrepreneurs started with ideas that had already been done, but they just did it better or did it differently.

Stance Socks did not invent the sock. But they were the first company to make socks cool. Facebook did not invent the idea of social media, but through exclusivity, they built a large audience of hyper-engaged college-aged users. Google did not invent internet search, but their page-rank algorithm made their search engine 10x better than the closest competitor.

You don't need to be an inventor. You simply need to learn the art of the remix.

This idea is called BonVoyage.

BonVoyage is a travel app that automatically books flights for users when the flight falls into the user's designated date and price range.

BonVoyage solves the problem of missing out on cheap air-fare that you may not have ever heard about otherwise.

The Baby Boomer generation is aging quickly and will need help staying healthy. While the at-home fitness industry is booming, there are no companies focusing specifically on the single largest and wealthiest age demographic.

Baby Boomer Body is an at-home fitness program for older Americans who want to stay in shape and focus on their health.

The First Hundred is a platform that allows artists/athletes/creators to auction off products, goods, services, or opportunities to 100 of their most die-hard fans.

This idea takes the idea of Italic and applies the business model to furniture. Imagine shopping for furniture online where you only pay for access to the inventory and then you can buy all the furniture you want at-cost? This is the future of retail.

This idea makes creating your own, personal recipe book easy. Imagine an app that automatically captures and stores any recipe you find on the internet, regardless of the website you find it on. Never go searching for "that one recipe on that one website" again.

Revsy = Review Generation + Etsy. Review generation SaaS apps are increasing in popularity and are very successful. But no one has made the review generation app for Etsy sellers! Etsy is a huge marketplace where millions of sellers sell to tens of millions of customers. Those customers trust brands that are highly rated and have many five-star reviews. A review generation app would help them get more reviews and win them more customers.

Imagine if you never had to go to a car repair shop ever again? Who has time to get their breaks replaced, their oil change, their tires rotated, and their air filter replaced anyway? This idea creates a subscription service for busy, working professionals who don't have time to take their car to the shop when it needs maintenance.

The Amazon Kindle is great because you can highlight and save passages you read. Unfortunately, there's no great way to do this with physical books... until now. MyLights would allow users to digitally highlight and save their favorite passages from the physical books they read.

ProductHunt is an incredible platform for creators to share what they're working on and for builders to discover new tools. The same type of platform should exist for e-commerce retailers. ShopHunt is a platform that connects online shop owners and potential new customers.

Instagram will be unbundled, and sneakerheads are a huge niche that can create their own network. WDYWT is the Instagram for sneakerheads that want to buy, sell, and show off their best kicks.

The direct mail business is making a comeback, but none of the existing players are doing anything unique to standout or be different. This idea, DirectMail Elite, is all about creating a premium direct mail service to really catch the eye of consumers and become the most trusted name in the industry. DirectMail Elite is the American Express Black Card of physical mail.

Substack and other services are taking the world by storm as the email newsletter becomes one of the most popular forms of mass communication. Email newsletters are great ways to disperse a lot of information to a group of people, large or small. Internal rides this wave to create a platform where businesses can create internal email newsletters to disperse information throughout their company, ensuring that everyone stays on the same page.

History is fascinating but can be challenging to learn because history books are often very thick and very dense. It's been shown that fewer and fewer people know their history, and it's possible that this is the case because people simply don't want to put in the time and effort to become educated. But what if there was a way to learn about history very quickly? That's the promise of 100-Page History. History books that are 100 pages or less that cover the highlights and inform readers on the most important events.

Celebrate is a way to treat yourself. Enter the important dates in your life (birthday, anniversary, etc.) and then get sent deals, discounts, and bargains from retailers who want to celebrate these special days with you.

Have you ever been to a football or basketball game and seen a few prime tickets in the lower ball sit empty? What if you could buy (or sell) tickets in the middle of the game? What if during the fourth quarter of a close game, two seats on the front row opened up and you were able to buy them immediately? Stadium Shaker is here to shake everything up and let you score better seats mid-game.

COVID has made things tough on brick and mortar retailers. Fewer and fewer companies are anxious to get locked into long-term rental agreements. Instead of forcing companies into these long-term leases, what if you rented retail space to brands for as little as a few days? PopUp brings this idea to life.

There are many apps today that help calm your nerves, relax your mind, and encourage the practice of mindfulness. This has been extremely helpful to many people, and companies in this space have been valued at over $1B. However, there's a flip side to this coin that is equally important--people need to be motivated. The Motivation app will turn up the volume, get people pumped, and help people tackle the challenges that they face.

The world has become overrun with content. Over millions of blog posts, podcasts, tweets, and videos are published every single day. There are thousands of sources of "good" information, but where can you find the best information on the topics you care about? It can be hard to know where to turn. That's where Content Digest steps in. Content Digest brings the best of the internet's content directly to your inbox in a succinct, well-written newsletter that is unique for every topic.

Have you ever tried to shop at Ross Dress For Less online? Well, you can't. That's right, Ross doesn't have any sort of online presence. Why? I have no idea. But someone needs to create the Ross for the internet and that someone could be you. Ross has an incredible business model and basically prints cash. You can do even better by taking their exact playbook and applying it to e-commerce.

When parents send their kids off to college, they care about their safety. One thing that almost no college student has in their dorm room or apartment is an emergency preparedness kit. As natural disasters are seemingly more and more common, being able to rent an emergency kit from your apartment complex would be an appealing sell to any mom parting with their child. Resident Kit provides this service and makes it easy for anyone to be prepared.

Did you know that you often void your life insurance or health insurance policy when you participate in extremely risky behavior such as sky-diving? If you had a major accident, your insurance may not cover you. For moments like these, you should be able to get insurance that lasts throughout the duration of the activity. Creating micro-duration insurance options will allow those participating in extreme sports to be covered.

Acorns has built an incredible business by helping consumers save their spare change (literally) and invest it in the stock market. Another major area where consumers need help is healthcare. Healthcare is extremely expensive and many people don't have enough savings to cover them in the case of a disaster. Our solution? Build the Acorns for Health Savings Accounts, allowing Americans to put more money towards their health savings.

We have fantasy sports, so why don't we have fantasy stocks? Investing and putting money into the stock market can give you a similar thrill to betting on a sports team or playing fantasy football. But it's missing something. When you play the stock market, it's not a social experience. You do it on your own. Fantasy Stocks changes this. It makes the stock market social and allows you to participate in daily, weekly, or monthly stock-picking games.

College students, particularly those who participate in a business-related major, are often challenged to team up with a local business for a class project. Unfortunately, professors rarely help students get connected to these businesses and many students end up working with a company that's less than ideal. What if you flipped this model and allowed businesses to offer projects to students? Campus Connect is a marketplace that connects local businesses and university students. The business offers the student (or group of students) real-life work experience, and the student is able to fulfill their in-class project. A true win-win.

I'm sure you've heard of SaaS (Software as a Service) but you've probably never heard of GaaS (Gratitude as a Service). Companies are placing more and more value on their customer experience, and one way to improve customer experience is by expressing more gratitude. What if every new customer who signed up for your service automatically received a hand-written letter from the CEO, thanking them for their purchase? Or what if every customer was sent a fun Christmas surprise each December? Gratitude is the software platform that can make all these things happen automatically.

Did you know that B2B software salespeople often use something called a "Mutual Action Plan" with their potential customers? These MAPs help the salesperson and the prospect get on the same page, share expectations, and follow a clear path towards a decision. Currently, most salespeople makes these MAPs in Excel spreadsheets or Word documents. So let's change that! MAPs will give software salespeople easy-to-use software that makes creating a Mutal Action Plan easy, shareable, and editable. This will lead to an increase in sales and more accurate customer expectations.

Wouldn't you love to have your favorite pair of shoes autographed by Michael Jordan? Or what if you could get the artist of your favorite band to sign your album cover? Unfortunately, the chances of meeting MJ or your favorite singer are slim, and you'll likely never have the chance to get their John Hancock on anything. But, what if there were a service that made celebrity autographs accessible to anyone? Enter Hancock. Hancock is the platform that connects fans who are seeking out celebrities to sign collectibles or memorabilia. The celebrity sets the price of a signature, and if you're willing to pay for it, you'll get your item signed.

Have you ever bought furniture from Ikea or Wayfair? Sure it was convenient because it shipped to your house in relatively small packages, but then it was up to you to follow an impossible-to-read instruction manual in order to put the thing together. Wouldn't it just be nice if you could find an easy-to-follow instruction video instead? Well, that's the idea behind this idea. There's an opportunity to build a company that makes furniture assembly videos for the large furniture manufacturers. These videos would literally help millions of people assemble faster and easier, increasing customer satisfaction for the furniture companies.

The COVID pandemic has forced us to reimagine many things, but unfortunately, most people are still forced to go to the grocery store to pick up their food for the week. Even though many grocery stores are now offering delivery or pickup, the premise of the grocery store itself needs to be totally reimagined. The grocery stores that exist today weren't built for delivery and pickup. They were built in huge buildings with plenty of space for customers to walk up and down large, wide aisles lined with hundreds of choice. But the grocery stores of the future will never ever have customers step inside. Customers will order online and pickup directly. Grocery stores will have half the square footage (or less) of what they have now and won't have any cash registers or employees working checkout, saving themselves thousands of dollars a month and raising margins significantly. Pickup is the grocery store of the future.

If there's one thing that businesses and schools can't get enough of, it's whiteboard markers. Think of all the classrooms and conference rooms in the world. There are literally hundreds of thousands of them and the vast majority have whiteboards that are used every single day. Now, imagine how many times someone has gone up to the whiteboard and tried the marker, only to find that it's gone dry. This is a frustrating, everyday occurrence that could be completely eliminated if you simply had whiteboard markers delivered to your school or office on a regular basis. A whiteboard marker subscription solves a problem that thousands of people have.

With polaroid cameras and film becoming more and more popular by the day, consumers are looking for a solution that will help them display their memories. Polaroid String is a complete solution. Not only can customers get any photo turned into a polaroid (even those taken on a smartphone) but they'll get a string and clips to hang the photos with to make a beautiful collage.

Career Fairs can be a nightmare, for recruiters and for job seekers. Career Fairs but thousands of job seekers in a room and they go from booth to booth looking to give a copy of their resume to the company recruiters at each stop. By the end of the day, the recruiters are given hundreds of resumes and when they go back to review them all, they have little context as to the person who gave them the resume. They can't put names to faces and they can't remember the conversations they had with job seekers. Resume Scan solves all these problems. Resume Scan not only quickly scans a job seeker's resume at a career fair, but also allows a recruiter to take a photo of the candidate and take notes on the conversation. This helps recruiters become much more organized and make better hiring decisions.

We all hate getting to our hotel after a long day of travel only to see a long line ahead of us at the front desk. What if there was a way to skip the line and go right to your room? And what if you could do it without downloading the app of every hotel you stay in? Well, now you might be able to. This hotel self-check-in idea brings convenient, easy check-in to life and does it without the need for an app.

Chatbots are growing in popularity but no one has yet built a business around intelligent job application bots. Jobby is here to change that. Jobby is a chatbot that has intelligent conversations with potential job applicants. Its interactive nature makes applying for jobs more fun, and because it can react to the responses of the job applicant, it can collect better, more accurate data for every job seeker. And because it plugs into all the best applicant tracking systems, it's the perfect add-on to any hiring software stack.

There are some things that are special between you and your spouse that you don't want to share with anyone but each other. Spouse promises to be the most intimate social media platform on earth. It's only shared between two people; you and your spouse. The Spouse app will keep track of all your memories, moments, photos, and videos. It'll also track things like important dates, clothing sizes, and more. Spouse is the perfect app the track your relationship as it grows over time.

What's the best way to bring people together and make money? Create a local sports tournament. The Basketball Tournament has turned amateur sports tourneys into a profitable, big-money business, and you could do something similar in your local area.

You've probably heard of Warby Parker, the glasses maker that up-ended the industry by allowing customers to shop for glasses online and giving them the option to try on up to five pairs of frames for free. Well, this is Audrey Barker, the women's swimwear company that will also promise a home try-on program so that women have more confidence in buying swimsuits online.

Being a first time homeowner is tough! There are so many things to learn and so many things to be aware of. Who knew that your dishwasher had a filter that needed to be changed? Currently, there's not a lot of great information about homeownership that's centralized in a single place. This is where How-To Home comes in. It's an app that tells you literally everything you need to know about how to maintain and repair your home.

If there are two things that all college students can't get enough of it's these: date ideas and money. Treasure Hunters provides college students the opportunity for more of both. Inspired by a real-life treasure hunt, Treasure Hunters allows participants to win hundreds or even thousands of dollars every week by following clues to find their treasure.