Ask HN: If making money was not a factor, what startup would you work on?

12 points by adj 13 years ago | 6 comments

I'm currently thinking about startup ideas but they have to involve making money (as I still need to pay the bills).

However, I keep thinking of ideas that are not really financially viable for me (like alternative energy transport, advanced robots etc).

So my question is, if you had Elon Musk type money, what would you work on?

yessql 13 years ago |

Asynchronous logic design tools. Imagine a world free of the hack that is the clock signal. Current processors are all designed at this local optimum, since it would take years to build the tools necessary for processor designers to make self timed logic.

dotcoma 13 years ago |

So, you're asking: if making money for yourself to pay the bills was not a problem, would you prefer to work on a vaporware company that could get you rich like Twitter or on something serious that could change the world?

adj 13 years ago | |

Exactly.

kirk21 13 years ago |

You can do these things even if you have to pay bills. Just start small with sth you can ship quite fast (a part of a robot or a small one, a robot for a niche market). You can grow your company and eventually you will be shipping robots like it's 1999. A lot of companies start like this, the problem is that we look at apple etc as examples while most companies start with a small part (or as distributors of a product).

codegeek 13 years ago |

I love learning and teaching. So I would either start a school (ilke a trade school) where anyone can come and learn 'real world" employable skills. It couod possibly be online.

I would also do an open source learning management system (some ppl are already doing this of course)

If nothing else, I will become a tutor/teacher at things that I am good at. I will volunteer at schools/universities.

livestyle 13 years ago |

Khan Academy