free ideas

by jordan gonen

> also thx jarred & gaby 

Them: “WE NEED MORE “CRAZY” (good) IDEAS!!”

US: “okay!”

if you make any (or have more ideas), email me: jordangonen1@gmail.com 

~ not not serious ~

  1. Natural deli: A lot of vegan people do not eat meat for moral reasons (i.e. they feel bad about killing animals). Create a deli where all the food comes from animals that died of natural causes (i.e. a cow that broke its leg but the filet is still fine).

  1. Under 6 foot basketball league: A basketball league where everyone is under 6 foot. Gives opportunity to people who are very skilled but cannot compete with the height of the NBA.

  1. Competitor as a service: We build a fake competitor landing page you can use to motivate the employees at your company.

  1. Fortunes inside of banana peels: Like fortune cookies, but put the fortunes inside of banana peels. Makes eating bananas more fun.

  1. Reverse AGI movie: A movie where robots invent humans, and deal with all of the problems with humans (emotions, etc.) - as opposed to the other way around.

  1. Endangered meals: Typical idea is to protect endangered animals by protecting their habitats. Alternative idea is to hire chefs to make really great recipes out of endangered animals (i.e. bald eagle tacos or black rhino wellington). This will drive demand and lead to innovation in breeding / producing more of these endangered animals.

  1. Reverse flash mob: Large groups of people go to crowded areas designed for dancing (clubs, bars, etc.) and pull out their laptops / start taking work calls at an arranged time.

  1. Wager: App for friend groups where everyone in the group anonymously bets on milestones (first kid, first marriage, etc.) and then totals get paid out as the milestones happen.

  1. Karaoke, but only Pop Smoke: It’s a karaoke bar, but the only type of music you are allowed to sing along to is from Pop Smoke.

  1. Fake busy notebook: In meetings, oftentimes the best thing to do is not talk. Create a notebook that is full of real-looking notes so that you can just trace the notes and look busy and engaged without having to actually participate in the meeting.

  1. Personal standup: Build a service that calls you every morning and asks you how yesterday went and your goals for the day. Log all the data from the calls in a simple app and beautiful dashboard with sentiment analysis.

  1. Rugby basketball: A new version of basketball where there are no fouls or goaltending. Think UFC + basketball. Everything is worth 1 point. Final scores are often low scores like 3-1.

  1. Objection!: You can hire someone to go to the weddings of people you hate and object to the marriage. This is pretty rude, though.

  1. Strava for writing: Mac app that tracks how many words you write a day. Make it easy to share with your network. Perhaps also tracks keystrokes.

  1. Mental gym/bootcamp: A gym that focuses on mental fitness. You go to the gym and they have a curriculum to help you get mentally tough. You go and do mental workouts like writing, reading, speech giving, problem solving, etc. Helps you confront your fears directly.

  1. Beef license: Create a license (like you would have a license to drive a car or have a weapon) that gives people permission to eat meat. You can only acquire the license if you go into the state examiner (a DMV equivalent) and kill a cow yourself. This would prove that you’re capable of handling the impact of your eating choices.

  1. Medicine ball volleyball: Make a volleyball style game where instead of using a volleyball, you use a medicine ball and the objective of the game is to throw the ball back and forth over the net and see who drops it first. Probably painful/dangerous but so is football.

  1. Used: create wishlist and get notification when a certified refurbished version becomes available across reputable platforms (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.).

  1. Running by weight class: Marathon/running races but the leaderboard is organized by weight classes (like boxing).

  1. Internal podcast for organizations: Every company should have an internal podcast that every employee listens to. Interview the founders and random people from across the business. It will indoctrinate the team with ideas, stories, and culture. And it will be fun. Start it before the company is big. So people can listen to episodes from early on. Spend 15 minutes a week recording it early on.

  1. Vintage tech brand swag: Sell clothing that companies gave to early employees. Apple t- shirts, google sweatshirts, etc.

  1. Reverse life coaching: Older ppl in mid life crisis getting counseling from young naive adults.

  1. Mr. Does What He Says He’s Going To Do Man: Superhero series where the main character’s power is just to do what he says he is going to do. Ultra-reliable. Could be an inspiration for people at work. Another power is the ability to communicate when he’s not going to hit a deadline.

  1. Make $1000 class: Make a class in school (or outside of school) where the whole objective is to make $1000. There’s not a lot of instruction. You pass if you make $1000 and you fail if you do not. The only constraint is that you cannot sell your time for money directly—you have to make a thing of sorts that generates revenue.

  1. Rodeo drive rodeo: Host a big rodeo on rodeo drive.

  1. Young people language: Young people should create an entirely new language that old people don’t understand at all. Imagine everyone under 30 speaking a totally different language.

  1. Mormon life insurance: I own mormonlifeinsurance.com. Feel like Mormons live longer, so they should get cheaper life insurance.

  1. You can lose weight: An app that texts you an unflattering picture of yourself daily motivating you to be healthy. Optionally it also sends to a group of your friends.

  1. Anti-organic-food-brand: Pro-GMO grocery store. Think Liquid Death style branding but for all types of foods—blue chicken breasts, miniature watermelon, blueberries that taste like beef.

  1. BS detector: Grammarly, but detects when your writing is using lots of buzzwords and sounds like bullshit.

  1. Pokemon stay: App tracks your location. Pokemon go except the pokemon come to you. The longer you stay in one place, the more rare the pokemon become.  

  1. Intro finder: You type in a company, and it tells you your best path(s) to get an intro to the founder by scanning your Linkedin/Twitter connections.

  1. The great startup survey: Build pave.com for all the other questions/prompts relevant for startup founders (outside of just how much cash/equity to pay people). Think questions like – at your current revenue, with your geography, industry, growth rate, etc. – how/what are others doing benefits, PTO policies, etc.

  1. Gift giving consultancy: You tell us about your target gift receiver, we curate the perfect gift.

  1. Flash card chrome extension: Chrome extension where you pick a topic from a library and then every time you open a new tab it has a fun fact / interesting thing for you to memorize from. Learn skills or languages that way.

  1. 6-pack living: Guaranteed 6-pack. We live in your home (or you live in our specialized apartment complex) and we decide what you eat. That’s it. If you cheat, we kick you out of the program and you lose your $10,000 deposit.

  1. Dictionaries for organizations: Very few companies have dictionaries to define what they mean by certain words. Even seemingly simple words like “success” and “long-term” and others should have organizationally-specific definitions to reduce coordination errors. These organizations should create dictionaries.

  1. Compliment delivery service: You pay to have a person deliver an in person compliment to a friend in another place.

  1. Hold the mayo: Mayo is gross. Restaurant that by default puts mayo on everything (your burger, your fries, your water). You have to remind them “no mayo,” otherwise you have to deal with a glob of mayo on everything.

  1. UberBreakup: You call an uber to go to your ex’s house and they pick up your belongings for you.

  1. Master credit card: enter all your credit cards onto a platform. Swipe your master credit card and it will auto choose whichever card gets the most points on the purchase.
  2. Motivation while running/lifting: App that broadcasts to your friends when you start a workout. They can send you audio messages to motivate you that automatically get played during your activity.

  1. Conversation simulator: Chatbot that you interface with before having a conversation with someone. For those of us who need to practice empathy ;).

  1. Transparent funders: Create a database of all of the limited partners involved in venture capital funds. Find out where the money is actually coming from.

  1. Weird-looking credit cards: There are a lot of “innovative modern fintech companies” making credit cards. Sure they are shiny, but they all look like rectangles. Make credit cards that look like orbs or put them on keychains, etc.

  1. Lateral olympics: Get professional athletes to compete in sports they are not professional in, and see how they do. They have a month to train. Lebron running the mile. Phelps playing baseball. Etc.

  1. Horseback gym: A mechanical horse gym so ppl can practice horseback riding + cowboy moves without needing to own a horse.

  1. Course on how to be an adult: Build a masterclass course on how to be an adult—including things like personal finances, taxes, insurance, buying a house, having kids, schools, etc.

  1. Hibachi for other foods: Why not like Hibachi for all types of foods where they cook right in front of you? Why just tableside guac? Give me hibachi breakfast. Tableside pancakes.

  1. Accountable: Schedules a randomly generated obscene tweet that you have to wake up and disable (makes sure you are awake by x time).

  1. Live Streamed company: Company that live streams all of their work publicly. Every employee has a twitch channel, too.

  1. Backstory: When you order meat, the restaurant gives you the backstory of whatever animal you are eating (where they lived, how long they were alive, what their life was like).

  1. Flake Button: you have plans to hang out with a group. If you secretly don’t want to go, press flake button. If a majority of the group also pressed flake button then the event is canceled. If not then nobody knows you pressed it and you can go stress free.

  1. Scenic Route: GPS that only takes you on routes that are nice to walk/run/bike on vs. just fastest way there.

  1. Ultimate global hackathon: Create a hackathon with “famous” tech founders: Zuck/Gates/etc. Everyone has 24 hours to build something epic.

  1. New food: We need a new widely popular food. We have bread, meat, vegetables, etc. What’s next? What does the new building block/element look like? Not Jello. Jello is a gag food. We need something foundational here.  

  1. Baby Olympics: You enroll your baby in a series of athletic competitions and the winning baby gets a college scholarship.

  1. Cancel-finder: We look at your Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin for old posts that would get you canceled. Sell to employers when hiring candidates and also for their current employees.
  2. Monster run club: Run club where you are being chased by someone in a monster or gorilla suit. People trying to scare you the whole run.

  1. Sommelier course for water: Not all water is created equal okay. Train your palette to detect different types of water.

  1. Knock on wood, wood: Slab of wood you keep near your desk you can knock on whenever you need to knock on wood.

  1. See the ingredients: scan the ingredients section of any food and it tells you if any of the ingredients are terrible for you (seed oils, xanthan gum, etc.) .  

  1. Guidance: Match young kids with elderly people to have weekly conversations. Older people get companionship and younger people get guidance.  

  1. Posture-reminder: Wearable that buzzes you every 15 minutes reminding you to fix your posture. Could shock you physically if more effective.

  1. Table for four: community that schedules four person reservations in your city on Tuesday nights at good restaurants. Way to meet people and try good restaurants.

  1. Road Trip generator: Put in the starting point and destination and it finds you the prettiest route, best value hotels, best restaurants, etc..

  1. Accountability alarm clock: you make a pact with a friend to wake up at a certain time and your phones both ring at that time and you talk to each other. Good way to start the day and stay accountable.

  1. Under 6 foot bar: Bar for guys under 6 foot. The door to get in is shorter. (Author’s note: we’re over 6 feet, just for clarity).

  1. Your top priority: Mac app that sticks your top priority in the top right corner of your screen all the time so you are reminded of what to work on.

  1. Space for your suitcase: When you go to stay at someone’s house, and you don’t know where to put your suitcase. Like it just lies open face somewhere in the corner. So awkward and inefficient. There should be a solution to this.

  1. Pushup beeper: Beeper physical device that you have on your desk that randomly, throughout the day, beeps and tells you to do 20 pushups. You click a button if you’ve done it and it logs your streak.

  1. Syllabus generator: Type in a topic and the app pulls together a collection of essays, books, activities, videos, shorts, music, prompts, things etc. for you to do in order to learn ANY topic. It does this by pairing everything the app knows about you—what you like, how you learn, what you are good at, what you are bad at, etc.—with the best information on the topic to create the absolute best way to go about learning anything.

  1. Curious people survey: Create a survey that asks people questions about what they like and promise you will match them with one interesting person a year. For free. Send it to 10 smart and curious people you know, tell them to take it seriously, and make sure they each send it to 10 smart people they know. Tell them to make sure the 10 people they send it to also send to 10. You now have 1000 people.

  1. Debate series: Record professional debates between famous world leaders of countries and organizations. Host live viewings. Big macro topics but also niche trivial ideas.

  1. Videotaping the kitchen: Restaurant where there’s an always on feed of the people cooking your food. Watch the footage before you consume your food to make sure it’s clean.

  1. Better umbrellas: Unclear the solution but umbrellas are just not that good. Like I always get at least a little wet. Do better, please.

  1. Gratitude reminder: Log one thing you’re grateful for every day and then get random notifications of previous entries throughout your day.  

  1. Reverse delivery: Restaurants that pay for your uber to come to them (as opposed to sending you the food to your home).

  1. Pastabilities: Like Chipotle, for pasta. Mainly for the name.

  1. Best best man speeches: Best man speeches as a service. Note: they are the best.

  1. Direct advertising network: What if you built an advertising network where viewers/listeners of the ads actually get paid? For someone with a compelling product, they would probably pay something to get the opportunity to pitch a prospect? (I mean, we know they would because they currently pay Google/FB/etc. this).

  1. Intern: program you get accepted to where you work 12 jobs at 12 companies, each for a month the year after college (or high school) to get a better understanding of the landscape of jobs.

  1. New electrification company: There are many government subsidies for “electrifying” communities by installing HVACs, heat pumps, etc. You could build a services business that specializes in electrifying homes (installing the above equipment) for FREE to people using government subsidies. And then convert them into a subscription once you are in their home.

  1. New type of gym: Gym that you have to pay a lot more if you don’t show up.

  1. New easy button: Instead of saying that was easy, have the button say: “that is bullshit.” Click it in meetings when you know people are just bullshitting you.

  1. Random funny trip: You and all your friends meet at the airport. Split into teams of two. You all start with $2000 in your bank accounts. The objective: go to the most random possible place within 24 hours and facetime each other. Most random location/activity wins.

  1. Alley oop: Dating app where people in relationships make profiles for their single friends and connect with people their actual friends with to see if they can make good set ups.

  1. Feedback giver: Someone – or group of people – who you pay to give you honest, genuine feedback. Can be on very micro interactions. Key is getting complete honesty from people on the little things. They will tell you what you actually are like to interact with.  
  2. Once a day email: Email that only shows you new messages once a day so you are not checking it all the time.

  1. DJ booth nightclub concept: Fun night club you could build that would have dozens of 10 to 100 person rooms that have a DJ booth in them. You and your friends can rent out a room where you get to take over the AUX. The rooms can be themed and you can throw parties in them.

  1. Pay by weight airline: Airline where you are charged by how much you + your bags weigh combined.

  1. Cross country: App that connects people who want to transport their car long distances to people who want to do road trips. Ship car for free and rent car for free  

  1. Group chats for people born with the same name: We will go out and find people with the same name as you and put you in a group chat.

  1. Successful parenting: A book with detailed interviews with the parents of now successful figures throughout history.

  1. Birthday cover song: An app for your friend groups that chooses a song when it’s someone’s birthday, assigns everyone a part, prompts recordings, and generates the song to send the birthday boy / girl on their special day.

  1. Different shot put: Shot put competitions where you have to throw weirdly shaped objects like a blender or chair.

  1. Youth sports coaching, sport: You and your friends all sign up to coach youth basketball/soccer/baseball. See what happens. The league lets you draft players/etc.

  1. Document editor with transparency: A writing platform that, when you publish an essay, also shows all of the iterations that went into the piece, so the reader can see what the writing process is actually like.

  1. Adult bar mitzvahs: Bar mitzvahs were/are great fun. Just should have them as adults.

  1. How it could all change: A deep dive blog detailing how things we accept as needed in today’s society (our water system, having Amazon, etc.) could completely change within the next 100 years. A practical route for this change actually happening.

  1. Anti-portfolios: Founders should publish lists of all the venture capitalists that said no to them. Create a list of all the anti-portfolios/companies that funds missed out on.

  1. Shutdown Kit: A company that makes it really easy for you to shut down your company.

  1. Courier: A cheaper alternative to overnight shipping. Platform that matches you with someone traveling to a city where you want something shipped in the next 24 hours to courier your parcel at a fraction of the cost.

  1. Popularizing dance battles: We need a better way to settle arguments. Dance battles are the solution. There should be more public dance battles.

  1. Data dating app: Shows your bank account balance, credit score, IQ, personality test, etc.

  1. Fridge lock: Fridge locks every night at midnight unless you solve a puzzle.

  1. Unsexy summer camp: A program where you get to work as an apprentice doing manual labor in traditionally unsexy industries like plumbing, restaurants, and oil.

  1. Steroid sports league: Run faster. Hit further. Punch harder. A sports league where any performance enhancements are allowed.

  1. 360 interviews for your life: Service that goes and interviews 10 people around you in your life and delivers organized anonymized feedback.

  1. Fantasy venture capital: Like fantasy football, but for investing in startups.

  1. Pre-college semester: After high school, everyone should go to college at Arizona State for one semester. Just to see what it’s like before going to some boring school like UChicago.

  1. Food fight venues: Like ax throwing, but for food fights. Rent out for birthdays and team-bonding events.

  1. Job board with hiring managers: The quality of your manager plays a big role in whether or not you will like your job. Create a job board that is organized by who the hiring manager is and talks about their background.

  1. Superlative maker for your friends: App that makes it easy to vote on superlatives amongst your friends.

  1. Yard sale consultant: help people optimize layout / pricing / marketing for yard sale and take a % of sales.

  1. Clean your closet: Marketplace of people who are really good at selling your clothes online on places like Depop. They will take the photos and list them as a % of revenue.

  1. Documentaries as a service: Submit all the footage from the trip you took with your friends and we turn it into an epic documentary.

  1. References as a service: Loop in a service that does a detailed analysis/reference on a candidate before you hire them. Goes and talks to their former manager and friends so you get a detailed view of their capabilities.

  1. Fast and the furious heist experience: Everyone should experience a proper heist, at least once in their lives. Experience you can sign up for so you and your friends can execute a simulated heist, just like they do in Fast and the Furious. Maybe it’s just me.

  1. Annoyingly tall person prank: Prank your friend by hiring a really tall person to follow them around and intimidate them all the time.

  1. Text Message Bankruptcy: if you are bad at responding to texts you can add a bot where if you don’t respond manually in 3 days it just sends an auto generated text back.

  1. Super super senior: there should be 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, and then everyone goes back for a 5th year of high school after.

  1. Spotify vinyl: At the end of every year, it sends you a vinyl with your top 20 songs of the year.

  1. Bring back Rollercoaster tycoon: Not really a new idea, but kids these days don’t play enough rollercoaster tycoon. And it shows.

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if you make any (or have more ideas), email me: jordangonen1@gmail.com