Startup ideas Giftrocket would be willing to pay for

[here][hnn] - tl;dr:

• Software that shows videos of real users using our site
• Yelp for business services
• UI wrapper around PayPal
• iPhone code editor with Github/Heroku integration
• Zerocater for startup swag

I like the Yelp for business services, myself. I want to do that.

Google Code Search

Code Search is shutting down. That leaves a vacuum. 'nuff said. [hnn]

Better filleritem.com

Filleritem.com is a neat idea: if you need to add 52 cents worth of stuff to your Amazon order to qualify for free shipping, it will give you a list of things that are 52 cents and qualify for free shipping.

Google dinged it because each page essentially consists of a hundred affiliate links and nothing else.

You could do better, though - because none of the stuff is stuff you really need. So you could just as easily just put together a random list of items that total the amount you need to hit - much shorter list! And if you don't like the list - get another one. Randomly!

The key: each list is much shorter. Heck, you could even do that in the browser in Javascript, actually.

This is doable.

Sims Social bot

OK, so the monetization strategy for Sims Social (thanks to tim rogers) is basically to pay them not to have to play the game.

Maybe it would be cooler if you could buy a bot to play it for you, perhaps on your screen saver while you were gone at night...

Startup idea researcher

So here's a real idea based on that, though. Let's say you want to start a niche business. How about a streamlining tool that would support that? Need to bone up on that small-business book and come up with a quick tool. It could integrate some Google searches, basically ending up with a nice little XML/JSON package that represents the seed for a niche business idea.

Add-on service: automate some of that research.

(Then you take that to Jenney and say, "start this business for me" and the framework for a business is built, LLC and all. Then you hire some guys in the Philippines to run it.)

Earn money while you sleep

Nice encapsulation of some rough business models for the high-tech early-adopter crowd. [here]

• Sell your by-products
• Sell your knowledge and/or experience
• Scratch your own itch
• Build something for the community

Atlassian: from 0 to $100M without salespeople

Some business advice from Atlassian. Worth a read. Boils down to 10 bullets:

• Start with two founders
• You need a business model
• Use your own product
• Measure everything
• Always be marketing
• Your first idea will fail
• Know when to switch gears: one model does not fit all and a business will grow out of each
• Letting people go hurts
• Build a place you want to work
• Interviewing: top grading

There you go, I just saved you some time.