18 Tech Startup Ideas in 2015

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Before getting into a few ideas I’ve brainstormed for tech startups in 2015, it’s important to note that there is a very big difference between consumer startups and b2b startups.

Consumer startups tend to be moving towards the mobile platform, with the rise of apps like SnapChat, Instagram, Meerkat, Yeti, Periscope, and more. Granted, not all of these apps will be successful in the long run. In fact, some have even observed that mobile app startups are looking strangely familiar to 1999.

Enterprise and B2B SaaS startups continue to grow in record numbers and are more geared towards the web or tablet apps like Slack. Unlike consumer startups, I think that B2B startups tend to have more stability, particularly if they operate on a subscription model.

Whichever marketplace you are more interested in, I’ve listed out an idea for you below! Note, these ideas are just for fun and to get you thinking about how to add value. Great startup ideas come from problems you identify or experience.

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Consumer Startups

1. Reddit sucks on mobile devices and there is no official app. People clearly want to access crowdsourced news and topics. Build an app that makes it easier to bring forums and reddit-like content discovery to the mobile experience.

2. Apps like YikYak, Omegle, and Chat Roulette have shown us that there will always be a demand for anonymous social interactions. Build an omegle or chat roulette that takes advantage of location-based smartphone functionality. Maybe it could even be a blind dating app!

3. People love taking surveys that reveal insights about them and their friends. Buzzfeed has proven this. Create an app where you can take fun surveys on your mobile device and easily share them with friends. Maybe it’s a game that will tell you how well you really know each of your friends.

4. 3D Printing is all the rage, but how cool would it be if you could take a photo of anything while you are out and about in the world and have it printed at home? Make an app that will make an accurate 3D scan of an object that you can then send to your printer at home.

5. Models love Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr. Not only do they have large established followings, but models that are deemed beautiful can quickly gather a following! Create an app where amateur models can showcase their talent like on TheChive and also easily link to the clothes that they are wearing so that people can buy them.

6. Why should dating be entirely image based? Tinder is beginning to take advantage of stories. Remember how in the 80s video dating used to be a thing? Why are we all a sudden camera shy? Make an app that uses video as the main match-making medium rather than photos for online dating.

7. Apps like Venmo have shown that consumers (particularly younger consumers) are now okay using their mobile phone for payments like they used to do with paypal on the web. What other services does this unlock on the mobile device?

Rather than searching craigslist locations like NYC and Boston for a new table, it should be easy to find others in your actual area and do secure payments through a mobile app, which would also allow for a fee magnetization opportunity.

8. “What should we watch tonight?” or “What should we eat?” People might not like to admit it, but making decisions is tough! Make an app to make it easier to make decisions, whether that’s suggesting a movie that you haven’t seen that gets smarter the more you use it, suggesting a new event that’s happening based on your likes and location, or suggesting a place to eat based on reviews.

9. In college, many parties were made known through Facebook events and texting. Given the nature of social media now a days, it would be interesting if you could create your own event with one centralized location where people can upload ephemeral videos/photos and others can re-live the event for up to 24 hours or view photos/videos leading up to the event. Snapchat has already started to curate stories around locations and events. How cool would it be if you could create your own event or location?

B2B Startups

1. There is a recurring theme among B2B startups like Trello, Basecamp, Evernote, and now Slack regarding workplace productivity and team collaboration. By analyzing the own effectiveness and efficiency of your own organization’s workplace, you can generate new startup ideas in the productivity space. For example, I’m learning a lot from Tim Ferriss about how to be most productive given the amount of time you have each week.

Why is it that none of these apps seem to incorporate findings about workplace productivity, like only allowing employees to check email twice per day or forcing employees to batch workflow? A smart productivity app that aggregates data and incorporates AI to suggest the re-arrangement of certain tasks would make increase workplace effectiveness.

 2. It’s clear that many tech news websites like VentureBeat, BusinessInsider, TheNextWeb and general-interest news websites tend to reiterate the same stories regarding funding rounds or content that gets a lot of clicks, like a funny cat video or a Steve Jobs video from the 80s.

Why not offer a solution to up-and-coming bloggers/journalists who don’t have the capacity to follow the news to the degree of intensity that large news organizations do. It would suggest topics to write about in a particular niche based on trending Reddit stories, google news events, tweets that are getting a lot of clicks or shares (like BuzzSumo data), or stories that are going viral on Facebook or youtube.

You could also offer this solution regarding “videos, images, or stories that you should share” to brands that are trying to establish a relationship with their customers through their Facebook page.

3. Despite the emergence of wordpress-powered plugins like OptimizePress, it’s still difficult to easily create an online course and integrate a good payment system. With the emergence of course-communities like Lynda and Udemy, it’s clear that there is a demand for online courses. However, I don’t want a website that also offers other people’s courses to offer mine as well. I want more control. As another indicator of the demand in the industry, there are multi-million dollar companies like Mindvalley Insights that offer online courses.

Wouldn’t it be cool if someone could white-label an online course system to house online courses that they put out? I would pay a good amount per month for a website likeLeadPages that also provides analytics on users taking your course. You could offer it to universities and businesses.

4. Bring transient messaging to the enterprise. Although this might be illegal in public companies (would need to double check), I think that we’re seeing with hacks like Sony that your past messages in the business world can come back to haunt you. Why not make transient messaging system that also has an anonymous feature where managers can get real feedback on their performance or two employees can discuss a sensitive, yet company-related topic?

5. Reward continuous learning. A smarter and more informed employee is a better employee. Businesses are already willing to invest in training programs to improve the human resource component of their company. Why not create a platform that will reward employees for improving their skill set?

Examples of this could be: uploading code on a side project or going through modules of a company course.

Essentially, the system would systemize how google and facebook encourage working on side-projects and give business-owners the tool to make it easier to track results. It would also help them better understand their best performing employees or those who are hungry to progress.

6. How will the world look in 10 years? Personally, I think the “bring your own device” movement is just going to become more of a problem, especially with the recent email issue with Hillary Clinton. Since a smartphone or laptop is really just software, why not make an employee agree to certain terms and conditions on their mobile device upon first entering a workplace area, one of which might be to prevent the use of certain apps only while they are in that area.

This is obviously a gray area, but I do think that giving employees the flexibility to use their own phones, but not to the detriment of the company is an interesting concept.

7. Despite the fact that most products are hard-goods, it’s still extremely difficult for an ecommerce entrepreneur to find a reputable supplier/manufacturer/wholesaler that might have in-demand attributes like allowing drop-shipping. There are a few websites dedicated to easing this pain-point like WorldWide Brands.

How could you make it easy for other entrepreneurs or small business owners to find sources for their product and eliminate the informational advantage that some established businesses have regarding having found “a reputable and consistent supplier.” How could you make it easier for manufacturers and wholesale operations to reach entrepreneurs, as many of them are horrible at SEO.

8. Remarkably, the TV and movie medium is still based around “big hits” and “guesses.” A handful of executives and investors make bets on what movies or TV shows will do well, which usually means working a similar archetypical story or going with a movie that has an established comic-book fan audience.

How can you bring data to the artistic medium? Netflix is a good first mover in terms of figuring out the types of shows that will do well (aside from TV ratings – I’m talking conversions, clicks, and shares in the way that BuzzFeed is bringing data to the entertainment content arena and their new youtube video series). There is still a long way to go. How valuable would that data be to executives out there?

9. Taxes and Accounting. These are two items that most people don’t walk to talk about. Still, there haven’t been many NEW innovators in this space, aside from FreshBooks and Mint that I’ve noticed.

Ultimately, I think that the companies that are doing payment processing have the best chance of essentially becoming an online bank or handling accounting/tax inflow. Just read this quote from Elon Musk.

“If paypal doesn’t do something, it will be screwed… Paypal should be where all the money is.” – Source. As he said, they just need to remove the reason that people withdraw money from PayPal.