Show HN: Don't let your billion-dollar ideas die
A lightweight web app for sharing “billion‑dollar” startup ideas quickly turned into a crowd‑sourced stream of serious, absurd, and deliberately terrible concepts, from “Uber for blowjobs” to “batteries that can store the internet.” Commenters praise it as a fun, well-executed MVP and suggest features like voting, comments, tagging, and better moderation, while the creator rapidly ships many of these improvements. Underneath the humor runs a recurring theme: ideas are cheap and execution is what matters, along with practical concerns such as privacy of user identities and how to surface the best content without losing the chaotic charm.
Overall reception
- Many commenters find the site fun, addictive, and a great example of a focused MVP.
- Others see it as mostly entertainment rather than a true incubator of “billion‑dollar” ideas.
- Comparisons are made to prior “idea dumping” sites and subcultures (e.g., similar to existing idea forums, joke-idea channels, and general internet silliness).
Product features & UX feedback
- Strong demand for:
- Voting/liking, sorting (top, trending, recent), infinite scroll.
- Tagging/filtering and possibly a “hot vs random” split view.
- Comments and some way for people to meet around an idea.
- Markdown support and truncation of long entries with “read more”/tooltip.
- The developer rapidly adds voting, infinite scroll, sorting options, and later comments, and promises markdown, moderation, and better truncation.
Content quality, culture, and moderation
- Thread highlights a mix of:
- Earnest ideas users “hope someone steals.”
- Deliberately absurd, risqué, or offensive ideas, which some users love and others criticize as “trash.”
- Several call for moderation to block binary files, overt garbage, and possibly steer comments toward optimistic/helpful feedback.
- Some enjoy the “Boaty McBoatface”/shitpost vibe; others expected more serious startup concepts and are disappointed.
Ideas vs. execution
- Multiple comments stress that ideas are cheap; execution (including marketing, ops, legal, etc.) is what matters.
- There’s skepticism that “after expiry, someone else will probably build it” — some see this as unlikely.
- Others argue the site is still useful as a way to surface the initial 1% “spark,” leaving the 99% execution to builders.
Privacy, identity, and anonymity
- Concern raised that author names were removed from the UI but remained in API responses, effectively leaking identities.
- Advice given: treat non-visible PII in APIs as public; users expect visible UI to reflect what’s shared.
- Unclear policy on anonymity; future option suggested to let users choose whether to display their name.
Miscellaneous tangents
- Long subthreads spin out from specific joke ideas (e.g., nuclear landmines, bat bombs, sex-work platforms, “batteries that store the internet” as a caching metaphor), illustrating both creativity and the thread’s chaotic nature.