Startup ideas

A few startup ideas I have.

This is an unordered list of (sometimes terrible) startup ideas I have, and potentially plan to pursue if no else pursues them. Feel free to use of any of these ideas for your next startup, it would make the world a much better place!

Artificial-islands-as-a-service (AIAAS): figure out a scalable way to build artificial islands out in the sea. Trillion-dollar market opportunity. The vast majority of the large cities in the world have a port, they are near rivers, seas, etc. This is because that’s where the majority of the trade came from (and probably still does) historically. Point being that large cities often have exposure to the sea or large rivers.

Take New York City. Imagine if you could increase the size of Manhattan, or simply recreate an other island right next to the island of Manhattan. It would massively reduce inequality of opportunity as it becomes more affordable for “normal” people to live close the city center, given the housing supply gets significantly larger in that area. You also decrease the time people spend moving from one place to another, as they can live closer to the city center.

This is what Singapore has been doing for quite some time now to progressively grow its city state island. Hong Kong too. They even built one of their airports that way. Monaco as well.

Artificial island building could also be used to defend countries against the threat of rising sea levels. Out in the deep ocean, this could potentially enable the creation of new nation states with sovereign land.

There is also a very significant use case potential for the military. I would imagine that the U.S. Department of Defense would be very interested in the ability to quickly set up an artificial island anywhere in the world (near a hostile country, for example), or increase the size of an existing one. Singapore has been doing exactly that. China literally built a “Great Wall of Sand”, a set of artificial islands strategically located in the South China Sea equipped with anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems.

Only problem I could think of is the ecological consequences of building these artificial islands. You are effectively destroying the ecosystems that are based in the area on top of which the island is built, as well as where the sand is pumped out of if it’s in the ocean, assuming you are using sand to build the island. Though to be fair, it’s unlikely there is a lot of biodiversity near ports of large cities, the water is already heavily polluted, there is a lot of ship traffic, etc.

There isn’t a perfect solution on the ecological side, but there are a lot of things you can do to minimize as much as possible the disruptions to the local biodiversity. You could only select sites that have minimal ecological sensitivity (obviously avoid areas with a lot of biodiversity, coral reefs, etc.), compensate by restoring disrupted marine habitats elsewhere (similar to how companies that cut trees are forced to plant an equal number of trees, in some countries), build the island in phases to allow wild life to gradually adapt to the changes, and use materials and resources that aren’t toxic for the local fauna.

Also very hard to pull of in terms on the regulatory side (you will need to convince and sell the idea to governments, rarely easy), and you are very dependent on the price of sand.

There are alternatives to sand, though. You can, for example, build an embakment around the area where you want the artificial island to be, pump out all the water, and then start building. Or you could simply use rocks and gravel. Or even alternatively abandon the idea of a “solid” island entirely and build floating islands (floating platforms made out of concrete, steel or another material). These could probably be made quite stable by anchoring them to the seabed.

Startup name could be “Archipel”, “Archipelago”, “Atlantis”, or a fourth secret name which is too good and close to my heart to be revealed.

Actually good Kombucha: I drink Kombucha all the time, I love it. If you don’t know it, it’s a fermented probiotic drink based on tea. Probiotics are foods/drinks that, according to the current research, contribute to the health of your gut as they contain bacteria that will help your digestive system.

There is a big market for probiotics, 40% of the world population suffers from gastrointestinal problems. And even those who don’t have gut problems at the moment would probably benefit from probiotics, the current early research is very promising on mood/cognitive functions as well, and they have very rarely side effects.

I have probably tested over 15+ Kombucha brands/varieties now, both in the EU (Belgium) and in North America (Quebec), and only found two that tested decently good. And even those two have definitely room for improvement regarding taste. The majority of my friends, for example, when tasting both, don’t like either.

Imagine if you could drink something that tasted as good as Coca-Cola while being healthy.

There are three difficulties/problems:

  1. the current research on probiotics is early, and while it’s probably unlikely that a medical study would find negatives about probiotics given their extensive use in history (yogurt is a probiotic and literally originated in Mesopotamia 7000 years ago, for example), they are all different. Kombucha has different bacteria than Yogurt has. One being healthy doesn’t necessarily means the other is as well (or as much).

  2. it’s a very competitive market. There are already a lot of companies active in the Kombucha market, and you are always at risk of a giant like Coca-Cola introducing their own Kombucha brand. The incentives are there for them to do so (it’s a growing market, strong narrative, etc.).

  3. find a recipe that tastes good (obviously!). Easier said than done. Either the majority of current Kombucha producers on the market have bad taste, or finding a good recipe that is healthy while tasting good is harder than it seems like. My guess is that it’s probably a combination of both. Might seem arrogant, but it’s objectively true in my opinion that most people have bad taste when it comes to deciding on their own what is beautiful or what isn’t, what tastes good and what doesn’t, etc. As Steve Jobs would say, most people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. This will again appear very arrogant but I believe it’s deeply true: you have to make the decision-making for them.

Encrypted data manipulation: a data breach is really bad for business. It hurts the brand of the company, leaves affected users disappointed and often angry, and may even put the company at risk legally. What if you as a company could still send over that weekly newsletter you have to your customerbase, for example, while always keeping those emails encrypted, never putting them at risk? What if you could still use your customer data, without ever exposing it in the clear?

I’m the opposite of an expert when it comes to homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, etc. but my guess is such a product could be built using those technologies. The “only” problems regarding those two technologies is that they 1. are very complex to implement, and 2. very resource-intensive and slow. Though it’s probably only a matter of time before it becomes viable.

Data breaches could soon be a relic of the past (social engineering/insiders will still be an issue regarding data leaks, though).

Real-time economy dashboards: think of these COVID-19 map dashboards, but with faster updates and for the economy. You would be able to track the impact of interest rates increases in real time and in specific places. Basically needs to be a Dune-like service, but for the “real” economy.

The Federal Reserve, banks and major companies would be your first clients. Data could come from ChainLink oracles, or a network of incentivized data providers in the region you are initially targetting.

Should probably initially focus on getting integrated with traditional payment providers, this can either be done from the top (partner with Mastercard, Visa, etc.), or from the bottom (provide a plug and play solution merchants can add that sends data to you, in exchange for some type of reward system).

Business model is very simple: free users get access to the dashboard, but with a delay of 24 hours for example, and paid users get instant updates in real time with daily or weekly reports and additional metrics.

Cayman-Islands-as-a-service (CIAAS): this starts out slightly unethical at first. Idea is simple: you raise 1 million dollars from 1000 people each in the EU or a large country like the US. Meaning you have now 1 billion dollars in the bank. (might be hard to pull off, but the numbers here are just to make it easier to follow)

With your 1 billion dollars, you go knock at the door of each country government in the EU, or if you are in the US for example, each state. You tell them that you are willing to hand them over your money if, and only if, they agree to offer a preferential flat tax rate of, for example, 5%, to all your 1000 members.

Again, the numbers here are just an example. If they disagree, you tell them (because you are polite) that you will be then forced to go knock at the door of the neighbouring country/state and offer them the same proposal. There are 27 countries in the EU and 50 states in the US, intuitively, it’s likely at least one of these would agree. So the first governments you are talking to will probably feel an urge to accept, otherwise the money will go to a competing country/state.

Congrats! You paid a one-time fee, and got in exchange a reasonable tax rate, for life (of course, part of the deal should include that the country/government should put up a collateral that gets seized if they increase the tax rate subsequently, this could be done using crypto and an oracle system to detect the change and liquidate the country/state’s collateral position) for very very very rich people. Kind of unethical as the rest of the population is still forced to pay normal taxes.

But now, you can raise $100,000 from 10,000 people and do the same! Then $10,000 from 100,000 people. Then $1000 from 1,000,000 people. etc. Force governments to lower their tax rates and become efficient.

Non-misogynistic, non-incel masculine media: there is a real gap in the market at the moment regarding content creators teaching men about masculinity, faterhood and marriage while not giving misogynistic/incel vibes like most current outlets do.

The content would be a mix of stoicism, chivalry and ethics, focusing on modernizing these old values and principles.

Business model is simple: a subscription for additional content, ads, writing books and promoting them to the audience, and organizing paid meet-ups (once the community is large enough) where the audience can meet and build relationships.

It should absolutely avoid the clichés like “how to dress like a gentleman” and focus on what really matters: principles, values and moral codes.

Deep see exploration tech: imagine Boston Dynamics, but for underwater robots. Most oceans are largely unexplored. There are a ton of plants, species, etc. that we don’t know about yet as they are located in these unexplored areas. The implications of these findings for healthcare, for example, could be very significant. One could also think of the rare earth minerals that could be found at the bottom of these oceans.

The real challenge here is twofold: