Lots of people seem to be throwing out new Startup ideas to inspire others. Sadly most are just complete bunk because there is no real commercial value to them. So here are a few that I guarantee are worth at least 6-7 figures a year in revenue (with the right marketing). I've also put in a "what I would pay" section - which is what you might expect from a medium to large business in terms of revenue.

Appointment/Booking System

After recently trying to find a simple, extensible booking system for a local firm I had to hack together the basic functionality myself - not pretty. What's needed is a simple calendar based booking back end with abilities to:

  • Set up different sorts of bookings
  • A full API (so you can integrate it into you're custom front ends)
  • Schedule various reminders for you and your customer (i.e. reminders prior to the event)
  • Allow bookings to have different "states" (i.e. provisional, booked, deposit paid etc.)
  • Simple but stable Javascript date picker widget integrated with the API
I would pay: $15 - $20 a month for up to 200 bookings per month. More if you did SMS notifications too.

Proper Document Management

Every document (in a corporate environment anyway) has to be versioned and tracked now; stuff from company policy to the notice pasted to the wall about washing coffee mugs after use (seriously, I've seen a company fail an ISO accreditation for that).

But is there a simple, no brained, automatic document tracking server? No fear :(

What it would need to do:

  • Handle at least Word and Excel documents
  • Allow documents to be uploaded, created or edited (along with organisation folders)
  • Track the "version" of documents and automatically place it into them when downloaded/printed
  • Have user/auth login to allow restriction of documents and auditing of edits.
  • "Firewall Install" so documents wouldn't leave site
What I would pay: $10/month for off site service  - $250-$500 for a years "Firewall Install" license

Wordpress Alternative

The space is opening up (note: I'm busy working in this area :)) for a Wordpress competitor. WP basically has the self-install blogging market sewn up. But the fact is that the codebase is a real mess (not through bad programming, but from age) and writing plugins or themes can be a real pain.

Most of the competitors are not as popular because they try to be a "kitchen sink" solution to your website needs. Wordpress is stepping slowly that way as well - so the arena is quickly opening for a fast, simple, PHP based blogging tool.

What I would pay: $0, obviously. But there are ways to make money off of this model

Version Control / Bugtracking combo

This is an idea I had a little while ago. Basically the idea is to integrate bug tracking functionality with a version control tool. The idea is that the bug database could be passed around with a distributed VCS so you could check and manage bugs on the go - it would consist of an "open standards" database of bugs (so any tools could display/manage it) plus a portable UI to interact with it.

You would make money by hosting a really good web repository.

What I would pay: $15/mo for several private repositories

Steamworks for web games

If you've not heard of Steamworks it is a developer option as part of the Steam package; put simply you get access to the steam community features, achievements and micropayments to use within your game.

You would have to work very fast to enter this arena successfully because Zynga et al are nearly there.

What you would offer:

  • Single sign on for games (so they don't have to integrate Facebook, Twitter etc.)
  • Achievments (people love achievments)
  • Community features - particularly in-game chat
  • Ad network (this would come later)
  • Game recommendations based on what your friends are playing (there are a LOT of metrics to play with here)
  • Micropayments
  • Push alerts back to the origin site (Facebook, Twitter etc)
  • Proper metrics
The idea is to offer an alternative platform to Facebook (but which still draws in Facebook users) so the game publishers feel a bit safer :)

What I would pay: no idea, but I suspect there is a lot of money in this arena

QA/Audit

Anything that helps businesses manage QA and standards compliance. This is a multi-billion dollar industry still cornered by less than 10 companies.

I would pay: Well I wouldn't... but companies will easily pay you $10,000 a pop and then thank their lucky stars you saved them 7  or 8 figure sums.

If someone makes the first four then drop me a line; I will be very interested.

(If you came from there - don't forget to pop back to HN and comment/vote)