About
The Concept
Idea Khan is many things. Its a blog where i discuss ideas for the next big startups (ok, doesnt hurt to think, they could be big). The word ‘khan’ means ‘a mine’ in the Hindi language, apart from being a common surname (in which case it means leader of a clan, as in Ghenghis Khan) and many people have me by the nickname ‘Idea Khan’ because of the many ideas that i think of.
But Idea Khan is more than just a blog or a mine of ideas. Its an experiment in social startup engineering by promoting the free discussion and exchange of ideas and their open dissemination.
Ideas are what spark the imagination and motivate people to realize them into great products (our in the case of politics, a great president, perhaps). However, not all ideas can be implemented by a few people and ideas themselves are not sufficient. One needs many hours of brainstorming to crystalize the first fleeting thoughts that could be great product ideas into well-defined product requirements. And implementing the thoughts and creating a sustainable business out of the same it another ball game totally
Thus Idea Khan aims to make startup ideas freely available so as to foster discussion and even team building so that the ideas can be picked up by folks, who have great technical skills but have not yet found the right spark to motivate them. By keeping the ideas locked in ones brain or in some internal documents, really healps no one. They mostly die a silent death, many as fast as the original emergence of the idea. But by sharing the idea and putting it out there for “social” discussion and “open” dissemination, the hope is that some of these ideas can stand a decent chance to actualy find an audience that may eventually give them shape and definition and success.
Important Note
The ideas described here are not claimed to be “unique or entirely our creations”. Yes, all the ideas described have personally occurred to me independently of their existence or mention elsewhere. It may entirely be the case that an idea described on this blog may actually have been thought off or even implemented by someone else before we mention it here (it usually the case that a good idea is being simultaneously being thoughts of by many others). Infact, a lot of the ideas mentioned here were added to our Idea Document in 2005 but are only mentioned now in the blog. In the intervening time, several ideas may have been discussed or implemented elsewhere. If we do discover a related idea or implementation, we always link back to that example, to the best of our knowledge and efforts.
In short, the ideas described here are original as far as in that they occured to us independently at some time point. Our main purpose is to discuss them here to fuel startup activity by others. As we say, “brewing a startup a day!”
History
It all started somewhere in 2005. Ever since i have learnt about computers (way back when i was 9 in 1985), i have wanted to have my own software startup. However, it was long road to actually get to that point (read the path led to medical school, then working as a neurosurgery resident and then getting a masters in informatics). It was in 2005, after completing my masters that i really began to “ideate” so as to find the next big opportunities to work on. Ideas came across a range of domains and in multitudes, specially in discussions with my idea-buddy, “Idea Wonk”. We began documenting these ideas in a word document and registered the domain to hopefully put these out to find technically savvy people to partner and implement our great thoughts into products (i am not much of a tech guy, and neither is Idea Wonk).
After many mis-starts and getting tied up with my full-time job, the first startup (ifood.tv read about it here ) and some other fun things (including enjoying the city ), i finally got the site up in summer of 08.
We will continue to expand the blog to include idea pitches and organize meetups and codathons. So let the ball roll.