Most people in the startup ecosystem are probably familiar with Y Combinator’s Requests for Startups: ycombinator.com/rfs/
In their words:
Many of the best ideas we’ve funded were ones that surprised us, not ones we were waiting for.
There are, however, some startups that we’re very interested in seeing founders apply with. Below is an updated Request for Startups (RFS), which outlines some of those ideas in general terms.
Now these are still quite broadly described areas that they are interested in, not necessarily specific startup ideas. Still, if you’re looking for inspiration this is a good place in my opinion to look at now and then.
Then, I stumbled upon a tweet from Ilya Sukhar in which he links to his blog post with 4 questions in areas he’s interested in as an investor: http://ilya.sukhar.com/blog/investment-questions.html.
Which got me curious to see if even more investors were doing this. And they were! I’ve collected some of them, listed below.
I think this can be a great inspiration if you’re thinking of starting a startup, but aren’t exactly sure what problem to solve. Or if you already started and are looking for funding– naturally it helps when you know certain investors are actually interested in the space, if you want to approach them.
A collection of Requests for Startups by investors
- https://rockhealth.com/ideas-wed-like-fund-2/
- http://reaktorventures.com/2015/11/my-request-for-startups/
- https://quip.com/rcLXASq4IbIj (Homebrew)
- http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/16-things/
- https://medium.com/breakdowns/7-requests-for-startups-71392ccef017
- https://www.11.me/blog/startup-ideas-wed-like-to-fund/
- http://www.jamesriney.com/startup-ideas-wed-like-to-fund/
- http://christophjanz.blogspot.com/2013/04/ideas-wed-like-to-invest-in.html
- http://observer.com/2011/06/steal-this-start-up-no-longer-content-to-write-checks-vcs-are-giving-away-their-best-ideas/
- https://urban.us/call-for-startups-to-make-city-life-better/
- https://www.openbookchallenge.com/
Let me know if you know of any more of these.
