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Welcome to the Trout Tank™️, where we hear your ideas for a start-up or an invention, and then decide whether or not we want to fund your ideas or not or something Alright, trouts, let's hear your ideas! Here's mine: *Dramatically pulls blanket off of easel*  A left-handed keyboard. Finally, a solution to PC gaming that doesn't require mangling your hand to press the spacebar or remapping keys in a way that's still unsatisfactory! I know a lot of right-handed people and leftist traitors are going to say something about just learning to use the mouse with your right hand or that we don't need this. You always get everything. No one ever forgets to make a right-handed version of something. You get table saws and ballpoint pens and spiral notebooks. We deserve this. Verdict: I love the idea, I'm giving it 5 trouts 🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟! I'm also giving it $10M to get started and something about getting 10% of sales or something? I don't know how this show works! Okay, next idea!!!
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Oct 25, 2022 21:39
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I'm actually impressed that it's not just a mirror-flipped image.  But, I have to say... as impressed as I am with your design, my experience is that the future of tech is in creating new, non-standard plug types and then selling easily-lost conversion dongles for top dollar. Until I see a left-handed USB connector on the end of that device, I'm afraid I'm out. *hits the oversized button on his desk, and a big neon fish appears with an X through it*
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Oct 25, 2022 22:13
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I want left handed snap blade knives, the ones we use at work are discriminatory. Trust me on this it’s a daily struggle  Also Sur-forms, the rasp angle is decidedly righty 
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Oct 25, 2022 22:16
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In the world of sports betting, the most popular and accessible version hyped everywhere and now fully legal* in several states is Daily Fantasy Sports, or DFS. In this format, you can make a single bet on the the performance of a single or a basket of players in one game or several games in a week. You compete against other DFS players to win chunks of a prize pool. This is extremely risky. The great majority of DFS players lose their money, as the most skillful DFS players make dozens or hundreds of bets on players and outcomes based on databases full of fantasy sports data and sophisticated algorithms that find and exploit razor-thin margins of positive expected outcome and the tendency of other players to overly-favor popular players and teams, etc. In the world of finance, highly risky financial instruments are commonly combined into baskets of "bets" if you will, which allows risk to be packaged, bought, and sold on open markets. By allowing lots of incredibly rich people and huge highly regulated* investment banks to all collectively buy and sell these collateralized debt instruments, the efficient market* correctly sets a risk-reward premium, and gives buyers the benefit of diversification (a risk-mitigation tactic) or leverage (a risk-multiplier) in their investment portfolios. Today I propose a regulated marketplace of collateralized short-term fantasy sports instruments, or CSTFSIs. Market participants would construct and package baskets of bets on the major DFS sites and then offer shares of those packages on a market accessible to qualified investors. Because of the efficiencies and trading speeds available on modern electronic financial instrument markets, participants could trade CSTFSIs throughout the sporting week: second-by-second, even in the middle of relevant sporting events, the combined asset values of these instruments could be calculated and traded against. Risk-averse investors could purchase a few shares in many different CSTFSIs, reducing their exposure to the exploded knee ligaments of a particular sports star, while investors seeking high returns could leverage their money with CSTFSI Derivatives, selling naked puts against the prospects of the Detroit Tigers in 2024. Naturally, it takes money to make money. Trouts, we are seeking an initial investment of $3.8B to establish the infrastructure for the CSTFSI Exchange in a market offering major high-bandwidth low-latency internet trunk access, solicit and retain some high-profile investment banks interested in operating as broker-dealers, and meeting the straightforward and clear* regulatory requirements for operating a financial exchange. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Oct 25, 2022 |
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Oct 25, 2022 22:29
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*works on a rapid algorithm to make trades milliseconds before the bat hits the ball, leveraging swing arc calculations and strike-zone camera footage to extract penny-level arbitrage on whether Swing-and-a-Miss options will be in the money*
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Oct 25, 2022 22:39
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Snowy posted:I want left handed snap blade knives, the ones we use at work are discriminatory. I like where your head is at, but I'm gonna need to see a business plan before I give you any trouts. Leperflesh posted:In the world of sports betting, the most popular and accessible version hyped everywhere and now fully legal* in several states is Daily Fantasy Sports, or DFS. In this format, you can make a single bet on the the performance of a single or a basket of players in one game or several games in a week. You compete against other DFS players to win chunks of a prize pool. This is extremely risky. The great majority of DFS players lose their money, as the most skillful DFS players make dozens or hundreds of bets on players and outcomes based on databases full of fantasy sports data and sophisticated algorithms that find and exploit razor-thin margins of positive expected outcome and the tendency of other players to overly-favor popular players and teams, etc.  I like a lot of those words you said that I understood because I'm smart at business. I want to give you some trouts, but how am I going to make back my investment?
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Oct 25, 2022 22:43
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Shadow0 posted:I like where your head is at, but I'm gonna need to see a business plan before I give you any trouts. You know the old adage about selling shovels to the gold rush miners? Being the market platform for a vast financial market is selling shovels to the gold miners. We charge a small fee for every transaction, and a modest fee for every market participant to grant access, and a substantial fee for the major banks to get high-speed access, and an enormous fee to the DFS sites who we are driving billions of dollars of traffic to on a daily basis.
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Oct 25, 2022 22:50
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A fast food place that has the best food items and sodas from the other fast food places. McDonald's fries, Wendy's frosty, Popeyes chicken sandwich, Coke and Baja Blast, all under one roof. I need 2 million for construction and startup costs and 98 million for the lawyers
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Oct 26, 2022 01:37
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One word: arcologies.
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Oct 26, 2022 06:52
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Car Hater posted:A fast food place that has the best food items and sodas from the other fast food places. McDonald's fries, Wendy's frosty, Popeyes chicken sandwich, Coke and Baja Blast, all under one roof. Can we somehow just combine these items into a single unique and trademarkable item? moana posted:One word: arcologies. *Leans in closer, hand over trout button* Go on... 
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Oct 26, 2022 11:43
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So there's this fruit juice...
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Oct 26, 2022 19:33
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Thanks to our brilliant team of developers and a typographical error taken all the way to production, I would like to introduce you all to the newest, greatest, most paradigm-disrupting invention to ever grace the Internet of Thongs...
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Oct 26, 2022 19:43
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Trouts, I'd like to open a donut shop. I own an abandoned building and have zero baking experience, and would like $75,000.
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Oct 27, 2022 00:40
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Upgrade posted:Trouts, I'd like to open a donut shop. I own an abandoned building and have zero baking experience, and would like $75,000. Can you show us your business plan? If so, rejected.
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Oct 27, 2022 04:08
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Upgrade posted:Trouts, I'd like to open a donut shop. I own an abandoned building and have zero baking experience, and would like $75,000.
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Oct 27, 2022 05:15
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A smart garbage can that separates your waste for you with the power of hyper spectral and rube-Goldberg machine like powers. Businesses and large apartment complexes tend to throw everything in one bin and stuff gets contaminated and hard to recycle
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Oct 28, 2022 09:45
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An extremely tall businessman definitely in lifts walks out onto the stage. He's wearing a trout-pattern tie with his suit, has his hair slicked back, and is 100% totally sucking it in to look all macho. "Good afternoon, Trout-Lords. Thank you for having me here today. I know that my invention will be worth your time and investment, so I assure you this is time well spent." He motions to his scantily-clad assistant, who yanks off the cover on their invention for the grand reveal. It snags on a corner and rips the cover as it comes off. The invention looks like a simple microwave. "I present to you the latest in office appliances. This is the OfficeWave2023. This microwave serves as a multi-function office breakroom innovation, as it can reheat both coffee, tea, and lunches. But, that's not the most important function," he says, and he hands a remote control to the bald, grumpy-looking Trout Lord, who stares at it like he's never touched a goddamned remote before. "Please, press the trout-shaped button on the remote." The savvy female Trout-Lord from QVC sees where this is going and she slams the LEMME TROUT button as hard as she can. She's all in. The grumpy Trout-Lord stares at the remote for entirely too long before finally pushing the button. A hatch opens in the back of the microwave, and a handful of small, assorted fish roll out into the middle of the rotating tray. The microwave beeps and then suddenly turns on. The smell of microwaved fish fills the room. Three of the four Trout-Lords look at the inventor, aghast. The savvy QVC lady, though, is laughing her rear end off. Good, thinks the inventor. She will be the last to die. "The OfficeWave2023 allows the remote or mobile app user to release microwaved fish on demand from anywhere within range of the OfficeWave2023's wireless network. Untraceable, anonymous fish-bombing of the office, the perfect office treat for everyone you love and respect at work," says the scantily-clad assistant. "Why would you DO this?" asks one of the Trout-Lords, wheezing as he dramatically covers his face. "Because the fish compartment needs to be refilled regularly," answers the inventor. "To use the OfficeWave2023, you have to sign up for our Subscription Fish Program, and we send you regular fish shipments to refill your microwave. It's more or less required; we bar-code the fish to ensure that only our specific fish will work with the microwave, and fish dry up if you wait too long to use them so..." He pushes the button on his phone app and doubles the fish-pile. "I'm looking for $75-million to take this public. Epson has already expressed interest, so this truly is your one and only chance, Trout-Lords..." Sundae fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Oct 28, 2022 |
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Oct 28, 2022 18:06
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Chill Monster posted:A smart garbage can that separates your waste for you with the power of hyper spectral and rube-Goldberg machine like powers. Businesses and large apartment complexes tend to throw everything in one bin and stuff gets contaminated and hard to recycle Well, it's my actual irl life job to make machines that sort recycling, so I like this idea. I'm going to give you zero trouts and steal your idea. You should have read the release forms. Can it connect to the Internet of Things? Will it have voice activated features? If the power goes out and on, will the clock beep incessantly as God intended?
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Oct 28, 2022 19:57
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Shadow0 posted:Well, it's my actual irl life job to make machines that sort recycling, so I like this idea. I'm going to give you zero trouts and steal your idea. You should have read the release forms. In the name of office simplicity, the only voice activated feature is to recognize "Microwave Fish" and add more fish. However, we've put a lot of work into ensuring accessibility and functionality for the voice recognition to work in all types of offices. We rolled our own proprietary voice recognition software, which uses ingenious design to compress vocal data down to the core, important parts of what is being said. It can also interpret and add data as required to complete the request, if it is a malformed voice request. As an example, "Hey, who keeps microwaving fish?" gets compressed down to the important part: "microwave fish". "Um... where did that new microwave come from?" is a good example of malformed request correction. "Microwave come from" --> "Microwave come fish" --> "Microwave fish". In order to maximize office productivity, you don't want people waiting around to use the OfficeWave2023. To ensure that nobody wastes any productive time queueing, we've incorporated a loud beeping sound that plays whenever the unit is ready and available to microwave fish. We also have a quieter, high-pitched energy-saving beep (the EcoBeep[tm]) that plays whenever the power is out, to warn people that their OfficeWave2023 is currently unable to perform its core function. The onboard lithium battery is connected to an upcycled cathode ray tube as a hypercapacitor, ensuring that the beeping remains functional and cannot be tampered with by miscreants and quiet-quitters.
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Oct 28, 2022 20:47
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Working title: Cool Swabs Disposable cotton swabs, but they're dyed black and you're encouraged to use them in your ears
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Oct 28, 2022 20:53
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A sub shipping container size ~100kW generator that runs on a mix of ~1" shredded trash and recycled, melted plastics but burns at high enough temperatures and uses sufficient scrubbing to not create dioxins or other harmful pollutants. Contains sufficient filtration to catch fly ash and condense metals. It uses ceramic sensors throughout the periphery of the combustion chamber to ensure the temperatures remain high. It magically separates melted metals and incinerator bottom ash to fairly well. Robust enough to allow factories in Africa to have reliable power. Sold with optional battery pack. Lower maintenance and lower cost per kWh than comparable diesel electric generators, the base price is $25k USD.
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Oct 29, 2022 01:11
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Shadow0 posted:*Leans in closer, hand over trout button* Go on... What is the future? Plastics? No, we've microplasticed our way into fish depopulation and cellular level placental pollution that won't ever go away! All that petroleum is in the air, wildfires smoke us out every summer and people who can't afford gas burn trees in the winter. Your lungs are hosed. The outside world is hosed, man! We're all loving dead! There is no future! Unless... Unless you live in a LifeArcologyTM, where the future is as bright as the artificial sunlight! We've got water, we've got food, we've got electronically monitored perimeters with LifeArtilleryTM support to keep out not only roving Canadian militias but also packs of gene-boosted cybernetic eagle-wolves! Don't have enough money to buy a ticket to the ISS refugee station? No worries! At LifeArcologyTM, you can sign up for our 4-generation payment plan and live the rest of your indentured life with the peace of mind that only a sixteen inch carbon-fiber reinforced plexiglass dome can bring. LifeArcologyTM. The only alternative is death.
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Oct 29, 2022 02:10
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I slowly pour ice, tequila, mix, and an entire lime into the consumer level blender. Neglecting to place the lid, I set it to puree. It runs for an uncomfortably long time, as I make eye contact with the Trouts. After agonizing minutes, everything around me covered in a rapidly melting slurry, I shout "I present to you: the Ritalux 8250" as I dramatically rip the sheet off of a 20' long multiton margarita making mayhem machine. The rest of my pitch goes unheard as I am drowned out by a massive grinding Leviathan, but after three minutes, each of my Trouts has a tasty margarita in their hands. "I'm asking for $3 million for a 5% stake, and I'm confident that, with your help, we can get a machine that can make up to 2 MPM into every household in America."
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Oct 29, 2022 05:29
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Apparently since the pandemic, prices of office real estate has tanked (rumor has it like 30-40 percent) while home and apartment prices have gone up. I think a start-up which buys distressed/undervalued office properties and specializes at converting them into living space could make a killing. The problem is that many regulations prevent this, plus the way office building are set up, they would require considerable capital investment to make them into relatively nice places to live, but I have the feeling that there is more than a few office building where the required capital investment is less than the potential value of that office space being turned into housing. Since firms are often locked into long term contracts for office space, the amount of office space that will become available over the next 10 years is probably way more than there is right now, so look out for this idea becoming more popular down the road That’s my hairbrained business idea Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Oct 29, 2022 |
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Oct 29, 2022 22:04
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Chill Monster posted:Apparently since the pandemic, prices of office real estate has tanked (rumor has it like 30-40 percent) while home and apartment prices have gone up. I think a start-up which buys distressed/undervalued office properties and specializes at converting them into living space could make a killing. The problem is that many regulations prevent this, plus the way office building are set up, they would require considerable capital investment to make them into relatively nice places to live, but I have the feeling that there is more than a few office building where the required capital investment is less than the potential value of that office space being turned into housing. Introducing WeLive(tm).
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Oct 30, 2022 03:04
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I had an idea to combine frozen TV dinners, Keurig coffee makers, and those subscription services that send you the recipes and ingredients to cook your own meals at a premium. Basically it would be a metal box with different compartments, sort of like a metal bento box with lid, and a device you stuck it in sort of like an old cassette tape mixed with an oven. The heating device would have different heating elements that contacted the various compartments of the metal box and could apply heat in different ways - baking, grilling, broiling, etc. Maybe it could even shake the box back and forth to handle stirring. So every week you'd get 7-21 of these boxes, and when you were ready to eat you'd just jam it into the heater/cassette player, which would read the instructions on the box and cook the different compartments as instructed, and 30m-1hr later it'd pop out with, oh, some steamed broccoli, a grilled steak, and a freshly baked brownie, which were all cooked at different times/temperatures because the machine can apply heat differently to the different compartments. Maybe you could stack the empty metal boxes and mail them back or something. I don't want to be like the Keurig coffee machine guy who regrets watching his invention ruin the environment, but if it isn't cost effective someone else will just make a cheaper one where you throw the boxes away anyways because we live in a world where doing the right thing is punished. I am too lazy to actually go about seriously investigating this as a business idea, which considering the whole point is to cater to extremely lazy people as society advances towards a WALL-E scenario makes me think it might have legs.
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Nov 3, 2022 19:12
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That actually (sort of) exists, OP: https://www.tovala.com. As for my idea, Trouts: vaping is the hot new thing, as I'm sure you're aware. All the hip, with it, cool cats are doing it. But what else do America's skinny jeans wearers like? Drinks that inexplicably taste bad! Whether it's Fernet Branca shots in San Fran or Malort in Chicago, drinks that are actually rotten salad macerated in hate are sweeping the nation. And now you can vape them! I present to you Vapes Before They Were Cool, my line of sure to succeed cartridges coming in wormwood, bitter herb, gentian, and other flavors you hate to live! And as an added value proposition, they only work with our proprietary vape pens, chargeable by my second innovation today, the modified, unidirectional USB-C+ connector!
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Nov 10, 2022 08:10
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Bremen posted:and 30m-1hr later it'd pop out with, oh, some steamed broccoli, a grilled steak, and a freshly baked brownie, that sounds... familiar... oh yeah! 
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Nov 12, 2022 03:43
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Leperflesh posted:that sounds... familiar... Yeah, that's why I said it'd be like combing TV dinners with a Keurig Coffee Maker. But since it wouldn't be just cooking it in an oven it wouldn't just turn into a soggy mess.
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Nov 12, 2022 04:20
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