Ideas
I think keeping your ideas "secret" is a mistake. There is an unrealistic fear that someone will see your idea and steal it. The opposite can happen: people will see your ideas and they might offer help, they might know someone working on something similar to colaborate with. At the least, people might just ask about it or give you a nudge to keep going. Here are some ideas for side projects I am working on. Although these are numbered, there really is no order of importance, and I have so many more than I've listed here.
1 Bring back finger and make it more useful for the 21st century.
You probably know about Finger. It's sorf of the OG microblogging service, and I feel like it should make a comeback. I first started digging into this idea after I read about John Carmack and his daily work log. I think there is some value in people being able to see what you are crunching on, and if nothing else, giving yourself a place to see your progress, make some notes, share a story, etc. I am attracted to the lo-fi nature of this idea. I don't want hashtags and trending topics. I started hacking on it here. (It's buggy)
2 Kill LinkedIn for blue-collar workers.
LinkedIn is fine. But that's it. It's just fine. I think it is pretty targeted at a specific sort of worker - the traditional white-collar worker. I have a lot of family and friends who work in blue-collar industries, and what is happening on LinkedIn sort of leaves them behind. I think there is a real opportunity to build a LinkedIn targeted at this audeience. Hey, I already bought the domain name, that's step 1, right?
3 Help restaurants and people communicate with eachother about specials they are interested in.
This is probably one of my oldest ideas, which makes it my most embarrasing. I first had this idea back in the early 2000's when everyone was making "mashups" and public APIs were popping up everywhere. The idea is simple: an app where I can see the 'specials' that are near me right now. I am actively working on this idea, I think there is something here, especially given the rates that a lot of the online ordering apps are charging restaurants. That's not sustainable. Lunchhunt.com is the answer.
4 Help distributed workplaces co-ordinate and easily adhere to a corporate mandate.
This is a project I have built and launched successfully for the retail space. I want to continue working on it and make it full SaaS product. I think users who work in stores or at satelite offices are more tehcnically sophisticated than even a few years ago, and they are ready for new ways of working and new UIs that are not bound to Outlook.
5 Live the childhood dream of making a video game.
I don't want to build something complicated, but I see a game like 'Amoung Us' (which is just a rip off the analog gamne 'Mafia'), and I think "Why not me?". I've got some kids who love to draw and design characters, I think it would be a fun little side project to work on with them.