• Individualized Online Data Science Training – Create a series of training materials that can walk a student through different data science topics. The student should be able to go as slow or fast as possible, and it would be even better if mentors could be crowdsourced for help with projects. The training should cost a fee and mentors should be given a cut of that fee. Alternatively, the site could act as a recruitment site and a finder’s fee could be charged to companies that hire a student.
  • Build a Data Science Community – A site where users can share, evaluate, and collaborate on data analysis. I am hoping Sense, Domino Data Labs, or Mode becomes this community, but I think they are all focused on the infrastructure of doing data science, which is probably the important first step. Maybe the community could be built by calling into the APIs of those sites.
  • Random Kindness – Use data about peoples location and interests to encourage people to perform random acts of kindness for others around them. I realize this might have some privacy concerns.
  • Brand Tracking – Collect social activity about a brand and track its sentiment over time. The results could displayed geographically or by customer segment. Bonus points (and dollars), for being able to predict the factors that increase sentiment.
  • Online Marketplace for Data Science Consultants – Allow consultants to easily demonstrate their value and allow companies/individuals to easily find the right consultants. Allow the site to handle the transaction of money. I think Experfy is very close, but I would like it a bit more public. Possibly, allow consultants to build up a public portfolio.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any data science startup ideas or ideas you wish someone would build?