Show HN: A store that generates products from anything you type in search

You could make money off of this if you are able to pair willing manufacturers to realistic and popular ideas that get generated. It could become a real market place.

Hilarious project.

Edit: I did both Mouthwash Ramen and Time Machine to the Present. I’m now addicted to this, thanks.

I know of a company that is huge in laser for physics and started like this in the 80s (through magazine catalogs).

They would list all kinds of lasers. When they got some offers for one of them, they'd sell it and schedule the delivery in 90 days. Then, they started the project from scratch. Crazy stuff and borderline legal :D

We do something similar at work. Except usually the dev department doesn't know until handed the project from sales and so the project goals might be entirely unrealistic given the deadline.

What do you mean that feature doesn't exist? Well, I sold it to the customer, they have to go live in two weeks and their workflow depends on this feature.

While I've fortunately never had this happen to me, I'd be tempted to say something like, "Wow. Well, I sure hope you don't get fired over this. Good luck. We'll scope it out and let you know how much time we'll need."

Maybe they exist but I haven't worked in a company yet that wouldn't fire an engineer or manager for refusing to implement a feature that some salescritter already sold. One of them made the company money (on paper, sure) while the other is threatening to undo the deal. It's not hard to guess which one the c-suites would send packing first.