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Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#101

Post by beachy »

rl3 wrote: post #49

Many of the same things as five years ago. While it's easy to say IoT, cryptocurrency, or whatever the latest buzzwords happen to be—there's ideas that have been floating around for years which are still viable, it's just that they're hard and require exceptional execution. In that sense, they are almost timeless until implemented correctly. For example, another comment suggested marketplace/content discovery. That's…

It may be in areas that don't even look unsolved. Pretty sure that a few years ago many people would have declared messaging to be a solved problem. Now it's the white hot center of multi billion dollar tech warfare.

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#102

Post by [deleted] »

cperciva wrote: post #64

Figure out a way to reduce the not-in-San-Francisco penalty for startups. There are some very good reasons why startups flock to the bay area, including "lots of available talent" and "that's where the VCs are", but there are also problems with being in the bay area -- talent is considerably more expensive (due in part to the cost of housing) and visa issues (particularly under the current presidency) being the first…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#103

Post by btown »

dirtyaura wrote: post #96
cperciva wrote: post #64

Figure out a way to reduce the not-in-San-Francisco penalty for startups. There are some very good reasons why startups flock to the bay area, including "lots of available talent" and "that's where the VCs are", but there are also problems with being in the bay area -- talent is considerably more expensive (due in part to the cost of housing) and visa issues (particularly under the current presidency) being the first…

I wonder if this is really solvable by technology and tools? In my opinion, tools for effective remote working are there. Github, Slack style communication, collaborative project management tools, CI tools in cloud. Design tools could be more collaborative, but it ain't a showstopper. Video conferencing still sucks now and then, but 50 years after the Mother of All Demos, it starts to be usable enough :) I feel that…

There's nothing quite like sitting next to someone to facilitate the rapid course-corrections that maximize the chances for early-stage startups to thrive. That said, places like New York are growing as hubs of talent where it's possible to assemble talented in-person teams. And niche investors who understand i.e. the advertising/media/fintech spaces can mitigate the lack of Silicon Valley VCs for companies focused there. Silicon Alley is very much a thing on 23rd Street!

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#104

Post by gremlinsinc »

tyingq wrote: post #3

The old shared hosting market is still pretty large. But it is stuck with ancient stuff like cpanel and mostly dominated by stagnant players like EIG, GoDaddy, and the like. Seems like there's room for a move something like what DigitalOcean did in the VPS space.

I'm trying to get into this area...I used to work for EIG and frankly they SUCK. I'm wanting to start an employee co-owned hosting firm that values employee/customer relationships. I think honestly it's not so much the systems/software that matter most for hosting - it's the customer service.

When EIG took over Bluehost the first thing they did was outsourced ALL tickets to India (Hari the CEO's parent's company) - Then he moved chats to India. Then he closed down tickets completely. Chats may eventually be on the chopping block. Then he moved sales to Tempe and promised everyone in Orem that their job wasn't going anywhere. Two months later he announced -- hey sorry I lied, we're all moving to Tempe. You can come w/ us if you move yourself, but here have 1 month pay for severance. I'm pretty sure I just heard that if you work for EIG and don't live in Houston, or Tempe you can count on your Brand closing and moving to one of those two places - they really want to consolidate everything in a bad way.

i envision a company -- where Each employee has a book of business, each employee is also an affiliate and can refer business 24/7 and get commissions for life off anyone they refer. Each employee acts more like an acct rep than actual CSR agent grinding out phone calls left and right. Customer's have a dedicated person they can reach out to with any concerns. There would be very generous ESOP plan, it would be setup a bit like maybe Winco Foods, etc... and other bonuses. Exec pay would be capped at 65x avg salaries. Surpluses left over go into bonus pools and activities for employees, etc..

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#105

Post by ENGNR »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #34
nradov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cargo ships don't have enough free surface area to mount the number of solar panels that would be needed for propulsion. Sails are already being used on a few ships but they only save a small percentage of fuel.

I wouldn't write it off. There could be could add battery storage to be used during the journey. They could include wind turbines to add further power generation. Also ships can go slower. In my limited knowledge of boats every extra knot takes significantly extra fuel. If we were bringing multiple power sources 'slow' cargo may be viable. And the has to be other ways to increase this function. And there is always hy…

I wonder if they could use an underwater wing design, similar to this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5SHn0SdXjw). You keep swapping the angle of the wing so it's always pushing forward whether the vessel is moving up or down, but it would be powered by the waves moving the ship. It might be possible to get a slow base load speed for 'free' with a large enough wings

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#106

Post by cperciva »

dirtyaura wrote: post #96
cperciva wrote: post #64

Figure out a way to reduce the not-in-San-Francisco penalty for startups. There are some very good reasons why startups flock to the bay area, including "lots of available talent" and "that's where the VCs are", but there are also problems with being in the bay area -- talent is considerably more expensive (due in part to the cost of housing) and visa issues (particularly under the current presidency) being the first…

I wonder if this is really solvable by technology and tools? In my opinion, tools for effective remote working are there. Github, Slack style communication, collaborative project management tools, CI tools in cloud. Design tools could be more collaborative, but it ain't a showstopper. Video conferencing still sucks now and then, but 50 years after the Mother of All Demos, it starts to be usable enough :) I feel that…

I wonder if this is really solvable by technology and tools?

I have no idea. The answer might turn out to be a social question of redefining the concept of a "job", for all I know. If the answer was obvious, I'm sure it wouldn't be an untapped opportunity. ;-)

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#107

Post by corysama »

lessclue wrote: post #87
zump wrote: post #36

Sleep. How can we make better use of that wasted time.

Sleep isn't "wasted" time. Without sleep, we'd be dysfunctional, and soon thereafter, dead.

It serves a purpose. But, in practice it means 1/3 of my life is spent doing nothing but checking the clock to see "Am I not dysfunctional yet? Nope. Dammit."

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#108

Post by tyingq »

qhoc wrote: post #15
tyingq wrote: post #3

The old shared hosting market is still pretty large. But it is stuck with ancient stuff like cpanel and mostly dominated by stagnant players like EIG, GoDaddy, and the like. Seems like there's room for a move something like what DigitalOcean did in the VPS space.

I use shared hosting too and I got into cPanel like 3 times a year for 2 min each. Sure, it needs to be there but regardless it fills the needs already.

The licensing for the ISPs is atrocious. It's often 1/2 or more of what they are able to charge the customer, total, for the entire hosting package.

Re: Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

#109

Post by escap »

bikamonki wrote: post #43

Here's my wishlist, not sure if there is a market for it: - Twitter w/out fake accounts. - a marketplace that uses Facebook as a vehicle for engagement/promotion but which operates independently. - Secure SMS for 2FA tokens - Android w/out Play Services - Schema-based email - Stripe for the rest of the World

>- Android w/out Play Services

this is China

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