Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 1001 posts

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

#141

Post by ohashi »

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 think it's actually being slowly eroded away from different angles. It's niche providers. WordPress being a huge niche, I've been watching it grow from everyone being in the ~$20-30/month range to full on enterprise grade hosting (http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2016/09/14/500month-enterprise-...).

But there's at least a couple dozen providers now who have built WP specific infrastructure at all sorts of price tiers for consumers.

You've also got your SquareSpace/Wix/etc. Shopify. Traditional shared hosting is becoming less necessary in my mind for a lot of use cases because companies are specializing in areas where you would normally say 'just get a shared hosting plan.'

The biggest problem though to completely get rid of the shared hosting space is price. Digital Ocean works because the lack of customer service. Shared hosting needs to have a lot more customer service (or you get EIG). But at the $5/month price point, the economics of it are terrible. The way to get around it is specializing, reducing complexity and issues, which is exactly what I see happening.

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

#142

Post by janklimo »

fizerkhan wrote: post #75
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

For me, I desperately need "Stripe for the rest of the World".

Is Stripe Atlas not an option where you are based?

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

#144

Post by siscia »

cheetos wrote: post #10

Fix ads. I think there is a need for a product that allows websites to self-manage their ads, allowing them to handle display, tracking, payment, and client management internally. Imagine being able to get rid of all the third-party ad and tracking scripts on your website in favor of hosting and managing all of it on your own domain, displaying ads that are guaranteed to be relevant and attractive (since you chose th…

Actually I believe the problem is more about relevance...

However I don't see why this problem isn't been solved yet! Just ask what the website is about and serve only ads in the same space would be already a big win...

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

#145

Post by asenna »

morgante wrote: post #114
Gustomaximus wrote: post #4

Contract Economy: There is still a significant opportunity for a Freelancer/Upwork group to exist. Something that better vets quality while not pushing for Toptal prices. I suspect you'd need to set up physical presence in the likely countries properly vet and control quality but this could easily be covered by a premium for a know quantity vs going to western rates. Crytpo Currency: There is room for more disruption…

> Something that better vets quality while not pushing for Toptal prices. Why do you think this is possible? That's pretty much exactly what Toptal or other premium shops like Gigster do: vet remote developers to ensure high quality. The idea that you can get great developers from India for rock-bottom rates is mostly a fallacy.

> The idea that you can get great developers from India for rock-bottom rates is mostly a fallacy.

Yes, at rock-bottom rates($25/hr starts becoming good money for local Indian developers and you can start comparing them to the good developers in the west (>$50/hr).

That's just my opinion having worked in the industry for a while and seen both sides of that market.

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

#146

Post by hectormalot »

cvarjas wrote: post #77
pyromine wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the number one obstacle to this is it would be nowhere near viable from the costs perspective. No one really wants to build cargo ships right now, shipping companies are barely staying afloat right now because there is a glut of cargo capacity. This technology would need to be cheap enough that it would make sense to retrofit a ship with it... which would probably not be the case for a very long time. I do th…

I was under the impression that cargo capacity is currently expanding. Maersk is taking delivery of 11 new ships within the next year and a half: http://theloadstar.co.uk/maersk-refines-fleet-second-generat...

I'm under the impression that both are true. There is overcapacity in the shipping market, which drives down prices. Because prices are low, shippers are investing in ever larger (more efficient) vessels, in order to turn a profit. This in turn leads to more overcapacity, which leads to a drive for even larger and more efficient ships.

It's a type of 'tragedy of commons' situation, where every shipping company is making the right decisions from their individual perspective, but collectively they're driving themselves into the ground.

For me this explains the rise of slow-steaming. It makes a lot of sense in this market because it lowers the cost of shipping a container (less fuel), while simultaneously reducing the market capacity (# of containers / year).

Finally, very few shipping companies make money on the major lines (e.g. China to Europe), because it's pure price competition. They're much more likely to make money in places where they have a 'monopoly' on something: e.g. being the only ship that leaves in the next 3 days, or being the only shipper going to a specific location. For example inter-Africa shipping falls in this category.

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

#147

Post by csydas »

kevin2r wrote: post #56
yeukhon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant geek squad at best buy. I still remember the old mouse squad learning program (but not entirely dead it's just launched with a different initiative). Thanks for correcting.

Do you see the name "Best buy", how can I work for geeksquad? I mean something more like Uber, where everybody that knows how to drive can become a taxi driver in an hour.

I understand your focus here, but I'm not sure how you'd establish consumer confidence. Driving at least comes with a state issued certificate that you are capable of driving the car, and it's a bare minimum requirement. Obviously other factors will come into what makes a good taxi driver, but the bare essentials can be quickly verified.

I'm not sure what equivalent you could have for computer service to provide the same baseline of consumer trust; peek on craigslist and you'll find dozens of computer service postings for even a small town, and in large cities it gets even bigger. I agree that it's probably an area that could benefit from a loosely centralized provider, but adoption seems like it will be very difficult.

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

#148

Post by aorloff »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #51
shortoncash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you be more specific about the IoT DB issue? What would a credible solution do? Thanks in advance.

An IoT database requires the intersection of three software capabilities in a single platform, which have varying degrees of accessibility (the technology exists in principle) and none are available in open source currently. - An exabyte-scale storage engine. Nothing too exotic here technically and a few companies have built them, but the design needs to address continuous data corruption, continuous hardware failure…

Flurry (now part of Yahoo) has experience with IoT storage at that scale (or near it). The "T" just happens to be your phone. Data processing (and staying in business) at that scale is a matter of great teams and solid architecture. This won't be a "service" easily sold to a general audience.

The data processing could become a commodity but the architecture won't be -- its highly tied to your specific industry.

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

#149

Post by pookeh »

aapusaam wrote: post #23
cheetos wrote: post #10

Fix ads. I think there is a need for a product that allows websites to self-manage their ads, allowing them to handle display, tracking, payment, and client management internally. Imagine being able to get rid of all the third-party ad and tracking scripts on your website in favor of hosting and managing all of it on your own domain, displaying ads that are guaranteed to be relevant and attractive (since you chose th…

Wasn't this how independent websites use to work before ad networks such as Google ads took over the internet? Problem with managing your own ads is that it would be very hard to get quality relevant ads if you have a small website, not to forget the overhead involved in maintaining ad space without a dedicated ad server.

How about a blockchain based decentralized ad bidding system. Ping me if interested there are plenty of ideas in this lucrative space.

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

#150

Post by imron »

cvarjas wrote: post #77
pyromine wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the number one obstacle to this is it would be nowhere near viable from the costs perspective. No one really wants to build cargo ships right now, shipping companies are barely staying afloat right now because there is a glut of cargo capacity. This technology would need to be cheap enough that it would make sense to retrofit a ship with it... which would probably not be the case for a very long time. I do th…

I was under the impression that cargo capacity is currently expanding. Maersk is taking delivery of 11 new ships within the next year and a half: http://theloadstar.co.uk/maersk-refines-fleet-second-generat...

> I was under the impression that cargo capacity is currently expanding

Further exacerbating the problem with the glut of cargo capacity.

Post reply on HN