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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?

#31

Post by seahckr »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

Here are a few, and I frequently have these conversations with VCs, albeit biased toward areas I work in: - Spatiotemporal analytics usually in the context of IoT. Most people currently repurpose cartographic tools for this purpose but the impedance match is poor and the tools are seriously lacking elementary functionality. There is no magic technology here, just exceptional UX/UI and an understanding of the problem…

Very insightful. In your expert opinion, what are some of the core features / functionality that an IoT database platform should have (that existing solutions or combinations of them on AWS / Google Cloud / Azure don't provide)?

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

#33

Post by g00gler »

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…

Asus and Motorola have made dockable phones.

https://www.engadget.com/products/motorola/atrix-4g-lapdock/

https://www.engadget.com/products/asus/transformer/book/v/

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

#34

Post by Gustomaximus »

nradov wrote: post #9
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…

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 hybrid. Not all power has to be renewable sources. A solution could start with supplementing diesel driven thrust with some lower cost green power. Given diesel is 70% of shipping operating cost that seems a potential option.

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

#35

Post by huevosabio »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

Here are a few, and I frequently have these conversations with VCs, albeit biased toward areas I work in: - Spatiotemporal analytics usually in the context of IoT. Most people currently repurpose cartographic tools for this purpose but the impedance match is poor and the tools are seriously lacking elementary functionality. There is no magic technology here, just exceptional UX/UI and an understanding of the problem…

As someone that has "repurposed cartographic tools" to analyze spatiotemporal datasets, what specifically do you feel is missing from current tools?

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

#37

Post by nanch »

ernestipark wrote: post #8
lwhalen wrote: post #7

Outsourced testing. I can think of a few sites that would pay a pretty penny to have unit, spec, and acceptance-tests written for their pre-existing code.

See https://www.rainforestqa.com/ , a YC company. They do some of this.

Was definitely interested, clicked through a bunch and wanted to see pricing and sign up. Unfortunately it's a "contact us for more info" situation, which is really a non-starter as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks for the recommendation though.

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

#39

Post by kevin2r »

Person to person IT support. A service where I could get help with my computer, but not from a company that tries to sell me junk software. I let a person with IT skills connect to my pc while interacting by chat or microphone, I pay them by time spent helping me.

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

#40

Post by pyromine »

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 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 think it's a very thought provoking idea however.

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