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Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

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Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#421

Post by reitanqild »

Qwertious wrote: post #190
ChuckMcM wrote: post #170

My simple advice is to stop looking for ideas and to start looking for problems. Look for the pain, and to do that talk to people. The challenge will be that most people accommodate the pain in order to get something done, but they don't like it. A recent pain point I came across was that 501.c(3) organizations are good at organizing but often poor at "the Internet". That suggested that if you talked to a half dozen…

>My simple advice is to stop looking for ideas and to start looking for problems. I concur, and add that HN could really help OP by complaining about random stuff here. Just complain about the first thing that comes to mind that's been bugging you, OP will really appreciate it!

Easily fixable phones and laptops.

My phones and laptops are small enough and lightweight enough.

Making them bulletproof is too expensive. But making them easier to fix, documenting the process and authorizing repair shops would do be great.

PS: I don't need to be able to hot-swap parts.

PPS: pro models from Dell and HP at least are often quite easy to disassemble and fix and I think you can often source parts from eBay for years after you buy them.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#422

Post by abarrettwilsdon »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #170

My simple advice is to stop looking for ideas and to start looking for problems. Look for the pain, and to do that talk to people. The challenge will be that most people accommodate the pain in order to get something done, but they don't like it. A recent pain point I came across was that 501.c(3) organizations are good at organizing but often poor at "the Internet". That suggested that if you talked to a half dozen…

You might check out Flipcause[1] - they do a lot of what you're describing

[1] www.flipcause.com

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#423

Post by meric »

I have an idea and a prototype - there’s interesting capital gain tax discount laws in UK and Australia and for investors who buy and sell shares there is always a way to minimise their gains but it’s not straightforward for accountants to calculate it matching the buying and selling transactions if there are many of them for the same stock. The target market is DYI investors and tax accountants. I don’t have the time or capital to keep it going, but I have used the prototype to save myself thousands in taxes and have talked about it to a couple of accountants and let another investor use it with some promise. Feel free to take the idea. If you want an explanation just leave me an email address.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#424

Post by x98l1vpUWHydi8U »

Education.

Help improve your public school system. Help teach teachers. Teach other people, yourselves -- start with your neighbour's kids, neighbourhood schools, nearby orphanages and children's remand homes. Help scale great initiatives that don't have the brand pull of Khan Academy and the ilk. Fund scholarships, if nothing else.

It will be a drop in the ocean, but an extremely high-leverage one, IMHO.

And one that leaves a legacy. I'm sure many noble people will be willing to write large cheques for legacy-creating initiatives.

OR,

Resurrect something that died an untimely death.

(edit) OR, Help turn around good businesses teetering on the edge.

Many companies and business models died ~15 years ago, in the dot-com bust, only to become wildly successful in the last 5 years.

I bet many otherwise-reasonable businesses died for dumb reasons, in the recent 5 years (like forgetting to be frugal).

If we believe that the market turnover cycle has accelerated; which businesses died before their time, and could be resurrected over the next 5-7 years (about the time to make a business viable)?

https://techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool/

http://startupgraveyard.io/

http://autopsy.io/

---

(edits: minor sentence tweaks)

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#428

Post by ernsheong »

incendiary wrote: post #215
sixQuarks wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being afraid of a crowded market is one of those counter-intuitive mistakes most people make. It's much easier to find a niche within a crowded market than to try to build something within a small market. I entered a huge market as a solo founder with no industry experience and now get about 1% of the traffic that the big players with thousands of employees get, and I make a very decent income from it.

Care to add a bit more detail about what market? I am curious

Task/project management is one of them I suppose

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#429

Post by kibrad »

I can give you one idea for something I would really love if it existed, but I don't have the resources to do it myself:

A marketplace for sales people and SaaS products. Every sales agent can sell any product and get commission. This way, an agent walks to a business, and instead of offering him 1 product he doesn't need, he can offer him from dozens of products a few he really needs.

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