Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups? • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by jdironman » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:10 PM UTC

Leased CGI sets / models / scenes.

Building full fledged models / generations of popular cities and places and leasing them to film producers. Its cheaper for them to lease than it would be to hire full devs and designers to start from scratch..I know there is some 're-use' in place by these companies such as pixar and disney. Re-use is not what i am talking about though. I am talking about movies like transformers / godzilla / etc which need on point rendering of actual cities and places.

Just a thought I had the other day when reading how film companies were struggling with growing movie budgets and diminishing returns.

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

#472

Post by rojobuffalo » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

johnlbevan2 wrote: post #428

Hundreds of restaurants in the same geographic area will be purchasing ingredients from a variety of different suppliers, based on their need. If they clubbed together with other local businesses to source common ingredients they could benefit from economies of scale; i.e. instead of 100 restaurants each buying 200 onions, there'd be a bulk order for 20,000 onions; meaning 1 lorry to deliver direct from the supplier(…

Restaurant supply chains could be improved by investing in local farmers. Less time and energy spent on transport enables fresher food; and the local money multiplier is a goood thing too. I'm working on something aimed at this.

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

#473

Post by kj01a » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

DiabloD3 wrote: post #187

aabajian wrote: post #151

The leading cause of death is cardiovascular disease. >90% of these cases can be attributed to an overweight population. It's not an easy problem to solve, but there has to be a way to fix it. Lots of calorie counting apps, activity trackers, motivational reminder apps, etc. Obesity is very complicated, but there are three basic facts: 1. Calories in, calories out is the golden rule. 2. The vast majority of calories…

Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. Your second and third points however are scientifically supported, but do not confuse this with "obesity is complicated." It is not ho…

>Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false.

No. If the laws of thermodynamics had been proven false, we would have heard of it.

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

#474

Post by UweSchmidt » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #347

betageek wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, no breakdown of thermodynamics needed, any calories not efficiently processed into usable energy will be emitted as waste.

No thermodynamics needed to disprove it, but we probably need something more complicated than thermodynamics to get a good picture of the real balance.

Nothing more complicated than a scale in your bathroom is needed. Check daily and see if you lose weight with whatever combination of food/activity/metabolism you have going on. If you somehow gain or lose weight, eat accordingly.

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

#475

Post by kj01a » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

chewxy wrote: post #317

DiabloD3 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. Your second and third points however are scientifically supported, but do not confuse this with "obesity is complicated." It is not ho…

> this has been scientifically proven false. [Citation Needed] You'd think that if it has been scientifically proven false, it'd be one of the biggest discoveries of the century - The Human Body, A Perpetual Motion Machine! Energy from Nothing!

No wonder the robots decided to use us for batteries.

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

#476

Post by dustedrob » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #392

Provide a paid subscription to Android updates for old popular phones. Don't add new features (unless it's easy), just make sure they remain secure. Phones are lasting longer and longer, the main reason to get a new one is no longer that it's too slow, it's the lack of updates. It's very wasteful.

Wow, i could definitely see this as a viable business model for LineageOS (previously Cyanogen) I wonder if they ever considered it.

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

#477

Post by scandox » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #411

Older people. We live in a rapidly ageing society. Retirees are a large and wealthy demographic. Despite that, tech companies are absolutely woeful at designing products for older users. We don't empathise with their needs. We don't understand how poor eyesight, arthritis or cognitive difficulties can affect UX. There's a huge amount of pent-up demand and excellent opportunities for future growth.

You're dead on with this. Older users are a potential goldmine but they can be hard customers. Even as I age I see how much harder it is to sell me anything.

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

#478

Post by kbart » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

klausjensen wrote: post #400

adventured wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is, it's Amazon. They're closing in on $20 billion in European sales, growing at double digits, with something like 50,000 employees. If you look at what they're doing in Europe, Amazon is getting more aggressive by the year in terms of expanding and investing there.

I use Amazon in Europa a LOT, but funny enough it is not ONE amazon in EU, it is many - and I have to search for products on all of them, because what is available in amazon.de might not be available in amazon.co.uk. And there are obviously language barriers - and having to do math to convert currencies etc. It is anything but smooth right now - unless you are in one of the countries, that have their own amazon.tld,…

"I want amazon.eu, where I can filter by products, that can actually be shipped to my EU country"

100 hundred times this! I avoid using Amazon just for their shipping information stupidity - I have to use checkout to be able to see if selected item can be shipped to my country. I find it funny and bizarre that it's easier to order online from China (which is half the World away) than from neighboring countries that belong to the same free trade zone. Ebay has an "EU only" search option, but it's useless as Ebay itself has become smaller Aliexpress cousin with same items and higher prices.

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

#479

Post by sideproject » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:19 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #411

Older people. We live in a rapidly ageing society. Retirees are a large and wealthy demographic. Despite that, tech companies are absolutely woeful at designing products for older users. We don't empathise with their needs. We don't understand how poor eyesight, arthritis or cognitive difficulties can affect UX. There's a huge amount of pent-up demand and excellent opportunities for future growth.

I do agree. But what specific areas do you think would be good to target? You mention their poor eyesight and difficult UX, but that doesn't mean we should start creating Facebook or Twitter clones with bigger fonts and easier UX? (or should we?)

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

#480

Post by character0 » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 2:19 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #207

Hackers rarely think of politics as playing field for startups, so in my mind this one of the biggest untapped opportunity right now. People from both sides are going nuts over Trump politics. That means tons of eyeballs and attention that would be available for the right startups for next 4 years. Things like BuzzFeed and DailyXYZ are going to make a massive killing in terms of ad revenue. At this stage still the re…

Countable is a pretty good app for tracking votes and making it easy to contact your representatives. There are also more straightforward sites that track this information, like govtrack.

https://www.countable.us/ https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes