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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?

#501

Post by cdiamand »

cdiamand wrote: post #499

If you're looking for oppportunities in different industries, I send out a daily email filled with short interviews. I ask about industry problems, and the software that could solve those problems. You can check it out here: http://www.oppsdaily.com

An example of one of the responses:

"I work in the microbiology field.

One of the things I have to do in the quality control department is to count the number of individual colonies that are streaked on a media. Most of the time the count can go up to the 1000's and the colonies are small and close together.

I would like software that can recognize the individual colonies, like a camera would detect faces, and would automatically count the number of colonies available. This would give more accurate readings for tests and cut down on time.

I would definitely pay for this software."

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

#502

Post by kj01a »

wenc wrote: post #493
kj01a wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

The only problem is that calories in = calories out assumes a steady-state where there is no change in internal energy (dU/dt), which is not a good assumption.

The change in internal energy is negligible. The only exception is medical disorder.

If you want to lose weight and you are not, eat less. If the amount you eat goes below say 1200 calories and you're still not losing weight, go to a doctor.

It's that simple.

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

#503

Post by watwut »

gambiting wrote: post #453
CuriouslyC wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That lethargy you feel when you diet is your body's metabolism slowing, and it also results in you being less active. If your metabolism totally crashed and as a result you felt so bad you didn't do much other than sit around, you might not lose weight on a 1k cal diet.

Sure, but there is a point where you are taking in less than you are using. Maybe I should have said 500kcal instead. It doesn't matter if your boby absorbs 100% of that, or 20%, or if it's all organic veggies or potato chips or straight up lard - it's just not enough to live on, and you will lose weight.

There are two problems with this diet:

1.) You will underperform in work and life in general. You will be constantly tired, appear lazy to employer (practically speaking be lazy) and will make slower stupider decisions. You may end up weighting less, but will have hard time to keep up at work.

2.) Your body will adapt and become much more efficient in extracting calories from food - people who lost weight through fasting tend to gain weight very quick. Most of them can not keep the weight long term. That practically means you gain weight first time there is longer stressful period in work or life - when all your focus goes to project you are working on o family care or whatever.

3.) You do not eat just for calories - you need also various proteins, vitamins and what not. You are damaging your body by not giving it what it needs more then by being slightly overweight.

Yes, people who don't eat at all loose weight, but there is price to pay on their health and performance. It is true that western people tend to eat way more calories then necessary, but "just eat small portions till you have target weight" advice does not work long term.

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

#504

Post by whitepoplar »

tootie wrote: post #494
amelius wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a reasonable price to pay for this kind of service, including the coffee if the place requires you to consume it?

There's a cafe near me in Brooklyn that has a nice interior space and free wifi. It's always packed and everyone brings a laptop. Coffee prices are normal if not a bit low for high-end coffee (their coffee is really good). They serve snacks, but not much else. I have no idea how they turn a profit with all the people lounging for hours with a little espresso or cup of tea. There's a morning rush, but it's really smal…

Cool! What's it called?

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

#505

Post by 91bananas »

Lordarminius wrote: post #433
iUsedToCode wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing exactly this, spreading the opportunity to legally own a firearm in Poland ( https://braterstwo.eu ). It's a Wordpress plugin, php scripts and a bit of legal stuff (creating a NGO, bank account with automatic payment identifications, etc). It allows lots of people (thousands now) to obtain a permit. Poland has the lowest quantity of firearms in the whole Europe (and one of the lowest in the world). Taking t…

Poland has the lowest quantity of firearms in Europe and you want to change that? A bit strange yes? I don't think private firearms are very useful for international conflicts like Ukraine/Russia or to defeat terrorist attacks.

No, but they may become extremely useful in times of civil unrest if that were to happen.

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

#506

Post by rpazyaquian »

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…

There's no point in making technology for something we don't even have the science down for. Unless, that technology can be used to improve the science...hm.

That might be the best thing to do right now, for startups - how can you build technology such that it improves the science behind obesity research?

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

#507

Post by tyingq »

ohashi wrote: post #141
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…

Growth is slowing, but that market is still growing.

I would think there's room for some middle ground, like DO, but with more sophisticated self service tools to deploy popular software, install OS patches, and so on. Tools that work for non technical people.

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

#508

Post by kj01a »

coriny wrote: post #498
kj01a wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> "A calorie is a calorie" violates the second law of thermodynamics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC506782/

That paper is defining a calorie as the chemical make up of a particular macronutrient. Which is wrong. A calorie is a unit of measure of energy.

Plus, if something violated a law of thermodynamics, that law would have changed. And it hasn't.

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

#509

Post by plopzer »

sideproject wrote: post #479
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?)

A good example of this kind of thinking is GoGoGrandparent which is a service that lets older people, who might not understand how to use a smartphone app, use Uber by allowing them to call a number instead.

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

#510

Post by watwut »

kj01a wrote: post #496
Draiken wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. I have problems with my weight and my wife is anorexic. We live day-to-day with the fight against obesity (for years) and that's hardly a rule, much less golden. The only constant I see on this whole food/nutrition industry is how little information is accurate. Millions of diets and nutrition "experts" saying whatever they hear works without testing anythin…

Either thermodynamics is wrong, or you are undisciplined. Which do you think is more likely?

How much calories your body extracts from food and subsequently stores is not a constant. The thermodynamics argument basically ignores how human body works, but hey, it is simple.
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