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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?

#561

Post by Kiro »

Jallal wrote: post #416
Kiro wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. That's an extreme statement you definitely need to provide source for. I read a lot of scientific journals on the subject and have never heard anything like that.

Actually, this is the main subject of 'Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It' ( https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259 ) and the book refers to several scientific studies to support its claim.

Thanks! Ordering the book now.

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

#562

Post by amalag »

zump wrote: post #36

Sleep. How can we make better use of that wasted time.

That is an individual effort. Reducing one's sleep can be done. There are processes to do it. You have to make your subconscious more efficient at processing. During sleep your mind makes subconscious connections and processes events of the day. By practicing different forms of meditation it can allow your mind to do that.

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

#563

Post by yeukhon »

skynode wrote: post #73
yeukhon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what kind of data and what kind of data management you are referring to. But from my own perspective, data management is not always a technology problem. Data management should be addressed top-down, with business owning the data quality. Technology should be used to help identify and correct data issues.

'Top-down' is actually why data management is still the way it is. Our handling of the primitives (think bottom-up approach) that build up to how things are structured at the higher level is still subpar at best, resulting in the massive inconsistencies, scaling issues and data integrity problems we face daily. Neurons (near-atomic components), from the biological sciences are still being compared analogously with mo…

Top-down means the top is responsible for data quality's failure. Engineering can only build what the business anticipated to get, but in the end, human needs to be the one driving the mandate. When you are looking at enterprise data management, with many data format and global business, with many legacy systems in place, data management is not possible without a full commitment from the top. Heads of each business division has to be responsible for the shit their department produced. Whenever engineering shouts "data management" the business will just leave that to the engineering folks to build automated system, but who is actually looking after the data? Machines doesn't know what they are doing - someone is coding the expectation, that's all. But data management is dynamic. You can't just have an engineer shouts "this stinks". The business needs to own the shout and the mandate.

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

#564

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #533
DanBC wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine we study you for a year. We put you in a box, we control your food intake; we strictly monitor the amount of exercise you get. The first six months you stay the weight you are now. We then introduce a single change: we put you on antipsychotic medication. Nothing else changes: you're eating the same type of food and in the same quantities. You will gain weight. Is that because thermodynamics is broken? No. Is…

Don't worry about carbohydrate pathways, if you gain weight, then adapt your food intake (or excercise). Bodybuilders and martial artists do this all the time.

Dopamine antagonists shift patterns toward favoring fat storage over muscle building/maintenance. They don't just reduce the amount of calories burned, they screw up the low-level regulatory mechanisms. AFAIK you basically have to starve yourself to bring blood sugar down to normal levels, and of course that's unsustainable.

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

#565

Post by travelton »

mikehollinger wrote: post #489
whitepoplar wrote: post #457

Physical space for lounging, socializing, and working. I live in NYC and there's still a striking lack of space that facilitates people getting out of their apartments and doing "whatever." Starbucks popularized the concept of the "third space" (the first two being housing + workplace) and I think there's so much room to improve upon this.

Yep. I've thought about this off and on. I lived in Taipei for a couple of years. The "third space" is super common there. People would hang out at coffee shops (loads and loads of coffee shops), get "afternoon tea" with friends, or go to a park or even a subway station lobby and socialize. The Taipei metro even embraced it and set up specific places / spaces for shopping or socializing (that were dual purpose rather…

I have always thought it would be neat if there were an isolated stretch of businesses along the river. If Mozart's was on the bank somewhere between Lamar and Congress, it would be a great destination.

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

#567

Post by petra »

1. Great Noise cancelling headphones are very expensive, because only a rare few companies has managed to do the r&d to create great noise cancellation

But if there we're affordable headphones that are software programmable and act as an app store for noise cancellation algorithms, that would definetly reduce the price.

2. One of the ideal ways to recieve ecommerce packages is on your car's trunk. It's possible to build a smart lock for your car that enables the delivery guy to drop packages.

The hard part is making it cheap, making installation cheap, and designing a rapidly growing business model that grows rapidly.

3. Many restaurant use a combi-ovens to reheat frozen food with great results. Combi ovens are now starting to become cheap($300), most of them for the home.

But what about the workplace , where for some places, frozen food may be a good alternative to restaurant ordering(it may be cheaper, for example), but that will require an affordable multi-meal oven, which doesn't exist yet ?

4. Apache Isis is a great, rapid , domain driven framework for business app development. But it's quite complex. There may an opportunity in synmplifying it and introdcuing it to new users. Maybe in a service based form.

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

#568

Post by jblumstein »

whitepoplar wrote: post #461
whitepoplar wrote: post #457

Physical space for lounging, socializing, and working. I live in NYC and there's still a striking lack of space that facilitates people getting out of their apartments and doing "whatever." Starbucks popularized the concept of the "third space" (the first two being housing + workplace) and I think there's so much room to improve upon this.

Related: physical space that welcomes the elderly. Loneliness/depression is a huge problem for older people. I think it would really boost wellbeing for these people to participate in something and to see other faces.

Agreed. Interestingly, it seems McDonalds ends up being the physical space that plays this role for a lot of older folks, both in urban areas (Koreans in Queens, NYC) and rural areas (Chris Arnade has done a lot of interesting documenting of this phenomenon).

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

#569

Post by garrettdc »

dpatru wrote: post #419
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…

I recently found Dr John McDougal on YouTube who has the solution to obesity based on history, current societies, and science. There seem to be two rules: 1) Base your diet around starchy vegetables (potato, wheat, oats, rice, corn, etc). 2) avoid fats, especially refined fats, and protein. 3) salt and sugar are not health foods, but are allowed to help you stick with rules 1 and 2. People, and societies, that eat li…

* so long as they are biologically adapted to such a diet.

People have been posting similar studies of Indian and Asian countries, basing their recommendations for everyone off that subset of the population, and then completely discount that of traditional European, African, and American diets.

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

#570

Post by nradov »

dirtyaura wrote: post #113
Gustomaximus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Norsepower provides modern sails: "a spinning cylinder that uses the Magnus effect to harness wind power to propel a ship." "When the wind conditions are favourable, Norsepower Rotor Sails allow the main engines to be throttled back, saving fuel and reducing emissions while providing the power needed to maintain speed and voyage time. Rotor sails can be used with new vessels or they can be retrofitted to existing shi…

Sure sails will be used for some limited applications. But Magnus effect cylinders won't be practical for the majority of cargo ships because they consume valuable deck space and interfere with loading operations. They would only make sense if hydrocarbon fuel becomes much more expensive.
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