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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?

#601

Post by KiwiCoder »

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…

In the past six months I've seen an uptick in the number of politically motivated software projects appearing on SocialCoder.org

Examples;

- CollAction [http://socialcoder.org/9dy]

- Fight Back Wisely [http://socialcoder.org/80s]

- Carpool Vote [http://socialcoder.org/8qv]

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

#602

Post by collyw »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #451
numbsafari wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weight isn't the only issue. Eating such a high-fat, high-protein diet, with little to no other sources of important nutrients, probably did horrible things to your kidneys, liver and arteries.

Source or speculation?

Sounds similar to a traditional Inuit diet (from my very limited understanding). They don't have any of the problems OP mentioned.

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

#603

Post by nailer »

nailer wrote: post #272
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> implying the pill for women doesn't have equally bad side-effects. But they're more likely to take them, because they're the ones that end up pregnant.

> implying the pill for women doesn't have equally bad side-effects. - I actually wasn't talking about the women's pill at all - you can tell this by reading the post you're replying to. - But yes, inability to have sex is not a common side effect of the female pill. Which I suspect you also already know. Have you considered reading the HN guidelines?

In case it isn't clear: yes the female pill causes depression. It may, also, like the recent male pill, cause suicidal thoughts. However the female pill categorically does not prevent coitus, whereas not having an erection does.

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

#604

Post by droidist2 »

clishem wrote: post #338
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…

Perhaps "calories in calories out" is still the golden rule for startups that want to make money instead of helping people to lose weight in the long term. I can't see any startup going against this deeply entrenched popular belief.

I could see it being overturned. We used to believe in the old food pyramid which has now been revised.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/michaelpellmanrowland/files/2...

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

#605

Post by gingerbread-man »

mrschwabe wrote: post #282

The stock market (ready for disruption). There is a new generation of investors who are not interested in the 'old stock market' but who are instead looking for equity investment that can offer the efficiency, integrity and anonymity that cryptocurrency provides.

The lawyers may take issue with that one. Anonymous equity seems rather far-fetched.

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

#606

Post by webmaven »

91bananas wrote: post #505
Lordarminius wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> [Firearms] may become extremely useful in times of civil unrest

Not really:

* There is always someone with a bigger gun

* There is always someone who wants to steal your gun/ammo

* There is always a bigger gang that wants to steal your gun

If your solution is to join up with others to make your gang the biggest/best armed and enforcing a monopoly on the use of violence, congratulations, you've either reinvented Warlordism, or in the best case, reinvented the idea of a police force, depending on whether or not the head of the gang answers to a civil authority whose legitimacy comes from something other than "might makes right".

All that said, I don't mean that firearms aren't at all useful, just that they aren't more useful than other important tools. You for a group to be able to defend itself you will find that basics like picks, shovels, sledgehammers, crowbars, hammer and nails, axes and hatchets, saws, ladders, wheelbarrows etc. are all at least as useful as a firearm.

Generally speaking, making the other guy waste his ammo can be a winning strategy.

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

#607

Post by doubleplusgood »

tyingq wrote: post #507
ohashi wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Like a simplified Heroku?

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

#608

Post by pgroves »

Health Insurance / Hospital.

I'm old enough that I now go to the doctor more frequently than I used to and it's a mess. A health insurance company that could reliably allow a user to change their address on a website would be competitive. Having all of your medical procedures and orders accessible through a simple CRUD app would be a threat to a lot of multi-billion dollar companies. It's still all done through phone calls and faxes and there are lots of mistakes and it's hugely inefficient. I went to the ER last year and got 5 different bills from different departments of the same hospital. The online payment portal doesn't work unless you call them to set it up. That's not the hospital network I usually go to - my usual provider is probably worse.

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

#609

Post by maj0rhn »

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…

It is untrue that >90% of cardiovascular deaths are attributable to overweight. In fact, if you look at the Framingham model for predicting heart attacks, obesity is not a feature (other than its indirect effects on blood pressure and diabetes).

The main cause of cardiovascular disease is hypertension, which is 100% treatable at very low cost and with very high safety. I haven't checked the numbers lately, but it's not too far off to note that only 50% of hypertension is diagnosed and only 50% of patients take their medications.

So, the lapse is not in medical science -- we know what to do -- but in healthcare delivery.

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

#610

Post by gingerbread-man »

vegabook wrote: post #381

taking on the Bloomberg terminal. They've got over 300 000 subscribers each paying circa 2000 USD every month. That's 600 million dollars of revenue per month. They're running a labyrinthine functionality on a 1970s System/360-style interface (command line at top of screen). He hires an absolute army of "reps" who's sole job is to try to help subscribers to find functionality, through an interface that is best descri…

You'd probably need to invest substantially in antitrust litigation to get access to the raw data streams Bloomberg relies on.
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