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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?

#661

Post by vtange »

marcosdumay wrote: post #655

I'm not a VC, but I see this huge thing: Popularizing large-scale opportunities. I mean, there is a huge amount of investments that small and medium business all around the world do not do because they don't have enough scale to get a good ROI from them. And they most often lack that scale because there's a labor cost within that investment that doesn't vary with business size. If you reduced the non-elastic labor co…

Going to be devil's advocate here, but if a business has to be large scale to have a good ROI, then it should be reworking its business plan so that it profits at smaller scales. We can't just simply pump capital into all businesses assuming they will actually profit at a higher scale -> That's the "if you build it, they will come" philosophy, and we have plenty of examples of that not working.

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

#662

Post by mxstbr »

danieka wrote: post #523
amelius wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it support a web-interface? It's not clear from the website.

Not yet, but it is something that we are thinking of adding. Would a web interface be useful to you?

If I'm getting consulting for e.g. code, I'd want to be at my laptop coding away, not stuck with my face in a phone screen.

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

#663

Post by wmblaettler »

winkle wrote: post #626
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…

Based on all of the responses to this comment I can see how someone would be completely confused on what they need to do to lose weight. While admitting the rest of this thread is bonkers, I'll explicitly list the formula you should follow right now (science is always evolving): Change in Body Stores = (Actual Calories In - Calories Not Absorbed) - (Resting Metabolic Rate + Thermic Effect of Eating + Physical Activit…

"Calories Not Absorbed" really got me thinking. While a food is labeled with their potential calories - the amount actually extracted from the food by your gut will vary significantly based on the composition of the food. The bioavailability of calories for example in a cookie versus some fibrous raw vegetable are going to differ significantly, being absorbed at different rates and to differing degrees of completeness.

Here is an interesting article with an important take away: "In general, it seems that the more processed foods are the more they actually give us the number of calories we see on the box" https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-hidden-t...

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

#664

Post by danielvinson »

tossaway322 wrote: post #647
hexhex wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a problem that is solvable with technology. It's a social problem. Less social inequality and better education, taxes on unhealthy food, less working hours. That would be necessary to tackle the problem. Obesity is just a symptom. I love the SV mindset: Let's not get to the reasons of something, let's just build an app and everything will be good.

heshex says:>"I don't think that's a problem that is solvable with technology." Why not, for example, a drug that suppresses appetite? We have many already. Technology has an endless supply of solutions.

> a drug that suppresses appetite

Caffeine.

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

#665

Post by jsymolon »

delecti wrote: post #415
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…

You've provided almost no information, but at 340 lbs it's possible your TDEE was more than 4000 calories/day, meaning it's possible you went on a reduced calorie diet with your bacon strategy. Without more information, your anecdote is useless, and even with more information it's still just an anecdote. Also, Paleo, like any similar structured diet, is just a trick to get you to ingest fewer calories. And I'm going…

> Also, Paleo, like any similar structured diet, is just a trick to get you to ingest fewer calories.

I wouldn't classify as a trick per se but a awareness that manufacturers tend to pack processed foods with a lot more addictive items to sell more.

For example, a lot of food has added sugar under many different names. This was to add "taste" when everything went to "non" or "low" fat.

I see Paleo and its ilk to be a pull back from the processed food direction.

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

#666

Post by mxstbr »

smudgymcscmudge wrote: post #434
mxstbr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started offering a service like this[0] for React apps. The response so far has been really good, people love it! It's exactly how you say it is, by spending some time identifying the biggest issues and then spending an hour with the team I can get them to rally around some easy fixes that'll be valuable for the business long-term. Developers love it as their bosses finally understand the value of refactoring, a…

That looks like a valuable service, but it is slightly different from the micro-consulting the parent mentioned. From your perspective, do you think there would be value in a service that offers this consulting thirty minutes at a time?

30 minutes is quite a short amount of time, especially given that most companies who will pay for consulting are quite far ahead in their projects already and will have a large codebase.

I could see 30 minutes to an hour working out for e.g. a bespoke greenfield codebase setup, but I don't think restricting it to 30 minutes makes a lot of sense.

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

#667

Post by scriptkiddy »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #441
delecti wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've provided almost no information, but at 340 lbs it's possible your TDEE was more than 4000 calories/day, meaning it's possible you went on a reduced calorie diet with your bacon strategy. Without more information, your anecdote is useless, and even with more information it's still just an anecdote. Also, Paleo, like any similar structured diet, is just a trick to get you to ingest fewer calories. And I'm going…

While not the OP, there is research demonstrating that the blood glucose and insulin response to various carbohydrate sources is highly specific to the individual. In the study I'm thinking of, some people were given cookies, others were given bananas (among other things). The responses weren't consistent at all. As for calories in/out being a simplification, while it is mostly true, the tricky bit is that calories o…

I agree with you to an extent. However, none of this changes the fact that consistent exercise increases the rate of metabolism significantly and generally leads to better mental and physical health. It also doesn't change the fact that eating at a caloric deficit will always lead to weight loss. A caloric deficit alone is not enough for one to reduce to a healthy weight as they may also be losing large amounts of muscle mass. Conclusion: Consistent exercise and a well-balanced diet are still the best ways to become healthy and maintain health.

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

#668

Post by cr0sh »

z3t4 wrote: post #532

Some sort of sonar/x-ray to see what's in the ground before digging. Ever wanted to make a hole and then you hit a big rock ... Or when plowing down fiber, or for calculating the costs for doing so.

You must mean something cheap, portable, relatively small, etc - because ground penetrating radar is a thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar

I could see something that could be "attached" to a cell phone (via bluetooth or such), attached to a stick or such (like a metal detector) - would be useful. Sonar would probably be the cheapest way, but the power requirements would be fairly large (at least as much as what's needed for a fish-finder, I would imagine).

Hmm - gotta give some thought to this!

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

#669

Post by delecti »

jsymolon wrote: post #665
delecti wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've provided almost no information, but at 340 lbs it's possible your TDEE was more than 4000 calories/day, meaning it's possible you went on a reduced calorie diet with your bacon strategy. Without more information, your anecdote is useless, and even with more information it's still just an anecdote. Also, Paleo, like any similar structured diet, is just a trick to get you to ingest fewer calories. And I'm going…

> Also, Paleo, like any similar structured diet, is just a trick to get you to ingest fewer calories. I wouldn't classify as a trick per se but a awareness that manufacturers tend to pack processed foods with a lot more addictive items to sell more. For example, a lot of food has added sugar under many different names. This was to add "taste" when everything went to "non" or "low" fat. I see Paleo and its ilk to be a…

There's nothing special about Paleo except that for some people it's easier to restrict total calories by cutting out the things that Paleo cuts out.

By that logic, I consider Paleo to be a trick. Not in the dishonest "deceive" sense, but rather in the card trick sense, or the "one neat trick" life-hack sense.

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

#670

Post by danielvinson »

danieka wrote: post #357
JamesBarney wrote: post #154

A marketplace for specialized micro-consulting(30 minutes to an hour). I've seen plenty of projects that are rife with anti-patterns because a team was unfamiliar with a problem or technology and made a bunch of bad decisions while they were still coming up to speed. The use-case I envision would fix this. Because it's really a travesty that when we're the least familiar with technologies is when we make some of the…

I'm the co-founder of Fliffr. We're building a marketplace for services where you can charge by the minute. We have everything from experts in SEO, chefs, personal trainers, Esport professionals. We also have a couple of developers, for example you can contact me for advice on #go #javascript or #ionic. Our goal is to build a service to quickly get in contact with an expert and only paying for the advice you need. Us…

Love the concept, but I can't see this as useful as an App, since pretty much every use case I can think of I'd want to be at my computer for.

I also find it kind of amusing that you're advertising esports advice from a woman who plays on a CS:GO team which can't even compete with a mediocre ESEA-IM team... she might be an absolutely amazing teacher and amazing person to work with, but she isn't good at the game, which really undermines your marketing strategy.

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