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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?

#681

Post by cdvonstinkpot »

Political Science & Democracy Management

AFAIK there's little to no innovation in this field aside from the occasional electronic voting machine, whose security may or may not be totally un-hackable.

In a day & age where the internet reaches every home, & there's a web browser in nearly everyone's pocket, it shouldn't be that difficult to effectively discern the will of the people. But we're still depending on manual polling, which as the recent US election has shown, is woefully inaccurate. Why are these still done on the phone? Why do people still have to physically go to a neighborhood voting location? Why are elected officials still allowed to make empty promises while campaigning with no follow-through once they're in office?

These are solvable problems which I'd imagine technology can indeed address.

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

#682

Post by tiger3 »

jblumstein wrote: post #568
whitepoplar wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

See https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/nyregion/fighting-a-mcdon...

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

#683

Post by jhall1468 »

Gargoyle wrote: post #671
aaronchall wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it unhelpful to be told what you need to do? Are you saying you need more specifics? If you want to improve your financial position, either earn more money (get a side job, take a higher paying job with more responsibility), or spend less money (buy beans and rice in bulk, prepare your own meals, sell your luxury car to get rid of the payments and drive a paid-for beater, take public transit and read a book on…

If you want the font on your webpage to be larger, change the pattern of magnetic data stored on your hard drive. This is what you need to do. Do you need more specifics?

That is the worst analogy I think I've ever heard. A better analogy is, if you want more hard drive space, stop installing stuff and/or delete more stuff than you install.

This is not complicated. The calories are listed on everything you eat. Eat fewer of them until you start losing weight.

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

#684

Post by azm1 »

danielvinson wrote: post #670
danieka wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, whi…

Are the csgo team coaches really good at playing comp. csgo? Dont think its the main quality you need to have to push him forward.You great player but never be able to communicate it to others.But as a good observer with analytical skills you can be great at spotting potential and weakness etc etc

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

#685

Post by Gargoyle »

sotojuan wrote: post #583
ti32x wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So perhaps a sort of gentleman's club (not that sort) for the younger generation? I'd love to have an accessible chill out place I could go to just to get some work done, preferably with a good view of something. No music playing, just quiet and the ability to get a coffee and simple food if necessary. Google Campus in London does this, but isn't that comfortable for long periods (plus it's absolutely packed).

> Gentleman's club This is what most closely resembles what I want! Of course, in 2017 it'd be for everyone. We could even be like those strange upper class British clubs that don't allow people to talk to each other.

I'm surprised San Francisco doesn't have a number of these. It seems like exactly the sort of thing SF would have.

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

#686

Post by splintercell »

webmaven wrote: post #606
91bananas wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 War…

Literally none of these arguments are valid in case of the actual civil unrest situations which happen, whether it's LA riots of 1992 or Somalia.

Clearly if you're planning to hold a big cache of firearms, then that becomes an incentive for other gangs to go after you, but most of the time, there are plenty of unarmed people out there which present an easier target.

The aim of firearm ownership at the time of civil unrest is to not be an easier target for bad elements. Somehow implying that by owning firearms you become a bigger target than an unarmed household is ridiculously dishonest statement.

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

#687

Post by mikehollinger »

travelton wrote: post #565
mikehollinger wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's Alta's Cafe [1] near the Rainey street end of the river. That's just about the only one, however. TBH - since you seem to know the area - what do you think about a coffee stand under the 1st street bridge? [2]

[1] https://www.yelp.com/biz/altas-cafe-austin

[2] https://goo.gl/maps/FALgvtUESnu

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

#688

Post by hyperpape »

cr0sh wrote: post #656
WA wrote: post #165

Contraception. Almost everybody needs it. The current solution of flooding the body with hormones works, but causes side effects. The pill for men won't make it. My prediction is that we'll have some other non-hormonal contraception within the next 20-30 years, probably invented by a startup that wants to disrupt this billion dollar market.

> The pill for men won't make it. From what I understand, "they" have already developed this, and trialed it. It worked great, but for many men it had certain undesirable side-effects, and for a very few the side-effects weren't good at all. But for most, it worked well. The interesting thing? Almost all of the side-effects that were experienced by the men in the study all sounded exactly like the side-effects women…

The last time I saw this discussed, there was discussion about whether the drugs caused permanent sterilization for a subset of men, and how large the subset might be.

It's also worth noting that the effects of current birth control on women are bad enough that a decent fraction of women can't use one or more methods. There's still substantial room for improvement on the side effects that women face.

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

#689

Post by Gargoyle »

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.

Tinder for seniors. The one dating segment where the women significantly outnumber the men.

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

#690

Post by 14113 »

bpicolo wrote: post #444
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(…

This is the reason distributors already exist. Almost all restaurants buy almost all of their ingredients through food distributors (or on occasion just the local Costco). Not saying that there's not room to grow in this area, but it's definitely not the case that restaurants are buying straight from a bunch of individual suppliers, minus restaurants aiming for hyper-local or small batch ingredients.

And the ones that are buying from individual suppliers are doing so for non-economic reasons, e.g. "buying local", or specialised produce variants.
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