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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?

#751

Post by david927 »

scottmf wrote: post #379
emptyfile wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually shocking there's not a EU wide Amazon.

Or telling, perhaps?

Bezos is infamous for his ego, and I think he just doesn't see it.

Actually, I think that this is the chink in Amazon's armor, the bare patch on Smaug's underside.

Only a few European countries have Amazon stores and the brand loyalty for them isn't strong. A single EU store would become quickly popular and has the potential to be bigger than Amazon, given that the EU is larger than the US in market size.

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

#752

Post by davidlee1435 »

shaunrussell wrote: post #709

Replacing real estate agents and brokers. Most of the value they provide can be replaced by (or already is) technology. The only thing keeping them afloat is regulation.

Opendoor seems promising- company buys houses from sellers to sell to buyers. Guarantee of a sale seems more important than maximizing return, so they've experienced success in quite a few markets in the Southwest

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

#753

Post by reitanqild »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #590
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.

Poland is actually the site of one of the biggest uses of personal firearms in international conflict. The Jews held off the Nazis for about 5 months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising Might have been nice if it happened all across Poland rather than just Warsaw.

Thanks for bringing up this.

This is actually a really good example for why we don't want to ban weapons: Genocides are often perpetrated by the country the victims actually belong to.

Examples: Germany under Nazism, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, -I'm fairly sure the list goes on.

I feel totally safe and I'm actually happy knowing that many of my neighbors have weapons. Especially here in Norway were I know there are strict background checks on who gets permits.

(For Americans: What I would do is start cooperating with NRA like Nordic countries has traditionally done with their local equivalents. Work not to prohibit guns but to promote safe storage and safe practices.)

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

#754

Post by Jemmeh »

Jemmeh wrote: post #543
maroonblazer wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert Lustig[0] and Gary Taubes[1] are excellent places to start to understand that obesity is not simply about 'calories in/calories out'. Lustig has a now-infamous talk that surveys the research.[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Relevant short video from the Documentary "FatHead" that talks a little bit about what Gary Taubes is talking about in his book. The effects of carb/sugar and the insulin response that causes fat storage. https://youtu.be/mNYlIcXynwE It's free on Amazon Prime Video if anyone wants to watch it. I'm still only halfway through it though, so if he suddenly says we should just eat helium at the end I'm sorry. :P

Well...as of today it's no longer part of prime video. :/ But you can sign up for a 7 day trial of the extra subscription for documentaries that allows you to watch it and then cancel.

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

#755

Post by bertjk »

jdietrich wrote: post #587
sideproject wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?)

> But what specific areas do you think would be good to target? Almost everything. Here's an experiment you can try. Stay up for two nights in a row. Have a few drinks. Put on a pair of ear defenders, a pair of glasses with the wrong prescription and a pair of leather gardening gloves. Try to go about your daily life. You'll very quickly see plenty of industries that are ripe for disruption. The man-made world is ove…

It is interesting that you bring up the iPhone as a positive example of better accessibility. I always thought that physical buttons which could quickly become muscle memory and relatively simple function were way more usable for the demographics in question.

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

#756

Post by david927 »

irq-1 wrote: post #704
mslot wrote: post #352

I always think there are huge opportunities for growth in intra-EU trade. It's a market with over 500M people and a $17 trillion GDP. While the EU has taken away a lot of trade barriers, language and unfamiliar regulations remain a huge barrier, but also a huge potential for growth. If a company in California has ample opportunities to sell in Florida (>2000 miles away), why then is it significantly more difficult fo…

> If a company in California has ample opportunities to sell in Florida (>2000 miles away), why then is it significantly more difficult for a company in Greece to sell in Denmark, which is a much shorter distance. The US has a federal "interstate commerce clause" which means that individual states cannot regulate trade with other states. The federal government has all the control, which would be like the European Uni…

And the EU has the equivalent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

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

#758

Post by SQL2219 »

mgav wrote: post #625
SQL2219 wrote: post #315

Imagine if you had a nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a desalination plant on it. You could sail from country to country and fill 'em up with fresh water.

It may not be able to produce more water than a single city requires: Charleston, SC uses 50 million gallons of water per day* For reference, that's about 75 Olympic size pools (at 660,000 gallons per). * source: https://sc.water.usgs.gov/infodata/wateruse.html

Well I wasn't thinking about pulling up to a US city, more like Chad, Somalia, etc. They'd be thrilled with 1 gallon per head per day.

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

#760

Post by david927 »

TillE wrote: post #703
mslot wrote: post #352

I always think there are huge opportunities for growth in intra-EU trade. It's a market with over 500M people and a $17 trillion GDP. While the EU has taken away a lot of trade barriers, language and unfamiliar regulations remain a huge barrier, but also a huge potential for growth. If a company in California has ample opportunities to sell in Florida (>2000 miles away), why then is it significantly more difficult fo…

It's amazing how much you pay for UK products in Germany, way way more than the cost of shipping. Of course that particular opportunity will be gone soon, but I'm sure there are other routes.

The UK is not in the EU (and was never in Schengen), so you pay customs along as well as shipping.
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