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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?

#931

Post by rco8786 »

maxsilver wrote: post #558
whitepoplar wrote: post #482

"Kickstarter" for cities. Housing is unaffordable in desirable cities, but nobody wants to move to less desirable cities, where housing is affordable. Take a city that is desperate for development, like Detroit, and figure out a way for a couple thousand people to "pledge" moving to a dense-ish urban area at a preferential rate.

I think you have cause/effect mixed up a bit. Those cities are only "affordable" because people aren't there. If a couple thousand people all simultaneously buy into an "affordable dense-ish urban area", that action would make that area un-affordable, and subsequently create all the same displacement/gentrification/nimby problems that follow. Your Detroit example is a good one, the dense-ish urban area now costs arou…

I bet you're always the one in brainstorm meetings that says we need to rewrite everything from scratch, vastly underestimating the amount of work, bug fixes, and tribal knowledge that went into the existing solution in addition to the cost of building a new one.

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

#932

Post by arkh »

watwut wrote: post #511
arkh wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. You don't see a lot of overweight people in famine prone areas. Calories out - calories in = your weight curve. That's the easy part for losing weight. Sport does not burn a lot of calories. So it is better to cut on the intake. Which is the hard part: food can be a comfort drug which is easily available. Worse when your entourage is full of overweight peo…

People in famine prone areas are considerably more sicker and live shorter (even when they don't die from famine) then western overweight people. Being overweight is healthier then living there. Also, famine makes you passive, tired and well, less bright. There is a reason why famine prone areas dont produce tech hubs and nobel prize winners.

But you don't see a lot of overweight people there. Even if they don't do anything so don't use a lot of energy I guess calories in are less than calories out so that's why they can't store any fat.

There are other health problems due to this "extreme diet" but being overweight is not one. So if you want to lose weight do like them and eat less than what your body needs.

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

#933

Post by arkh »

Jemmeh wrote: post #768
arkh wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. You don't see a lot of overweight people in famine prone areas. Calories out - calories in = your weight curve. That's the easy part for losing weight. Sport does not burn a lot of calories. So it is better to cut on the intake. Which is the hard part: food can be a comfort drug which is easily available. Worse when your entourage is full of overweight peo…

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 Not to say it's not a useful diet method. Just that there are a lot of factors that go into "calories out"-- what calories are being used for energy and what are stored as fat. How fast…

Last time I checked hormones were around the 400 calories per day level. Which is less than 2 small hamburgers.

Hormones only can not explain the percentage of overweight people in western countries. 50% of the population does not have hormones fucked up enough to not lose weight.

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

#934

Post by Lanthanide »

spacetraveler wrote: post #697

Some ideas: 1) Post-quantum encryption. 2) Desalination. 3) Storing kynetic energy. 4) Echo/acoustic mapping (inspired in bats) system for blind people. 5) Quantum computer chips operating at room temperature. Thoughts?

Desalination is definitely a big one, innovation here may be needed to head off major ecological/humanitarian catastrophes.

Desalination itself isn't hard, keeping it affordable is.

Between ill-advised agricultural ventures in the past few decades and clumsy regulation here in the GCC, groundwater deposits are draining frighteningly fast. Desalination is just too expensive as it is since it's directly linked to hydrocarbon prices and deposits.

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

#935

Post by mywittyname »

derrickdirge wrote: post #799
deepnotderp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - AI based on algorithmic induction tech i.e. not the usual DNN and ML tech everyone calls AI. This is way more interesting if you have a novel approach. I know it's fashionable to hate on deep learning, but algorithm induction is literally what deep learning does.

I would love to read an elaboration on this. There's so much I don't understand about AI.

I believe he's talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff's_theory_of_inducti...

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

#936

Post by j_r_f »

overcast wrote: post #594
sotojuan wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web has a long time to catch up in terms of technology (iOS has poor support for APIs that would make web apps compete with native) and culture (most businesses don't care that their app is slow and bloated and defer resources to the app).

What do the majority of web apps need, to compete with native apps? 99% of them definitely DO NOT need to be native.

I'd say the one really important thing web is missing is notifications for when your not on the site. I don't really know how a browser could ever implement in a similar fashion.

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

#937

Post by j_r_f »

vlad_p wrote: post #875
therealmarv wrote: post #294

Note taking done right. Android, iOS, Desktop, Markdown & HTML, easy flat file format, Web clipper, offline and do this all without wasting whitespace (no doc editor like Evernote) and good sync and instant search results. <- NO ONE is doing this! Closest is maybe Google Keep (seriously it's good at some points I'm mentioning).

> do this all without wasting whitespace (no doc editor like Evernote) What do you mean by this? Do you just mean a raw HTML/markdown editor and a rendered view?

Simplenote gives you the ability to take notes in markdown and be able to view the rendered version by swiping right.

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

#938

Post by mywittyname »

mthoms wrote: post #781
Kalium wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Why is brick and mortar still so popular, and can any pain points with e-commerce be fixed? One thing I much prefer B&M shopping for is clothing. Sizing is so wildly variable across brands, and clothing such a tactile thing, that I cannot completely get away from physical storefronts.

That's a good point. I wonder why the big brands have not gotten together to create standardized sizing scheme.

If they did that, they'd have too many sizes. Just look at jeans: most brands carry 100 or so "sizes", not including variations (tight, slim, regular, loose, baggy, tapered, straight, etc). With women, it's even worse because their body types are even more varied. It's easy to end up with 1000+ variations if a store tries to cater to everyone.

Instead brands cater to certain demographics and their sizes are relative to the body types they try to attract. It's unlikely that a woman who regularly buys from NY&Company would expect something at Lane Bryant to fit them.

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

#940

Post by overcast »

j_r_f wrote: post #936
overcast wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do the majority of web apps need, to compete with native apps? 99% of them definitely DO NOT need to be native.

I'd say the one really important thing web is missing is notifications for when your not on the site. I don't really know how a browser could ever implement in a similar fashion.

Email, or SMS? Though I don't see why Apples Push Notification Service, can't be opened up for the web side. They are already going through Apple servers correct? Safari has push notifications, let's combine the two.
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