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Startup Ideas

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Startup Ideas

#31

Post by karmel »

giarc wrote: post #23

>Low-Friction Lending Library I think public libraries should start to serve this role. My local library (Calgary) has started to build up a collection of musical instruments that can be borrowed [0]. I'm sure there are other examples out there. I can see libraries expanding into tool libraries (drill, saw, hammer etc). 0 - https://calgarylibrary.ca/borrow-a-musical-instrument/

Berkeley has a tool-lending library which is useful for the once-in-three-years that you need a ladder or a belt sander: https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/locations/tool-lending...

Re: Startup Ideas

#32

Post by pjc50 »

dboreham wrote: post #22

"Accounts Receivables as a Service" Interesting one since I a) worked at a startup in this area long ago (they ran out of money..for reasons see below) and b) I now run a company and have found customers dislike for paying on time to be a significant irritation. However, unless this proposed "AR Service" has a way to get a horse's head into the bed of the late payer's CFO, how are they going to achieve anything? In m…

There are definitely outsourced debt collectors and bailiffs who will recover debts for you, up to and including getting court orders to seize property.

Strangely this doesn't overlap with the "happy path" of normal AR processing.

Re: Startup Ideas

#33

Post by ynniv »

indescions_2017 wrote: post #19

>>> The Baby Bidet Just wanted to say that I love this space. Smart products targeting ages 0-5. As well as smart business models to reduce waste. And promote recycling of baby products. One example: Owlet smart sock monitor https://owletcare.com/

Yes, but (1) our nursery doesn't have a sink and our sink doesn't have room for baby things, and (2) holding a squirming baby over a bidet doesn't sound less messy to me. There's a lot of potential in the space, but this particular one needs practical user testing.

Re: Startup Ideas

#34

Post by mark242 »

> Social Network for Children

Counterpoint-- this should not be built. Kids already have a social network, it's called the playground at school. Having children engage with their friends outside of school time is a fine goal, but there are plenty of existing after-school activities that encourage this interaction. These activities also don't put the undue stress of having to decipher typed language, nuance, and other online-only pressures that adults can barely deal with, much less children.

Get your kids into scouts. Get them into a team sport. Get them into dance. Get them into after-school STEAM activities. Whatever those activities are, that's up to their preferences, but most importantly they are out and engaging with their peers face to face. That "3pm - 6pm" window of time is important for children to play, and having them spend even a portion of that time hitting a like button or whatever other social network validation activities seems extremely disingenuous to me.

Re: Startup Ideas

#35

Post by adamonkey »

Smart Bathroom

These bathrooms don't necessarily need to be targeted at households. It could make sense for office buildings, so that:

-costs/person can be kept low

-it is easier for the employer to handle connecting measurements to medical IDs (scan an app/employee ID)

-it is easier for employers to negotiate directly with providers to lower health insurance (I believe some companies already do this with Fitbits, e.g. John Hancock)

Re: Startup Ideas

#36

Post by dctoedt »

indescions_2017 wrote: post #19

>>> The Baby Bidet Just wanted to say that I love this space. Smart products targeting ages 0-5. As well as smart business models to reduce waste. And promote recycling of baby products. One example: Owlet smart sock monitor https://owletcare.com/

A better idea would be to funnel the "rinse" water into some kind of container from which it could be disposed of in the toilet as opposed to the sink. I can just hear my wife saying "not in my [bathroom or, worse, kitchen] sink you're not going to do that!"

Re: Startup Ideas

#37

Post by ianstormtaylor »

> Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising

> Billboards are still sold manually by sales teams. You literally cannot buy a billboard online. If people could buy them as easily as you buy an Adwords ad, maybe many more small companies would.

It's interesting how these ideas continually arise. And as described it seems like a virtuous idea. By solving the scaling issues of the marketplace, smaller and smaller companies can buy ads. Which is good because it evens the playing field and reduces monopolistic behaviors, making the market more free.

But by solving those scaling issues, you'd also be making it easier for bad actors to buy advertisements. (In this case huge billboards.) And without collecting a _lot_ more data, or allowing a company to policy free speech, there would end up being much less accountability for who is buying the advertisements, and who is seeing them. You end up with the same situation Facebook, Google and Twitter are answering for in Congress right now. [0]

I don't have a solution, other than to stop building these types of marketplaces, but it is disconcerting.

We keep creating systems that have positive benefits, but at the expense of rarer-but-huge negative consequences, that are often "solved" by infringing more and more on our privacy to prevent the black-swan events from occurring.

PS. If anyone has interesting reading along these lines, I'd love to hear it.

[0]: https://stratechery.com/2017/tech-goes-to-washington/

Re: Startup Ideas

#38

Post by cma »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #37

> Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising > Billboards are still sold manually by sales teams. You literally cannot buy a billboard online. If people could buy them as easily as you buy an Adwords ad, maybe many more small companies would. It's interesting how these ideas continually arise. And as described it seems like a virtuous idea. By solving the scaling issues of the marketplace, smaller and smaller compan…

Other countries have sane campaign finance and campaign advertising laws. I think it is outside of their scope in posting this idea to try and make up their own internal ones and enforce them (and enforcement would inevitably colored by their own political bias).

Re: Startup Ideas

#39

Post by pjc50 »

> Renewable Energy from Engineered Microbes

This has been one of those things that's 5 years away for decades. Great if you can make it happen.

> Social Network for Children

Club Penguin was quite successful for a while.

Re: Startup Ideas

#40

Post by personlurking »

richiverse wrote: post #15

Like the firefighting idea. Might as well throw policing in there as well. An army of sufficiently smart drones should be enough to drastically reduced the size of those labor pools.

Not too smart, hopefully (7-min video, AI Slaughterbots) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw
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