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Startup Ideas

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Startup Ideas

#311

Post by outworlder »

arkades wrote: post #205

Re Smart Bathroom: Every time I hear about all-knowing toilets, I continue to feel it’s putting the cart way ahead of the horse. There’s a rule in medicine: don’t order a test whose outcome doesn’t change your decision. That’s not about cost-savings, it’s about avoiding false positives that make no sense in clinical context but raise flags that must be chased down. This sort of thing is literally promising to just co…

> There’s a rule in medicine: don’t order a test whose outcome doesn’t change your decision. That’s not about cost-savings, it’s about avoiding false positives that make no sense in clinical context but raise flags that must be chased down.

There is also a rule in (system) operations: don't page unless immediate action (from humans) is required. This doesn't stop us from collecting data. If there is an anomaly, then we can look back at the data if necessary.

Alternatively, there ARE things you can alert on. My brother has type 1 diabetes. He got a free urinalysis in the form of ants crawling in the toilet. I expect – but since I don't have time series data from this toilet, I can't prove – that sensors would detect and increasing amount of glucose in the urine over time.

If anonymized, this sort of data would be useful for research as well.

I agree that giving any joe schmuck access to the raw data would result in unnecessary procedures.

Re: Startup Ideas

#312

Post by dboreham »

seibelj wrote: post #126
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…

Wouldn't a simple solution be to add high interest to unpaid invoices over a certain time? I've seen invoices with this clause. Of course, you can selectively enforce.

It turns out that doesn't solve the problem at all in my experience. This is because any interest, even if paid, doesn't come close to compensating the vendor for the pain of being paid late. And it doesn't seem to act as a deterrent since the kind of CFO who tells their AP staff to late pay doesn't give a crap about your interest charges.

Re: Startup Ideas

#313

Post by ahussain »

canes123456 wrote: post #280
ahussain wrote: post #233

I honestly cannot tell if some of these ideas are real or just parodies of silicon valley, "avocado toast" tech culture: - AI for Communicating with Dogs - Baby Bidet - AR Debt Collector - Buyer’s Remorse Insurance Are these really the most pressing problems start-ups could be solving right now? What about issues like cost of housing in cities, urban transport, infrastructure in the developing world, fixing 'fake new…

I don't like any of these ideas but dismissing only the most pressing problems is a silly way to judge ideas. It is easy to pick apart ideas, look: - cost of housing in cities: Convince home owners to vote against their own self interest. Not a great business idea - urban transport: Everyone else is trying to do this. Self driving cars might solve this - Infrastucture in the developing world: Hard for outsiders to ac…

> dismissing only the most pressing problems is a silly way to judge ideas

You are correct, but if you don't judge ideas on this metric then you risk becoming irrelevant to the vast majority of people, and you are not taken seriously when you say things like "we are going to revolutionize the world"

And yes, it is easy to pick apart those ideas, but that's exactly why more people (especially those who consider themselves talented, fortunate and ambitious) should be tackling them head on - because all the simple, naive approaches don't work.

Re: Startup Ideas

#314

Post by dboreham »

pjc50 wrote: post #32
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.

This only works if the debt value is such that the costs of legal recovery process are justified. It also only works if there is property to seize.

Re: Startup Ideas

#315

Post by pcmaffey »

arkades wrote: post #247
mynegation wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this proves me wrong. What it does prove is that analysis of data should not be left (entirely) to humans, who are inherently flaky. Dark irony of this situation is that _more_ data from additional test had a chance of saving the patient. The way it should have worked: based on previous labeled examples, computer system should have noticed the uptrend in potassium and flag this client for blood gas, and…

It’s not the blood gas that would have saved him; just seeing the potassium trending up would have done it. Thing is, there was a context where that mattered. In others, it wouldn’t have. That’s why you need someone capable of interpretation to -look- at it. EMRs have done more to harm patients than help them, now that everyone constantly copy-pastes old patient hx before adding their notes (so nothing can be said to…

Thanks for the insight. I wonder though about the difference between scattershot data collected in a hospital setting, vs personalized data collected over the normal, healthy course of a person's life. Establishing relevant baselines would go a long way towards eliminating noise and flagging real outliers.

Re: Startup Ideas

#316

Post by bguillet »

Can't believe no one has cited Omni for "Low-Friction Lending Library". This is exactly what they are doing.

I have no relationships or interests whatsoever with them, apart from being a happy customer.

Re: Startup Ideas

#317

Post by j_m_b »

33W wrote: post #272
j_m_b wrote: post #228

I've had this idea to find a way to connect landscapers and homeowners to people seeking to buy yard waste for use in various composts and mulches. What gave me this idea was that I had a tree cut down and chipped in my neighborhood. By simply asking, the guys gave me a huge pile of wood mulch! I gave them $50 as a tip. Had I gone through a mulching company, I would have paid closer to $300. I feel like there are lot…

I think I found this through HN a while back: https://getchipdrop.com/

Hah awesome... idea has existed for years!

Re: Startup Ideas

#318

Post by dboreham »

vadimberman wrote: post #299
ahussain wrote: post #233

I honestly cannot tell if some of these ideas are real or just parodies of silicon valley, "avocado toast" tech culture: - AI for Communicating with Dogs - Baby Bidet - AR Debt Collector - Buyer’s Remorse Insurance Are these really the most pressing problems start-ups could be solving right now? What about issues like cost of housing in cities, urban transport, infrastructure in the developing world, fixing 'fake new…

> AR Debt Collector Have you ever tried to get an invoice paid by an a*hole customer? It's not exactly that. The post names it "Accounts Receivables as a Service". The idea is to make sure the invoice does not become a bad debt. The willingness to pay small vendors and contractors varies across countries, industries, and cultures. Often, it involves a ridiculous amount of haggling and bickering. For a small business,…

I suspect the parent thought "AR" was Augmented Reality whereas it actually means "Accounts Receivables".

I am wondering however about using AR to simulate the discovery of that horse's head in the bed...might work quite well to get quick payment.

Re: Startup Ideas

#319

Post by karmapolic »

Shipping Locker as a Service. Amazon already provides locker services for products sold on the amazon market place. How about one for thousands of other companies. add ML on top of it.

Re: Startup Ideas

#320

Post by dboreham »

tech4all wrote: post #292
ductionist wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak to AI for dogs and buyer's remorse insurance, but the AR collector really spoke to me - I would hand over 5-10% of invoices to have someone else deal with getting my enterprise clients to pay on time (and getting them to pay interest when they don't). It might not provide much social benefit, but I wish it existed anyway.

Hasn't this been around for ages? "Factoring Accounts Receivable". All the cool kids were doing it in the 80's.

Since at least Roman times.
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