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Startup Ideas

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Startup Ideas

#321

Post by dboreham »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #261
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.

Pardon my asking, but this piqued my interest. Assuming that you get paid 90%, why do you care whether your client also pays interest - presumably to the collector?

It something seems too good to be true...

Re: Startup Ideas

#322

Post by dboreham »

regularfry wrote: post #79

`Accounts Receivables as a Service` Does invoice factoring not exist in the US? It's a fairly run of the mill concept in the UK, and it's nothing like debt collection.

Um...it is everything like debt collection because it is...debt collection.

Re: Startup Ideas

#323

Post by chiefalchemist »

arkades wrote: post #302
chiefalchemist wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished (the book) Everybody Lies. It seems to me using the doppelganger approach (as mentioned in the book) would at least be helpful. A couple months ago I spent a good number of hours over a couple week at local hospital waiting for a close friend's mum to recover from a stroke. I could be mistaken but the only "data analysis" I noticed was taking place in the heads of the doctors and nurses. The same goes…

That is correct: the analysis of large data sets is opaque to patients, and application of the evidence base to specific patients happens in the heads of physicians. Patients are not part of the decision making process, and therefore not privy to the analysis, unless there is a decision to be made that requires their input (eg, two reasonable roads forward that depend on their preferences, or on their risk-tolerance.…

Yes. But at no point did I sense the options being offered were based on doppelganger type of data. Or even (the doctor saying) "here's the data...here's our interpretation...here are the recommendations and pros and cons..."

Nothing like that. No continuity between docs or floors/wards. Just everyone kinda making it up as they go.

It just struck me as another reason why outcomes aren't optimized, and costs, relatively, inflating.

I'm not suggesting doctors are replaceable. But the doppelganger approach to (big) data seems to be ideal.

Re: Startup Ideas

#324

Post by vasilipupkin »

arkades wrote: post #251
mynegation wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the way of consuming that data. I agree it may be counter-productive to feed more data to humans, who are able to hold on only to 7-9 object in immediate memory at a time, and driven by subconscious reflexes hardwired into us by billions of evolution. AI is not going to "think" like humans. It is not going to be better or worse, just "different". And all experience so far show that the more data the better…

Cart, horse. People are proposing smart whatever now, and handeaving its value proposition as -eventually- feeding into ML which will -eventually- have benefits to patients. I don’t think there is disagreement that data + ML is useful, but the value for increasing data because of AI assistance isn’t meaningful in the absence of that AI. Hospitals and insurers have huge data sets available: build a halfway decent AI f…

Those data sets are not public, hipaa and other issues make it difficult to build any sort of AI for this.

Re: Startup Ideas

#325

Post by 1024core »

ahussain wrote: post #313
canes123456 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 themse…

> but if you don't judge ideas on this metric then you risk becoming irrelevant to the vast majority of people,

Not really. What "pressing problem" was Zuck addressing? Or Dorsey? Taxis have existed for a century, and still Uber sprang up.

Sometimes it's equally valuable to create something that people can't live without, even though the need may not exist at the time

Re: Startup Ideas

#326

Post by arkades »

outworlder wrote: post #311
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…

There’s a legal context here. Once the data is available, physicians are obligated to chasenit down even if they think it’s unimportsnt. Ignoring data loses malpractice suits; unnecessary and ultimately harmful diagnostics prompted by data does not.

Re: Startup Ideas

#327

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Startup Ideas

#328

Post by panamaniac »

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…

(Disclosure: I’m the co-founder & CEO of Tesorio, YC S15)

Awesome discussion. Agreed that this is very tough to just outsource, paying you for your services is the final step in the customer experience. CFOs and even sales or customer success teams want to treat customers very carefully in a personalized way.

Sending out automated reminder emails is called ‘dunning’ and most accounting tools will do this for you automatically. But as people mentioned, if you can’t really exert pressure, how do you get someone to pay? It’s similar to sending spammy sales emails vs. personalized messages that will get someone’s attention. Also, most big companies will just ignore your late fees.

We’ve found that the best teams at this manage their relationships and they know every last detail about the person who actually cuts the check at their client. We’re actually currently tackling collections from another perspective - we basically built a product that combines the best parts of sales CRM and customer engagement tools.

The way to get the CFOs to buy though is to help them with their cash forecasts. A good collections tool is an A/B testing machine that lets you capture information from the folks doing the collections so the CFO’s team can create more accurate forecasts.

Our website showcases our active products (Forecasting, Forex, & Analytics), but we’re currently in Beta with the Collections tool. Would love to show it to you and get your feedback. My email: carlos[at]tesorio.com

Re: Startup Ideas

#329

Post by vasilipupkin »

mark242 wrote: post #34

> 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…

Musical.ly

Re: Startup Ideas

#330

Post by arkades »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #324
arkades wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cart, horse. People are proposing smart whatever now, and handeaving its value proposition as -eventually- feeding into ML which will -eventually- have benefits to patients. I don’t think there is disagreement that data + ML is useful, but the value for increasing data because of AI assistance isn’t meaningful in the absence of that AI. Hospitals and insurers have huge data sets available: build a halfway decent AI f…

Those data sets are not public, hipaa and other issues make it difficult to build any sort of AI for this.

That is technically correct, the best kind of correct!

Except any department in any hospital or insurer that welcomes you to do research can make that de-identified data available to you with a simple contract.

How do you think college freshmen get in the door to work on research with physicians?

No, it’s not public, but it’s trivially accessible.

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