Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Startup Ideas

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 470 posts

Re: Startup Ideas

#451

Post by GordonS »

ballenf wrote: post #134
dpeck wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baby Bidet is interesting, and anyone who has changed a diaper is probably brainstorming as they read this. I could see it being something at mounts over the top of a toilet and the baby is covered around their waist with something like a kayak skirt. You'd need a foolproof way to do temperature control, either requiring: - a hot water line, usually not far from toilet but requires plumbing which is out for most peop…

As a parent of several kids, diaper changing really seems like a solved problem. With a little practice it takes literally seconds for a wet diaper and a couple minutes for poo. The most time consuming part of it all is the clothing unsnapping, re-snapping with winter clothing on. Finally, the hardest part about the washing is getting the baby dry after to prevent rashes, not getting them clean. A couple flushable, b…

I agree. Before I had kids I thought changing dirty nappies would be horrible, but in reality it's just not a big deal.

The idea of holding a squirming, dirty baby, over a sink (no doubt while they decide they need to pee again) is just ludicrous - this can only have been conceived by someone without kids.

Re: Startup Ideas

#452

Post by GordonS »

sjg007 wrote: post #377
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, most of the turds go into the diaper, only what you can't wipe into the diaper goes down the drain. Its a really good way to avoid diaper rash, at any rate.

Diaper rash is largely due to not changing diapers frequently enough and not just cleaning after soiling. It's just excessive moisture / chafing The best way to cure diaper rash is to expose the bottom to the air for a long period of time.

The worst thing for nappy rash is the precense of both excrement and urine at the same time, as ammonia is created.

Re: Startup Ideas

#453

Post by GordonS »

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.

Nope - buyers just ignore these.

Re: Startup Ideas

#454

Post by arkades »

obastani wrote: post #446
arkades wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not. We use properly conducted clinical science to give us a framework for interpreting the data we see, comparing data we have to studies with appropriate external validity to allow that comparison. And no, there isn’t, if an RCT is at all feasible. There was a great paper a few years back that reviewed various case-control studies for conditions that were ultimately explored using RCTs (eg, knee arthroscop…

This sounds like a really interesting paper -- do you happen to have a link to the reference?

I’m not ignoring your request; in trying to dig up the paper, I came across a couple papers with data claiming to show the opposite. I’m trying to digest it all before returning to this topic, so I can give a more useful response. And I haven’t found that paper yet.

Re: Startup Ideas

#457

Post by sdrothrock »

GordonS wrote: post #450
sdrothrock wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not babies, a lot of parents have problems communicating with pre-verbal and basically non-verbal infants... but it's also been found that infants can actually learn and effectively use signs (not to be confused with ASL or a distinct sign language) to communicate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_sign_language

We did this with both our kids. Our youngest, who is only 8 months old, can already sign in makaton for 'more', 'milk' and 'finished' - and we only started teaching him a few weeks ago! It really is incredible what they are capable of at such a young age. Other parents tell me all the time about how their kids are getting frustrated because the can't communicate verbally - I really don't know why signing for babies i…

How do the other parents react when you tell them about signing? I wonder if it's related to a perception of signing as "for handicapped people" or something, or a worry about it replacing speech.

Re: Startup Ideas

#458

Post by simooooo »

ukulele wrote: post #81

> AI for communicating with dogs This is borderline satire. You don't need some crazy new idea to do a startup. You need to execute well on something people want, and if you're out looking for ideas, your best bet is probably to enter an existing market and cater to a subset of it better than others are doing.

Pretty much anything with AI mentioned in the first line is an eye-roller. Then the dogs part... wtf

Re: Startup Ideas

#459

Post by slededit »

b0rsuk wrote: post #402
kordlessagain wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social networks are deliberately designed to be addictive Social networks are addictive because if they aren't, they fail and cease to be adopted at scale. Somehow we seem to be OK with this happening to ourselves. It is only when it happens to our innocent children that we start to revolt.

Because children are extra gullible. Children will happily sing a catchy tune from a non-interactive, non-personalized TV or radio commercial, even repeating marketing slogans they don't understand. You can win a kid's trust by giving him a candy. Have you ever seen a kid that has to be dragged away from a shop display, kicking, screaming and crying ? Commercial social media are refined to the equivalent of advertise…

> I think parents themselves are not adult enough to deal with Facebook and avoid being manipulated or cheated. I think the world hasn't caught up with addictiveness of social media yet.

I hear this criticism a lot and to me it strikes a similar tone as the 1972 documentary Future Shock. Effectively that the pace of change is too rapid and humans cannot adjust. Its a compelling argument on its face, but its been falsified over much of history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkUwXenBokU

Re: Startup Ideas

#460

Post by GordonS »

zapperdapper wrote: post #417

Oh dear, the secret of Y-Combinator's success is finally revealed - blind luck! ;) Real ideas start with real problems. Just off the top of my head... 1) Have you ever tried to debug an HPC program running on 700,000 cores? You are probably using a patched version of GDB and it's darn painful! 2) Why are we still using a 1970s designed programming language in embedded systems that almost guarantees baked in bugs arou…

> what comes out in the first few weeks after birth can only be described as "alien toxic goo"

I think it's called something like 'meconium'. It's so sticky that I don't think you could wash it off without relatively high pressure. I would also not exactly be keen on having bits of this tar-like substance sprayed over my walls!

It barely has any smell, and it's only there for a couple of weeks - it really wasn't a big deal for me at least.

Post reply on HN