My concept really wants to be a non-profit to avoid probable corruption in the name of making money. But it solves a significant real-world problem of global scale. Thoughts on something like that?
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Startups I Want to Fund
81–90 of 167 posts
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#82I like much of this list - doesn't strike me as first world problems at all (I am not from the first world).
Having spent the last two years building a climate action platform I have lots of climate change problems with startup worthy solutions, but the item that really struck me was the online zoo. As an animal lover, the very idea of zoos - even the most enlightened ones - is problematic. Instead, why not let the mountain go to Mohammed?
Who wouldn't want to be a blue whale for a day. Or an eagle? Or a tiger? What might it be like to be an Octopus?
These are questions I have researched as a scientist, but in order to truly revolutionize the science, we need data. Lots of data and the best way to collect that data would be to create interfaces that allow people to see/smell/hear the world from the animal's perspective. It's like anthropology but with other species.
That's where the digital is actually better than the physical - while I can go to a regular zoo to see a tiger pace up and down, I can't actually be the tiger.
I bet people would be willing to pay money to be a tiger for a day. And you don't want that tiger to be in a zoo when you're the tiger. Much better if it was out there in the jungle where it was meant to be.
We need an unzoo.
Seems outrageous, but it's the one project I can see in this list advancing the frontiers of knowledge, saving other species and creating a business.
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#83Some ideas: 1. Social Silo-busters: Couple the evils of the garden walled social network approach with posts on how hard is it to make friends later in life, add a pinch of all that useless time spent in the car commuting (scraping the bottom of Spotify or Audible) and you arrive at: ad hoc voice-based social networks based on proximity, e.g. through limited range (100m) FM transmitters (one cheap way would be to use…
The buzzer for restaurants, why can't it have a screen to display menu, or let your preorder?
Burguerlich in Hamburg has screens embedded in the tables (which come up and down) from which you can order, seems close enough: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187331-d73509...
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a rich white guy, so if I work on this, what kind of problem is it then?
If you fund someone who works on internet over satellites project you are working on the rich white guy problem -- the rest do not care if internet comes via satellites -- they just want internet. But digging trenches and laying fiber is not sexy enough for a rich white guy -- at least definitely not as sexy as say "I have a constellation of 800 satellites that deliver Internet!"
Good luck digging trenches to connect all 17 000 islands in Indonesia to the Internet.
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#85For federated databases, one of my favorite project I've come across recently is: https://datproject.org/
It's a distributed database that uses similar algorithms from git and BitTorrent to support syncing across multiple nodes.
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#86Once upon a time I was working on a network of TOR routers. The idea was that I could go to a coffee shop and filter their wi-fi through my personal TOR router for enhanced security. Taken to the next level, you could link many of these together for a mesh network of sorts. The problem I encountered was explaining the concept to laypeople. This can be an issue in the "capital-heavy" and "sleeper" markets.
What's the difference from how Tor already operates?
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#87This strikes me as an incredibly boring and typical list. And the core of why is summed up nicely by the author himself, "My favorite pitches solve a problem I'm already concerned about." We have already solved most of the rich-white-guy problems. I am sure he is well-intentioned and strives to understand as much of the world as possible, but if you want to invest in capital-intensive, asset-rich startups with proble…
(author here) If your take here is that I'm interested in "rich-white-guy" problems, I'd encourage you to re-read the list from the perspective of emerging and frontier markets. Most of what I have listed there is actually more important in those places than it is in Silicon Valley. For example -- receiver-centric package delivery is a far bigger deal in places that don't have addresses than it is in the US (and bill…
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Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#88I love lists like this for getting the creative gears turning. Paul Graham's old blog post is another example, if a dated one: http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#89I haven't been able to find a lot of information on him, does anyone have any good links to background info? This is going to sound both arch and snarky, and I apologize in advance for that, but I have a point to make and I think it's topical. I'll stay civil. Has he purchased a beachfront property and then denied his neighbors their accustomed access? Has he used any of my childhood heroes as a legal blind to secret…
I lived with Andrew in a shared apartment for several years. He is one of the kindest people I've ever known, as well as a little quirky in an old-school Silicon Valley sort of way. He grew up in Minnesota, is really into gymnastics, and is one of the hardest-working people I've known.
Thanks!
Re: Startups I Want to Fund
#90This strikes me as an incredibly boring and typical list. And the core of why is summed up nicely by the author himself, "My favorite pitches solve a problem I'm already concerned about." We have already solved most of the rich-white-guy problems. I am sure he is well-intentioned and strives to understand as much of the world as possible, but if you want to invest in capital-intensive, asset-rich startups with proble…
(author here) If your take here is that I'm interested in "rich-white-guy" problems, I'd encourage you to re-read the list from the perspective of emerging and frontier markets. Most of what I have listed there is actually more important in those places than it is in Silicon Valley. For example -- receiver-centric package delivery is a far bigger deal in places that don't have addresses than it is in the US (and bill…
Receiver-centric package delivery is a great idea for location privacy and for people who are constantly moving. It's funny to imagine a package chasing a person all over, never quite catching up with them.
You also listed title insurance. That is a government problem, not a start-up problem. It has been fixed for many properties in Australia. There, the government's idea of property ownership is correct. Our trouble in the USA is that for purposes of legal ownership, the government doesn't even have that info. All the government has is a list of property tax payers and a sales transaction log, neither of which is legal evidence of ownership. (sales transactions do not provide this because you can't legitimately sell something you don't own, but that doesn't stop you from making a sales transaction) The solution here is to make government records definitive.
You mentioned air conditioning. If you'd like an efficiency gain, the Sandia Cooler may be what you are looking for:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/sandia-cooler-blows-traditio...