231–240 of 582 posts
One interesting thing about this is that this what investors want you to make for them to invest in, not necessarily what you want to make. Investors are very happy with moonshots (1% chance of you succeeding, but 10,000x return if you do). But I don't think any rational founder should be. Not all of these are moonshots, but some of them are (e.g. securing defense contracts seems lower risk). Also I imagine getting t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or 3. Target a small slice of ERP/CRM tooling and gradually evolve into something more fully-featured.
The problem is ERP needs to be incredibly tightly integrated into the whole business from end-to-end. You can't only offer raw materials tracking, but not accounting and shipping. There's just not a lot of value to the business unless you have everything coupled. The MVP for an ERP is essentially, a fully featured and battle-tested system which is very expensive and time consuming to build before it's profitable.
So you target firms that are not yet at the scale where they likely have or need ERP with something that does something they do need that would be integrated into an ERP when they get to that scale and build out from there.
No one is buying an ERP from a firm that doesn't either already have a deep relationship with the buyer or a track record in the ERP space or a track record in an ERP-adjacent space, and more than one of those is desirable, so be in the position that when you start trying to sell an ERP you have at least the last plus a stable of firms for which you also have the first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or 3. Target a small slice of ERP/CRM tooling and gradually evolve into something more fully-featured.
The problem is ERP needs to be incredibly tightly integrated into the whole business from end-to-end. You can't only offer raw materials tracking, but not accounting and shipping. There's just not a lot of value to the business unless you have everything coupled. The MVP for an ERP is essentially, a fully featured and battle-tested system which is very expensive and time consuming to build before it's profitable.
Most of those take a lot more time and money than YC usually offers. There are some opportunities in "New Defense Technology". Something like a low-cost replacement for the Javelin anti-tank missile based on off the shelf phone camera parts ought to be possible. Of course, once that's out there, every insurgent group will have some. "Explainable AI" is really important. "Stablecoin finance" is mostly how to make sure…
I hate crypto, but I love this idea. We should apply this to a lot of systems.
Make stakeholders of anything accountable. 100% skin in the game.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even more to the point: what does crypto add in this scenario? Would the company be just as effective doing all that regulatory work, then handling settlement in local currency? (Or just using USD as the “stablecoin”?) The best business ideas I’ve heard for crypto inevitably don’t need crypto.
Countries want US dollars. They want dollars to use to buy goods, which are usually priced in USD, and for debt interest payments. Countries sell services (tourism) and goods (products and commodities) to earn dollars. However another major source is by creating their own local currency (i.e. Brazilian Reals), inflating it (5 to 10% common in Brazil), and banning citizens from holding foreign currency (i.e. citizens…
Most of those take a lot more time and money than YC usually offers. There are some opportunities in "New Defense Technology". Something like a low-cost replacement for the Javelin anti-tank missile based on off the shelf phone camera parts ought to be possible. Of course, once that's out there, every insurgent group will have some. "Explainable AI" is really important. "Stablecoin finance" is mostly how to make sure…
Definitely possible, this one is mostly US-built: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/
Most of those take a lot more time and money than YC usually offers. There are some opportunities in "New Defense Technology". Something like a low-cost replacement for the Javelin anti-tank missile based on off the shelf phone camera parts ought to be possible. Of course, once that's out there, every insurgent group will have some. "Explainable AI" is really important. "Stablecoin finance" is mostly how to make sure…
Eliminating middlemen in healthcare In the spirit of Jeff Bezos’ “your margin is my opportunity”, we believe it’s possible to build a highly profitable business and make the system more efficient at the same time. Didn't Amazon try this and is now shutting down part of its healthcare (pill selling) play?
Health Care is one field where nobody can seriously compete with state or state navked players, aka public health care or single payer. Especially not VC backed start-ups...
Most of those take a lot more time and money than YC usually offers. There are some opportunities in "New Defense Technology". Something like a low-cost replacement for the Javelin anti-tank missile based on off the shelf phone camera parts ought to be possible. Of course, once that's out there, every insurgent group will have some. "Explainable AI" is really important. "Stablecoin finance" is mostly how to make sure…
I think we should start more basic and work our way up. For example, there isn't a real reason we can't produce all of our domestic iron and steel needs in the USA, but we end up importing a lot right now. Same with aluminum, etc. But this isn't something YC is really going to help with unless they are funding manufacturing and industrial tech that makes it easier/cheaper to set-up and run these types of facilities.
Most of those take a lot more time and money than YC usually offers. There are some opportunities in "New Defense Technology". Something like a low-cost replacement for the Javelin anti-tank missile based on off the shelf phone camera parts ought to be possible. Of course, once that's out there, every insurgent group will have some. "Explainable AI" is really important. "Stablecoin finance" is mostly how to make sure…