Prisons
Retirement for not-so-rich people
Government procurement
Shipping (in developing countries)
Customs (in developing countries)
Utilities prices in Northern countries
Digital democracy (removing corporate influence on elections)
There's actually a lot of "AirBnB for Activities." Our company used to be Skyara (http://www.skyara.com). We ended up pivoting to RAVN (http://ravn.com), which is more of a "Amazon for Activities," per se. I think we were definitely one of the first ones to try to enter the "AirBnB for Activities" space but had a very hard time.
While in theory it sounds like a great concept, the key to realize is that no "AirBnB for Activites" can ever be an "AirBnB for Activities." What I mean by that is: the part of the "AirBnB for X" business model that makes it work is the part where you have a very low marginal cost to renting out an existing resource that, presumably, is getting very low utilization. I.e. a car sitting in a garage, an empty couch. The marginal cost of renting those out... is basically zero. However, with Activities, the resource at play is actually time! A person needs to take two hours out of their day to offer a walking tour, cooking class, etc.
Arguably, time is the most scarce resource we have. People value their time highly, which means the marginal cost (in this case the opportunity cost) of them offering an activity is very high. Add to that the fact that individuals do not benefit from any sort of economy of scale, and that most likely means that they cannot compete with businesses on price (which is arguably where AirBnB is winning in its biggest market, NYC).
So of course, I'm not saying an "AirBnB for Activities" is not possible, but some fundamental problems make it significantly more difficult than one might initially expect. Personally I think Vayable is doing a great job, but time will tell...
Oh also, AirBnB took something that already was happening (sublets on Craigslist) and just rebranded/made it better. Not much "Activities" activity going on on Craigslist. It's mostly for services, like painting, plumbing, car mechanics, etc. So you sometimes question if the demand actually even exists?
Anyway, I could write a loooong post-mortem on Skyara but you get my point.
Often the path to a discovery is not direct. Facebook stumbled upon social search several years after putting up college yearbook profiles online first...
So I like 7, building a database of biology but to tackle that head on would be impractical (financially). That is the end goal that we have at my startup, but we are starting out by helping labs manage their reagent and chemical inventories first. Sounds mundane but the eventual goal is to get to a crowd-sourced global database for biology. Remains to be seen how it pans out.
My point is that such lists of top X ideas can be useful but often the biggest challenge is plotting the trajectory. And often the path is not a straight line.
Yes, these "science" ideas (actually, traditional engineering) really are that hard to fund.
One thing software people always forget is how expensive it is to perform R&D on real, physical things. Software is practically free to produce in comparison - your big campus of 1000 engineers, with free lunch and masseuses, is practically free in comparison to say, the cost of developing a new drug, or introducing a revolutionary new jet engine.
I don't think it's necessarily true that VCs only care about iPhone/Android apps, but they honestly cannot afford to invest in "real" engineering. The risks are just as great, and the stakes are far, far higher, beyond the deep pockets of many angels and VCs.
I don't think you're the only one that's realizing this. I'm seeing more and more posts where people complain that startups aren't solving "real" problems.
Perhaps investors look at FB, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and think that these 4 statistical anomalies are examples to follow, and thus fund companies with similar ideas?
On the other hand, I have a hard time believing that the "real problems" aren't being addressed by anyone.
We are running a biological data warehouse, with a clean API in 4 languages. The problem is that the source data are incredibly messy and you have a lot of "blank" values. People then do not know if data are missing or if there really are no data to begin with. Who does the curation?
Is that because you have lots of variation over different values? I've tried using websites like Bionumbers, but can't tell if it's curated or not, and is basically now useless. How is yours different?
This though: Bitcoin - "Let the IRS/FEDs be involved and stick to the law." You need to file under Things that will never happen. The U.S. will not permit a rogue currency.
I am not being cute here, but the power of any government is their monopoly on violence. That assumes, however, that the government knows whom they are up against.
What if the next generation cryptocurrency was truly anonymous? Then you wouldn't be able to stop it, even if you wanted to.
The disruption to the currency risk also applies to china, india, russia etc. By having information control upfront this could actually be a smart way for the US to dominate global currency.
We spend our lives accumulating valuable knowledge and relationships.
Then we allow our elders to just die and let that knowledge and their relationships die with them.
Why are youngsters forced into teaching jobs, when they have no life experience to novate to kids?
Find a mechanism for achieving a solid transfer of knowledge from the elderly to the young (the caveat being the young need to be taught to reason for themselves and filter out the less useful bits)
For the record: sending kids to school does not equal them being educated or learned.
It's, er, interesting to see Wonga listed as something to emulate. The only context I've heard of them in before is people wishing fiery death upon them for exploiting the desperate.
2. Gamify learning core subjects: specially maths and physics to start.
3. Allow the community to make lessons and have voting systems for quality.
As someone who is itching to start an e-learning startup, what would be some ways to implement this?
For the user-created lessons, maybe have an IDE-like enviroment with a domain-specific "programming language" that enables non-coders to easily create educational modules and upload them. Think SCUMM but for the e-learning domain.
I think this hasn't been done well because it is more difficult than creating something like wikipedia. One of the reasons wpedia works is because you can enforce a non-redundancy policy. There can only be one article on any one topic. In education, however, there are many ways to teach any one concept. So you have to allow people to create different lessons on the same topic, but also create a simple pathway through all these lessons. Khan academy has been successful in this for math, but I think a good part of that is because there is one person clearly running the show, an intensely productive man who spits out several videos a day, for years. Crowdsourcing that work is an interesting challenge.
As a teacher, I'd love to see this done well. But it seems most people who go into these ventures either don't get education, or don't get technology. It seems there is a pretty small group of people in the world who really get both fields. It's also hard to put together a team of people who get both. And finally, the profit motive kills a lot of education endeavors. Education is fundamentally a human right, and profit motives tend to exaggerate the achievement gap. There is plenty of room for new thinking in this area.
As someone who's done a lot of work in e-learning, the biggest problem is making something for subjects that anyone would bother using. It's a lot of energy to go learn physics so who wants to try it in some half-finished, inconsistent, unverified e-course. Programming is easy to teach because it's all conceptual, and the concepts are clearly defined and structured. So you could maybe teach linguistics in this way, but not something like Spanish. Or if you tried to have a collaborative Spanish curriculum it would be a huge effort to collate everything into a logical progression ("they don't know that grammar rule/word yet") so you might as well pay someone to write a consistent one from scratch. Same for physics/math/any open-ended science or humanities class.
Your second big problem is getting anyone to actually contribute a lesson plan in a way that is consistent with the format you're trying to structure things. People aren't going to make one from scratch for you, for free. So you either pay people or accept all manner of half-baked, duplicate lesson plans.
I don't get why Wonga specifically is so respected among VCs. Isn't there tons of these kind of companies around? It's the old good business model of usury.
In Finland we have tens of companies offering short term cash loans based on text messages. I know few of these guys. If well-executed, these companies are money making machines, but they have very little of moat. You can enter this industry easily, if you have enough cash for initial advertising.
I was going to write a serious response to this post, then I looked up Wonga realized how poorly thought out and absurd this list was. In fact, we have several of these loan companies that are publicly traded here in the US. Here are their symbols:
What sucks is that I completely built #1 on his list, tested it, but was afraid to launch due to the combination of PATRIOT changes to the BSA and FinCEN regs.
Long story short: I don't want to start a startup that sends me to jail or regulatory hell if it becomes successful.
If anyone wants to buy coinpur.se, let me know. :)
You already realized why reading DNA in virto [sic] immediately is kind of pointless, because you still can't immediately make it.
Current DNA logic gates can already do sequence recognition as sensors in vivo but also provide flexible signals.
Also, there are already standardized part registries out there, like BioBricks.
And lastly, a YC for biotech wouldn't work because of the time frame, but even more so because of regulations. Anyone can build a device or drug, but it's all proof of concept until you put it in a lab or clinical study.
Oops, also that there are a bunch of academic bioCAD programs. Tinkercell is one that does extensive simulations.
Reading DNA without taking it out of a cell sounds like such an awesome idea. All you need is bunch of proteins to do that. All those proteins are just DNA sequences. possibly even Biobricks. So all that translates to "Just introduce a plasmid into a cell and the necessary woodoo happens inside the cell... which sets off some kind of cascade which can be read out by say a CCD or voltage detector." So the startup is all about just designing DNA sequences for protein. And these days even novices have begun to design proteins. This is just brilliant!!! Instead of 1000$ per genome how about 99 cents?? Of course I have no clue how long it should take to reach there beyond extrapolating on a log graph...
Someone here stated the moore's law for sequencing. Which while true needs disruptive startups for each transition. Fortunately or unfortunately these startups dont work like an intel doing similar drudgery year after year to continue doubling... each major leap happens by a radical switch of strategy. As he states the case of Ion Torrent, each step centers around an awesome breaktrhough. But it also raises the question... Will the cost of computation become a bottleneck for a 99 cent genome. Sequencing and synthesis are a lot more useful than just medical diagnosis. Let us not undermine the value of a 99 cent genome or a 1 cent genome sequencing/synthesis capability.
Are these really ideas for typical startups. The high tech ideas aren't very well suited for startups. More for Universities and big corporation's side projects.
God forbid a technology startup actually have to develop new technology. No, I'm sure another CRUD/mobile app that hooks a bunch of buzzwords up to Facebook and Twitter with metaphorical bungie cords is a much better idea.
A market for IP isn't terrible. But there, volume isn't high enough and transaction costs (ip lawyers in a room talking, are too high) The rest I'm not so sure about.
A few are a ways out and even then are hard sells (even w/ holodecks, how would you sell them? Home, arcades? Who's the market and how much money do they have? Hardly a slam dunk) I'm thinking the 3do times 100 for holodeck development/productization.
Yardsale isn't bad, but Craigslist is pretty close as is (my gf goes crazy when she sees yard sale signs (instant, location based discovery) but she checks craigslist too.
A bunch--I'm not sure what they mean. Even the education one is much harder than it might seem, at least as a business. Im really rooting for codecademy and the like, but they've got a tough road as its hard to get most people interested in educating themselves, and even moreso to get them to pay.
How about starting with a market with money and a problem and working backwards?
I think it's a good list of ideas which sadly will not appeal to most entrepreneurs. You may disagree, but I personally think that founders tend to run away from scientific research and for good reasons. It's very hard to find funding if the service you want to provide doesn't revolve around the generic list of facebook/twitter mashups, mobile apps and SAAS services which solve nonexistent problems. Think about it, you can spend 2 months building a typical CRUD app, make money the first week and keep your investors happy. Or spend years looking for the bright minds who share the same enthusiasm and belief in your scientific research and them (maybe) find enough money to build the final product. This is probably the reason why these things are worked out in university labs, not startup incubators.
Man, if anything this article proved to me that I should always be absolutely terrified of pressure testing half-baked ideas on HN. And if I have the balls to do so, at least make sure my blog works.
There are several Health focused YC-clones: Rockhealth, Healthbox, Blueprint, etc.
Also it's not clear what "Etsy for IP" means, there are already stock photo libraries, sites for selling code snippets, sites for selling brandnames, etc. Is there a particular type of IP you're thinking about?
Health focused YC clones are out there, there are no bio tech focused ones though.
On the Etsy for IP. I never felt much of a community with stock photo websites. I suppose this site would pull together all forms of IP under the platform.
In general, I think in the startup space, even subtle variation on the idea and positioning (given great execution) can lead to a winning startup.
[+] [-] potatolicious|14 years ago|reply
This seems more like 25 Startup Ideas for 2042.
[+] [-] yurylifshits|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenou|14 years ago|reply
While in theory it sounds like a great concept, the key to realize is that no "AirBnB for Activites" can ever be an "AirBnB for Activities." What I mean by that is: the part of the "AirBnB for X" business model that makes it work is the part where you have a very low marginal cost to renting out an existing resource that, presumably, is getting very low utilization. I.e. a car sitting in a garage, an empty couch. The marginal cost of renting those out... is basically zero. However, with Activities, the resource at play is actually time! A person needs to take two hours out of their day to offer a walking tour, cooking class, etc.
Arguably, time is the most scarce resource we have. People value their time highly, which means the marginal cost (in this case the opportunity cost) of them offering an activity is very high. Add to that the fact that individuals do not benefit from any sort of economy of scale, and that most likely means that they cannot compete with businesses on price (which is arguably where AirBnB is winning in its biggest market, NYC).
So of course, I'm not saying an "AirBnB for Activities" is not possible, but some fundamental problems make it significantly more difficult than one might initially expect. Personally I think Vayable is doing a great job, but time will tell...
Oh also, AirBnB took something that already was happening (sublets on Craigslist) and just rebranded/made it better. Not much "Activities" activity going on on Craigslist. It's mostly for services, like painting, plumbing, car mechanics, etc. So you sometimes question if the demand actually even exists?
Anyway, I could write a loooong post-mortem on Skyara but you get my point.
[+] [-] daveambrose|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jayzee|14 years ago|reply
So I like 7, building a database of biology but to tackle that head on would be impractical (financially). That is the end goal that we have at my startup, but we are starting out by helping labs manage their reagent and chemical inventories first. Sounds mundane but the eventual goal is to get to a crowd-sourced global database for biology. Remains to be seen how it pans out.
My point is that such lists of top X ideas can be useful but often the biggest challenge is plotting the trajectory. And often the path is not a straight line.
[+] [-] mitakas|14 years ago|reply
We have some very real problems in this world, but all you seem to care are iPhone/Android apps and stupid websites (copied from one another I guess).
[+] [-] potatolicious|14 years ago|reply
One thing software people always forget is how expensive it is to perform R&D on real, physical things. Software is practically free to produce in comparison - your big campus of 1000 engineers, with free lunch and masseuses, is practically free in comparison to say, the cost of developing a new drug, or introducing a revolutionary new jet engine.
I don't think it's necessarily true that VCs only care about iPhone/Android apps, but they honestly cannot afford to invest in "real" engineering. The risks are just as great, and the stakes are far, far higher, beyond the deep pockets of many angels and VCs.
[+] [-] pilgrim689|14 years ago|reply
Perhaps investors look at FB, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and think that these 4 statistical anomalies are examples to follow, and thus fund companies with similar ideas?
On the other hand, I have a hard time believing that the "real problems" aren't being addressed by anyone.
[+] [-] agilebyte|14 years ago|reply
We are running a biological data warehouse, with a clean API in 4 languages. The problem is that the source data are incredibly messy and you have a lot of "blank" values. People then do not know if data are missing or if there really are no data to begin with. Who does the curation?
[+] [-] irollboozers|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frisco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhancock|14 years ago|reply
This though: Bitcoin - "Let the IRS/FEDs be involved and stick to the law." You need to file under Things that will never happen. The U.S. will not permit a rogue currency.
[+] [-] tomjen3|14 years ago|reply
I am not being cute here, but the power of any government is their monopoly on violence. That assumes, however, that the government knows whom they are up against.
What if the next generation cryptocurrency was truly anonymous? Then you wouldn't be able to stop it, even if you wanted to.
[+] [-] frisco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] judegomila|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freyfogle|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayhano|14 years ago|reply
We spend our lives accumulating valuable knowledge and relationships. Then we allow our elders to just die and let that knowledge and their relationships die with them. Why are youngsters forced into teaching jobs, when they have no life experience to novate to kids?
Find a mechanism for achieving a solid transfer of knowledge from the elderly to the young (the caveat being the young need to be taught to reason for themselves and filter out the less useful bits)
For the record: sending kids to school does not equal them being educated or learned.
[+] [-] code_pockets|14 years ago|reply
Though you may have not thought of something: wisdom (which is what you seem to be referring to) works something like this:
wisdom = knowledge(experience(actions(decisions * time) * time) * time) * time //why do I always end up writing lisp?
We spend our whole lives developing our wisdom, but we also spend our whole lives learning how to acquire it, and how to understand it.
How do we transfer something that strictly depends on time and discipline (when time is undefined for all, and discipline is lacking)?
[+] [-] Joeboy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freyfogle|14 years ago|reply
BTW - people are working on this in the US, though it moves more slowly due to state by state regulations
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/former-google-cio-raises-73...
[+] [-] judegomila|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itmag|14 years ago|reply
As someone who is itching to start an e-learning startup, what would be some ways to implement this?
For the user-created lessons, maybe have an IDE-like enviroment with a domain-specific "programming language" that enables non-coders to easily create educational modules and upload them. Think SCUMM but for the e-learning domain.
Thoughts, anyone?
[+] [-] japhyr|14 years ago|reply
As a teacher, I'd love to see this done well. But it seems most people who go into these ventures either don't get education, or don't get technology. It seems there is a pretty small group of people in the world who really get both fields. It's also hard to put together a team of people who get both. And finally, the profit motive kills a lot of education endeavors. Education is fundamentally a human right, and profit motives tend to exaggerate the achievement gap. There is plenty of room for new thinking in this area.
[+] [-] lubujackson|14 years ago|reply
Your second big problem is getting anyone to actually contribute a lesson plan in a way that is consistent with the format you're trying to structure things. People aren't going to make one from scratch for you, for free. So you either pay people or accept all manner of half-baked, duplicate lesson plans.
[+] [-] jfarmer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allisonmobley|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tezza|14 years ago|reply
They have presences in USA, but have exploded in the UK because the Usury laws are less restrictive.
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-are-payday-loa... And that evenings Channel 4 news piece where the industry spokesman talks about it.
[+] [-] dirtyaura|14 years ago|reply
In Finland we have tens of companies offering short term cash loans based on text messages. I know few of these guys. If well-executed, these companies are money making machines, but they have very little of moat. You can enter this industry easily, if you have enough cash for initial advertising.
[+] [-] 18pfsmt|14 years ago|reply
CSH EZPW FCFS AEA DLLR WRLD
[+] [-] justincormack|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jvdmeij|14 years ago|reply
See http://www.gidsy.com
[+] [-] dwynings|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tbod|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rebelidealist|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sneak|14 years ago|reply
Long story short: I don't want to start a startup that sends me to jail or regulatory hell if it becomes successful.
If anyone wants to buy coinpur.se, let me know. :)
[+] [-] judegomila|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] highace|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] irollboozers|14 years ago|reply
Current DNA logic gates can already do sequence recognition as sensors in vivo but also provide flexible signals.
Also, there are already standardized part registries out there, like BioBricks.
And lastly, a YC for biotech wouldn't work because of the time frame, but even more so because of regulations. Anyone can build a device or drug, but it's all proof of concept until you put it in a lab or clinical study.
Oops, also that there are a bunch of academic bioCAD programs. Tinkercell is one that does extensive simulations.
Boom. Roasted.
[+] [-] SudarshanP|14 years ago|reply
Someone here stated the moore's law for sequencing. Which while true needs disruptive startups for each transition. Fortunately or unfortunately these startups dont work like an intel doing similar drudgery year after year to continue doubling... each major leap happens by a radical switch of strategy. As he states the case of Ion Torrent, each step centers around an awesome breaktrhough. But it also raises the question... Will the cost of computation become a bottleneck for a 99 cent genome. Sequencing and synthesis are a lot more useful than just medical diagnosis. Let us not undermine the value of a 99 cent genome or a 1 cent genome sequencing/synthesis capability.
[+] [-] macco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dave_sullivan|14 years ago|reply
A few are a ways out and even then are hard sells (even w/ holodecks, how would you sell them? Home, arcades? Who's the market and how much money do they have? Hardly a slam dunk) I'm thinking the 3do times 100 for holodeck development/productization.
Yardsale isn't bad, but Craigslist is pretty close as is (my gf goes crazy when she sees yard sale signs (instant, location based discovery) but she checks craigslist too.
A bunch--I'm not sure what they mean. Even the education one is much harder than it might seem, at least as a business. Im really rooting for codecademy and the like, but they've got a tough road as its hard to get most people interested in educating themselves, and even moreso to get them to pay.
How about starting with a market with money and a problem and working backwards?
[+] [-] sakopov|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justincormack|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] irollboozers|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] getsat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ig1|14 years ago|reply
There are several Health focused YC-clones: Rockhealth, Healthbox, Blueprint, etc.
Also it's not clear what "Etsy for IP" means, there are already stock photo libraries, sites for selling code snippets, sites for selling brandnames, etc. Is there a particular type of IP you're thinking about?
[+] [-] judegomila|14 years ago|reply
Health focused YC clones are out there, there are no bio tech focused ones though.
On the Etsy for IP. I never felt much of a community with stock photo websites. I suppose this site would pull together all forms of IP under the platform.
In general, I think in the startup space, even subtle variation on the idea and positioning (given great execution) can lead to a winning startup.