
Ask HN: Post Covid-19 will present many opportunities. What might they be? - andrewstuart
The world, post Covid 19 will look different in many ways.<p>This represents fresh territory and openings for startups, if you can see them early and if you are in a position to act.<p>What might some of those opportunities be?<p>The obvious ones will be all the economic niches left open by businesses that did not survive such as the vast number of retail and restaurants.  I wonder what other opportunities there might be?
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BjoernKW
In general: Fully digital and distributed processes. Both in terms of products
and consulting services.

While it might seem that we already have all the necessary tools and services
at our disposal right now, in my opinion we're not even halfway there yet:

Currently, and to some extent understandably so, the focus is on video
conferencing, somehow re-enacting the way the office used to work (only
remotely), and restoring at least a semblance of normality.

However, in the long run this won't nearly be enough. We need to adapt and
rethink offline processes in order to not just make them work in online,
distributed settings but to actually reap the benefits and efficiency gains
such settings potentially provide.

This will require an entirely new set of tools and processes.

Maybe, something not unlike the "Agile" movement (hopefully without the "Yeah,
we're agile, too. Actually, of course it's same old micromanagement bullshit
but now with a cool, buzzwordy label." twist this time around) but for
business processes in general.

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jlbnjmn
Not commercial real estate. Probably not public transportation. If someone
could get self sanitizing door handles to catch on, that would be great.

ButcherBox style businesses may get a lot of traction.

Local business variant of Shopify+Stripe to put DoorDash, UberEats, ChowNow
and the like out of business. Possibly a co-op ownership model.

Autonomous delivery services will happen faster and be well received.

Thoughts, nothing more.

~~~
lsllc
We've actually been making brass (or more specifically copper based) door
handles for probably centuries; they're naturally anti-microbial:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_copper-
alloy_tou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_copper-
alloy_touch_surfaces)

Might be time for a come-back.

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FlyMoreRockets
"Distributed" will become a new buzzword. Nothing like breaking a fragile JIT
supply chain to drive this point home.

Whole new markets will arise providing middleware to help suppliers, shippers,
warehouses and sellers find each other and ensure degrees of separation.

~~~
buboard
the supplies that are missing cost on the order of billions. countries may
stock them up periodically, but i doubt they 'll redistribute supply chains.
It would take a generational change for people to accept to go back at
manufacturing jobs. People of today aren't even trained for that, they ll keep
seeking knowledge jobs.

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openlowcode
I think that due to the economic crisis coming, companies may be at last
serious about cutting costs. The truth is that when everything is fine, people
is companies often prefer their comfort to taking the risk to change things to
be cheaper.

Enterprise IT is certainly very inefficient at all levels, starting with using
technologies that are incredibly inefficient with hardware (I can understand
you do not program in C / assembly anymore, but man, all those awful scripting
languages...). I could quote also commercial software with licence prices
unrelated to the value delivered.

I hope this may be an opportunity for my open-source lowcode project, that
could replace many commercial software at a very limited build and run costs.

[https://github.com/openlowcode/Open-
Lowcode](https://github.com/openlowcode/Open-Lowcode)

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runawaybottle
A washable, reusable, durable and fashionable face mask. I’d imagine this will
become common place every flu season. The weirdness around it is gone in the
West at this point.

It’s be great if they could make nice scarves with a patch that sort of acts
like an n95. Then it would be same as bundling up with a scarf around your
face in the winter. It would just look like a regular scarf.

~~~
phaus
I hope you're right. Every flu season my wife has to stop getting essential
medical treatment and hide in the house because she's immune compromised and
no one in our culture seems to care if they spread it, including medical
staff.

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gt565k
We'll definitely see a surge in applied robotics and automation when it comes
to food preparation, distribution and the manufacturing of goods.

It's 2020, people getting sick should not prevent supply chains from operating
at peak efficiency, considering how advanced our manufacturing and
distribution capabilities can be.

The technology is there, it just hasn't been implemented at scale.

