

Ask HN: What startups and startup ideas ACTUALLY make a difference in the world? - antjanus

Inspired by the recent noise about the application &quot;Yo&quot; and also the show Silicon Valley with its memorable quotes such as &quot;Hooli ... is making the world a better place through minimal message-oriented transport layers&quot;, I wanted to know:<p>Beyond all these superficial applications, these 1st-world-problem-solving startups, what startups actually make a positive difference in the world? Not as a side-effect or afterthought.<p>I&#x27;d also like to hear some startup ideas for real world problem-solving. What issues do we face that need solving that a lone developer (or a small team of developers) can solve? How?
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illini123
You are not alone in your sentiments. I have a theory on this, which is
somewhat based on a comment Aaron Levie made about how young entrepreneurs
don't want to go after enterprise and focus on consumer-only. I believe that
some of the reasons we are seeing the prevalence of "Yo" and all of its ugly
siblings include:

1) Computer science as a discipline teaches us about how to write and optimize
elegant code, not necessarily apply it; my experience (although I didn't
formally study CS) has always been that the schooling does a great job
teaching theory and some practice, but tends to lag when it comes to applying
it to "grand challenges." "Bootcamps" tend to go for small-scale consumer-
oriented stuff, because you can't teach how to solve grand challenges in 9-16
weeks. It just won't happen.

2) Young adults have little working experience in specific industries for long
enough to really be able to identify industry "pain points." Aaron Levie and
others have argued this is why so many gravitate towards companies like "Yo"
or Snapchat as opposed to addressing real-world problems.

3) Sales cycle. I've been a part of a health-tech startup before. The sales
cycle is stressful. You spend months with one potential customer and might get
nowhere. In consumer, it's a shotgun approach and you just go for as many in
your target market as you can. You take no prisoners. When going after grand
challenges, the amount of patience required generally doesn't seem to satisfy
many investors who look at your burn rate (or the relative success of SnapChat
over 18 months) and use those as their metrics.

4) Direct touch to consumer. This is the most "out there" of my points, but
I'd argue that consumer-facing companies garner traction sooner because they
also can appeal to the masses. The average person has heard of SnapChat. Can
you say the same about Palantir (despite a successful track record)? How about
Climate Corporation, which did data analytics for agriculture and sold for $1
billion to Monsanto)? These companies target enterprise. They don't have CEOs
that are revered like Steve Jobs for inventing products that are "nice to
have," not "need to have."

Tom Siebel from Siebel Systems came and spoke several years ago at my school
(I went to the University of Illinois, where he was an alum). He talked about
why he doesn't invest anymore in tech for the sake of technology. Instead, he
postulates that the industry can and should be going after grand challenges in
healthcare, water, energy, and food, arguably the most critical problems of
the 21st century.

I've been working as the "business-oriented guy" on a startup concept for the
last several months in data analytics for healthcare. I've found a niche
within a healthcare subset that is lacking, and the competition is nascent at
best. I was fortunate enough to spend a great deal of my time in health-tech
during college and grad school, so I was able to actually go in and talk with
industry leaders and get a grasp on how "bad" things were. I just finished
venting about some similar frustrations on HN from the standpoint of expanding
our team. If you're looking for a concept and business model that has 1) been
vetted by prospective customers, and 2) actually addresses a _real_ need in
healthcare and isn't just an app, let me know. I'd love to talk more about it.
I'm trying to find people to join me that want to do more for society than
build disappearing messages.

~~~
antjanus
Perfect write-up. My sentiments exactly. And thanks for expanding on the "how
this happens".

I transitioned quickly from the startup-culture to enterprise and find it a
better fit, but let's talk about what you're writing:

1\. I think that the customer-facing stuff is what draws the crowds in, but
outside of that, a lot of people just don't give "bigger stuff" a thought.
They're not put in front of a problem, hell, most people don't even know what
the "problem" is. Including me. Even if I wanted to help, I don't know where
to start and how I could create a one-man operation to somehow contribute. I
haven't seen, to my knowledge, any open source projects that dealt with
"making a change" as opposed to creating a nice set of icons.

2\. Identification is definitely an issue, as I've said. We just don't know
what the problems are. As a young person (hopefully still classified as that),
I see the problems right in front of me, the 1st-world problems of having
trouble finding friends, not knowing how to get into specific hobbies, having
trouble remembering my grocery list, budgeting, sending anon hot pics to some
stranger etc. Basically stuff that's been solved, and reinvented (though not
perfectly) by hundreds of companies. Having been in programming for the past 3
years, I see SOME problems worth solving, but I'm not sure how to approach
them.

3\. The thing about "meaningful" work is that, there must be a way to do it
open source, have people take part in it, contribute and get together on it,
and even do it quickly. Not just in the big leagues: healthcare, water etc. No
single person can get in on that, and companies that are in it are in it for
the long haul. As a developer, i wouldn't want to touch that. It's years of
work with potentially no results. Customer-facing stuff can take off right
away. My wish is to find a sweet spot.

4\. Good point. No idea what those companies are whatsoever. I'd love to read
about more companies like that though.

As far as healthcare. I feel like that's a ticking time bomb. There are too
many regulations to just jump in, too many slowly moving entities, and too
many companies with a high stake in the game to oust you. In the tech field
(the tech for the sake of tech), people use each other's ideas and evolve
quickly to keep up and better themselves, no matter who they are and without
ego (somewhat).

All in all, I wish the problems could be laid out, and people could work on
it. I work with education stuff in my day job, and I see the issues, and as
part of my job we try to solve the problems. Which is wonderful but it's
difficult to identify the problems even if you work with them every day. It's
easy to say "shit's broken", it's more difficult to say "here's where it's
broken" and even worse to say, "find me a solution, and it'll be fixed".

~~~
illini123
Interesting perspectives.

To touch on your 3rd point, that is the inherent problem in these industries:
the companies are in it for the long-haul. Do they wind up innovating? No.
Epic Systems in healthcare is a fabulous example:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/zinamoukheiber/2013/05/15/a-chat...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/zinamoukheiber/2013/05/15/a-chat-
with-epic-systems-ceo-judy-faulkner/)

They code in MUMPS. MUMPS predates C. Yes, you heard me right. The healthcare
IT platform that is espoused across the industry is based on what should, for
all intents and purposes, be a dead language.

I've taken a bit different approach with some of these industries, and I come
from the belief that it's going to require a combination of intellectual
partners (like universities and research centers) together with startups to
make any sort of meaningful difference.

I'm right now in a niche segment of behavioral health. Funny enough, there is
a law that was passed right before the ACA ("Obamacare") that mandates that
hospitals put electronic medical records into practice, and over time develop
"meaningful use." The big guys have been slow to deliver, the insurance
companies want to see change, and the hospitals have to do it for fear of
penalty. A lot of people saw disaster, but I saw an opportunity. Over the last
several months, I've been working to commercialize some of my research coming
out of grad school on this. I was fortunate enough to balance theory and
application in school, and this definitely left me jaded towards the SnapChats
of the world.

As to your 4th point, that doesn't surprise me at all. I'm Chicago-based, and
everyone views the Midwest as a rust belt. I co-led a research initiative that
looked at startup activity in the Midwest around ag, health-tech, and advanced
manufacturing:
[http://worldbusinesschicago.com/techcluster](http://worldbusinesschicago.com/techcluster)

Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but I feel bad that more dev guys just
aren't aware of what's out there. It frustrates me so, so much. We glorify
things in the industry that we just don't need.

Here is Siebel's talk:
[http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2110](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2110)

Watch it. He's a horribly boring speaker, but the content spoke to me. It's
what convinced me to look for the low-hanging fruit in health-tech. Funny; now
that I found a problem that can be addressed (that isn't), and have a
defensible business model, bringing on a technical co-founder can be so hard
for all the reasons we just named. Ha!

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shawnreilly
I'm a lone Designer / beginner Developer with an Infrastructure Engineering
background, and I'm working on a project that I think will actually make a
difference in the world. I agree with the OP's sentiment regarding the real
world value of some of the Products (and relating investments) out there, but
this was not the driving force behind the Project I'm working on. I recently
moved to the Valley because one of my family members was given a certain
amount of time to live. This has been hard on the family, especially
considering how many we've lost over the past 4-5 years. Spending a large
amount of time in hospitals and observing how medical technology works from an
Engineering perspective has led me to some realizations (or at least
hypothesis). I believe that there are opportunities in the health and
healthcare industries from a technology standpoint. And I'm not implying
monetary opportunities, I'm talking about opportunities to build something
that can actually save lives. My Project is focused on building the technical
foundation for a next-generation Emergency Room. Even without a background in
medicine, it is apparent to me (likely from my background) that a large amount
of inefficiencies exist relating to the interoperability of today's medical
technology. The solution to this problem will represent a new approach towards
utilizing medical technology, more specifically, medical data. The goal is to
provide capabilities that greatly increase the awareness and effectiveness of
medical staff operating a modern day Emergency Room. I'm currently
communicating with medical staff from a few different Hospitals here in CA in
an attempt to build a stronger Team. I'm also looking for Developers. I
believe we can save lives.

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fananta
I think Watsi is a great example of startup actually making an impact.

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Vomzor
Scanadu, if they can make their vision of a tricorder a reality.

