Ask HN:What valuable company is no one building?  - kevinwdavid
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mindcrime
I don't know, but if you're looking for ideas, try here:

<http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html>

<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

<http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

[http://www.quora.com/Startup-Ideas/As-of-2012-what-are-
some-...](http://www.quora.com/Startup-Ideas/As-of-2012-what-are-some-
Frighteningly-Ambitious-Startup-Ideas-other-than-the-ones-mentioned-by-Paul-
Graham)

If I had to recommend one area to explore, I'd say something to do with
lightweight, portable electrical power. As handheld and portable computing
devices proliferate, battery life and recharging shenanigans are becoming more
and more obnoxious. Especially at airports like O'Hare where electrical
outlets are in short supply. A breakthrough in fuel cell technology or
something of that nature would be nice.

Also, anything based on allowing people to self-organize into groups for
mutual purposes, in such a way as to reduce (or eliminate) the status of
"government" as-we-know-it as the default mechanism for communal / collective
initiatives.

~~~
dholowiski
I'm working on one of PG's highly ambitious ideas right now. That's a great,
inspiring list.

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neilk
One of my heuristics here is to look for misuse of technology. Look for people
persisting in their use of a tool unsuited for a particular task. It means
they really really want something new, and might even pay for it.

An example: some of the biggest projects on Kickstarter (in terms of dollars)
are about totally unanticipated uses of the site, like consumer electronics
and game development. Surely this means something.

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impostervt
I haven't heard of anyone working on equity crowdfunding. It's like
kickstarter for startups, only you get actual stock in the startup. The JOBS
act, signed in April, allows for this. Previously, only "accredited" investors
could get in on that kind of thing.

Whoever makes this kind of site will have to jump through some hoops, so that
will rule out 95% of the possible competition right up front.

Interesting Forbes article on it:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/06/06/what-you-
ne...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/06/06/what-you-need-to-know-
to-profit-from-crowdfunding/)

------
zbruhnke
Usually its in plain sight ... try something that affects you daily.

For me its paying bills ... it sucks, so now im building something to make it
suck less.

When I built my last house I also found things that sucked like components for
hanging tvs on the wall. I wanted a junction box that was interchangeable and
could work specifically for each tv, so I made that too.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of valuable things no one has
executed well on yet, it does not mean no one has tried and just because
someone has tried and failed it does not mean it is less valuable either.

~~~
zackgilbert
Just curious, what is the actual pain point for you? Is it the actual paying
of the bills, remembering to pay them, splitting them between people, or
something else?

~~~
zbruhnke
for me its the amount of bills I actually have and trying to keep track of all
of them.

I have about 16-17 bills monthly (mainly because I own two homes) but I have
to remember to login to each of those accounts and make sure all of the
payments went through even if they're on autopay, I'm also anal enough that I
like to check every single bill to make sure there are no charges I did not
make etc.

I'm making my version of this now and hopefully launching soon to some
feedback.

check it out. <http://cloudbill.com>

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Mankhool
Location based tasking for professional journalists (word, photo, video,
radio) that is 100% anonymous (including payment). Disrupt the need for every
news gathering organization on earth to maintain ANY foreign bureaus. Users of
this app ARE the bureau.

------
mammalfriend
An actual, disruptive solution to the US healthcare crisis. There's a ton of
economic value to be created, but the current ecosystem is shockingly
resistant to non-incremental innovation.

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qrlawified
Confidentiality agreement negotiations. If you could streamline the process
and get an NDA agreed in an hour, take a slice of each NDA signed (licence),
you would be rich and loved.

~~~
kennywinker
This is interesting. Having not had to sign many NDAs (thankfully) I'm not
sure that's a large enough slice to pay for the development of a cool tool for
negotiation. There are lots of people selling boiler-plate NDAs that seem to
work for most people, but if you could create a platform for contract
negotiations... that sounds like a winner to my non-lawyer ears.

------
farseer
The question you should be asking is which one of the many complex problems
haven't been solved. Company building is a secondary stage. Of-course you'd
want to solve a problem that would make you rich.

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phomer
[http://theprogrammersparadox.blogspot.ca/2012/02/software-
cl...](http://theprogrammersparadox.blogspot.ca/2012/02/software-clearing-
houses.html)

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jp
Converting YC internet points into anger management classes ?

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SuperChihuahua
More ideas: <http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/#Finished>

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seclorum
A hardware manufacturer that can compete with Apple. Someone should build this
company before its too late ..

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kevinwdavid
What important problem is no one solving?

