
Ask HN: What would be your new niche? - selmat
If you would have chance to get out of IT and start your own non-IT business. What would be your new field&#x2F;niche? (ignore possible income decrease, entry difficulties and other complications)<p>What is the most exciting thing on desired area?
======
ghostbrainalpha
I want to open a sexually explicit Ice Cream Parlor on the Las Vegas strip.

It would just be called "The Split Banana", and all of our ice cream would be
frozen in the mold of a penis. A small mold would be 6 inch, Medium = 9 inch,
and Large/Monster = a 12 inch mold.

And the ice cream flavors would also have really inappropriate but funny
names. Suggestions would be appreciated as I haven't done much work there.

~~~
workthrowaway27
NYC has Big Gay Ice Cream[0]. Sort of similar to what you're describing. They
seem pretty successful. I think they've expanded to a few other cities too.

[0]: [https://www.biggayicecream.com/](https://www.biggayicecream.com/)

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Thank you for the reference, but we here at The Split Banana believe EVERYONE
can enjoy a delicious Ice Cream penis. Not just the gay community.

------
TeMPOraL
Funny this shows up today, because I have a half-written blog post about it I
meant to publish this week :).

I'm actively trying to do exactly that - pivot from IT into something more
meaningful.

Currently, I'm exploring two areas which were of big interest for me as a
hobby: space technology and biotech. My goal is to spend this year exploring
options, getting the "lay of the land" and forming a plan of learning new
skills, in order to ultimately get a job in one of those industries before
2020.

Rationale: both are some of the most potentially impactful fields on the
future of humanity.

Space Tech: Because I've been dreaming about space exploration since my
earliest days on this planet. Because - with the recent accomplishments of the
private industry - the time is ripe now to work on bootstrapping an industry
in space. I mean manufacturing, asteroid mining, etc. There's lots of work to
be done, the momentum is there, and frankly, we're long overdue for all of
that.

Biotech: because I feel that mastery over molecular nanotechnology would solve
half of the issues humanity faces, and biotech seems like the best way to
incrementally get there. As I'm fond of saying, nature is advanced molecular
nanotech which we didn't design and can't control _yet_.

All of that comes from the desire to work on something actually beneficial to
humans (with a good effort/effect ratio), as opposed to cranking out code
driving money towards marginally useful businesses.

\--

For a long time I've been reluctant to talk about it, as it is with desires
for grand endeavours. But I am committed now, so if anyone can help me find my
bearings around those two spaces, or have some experiences of pivoting there
from pure software, I would very appreciate it.

~~~
JoeDaDude
I've been in the space industry for decades (plural) now. There is plenty of
IT work to be done here, though development and test are very process
intensive and constrained compared to the commercial world.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Mind if I chat you up in private about your experiences? If that's ok, please
let me know - my e-mail is in the profile.

------
RussianCow
Open a bar and/or distillery and/or winery. I'm very interested in mixology,
and there is a lot of interesting stuff happening with alcohol right now at
the intersection of modern science and centuries-old traditions. Some ideas:

* Open a place that's a juice bar by day, and a regular bar by night. Focus on using fresh, seasonal ingredients for all drinks.

* Experiment with using fruits other than grapes for wine-making. Some fruits, like blueberries, have many of the same properties as grapes, so it would be interesting to see what sort of beverages you could make by fermenting them.

* Same thing with distilled spirits: There is so much untapped territory here because most distilleries use ancient, traditional methods, with maybe only one or two variations from the norm. I would experiment with everything from ingredients to techniques, including using different types of wood than oak for aging, and pressurized aging to accelerate the process.

------
sixdimensional
I say this half seriously: start a business helping people in IT make career
transitions, as a career advisor/matchmaker with opportunities.

People with IT/IS backgrounds are usually quite broadly capable people,
generally speaking.

Actually, I think enabling and giving all kinds of people space, support and
ability to explore pivots and opportunities sounds kind of awesome.

~~~
caio1982
That is a fantastic idea. The only caveat might be you becoming a sort of
startup guru full of words but lacking real experience pivoting your own
career.

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dchuk
Whenever this phase of my career naturally comes to a close, I want to start a
chili food truck. One of my bucket list items is to win a chili cook off, so I
figured I'd connect that goal with a business itself. I don't know shit about
running a food truck, but it seems that a chili truck could be simpler than
other types because you don't have to make the food upon ordering, it's all
cooked beforehand.

~~~
caio1982
...and because it is made beforehand it gets even tastier! I wanna be your
costumer.

~~~
dchuk
I wasn't planning on wearing a costume until your comment but I dig it!

In all seriousness, if I ever get to this goal, I will follow up with you.

------
Radim
Stone age & early bronze age history, archeology, anthropology.

I find the genesis of storytelling, religion and how we conceptualize the
world fascinating, even (especially?) where it comes in tiny fragments. Things
that are so deep-rooted now that we take them for granted, like perceiving the
world through discrete objects, language, social reward structures.

As the evolutionary rat-race accelerates and niches get obsoleted more and
more quickly, there seems to be an increasing business opportunity in digging
deeper into what makes us human, what defines our sense of "self". Facebook,
Zynga & co already exploit that. Understanding these patterns has tremendous
business value, even if only to better protect ourselves.

What tunes do we dance to? How were these rivers historically formed, what is
their inertia, future direction? How much of ourselves is cargo-culting on by-
gone fitness landscapes? Humanity is the collector's luxury item of the
future.

------
mod
I would work with my hands.

The most exciting thing would be getting out of a chair. IT has hurt my body.

I do love creating things, though, so I would ideally be building original
creations (I don't want to be a framer or service mechanic). So some kind of
craftsman.

More realistically, I would create a business that could create value on-site,
but dealt with customers on the internet. So ebay, etsy, etc. I understand
building customer bases on the internet far better than I understand it in
real life, and I also live in a low population area.

Most specifically, and ignoring income decreases, I would like to do some kind
of old-timey craft. Woodwork, leatherwork, blacksmithing. Leatherwork in
particular is quiet, relaxing, and doesn't need a particularly large area or
set of tools, and I'm totally fascinated with handmade leather products. I
would need a standing workbench, though!

~~~
sogen
Go, Do anything, it’s great.

I’ve done painting woodworking, soldering circuits , and ‘hacking’ some
furniture, it feels great.

~~~
mod
Yep, I have a shop and I get a fair amount of stuff done (when it's warm in
there!), but not professionally at all. Still spend my days in this chair.

------
jzymbaluk
I'm still early in my IT/programming career (working my first job after
graduating college in 2017), so it might be a little early to start seriously
thinking about pivoting just yet, but I'm really interested in the
intersection of technology and urban planning/city administration. I'm an
urbanist, fascinated and enchanted by the concept of cities in the abstract,
and I want to see the rise of more great American cities in the 21st century.
I want to see current great cities become more accessible, and all cities
become more attractive to not only other urbanites, but suburbanites and rural
people also.

I'm not really sure what the best way to follow this dream is, but I'd
definitely appreciate any input or advice from anyone out there :)

~~~
workthrowaway27
The Power Broker is a great book about Robert Moses, a very influential city
planner in NYC. The book shows how much of planning is politics. Just look at
how much trouble San Francisco has and you'll see that the problem isn't lack
of ideas or lack of money.

This is also a great blog that frequently discusses urban planning themes:
[https://granolashotgun.com/](https://granolashotgun.com/)

~~~
jzymbaluk
Funny you should mention The Power Broker, I got the audiobook through Audible
in December, and I'm about 16 hours in (only about a quarter of the way
through!). I think it's interesting how the book wants to portray him as a
power-hungry evil emperor type. He was definitely power-hungry, but I don't
know if I agree on the evil characterization. It seems like he did a lot of
good for the city, and it's tough to imagine what NYC would be like if someone
like Robert Moses hadn't been able to relentlessly modernize the way he did.

Thanks for the blog recommendation!

------
jaimefjorge
I would think of opening a 6 seat (for 3 couples) BBQ place in Europe
(Portugal).

I would slow cook and smoke the finest meats and allow for Europeans to taste
the amazingness that is US southern comfort food.

I would make it so delicious that together with low supply of seats I would be
able to charge significantly.

~~~
caio1982
A random guy just opened a place like that one year ago a few blocks from my
house (southern Brazil, where a good barbecue/churrasco/assado is always
looked for). The place seems a big success, go for it.

------
caio1982
Tried to bootstrap a few travel-related ideas since I do have plenty of
traveling experience but it seemed the local market wasn't ripe (macro-
economically), then I decided to leave IT after 15 years to professionalize
the dogs and dog training knowledge my family and I already had since ever and
the niche is here and all that, I have a great doggy daycare to run and local
buzz etc, but man it's tough. The real world is definitely another beast than
IT. I now believe and understand that IT has always been a fantasy land where
we all pretend we are awesome but we are just spoiled. The non-IT reality is
fucking hard, but it is amazingly rewarding in its own way. I only hope I
don't ever need to go back to IT, we'll see...

~~~
slazaro
How about combining both? Maybe if you think long enough or work long enough
in this kind of dog businesses, you'll see opportunities to apply tech to
solve some problems. Easier said than done, though...

------
SatvikBeri
If money weren't a concern, I'd definitely want to work on improving science,
particularly social science. Right now, there seems to be a lot of medium-
hanging fruit for systematic improvements that don't get built, because
there's not much incentive to do so within academia. OSF has done some great
work here, and I'd want to start something similar .

~~~
workthrowaway27
Over the holidays I met my brother's GF's granddad, who is an economist. He
said one of the biggest problems he sees in the social sciences is that the
tools they have for data analysis (he specifically mentioned Stata, SAS, and
SPSS) make it hard to keep track of what transforms you've made to the data,
so people get results and then can't reproduce them because they don't
remember what sequence of operations they've performed. Related to this, he
said most social science people aren't good programmers which hurts their
ability to understand their data.

So I think you're right, although I suspect it'll be hard to get people to
switch to anything new since they already know how to use tools that let them
get their work done.

~~~
sanderjd
This sounds like a generational thing. I suspect there are up-and-comers who
are hungry to be better programmers, and are interested in the abundant better
tools. So maybe the problem to solve isn't so much getting people to switch
tools as aiding education and discovery for people who don't yet know what
tools to use.

Edit to add: I know a couple folks with backgrounds in statistics. One of them
taught a data visualization class using R during his postdoc and is now
teaching data science in Python for a code school. The other works for a big
established company that does lots of data analysis, and still uses one of the
old-school tools you listed, but is always very interested when we chat about
the newer tools that are out there. So I think it's a mistake to think most
folks are stuck in their ways.

------
Toast_25
Mycology, more specifically work on strains of edible mushrooms to clean up
the environment. Paul Stamets has shown that certain variations of P.
Ostreatus can be used for cleaning up oil spills and that certain fungi
concentrates heavy metals, indicating it could be used to clean up said
metals.

Unfortunately he's patented a lot of his research[1] and I don't really know
my way around patent law enough to risk finding out if a company dedicated to
applying these technologies could get me sued.

[1] [https://patents.justia.com/inventor/paul-
stamets](https://patents.justia.com/inventor/paul-stamets)

~~~
twobyfour
What would you do with the mushrooms, though? Presumably one wouldn't want to
eat them once they'd absorbed a bunch of heavy metals, right?

~~~
Toast_25
Safely dispose of them. Neither would be safe to consume, but would help clean
up the environment a great deal. The (not-thoroughly considered) business
model would be to restore land enough to make it usable again for crops or
livestock. This might be more difficult to do for heavy metals than petroleum.

~~~
twobyfour
What methods exist for safe disposal of heavy metals?

~~~
Toast_25
No clue mate. I haven't given this business idea enough thought to be honest.

~~~
twobyfour
Fair enough. I'm just curious.

------
overcast
Two years ago, I began a transition to a more hybrid niche. Food/Cocktail
promotion, which involves my photography, and web development skillsets. Spent
the first 1.5 years, working on all of the relationships with
bartenders/restaurateurs/chefs, promoting their work through instagram and the
web. Becoming the largest promoter in the area. Now I'm ready to start rolling
out the second phase, involving web software.

So while not totally out of IT, I've definitely branched into something much
more enjoyable. Eating delicious, meeting tons of new people, has been
rewarding.

------
dh-g
Automated, locally sourced, compact restaurant to provide low cost meals.

~~~
thecolorblue
I would be interested to hear about your plans for this. I have been thinking
about starting small hydroponic farms to provide local food to restaurants.

Email is in my profile if you are interested in trading notes.

~~~
dh-g
I'm not far enough along to have much interesting to say yet.

Your idea reminds me of a company I like in Montreal:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trl2eE-
kVGM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trl2eE-kVGM)

------
adventured
CRISPR (cas9, cpf1 et al), hands down.

What it can do, what it's likely to do, and we're only in the first inning of
understanding how to utilize it and manipulate it. I believe vaccines are the
only medical discovery/creation that will end up being comparable in impact on
humanity. CRISPR will enable us to directly, fully seize control over our
evolution (we've obviously been subtly affecting that for thousands of years).

It'll take a process spanning decades for the most remarkable applications to
be discovered and commercialized (or otherwise made available for the general
population), and it'll be worth the wait. We'll gradually strip countless
inherited diseases from the entire human race in the span of a few
generations. Breast cancer? 99.7% wiped out. Parkinson's inheritance? Gone.
Cystic fibrosis? Gone. The age of antibiotic resistant infections? CRISPR will
solve that soon as well. And so on. As with vaccinations, there will be
numerous CRISPR therapies/cures/applications that will be extraordinarily
cheap, pennies per person, and deployed to all persons on earth (as with
vaccines, it'll take decades of gradual generic'ization, initially all
therapies will be expensive, then many will become common, and then they'll be
globally deployed for pennies per person).

~~~
stefanpie
I've always found biology and medicine research to be a great pivot for people
in technology and programming because of the similarities in the mindset used
when approaching a problem. For example, alot of bio and med research is
looking at complex pathways and interconnected systems and seeing how we can
go into different points and add, remove, or change things and how we can
interfere with these systems in a controlled way. Software engineers have to
similar tasks because they work on large interconnected systems as well and
understand different protocols. Penetration testers and security experts also
fit this comparison well because they have to try different approaches at
different points in a system to gain access or control of a system the same
way biology and medicine researchers have to find different ways to interfere
with a system to develop a new drug to inhibit a pathway or change the
expression of certain proteins. I feel as if crisper / cas9 is a great example
for this comparison because researchers are still exploring the many different
possible things can do with the same way people in technology explore new tech
and apply it to new problems.

------
ninjakeyboard
I just want to write music. Here is my stuff but I do it 100% for fun only.
[https://soundcloud.com/decklyn/tracks](https://soundcloud.com/decklyn/tracks)

------
toyg
Archaeology. Technological advances in mapmaking, map-parsing and surveying
(drones) are leading to a golden age in excavation, on a level unseen since
the XIX century. They now have software that can literally just sit there
spouting suggestions all day: “hey, this pattern around fields in Nolandia-
sur-nothing looks a bit too regular, wanna investigate?”

And there is still so much that can be done, as digitalization is solving the
“dusty archives” problem and neural networks might soon be able to suggest
links between material (“this parchment fragment here might be related to that
fragment in a museum on the other side of he world, which they’ve even forgot
they had”).

Unfortunately the obstacle is always the same: money. There is little or no
money to be made digging up old vases, and often plenty to actually forget
about the vases altogether and let this or that new building be constructed on
top of them (or destroying them).

------
ryanchants
I'd like to start a nonprofit that takes donated/damaged camping equipment and
refit it for homeless and others in need of just keeping the elements at bay.

------
AlexAmee
Since I can think I've always loved the idea of changing the source code of
life, I also never understood why we don't regrow body parts once we have lost
them.

From a nature standpoint of view, nature does not care about the single
individual as long as the species survives. I don't like that behaviour.

Imagine a caveman who lost his arm in a fight with some animal. It just takes
more energy to regrow parts and the caveman would be vulnerable all the time
so nature decided to take that awesome feature away.

What nature does not realise is, that we now have the time to regrow body
parts, there is no danger anymore, somebody who lost a leg can recover in a
hospital.

And I'm 99% certain that we will regrow body parts in the next 15-20 years and
I'd love to be a part of that revolution.

CRISP is another big thing that has the potential to cure diseases, those we
call incurable.

All those facts and the possibilities of extending the human race makes me
very excited.

So my niche would be Biochemistry, I choose that field because I think
Biochemistry is the C and Assembly language of the human body.

------
mrweasel
Open a store selling beekeeping equipment. I live in an area where that's
somewhat under served and I have a lot of experience with online sales so I
could broaden my number of potential customers a bit.

My wife keeps telling me that the stores we've visited are extremely poor at
selling to the extend that they are missing obvious upsells.

------
kabdib
Start a Science Fiction bookstore.

[... _completely_ ignoring the "possible income decrease" here... :-/]

------
ezekg
Outside of tech--I'd like to create a travel-related business to help people
travel more often on a budget, or a high-quality coffee box subscription where
I send out hand-selected coffee every few weeks (likely from small shops,
local roasters, etc.), or start my own micro-brewery.

~~~
cvaidya1986
Do it

~~~
ezekg
Working on the travel business with my wife, actually. And then getting into
homebrewing more and more lately. We'll see where it all goes. :)

~~~
cvaidya1986
That's great! I wish you success!

------
joncrane
I'd move into politics or teaching. Something that would improve my country
(the USA). Maybe lobby for increased education standards, more pay for
teachers, that kind of thing.

------
PascLeRasc
Live sound production, either touring with a band or at a theater.

------
jabl
Wooden boat building. I love to work with my hands, wood is pleasant to work
with, and wooden yachts are a beauty to behold.

That being said, I realize the above has 0% of being a commercial success. The
market is flooded with affordable plastic-fantastics churned out in factories
in nearby lower income countries.

Also, I suppose it's one thing to enjoy working with my hands when I do it for
my own enjoyment in my spare time vs. doing it for real work on a deadline.

Sigh.

------
rayalez
If there are literally no restrictions - robotics, space, or biotech.

If I wouldn't care about the meaning and amount of value I produce -
screenwriter or standup comedian.

If I would optimize for pure fun - computer graphics and digital art.

Although to be honest, I think being a startup founder is the coolest thing I
can imagine being, so I would keep working on startups, except I'd build a
startup in a more advanced, hard tech field, instead of SaaS.

------
nickwalker
Cardistry! What some of these guys can do is incredible

------
kyoob
I'd be a comedic actor and try to get on Broadway. I did improv and sketch for
years and had some of the happiest times of my life.

------
joshmanders
Open a restaurant. If tech didn't take over, I would have gone to school to be
a chef instead of a becoming a developer.

------
KaiserPro
Perhaps dive back into VFX, although that's still IT.

My next one would be Watch/Clock making.

failing that, farming/game keeping.

~~~
KaiserPro
Or, as money is no object, camp counsellor

------
walshemj
Thought about his a while back going back to my original college course
(Themofluids) and did a spec application to a small mech engineering firm near
me RBR Racing and Hybrid Air Vehicles out at Cardington.

Oh BTW the first one is the F1 team and the second is a firm specializing in
Airships

------
oceanghost
Pinball. I love pinball. I'd modernize the machines. Even brand new titles the
technology is very old school. I have some ideas to reduce / eliminate most of
the wiring in the system and thus the cost / complexity.

Also, I'd finish my f __king novel.

------
MrQuincle
Mass production of lab-grown meat.

------
acconrad
I think if I were born in a different era I'd end up as an architect. I see it
as much of a science as I do a creative endeavor, and it feels like the
closest parallel the web development work I do.

------
nunez
Either something regarding commodities trading or aviation/aerospace

------
startupdiscuss
Making movies, books, comics, or any other form of story telling.

------
iain_r
I have always like the idea of making wooden furniture. Different tables,
chairs, cabinets, etc. Having a small custom furniture shop would be cool.

------
vinrob92
I would go for real estate :) (I had some experience in it before founding my
current company and there is a lot of innovation to be made)

------
moltar
* Snow plowing op * Bus driver * Pilot * Brunch resto owner * Teacher * Public speaker * Politician

------
RickJWag
I'd spend the extra time and go through Med school.

------
omar12
A yoga studio/dance music lounge.

------
mynegation
Rescue or med evac helicopter pilot

