
Startup Ideas - kcorbitt
http://blog.ycombinator.com/13-startup-ideas/
======
arkades
Re Smart Bathroom:

Every time I hear about all-knowing toilets, I continue to feel it’s putting
the cart way ahead of the horse.

There’s a rule in medicine: don’t order a test whose outcome doesn’t change
your decision. That’s not about cost-savings, it’s about avoiding false
positives that make no sense in clinical context but raise flags that must be
chased down.

This sort of thing is literally promising to just continually run un-merited
urinalysis left and right.

“More data” is not inherently good. Without a framework of information for
interpretation of that data, it will do far more harm than good.

Honestly, the reason so little tech disruption keeps happening in the
provision of medical services: no one trying to “disrupt” bothers asking what
is or is not useful. There are just some ideas completely out of touch with
what people need or want or have friction over, and they just refuse to die
because they’re the most obvious ideas to have if you’re unfamiliar with the
territory.

~~~
outworlder
> There’s a rule in medicine: don’t order a test whose outcome doesn’t change
> your decision. That’s not about cost-savings, it’s about avoiding false
> positives that make no sense in clinical context but raise flags that must
> be chased down.

There is also a rule in (system) operations: don't page unless immediate
action (from humans) is required. This doesn't stop us from collecting data.
If there is an anomaly, then we can look back at the data if necessary.

Alternatively, there ARE things you can alert on. My brother has type 1
diabetes. He got a free urinalysis in the form of ants crawling in the toilet.
I expect – but since I don't have time series data from this toilet, I can't
prove – that sensors would detect and increasing amount of glucose in the
urine over time.

If anonymized, this sort of data would be useful for research as well.

I agree that giving any joe schmuck access to the raw data would result in
unnecessary procedures.

~~~
arkades
There’s a legal context here. Once the data is available, physicians are
obligated to chasenit down even if they think it’s unimportsnt. Ignoring data
loses malpractice suits; unnecessary and ultimately harmful diagnostics
prompted by data does not.

~~~
gerdesj
Not all medicine is practised within the legal framework that you labour
under. If you are a doctor then you should be able to publish your real
opinions here, within reason (prefaced with a short disclaimer if you deem it
necessary, I would, along the lines of "I'm a MD, practising in <country> and
this my personal opinion") and I, for one, would love to hear them.

~~~
doctoring
I'm an MD, practicing in the US.

I don't know the actual legality. But here's what I do know from attempting to
implement multiple projects within the US for clinical care and for clinical
research: most providers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies we have
worked with have balked at the ability to have high resolution data fed into
their medical record or research data systems. In most cases, they are worried
that if they had the data, they would have to act on it were something to be
concerning. And they do not want that responsibility.

Example: we were in talks to feed in near-realtime blood glucose, activity,
and blood pressure measurements from patients on a clinical trial. Surely that
would be useful for better sussing out the effects of a research drug than the
current process (patient comes in every few months to get measured or have
their log data entered or meter data downloaded)? Nope, multiple top 5 pharma
companies didn't want the responsibility and liability of seeing their data
that often, because what if a patient had super low or super high glucose and
they later died? You had the _ability_ to act on it but didn't.

They'd rather just not have it at all. It sounds ridiculous. And again, I
don't know the actual legal/liability issues, but based on my experience with
malpractice cases, I could see a viable case to be made. And there are
certainly institutions out there who believe the benefit is worth the cost of
that responsibility for certain use cases. But my experiences have definitely
made me reconsider some of these things.

All that said, I am definitely in favor of collecting more health data
(somehow), because until we have more data we won't know its utility. So far,
in general it has been shown that more testing and more information often
doesn't lead to better outcomes, but the cost of data is getting lower --
aside from aforementioned liability cost/fear.

~~~
TJSomething
Sounds like a bit of a catch-22: you don't want to collect the data until
you've collected enough data to know that you're not causing harm.

~~~
arkades
Not really. We have a system for this: clinical trials. I, as a lone doc, am
not equipped to make heads or tails of un-randomized un-controlled piles of
data. A clinical trial -is-.

That’s why we use them.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
> I, as a lone doc, am not equipped to make heads or tails of un-randomized
> un-controlled piles of data.

Isn't that a description of _literally_ what every practicing doctors, that
isn't involved in research, actually does?

And clinical trials are extremely expensive. Surely there's _some_ utility in
gathering data between the extremes of doctor-patient and clinical trial.

~~~
arkades
No, it’s not.

We use properly conducted clinical science to give us a framework for
interpreting the data we see, comparing data we have to studies with
appropriate external validity to allow that comparison.

And no, there isn’t, if an RCT is at all feasible. There was a great paper a
few years back that reviewed various case-control studies for conditions that
were ultimately explored using RCTs (eg, knee arthroscopy, internal mammary
artery ligation). What they found was that the retrospective study consensus
was basically a coin-flip with respect to the RCT consensus. They just don’t
provide useful data - too many confounders, known and unknown, go unaddressed.

~~~
obastani
This sounds like a really interesting paper -- do you happen to have a link to
the reference?

~~~
arkades
I’m not ignoring your request; in trying to dig up the paper, I came across a
couple papers with data claiming to show the opposite. I’m trying to digest it
all before returning to this topic, so I can give a more useful response. And
I haven’t found that paper yet.

------
davidivadavid
Wouldn't it be helpful if those were reformulated in terms of the _real_
"problem" being solved, or at least the benificial outcome that they're aiming
for?

As a marketer who's always been interested in tech startups and that has dealt
with many engineers, those ideas scream "engineering." The problem is finding
startup ideas from an engineering point of view has in my experience been the
best way to find a solution in search of a problem.

"AI for Communicating with Dogs": sounds like a "hop on the AI bandwagon
idea". I don't believe the idea in itself is silly at all (getting people to
empathise with animals is probably a net good), but presenting it that way is
a guaranteed way of not being taken seriously, and, more importantly, a
guaranteed way of limiting your options when trying to solve the actual
problem. Why does it HAVE TO be done with AI?

"Smart Bathroom": Why? Why not start from the desired outcome? We're going to
collect more data to do _what_?

Etc. etc. Most of those ideas (there are a few exceptions) are driven by a
product/widget-centric vision that doesn't seem to have any deeper
justification.

~~~
jansho
Huh, I half-agree with other commentators that the list is almost like a joke.
On the other hand, it’s starting the startup conversation here again. The
startup world is not exactly at its peak now; less rags-to-riches save-the-
world stories, and more like scandals and housing crises and Juicero-dumbo
moments. At least, it’s making _me_ think about what AI can actually be useful
for, even though I’m mostly not a fan of it and most certainly don’t see its
worth in pet interactions.

OP did say it’s an experiment :x

~~~
davidivadavid
In my view, it's not at its peak partly because startups have drunk a bit too
much of the "Startups are all about execution" Kool Aid and forgot that
executing on crappy ideas just produced crap.

To the average marketer, some HN threads are absolutely mind-boggling. Not too
long ago, someone posted a thread essentially saying that he had freshly
graduated from a top school and assembled a team of brilliant people, but they
couldn't find anything to do with all their talent.

How is that possible?

Y Combinator's motto is "Make something people want."

Well? What are startups waiting for?

Mostly, they've again drunk a bit too much Kool Aid here — the "get out of the
building" and "customer development" type. These are both good things to do —
but if your original impetus is stupid (business-wise), you'll only converge
towards mediocre outcomes.

In fact, it's very easy to come up with things that people want. Because
people _have always wanted the same things, and probably always will_.
Everything the market provides is there to satisfy basic, universal human
needs [1].

Fundamental needs and desires are the magma on which the tectonic plates that
define product categories and product are moving. They're the deepest drivers
of product adoption.

Current product categories and products are just a byproduct of those needs
meeting technological and economic limitations.

Find out how you can satisfy some fundamental need better by leveraging
technological changes, and you'll have a good startup idea.

Or so I believe.

[1]
[http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/needs.htm](http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/needs.htm)

------
kcorbitt
Hey HN! I'm a software developer at YC and the author of this post.

This post is actually a bit of an experiment. We're trying to find better ways
to get prospective startup founders (which includes many of us in the HN
community) in contact with problems that really ought to be solved. We have
lots of different ideas for ways to do that, but a list of ideas seemed like
an easy one to try out first. Please let me know if you can think of a
better/different way of accomplishing this goal!

As to _why_ we're doing this -- more great startups is good news for YC, even
if they don't immediately apply to our program. We'd much rather spend our
time trying to grow the ecosystem as a whole and maybe capture a small part of
that than trying to immediately monetize everything we build.

~~~
rsingla
Thanks for the post, it's refreshing to see some brainstorming being put out
there! Along the lines of connecting ideas with prospective founders, I'd like
your opinion on something.

A common theme I hear when talking to end users or key opinion leaders is that
they don't want to divulge their ideas at risk of it being poached. They may
be excellent ideas, or forward thinking individuals, but grow concerned about
IP/giving away ideas, etc. On the flip side, they often don't have the time or
resources to tackle all their ideas (if any) so things don't get done. I speak
in particular from a healthcare perspective.

In your mind, how would you convince such users to participate in
brainstorming more freely?

~~~
rficcaglia
Since I have personally received (unsolicited) confidential pitch decks from
several first and second tier VCs who have taken a pitch from Company/Founder
A, all the while entirely committed to funding Company/Founder B, ie sending
the deck around to their network to gather feedback solely for the benefit of
Founder B...I would say the concern is well founded.

That said, I would also say that "ideas" never get funded...only
teams/founders get funded. The idea you start with is rarely the idea that
makes a business work.

Meanwhile, a good founder/team can take practically any flawed idea ...within
reason... and make it work as a business.

------
mark242
> Social Network for Children

Counterpoint-- this should not be built. Kids already have a social network,
it's called the playground at school. Having children engage with their
friends outside of school time is a fine goal, but there are plenty of
existing after-school activities that encourage this interaction. These
activities also don't put the undue stress of having to decipher typed
language, nuance, and other online-only pressures that adults can barely deal
with, much less children.

Get your kids into scouts. Get them into a team sport. Get them into dance.
Get them into after-school STEAM activities. Whatever those activities are,
that's up to their preferences, but most importantly they are out and engaging
with their peers face to face. That "3pm - 6pm" window of time is important
for children to play, and having them spend even a portion of that time
hitting a like button or whatever other social network validation activities
seems extremely disingenuous to me.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It's ironic: Most of you desperately want to unseat Facebook, and this is a
strategy toward that end. What do you think will happen when those children
grow into teens?

If Facebook seems draconian, this would be an opportunity to build something
better from first principles. It's a positive plan, not malicious.

I'm not sure Facebook has the ability to pursue this even if they tried. They
have too much political inertia for people to trust them with a kids-focused
Facebook. That means all someone needs to do is build this, then refuse to
sell. Checkmate.

It won't be easy, but two decades is a long time. And that's the timeline to
slay a giant.

~~~
guelo
> for people to trust them with a kids-focused Facebook.

Most non-techie people I ask have no idea that Instagram and WhatsApp are
Facebook properties. Even Messenger is being disassociated from the Facebook
brand. I don't know if it's a deliberate strattegy to keep the bad reputation
contained but I don't see a reason they couldn't attempt that if they were to
ever build a kids network.

------
deyan
>As I’ve gotten a bit older and gained more experience, I’ve found that
valuable startup ideas aren’t actually a scarce resource. In fact, they’re
only becoming more abundant — as the world moves faster and more new
businesses are created, more novel niches appear for profitable, productive
companies.

If we define valuable as "profitable, productive companies" then I very much
agree that there are plenty of niches out there.

However, if we are talking about startups that can actually grow big by
Silicon Valley standards, I have personally come to the opposite conclusion.
Ideas with the potential to become big are very much THE scarce resource.

I used to think that things like capital and teams are scarce, but it turns
out there are a lot of sharp hard-working people with access to cash. By
contrast, ideas that can grow to a billion dollar outcome are very few. I
remember Andy Rachleff saying a decade ago that each year 10-15 companies are
started that will eventually grow to become billion-dollar outcomes. My
impression is that this pattern has held.

What does change all the time is where the opportunities are. Some industries
mature, thus potentially closing for new opportunities, at least for a while,
e.g. until a tech breakthrough. The good news is that new markets develop all
the time, and the cycle repeats.

P.S. Thanks for putting this together and sharing with the community. I hope
some dots get connected meaningfully.

~~~
solatic
> Ideas with the potential to become big are very much THE scarce resource.

They're also almost inherently unknowable. Look back at the history of almost
any large, successful SV company. Google was a search company taking on
AltaVista. Facebook let Harvard students put up personal pages, taking on
MySpace. Amazon sold books, taking on Borders. All of their founders got
negative responses at early attempts at VC funding from "experts" who had no
idea of what they were looking at, because small companies, by definition,
make small products, and usually in markets with some competition by strong
incumbents. Would Google have become as big as they did without Gmail,
YouTube, Maps, Android? Would Facebook have become as big as they did without
Messenger, Events, public pages for businesses and celebrities? Would Amazon
have become as big as they did without AWS and Marketplace/FBA?

Execution, not the founding idea, is what turns start-ups into giants.

------
Finbarr
There are hundreds of startup ideas in the Yellow Pages trending section:
[https://www.yellowpages.com/san-francisco-
ca/trends/1](https://www.yellowpages.com/san-francisco-ca/trends/1)

~~~
arkitaip
See, I think this comment is far more interesting than the article itself. I'm
certain there is a method of finding high value-low effort startup ideas
digging thru unconventional data like the link you provided.

~~~
Finbarr
I think it’s hard to find startup ideas by reading the tech press and HN. It’s
easy if you just look around you as you go about your daily life, then
research anything you don’t understand.

A few industries I’ve researched this way:

* Porta potties * Dumpster rental * Bail bonds * Funerals

There are millions of legitimate businesses out there that have hardly been
touched by tech.

~~~
swendoog
And what's hilarious is that the top comment in this thread is about starting
yet another social network.

Myopic to say the least.

~~~
Retra
Sure, but if you're willing to do anything to make a buck, that isn't any less
myopic.

------
jfarlow
> Renewable Energy from Engineered Microbes

This has been done. Amyris [1], among those that survived the effort, and JBEI
from a quasi-academic approach [2].

From first principles, it just is not a good business proposition to compete
to synthesize from scratch one of the very cheapest of commodities. Fuels, by
volume, are one of the least expensive chemicals one can buy. The biological
technology exists, but competing against a few hundred million year's
energetic headstart is just not economically viable (unless oil goes above a
few hundred a barrel). The same technology can produce fragrances, medicines,
dyes, etc, all which go for hundreds of dollars a liter, or one could produce
ethanol which goes for less than a hundred dollars a barrel. And so that's why
companies like Zymergen tend to not produce fuels, even though they easily
could.

[1] [https://amyris.com/products/fuels/](https://amyris.com/products/fuels/)

[2] [https://www.jbei.org/](https://www.jbei.org/)

------
personlurking
A side-story related to firefighting, from Wikipedia's History of
firefighting:

"The first ever Roman fire brigade of which we have any substantial history
was created by Marcus Licinius Crassus. He was born into a wealthy Roman
family around the year 115 BC, and acquired an enormous fortune through (in
the words of Plutarch) "fire and rapine." One of his most lucrative schemes
took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department. Crassus filled
this void by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning
buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the
fire fighters did nothing while their employer bargained over the price of
their services with the distressed property owner. If Crassus could not
negotiate a satisfactory price, his men simply let the structure burn to the
ground, after which he offered to purchase it for a fraction of its value."

Also, as this was featured as a Reddit TIL, here are a few interesting
comments: [https://imgur.com/a/Fhuc5](https://imgur.com/a/Fhuc5)

~~~
Balgair
Maybe this could work as a B2G route, like the guys making the firefighting
helicopters selling to CalFire. But yeah, this smells like they are trying to
find a way to privatize firefighting, which is not cool (pardon the pun)

~~~
jabretti
It seems to me more like they're just trying to build firefighting drones.

It's not clear to me that they have any actual insight into how said drones
might help, or how firefighting is done at the moment.

~~~
giarc
I volunteered for a search and rescue organization for awhile. There was some
interest in drones simply to get overhead video of a collapsed building etc.
Currently you are limited to walking over the rubble. If you could have a
drone fly overhead and identify victims or unsafe areas, it could really help.

~~~
33W
Something on the scale of the Raven UAV would make sense for that application:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_RQ-11_Raven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_RQ-11_Raven)

------
ukulele
> AI for communicating with dogs

This is borderline satire. You don't need some crazy new idea to do a startup.
You need to execute well on something people want, and if you're out looking
for ideas, your best bet is probably to enter an existing market and cater to
a subset of it better than others are doing.

~~~
wonderous
Most animals are way more expressive that the average person is able to easily
understand and pet tech would easily be a billion dollar market.

EDIT: I would also be happy to do this startup if YC adds me to the next
batch; already offered to do one for the “Social Network for Children”:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15715865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15715865)

~~~
marcosdumay
> more expressive that the average person is able to easily understand

The average person can understand way more than you are giving credit.

And anyway, if the average person can't understand some communication, than
it's something completely out the league of current AIs. It's the one thing we
are good at.

~~~
thephyber
> than it's something completely out the league of current AIs

I beg to differ[1]. The average human isn't autistic, but there is still
significant value in using AI to tell us what we are doing wrong (and wrap the
product up so it doesn't make us fell like crap while we are doing it).

Behavior modification bots would be incredibly useful for helping people see
their own shortcomings (cognitive science research shows us that we frequently
see the flaws in others but are systematically blind to our own).

[1] [http://autismglass.stanford.edu/](http://autismglass.stanford.edu/)

[2] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609142/andrew-ng-has-a-
ch...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609142/andrew-ng-has-a-chatbot-that-
can-help-with-depression/)

------
stevenj
I'd like to see the social stigma around mental health eliminated. It's
commonly viewed as a positive thing to care about, and work toward, better
physical health. I wish that were true for mental health. I wish improving
your mental health was as normal as going to the gym.

~~~
opportune
Somewhat controversial opinion ahead:

I wish the focus were on treatment and compassion rather than awareness. What
I fear happening, and think we have already started taking steps towards, is
normalizing mental illness to the point of carte blanche acceptance. I had
depression for many years and still have my bad days, but I don't want to
live/work in a society where you can use mental illness for _excuses_. The
focus should always be on getting help and coping as best as you can.

What should become destigmatized is saying "I have condition X" or "I'm
getting treatment for condition X and it's really helping", not "I did Y
because I have condition X, my b".

I also think that while mental illness should be destigmatized, it's still
ultimately a private matter. People should feel like they can get help and
receive support, but there are a lot of good reasons to _not_ share with
family/friends/coworkers about your mental illness. If I had ever told my
parents about being depressed they would have lost thousands of hours of sleep
worrying about me, and would spend a lot of effort trying to help even though
they really couldn't. I also don't want my boss or coworkers to know simply
because I don't want to be held to a different standard / treated differently
from others, nor do I want any failure of mine to perform or meet commitments
to have the (implicit) excuse of mental illness.

~~~
taurath
> but I don't want to live/work in a society where you can use mental illness
> for excuses

Accommodation is often quite possible and is a net gain for everyone involved.
Yes you don't want the guy piloting the airplane to have hallucinations, but
forcing someone with social anxiety into a cramped loud office when there's no
need should be doable.

------
blizkreeg
I've thought about the firefighting idea as well, especially after the recent
Sonoma and Napa fire.

Sprinkler systems for indoor fires are not that uncommon now. Why aren't there
sprinkler/fire retardant systems for the perimeter/external part of a house?

In a wildfire, I can't imagine a better way to fight the fire from spreading
through a neighborhood than a system that auto-deploys when it senses smoke on
the periphery of a house/neighborhood, instantly killing the flames. A top-
down approach to fire-fighting is expensive and in a raging fire, not so
effective from what we've seen so far. Perhaps, we need to adopt a more
distributed approach (ie individual homes and localities protect themselves).

Of course, it would have to have broad adoption, but I bet if it's proven to
work well, some homeowners would just install it on their property, especially
if the property is close to areas more prone to wildfires.

You could probably even get a discount on your homeowners policy.

If anyone wants to brainstorm this, do email me at vintya9@gmail.com.

~~~
jabretti
This is naive. A bushfire is huge, hot, and fast-moving, consuming entire
trees in seconds. Your mains-pressure water sprinkler will not deter an
onrushing wall of flame in the least... and worse, an automated system would
take water away from where it's needed.

~~~
yongjik
It won't save the house if everything around is afire, but pictures like the
burnt-down HP historical archive building[1] look like it could have been
saved with a sprinkler wall. (For god's sake, the _trees_ next to it are
perfectly OK.)

[1] [http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-
pa...](http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-packard-
archives-at-keysight-destroyed?artslide=2) (see picture 3)

~~~
schoen
Indeed, some people in the recent fires were able to save their homes with a
garden hose (!) depending on the intensity of the fire in their area,
particularly when the fire was spread by flying embers. That's not unusual in
wildfires, though only some fraction of buildings can be saved this way.

~~~
blizkreeg
I'd argue some fraction is enough. It still represents millions saved in
damages.

~~~
schoen
Yeah, I think it could be a very valuable precaution!

------
giarc
>Low-Friction Lending Library

I think public libraries should start to serve this role. My local library
(Calgary) has started to build up a collection of musical instruments that can
be borrowed [0]. I'm sure there are other examples out there. I can see
libraries expanding into tool libraries (drill, saw, hammer etc).

0 - [https://calgarylibrary.ca/borrow-a-musical-
instrument/](https://calgarylibrary.ca/borrow-a-musical-instrument/)

~~~
jigginsNOW
Check out Selfless!

Lend/borrow from people around you.

Lending libraries are great but not every city commits resources to support
them or they restrict access to the citizens (eg: Oakland,SF,Alameda,etc
cannot borrow from Berkeley tool lending library).

We’re still very young but would love your support! ️

Web — [https://selfless.io](https://selfless.io)

iOS — [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/selfless-love-
something.-giv...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/selfless-love-
something.-give/id1140329334?ls=1&mt=8)

Android —
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.selfless](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.selfless)

~~~
1mike12
How long have you been at this? This is an idea that I've also heard thrown
around. You guys will not be the first nor the last to play with the idea. Did
you find any clues as to why others abandoned the idea? Good luck!

Your contact link doesn't seem to work

------
clydethefrog
The Smart Bathroom idea seems beyond parody. See the Smart Pipe satire
infomercial comedy channel Adult Swim produced in 2014.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ)

------
jsonne
No offense to Mr Friedman, but almost everyone that works in marketing and
tech has had the adwords for billboards idea, or tv or radio for that matter.
I once upon a time played with an adwords for trade magazines idea that went
nowhere. This is one of those things where almost every single entrenched
player has incentives to keep this from becoming the reality, and outside
owning the inventory outright I don't think its possible to change this
system. (As a note someone please prove me wrong)

~~~
hpvic03
We're working on it for billboards:

[https://www.adquick.com](https://www.adquick.com)

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/adquick-seed-
funding/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/adquick-seed-funding/)

We still have a long ways to go, but I think there's a good chance we'll prove
you wrong :)

~~~
jsonne
Do it. I want it badly. How are you getting around the problem of sales people
guarding their inventory so closely? In addition, how are you coordinating
with media companies to make sure that the brands advertising are within their
guidelines?

~~~
thefahim
Also co-founder at AdQuick here.

We work with sales people daily and getting their inventory to our customers.
They love that we are bringing them new business. As for brand guidelines,
we're in constant communication so this isn't much of an issue.

~~~
jsonne
> They love that we are bringing them new business

If that's true that's great but it's the opposite experience of what I've
experienced with large media companies. They pretty jealously guard their
inventory and hate the idea of transparent pricing. That's great if you
haven't experienced it yet, but I suspect you will at some point. Best of luck
to you regardless. I'm rooting for you.

~~~
thefahim
We don't list their pricing publicly and only share inventory on a per-
campaign basis similar to how they currently sell using PDFs and Excel files.

------
rsingla
Smart bathrooms are an excellent idea, particularly in the case of seniors and
the aging population. There's interesting research being done from University
of Toronto [0]. For those suffering from Alzheimer's or challenges that impact
their day-to-day, the smart bathroom may be a way to improve their quality of
life and give them back some independence.

[0] 2008 Toronto Star article on Prof. Alex Mihailidis -
[https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2008/09/01/u_of...](https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2008/09/01/u_of_ts_talking_washroom_guy.html)

~~~
bambax
That does sound like an excellent idea.

Many many informations about one's health are found in feces, and yet
collecting them to give them to a lab is, well, repugnant. If we could somehow
have a sensor in the toilet that would scan them every day, that would be
invaluable (and probably save lives).

~~~
jabretti
You could probably sell a lot in Germany too. Germans are crazy about
analysing their own feces.

~~~
bambax
Yes! Their toilets have a special shape so that one can look at their own poo
before flushing it.

~~~
giarc
I found that out the hard way when I went to the Czech Republic.

------
jansho
Hmm it’s true that we’re mostly familiar with what problems need to be solved.
And yet it’s either high failure rate or too little effort to address them. So
I see the key being the _founding team._ I know that that is repeated ad
nauseum, but it’s often as an _instruction_ and no more ( _”Find a great
cofounder!”_ )

Well, in real life, it’s _hard_ to find a truly complementary cofounder - let
alone a team - even if one has a great network. It’s not just talent, it’s
other things like personality traits and leadership styles. The greatest ones
like Jobs/Wozniak only comes once in a while, and that’s thanks to luck. So
why not frame this as an actual _problem statement?_ For example, for problem
x, what’s the ideal makeup of the team to solve it? How do we find brilliant
and passionate individuals and bring them together? How do we sustain that
team energy and commitment to the vision?

So maybe, that’s something for startup incubators to think about. Basically a
sort of recruitment, Avengers style.

------
regularfry
`Accounts Receivables as a Service`

Does invoice factoring not exist in the US? It's a fairly run of the mill
concept in the UK, and it's nothing like debt collection.

~~~
brianbreslin
I know at least one company offering this in a modern package.

~~~
iforiq
Which one? Paid labs? This is a big problem we've faced too, currently our
bookkeeper does it for us, which can get expensive as they charge by the hour.

~~~
brianbreslin
Tesorio

~~~
rficcaglia
I looked at them [0] but I don't see anything to do with "get me paid faster"
(aka collections or factoring) but they seem to have a "demo wall" to get any
meaningful info.

I assume what they do is show you data you already have but maybe don't
appreciate fully, e.g. if BigCo pays you on average 30 days late you can see
that before you embark on some new project. Cool, but not necessarily getting
me paid faster. Helping me avoid risk perhaps.

Maybe I missed it but if you know more, maybe you can give some examples of
how they solve this? Genuinely interested since I too have this problem on
occasion.

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

~~~
panamaniac
Thanks for the shout-out brianbreslin. I’m co-founder & CEO of Tesorio (YC
S15) and in the past I founded a factoring company. Factoring solves the
collections problem in a way but it can be expensive and may send mixed
messages to your customer that your cash flow wasn’t strong enough to wait for
payment. We started Tesorio because we kept seeing folks misuse factoring as a
source of financing, not as a point in time solution to a working capital gap.
It gets expensive fast, it’s like payday lending for business.

Collections in the B2B world is more broadly defined as the process of
reminding your customers to pay you, not so much the breaking knees part. Most
companies over $15MM in revenue have at least one person doing this.

We see the collections process as the final step in a good customer
experience… so we’ve built a product that combines the best parts of sales CRM
and customer engagement tools. Our website showcases our active products
(Forecasting, Forex, & Analytics), but we’re currently in Beta with the
Collections tool and would love to show you it and get your feedback.

Feel free to reach out to me directly: carlos[at]tesorio.com

~~~
rficcaglia
All great points, and to the meta discussion here of whether ideas are
sufficient, I think you just demonstrated that ideas need experience and
experimentation more than they need funding :)

That said, I think the fact that some folks misuse factoring in some
industries doesn't mean it cannot be correctly used by many folks in other
industries, even alongside other capital sources. Lowering the expense could
be one way to innovate. Reducing the chagrin factor could be another.

FWIW, I have been at several >$15MM tech companies and in most cases worked
directly with the CFO and team, and I don't recall having a FTE doing
collections in any of them; sure it was a problem on occasion. The bigger
problem was the routine elongation of the receivables cycle. We got paid in
full 99.99% of the time - but slowly. We didn't need collections, we just
wanted cash faster. Even at >$15MM...in fact more so!

Reminding them wasn't the problem in my experiences - though I'm sure there
are many who have this problem - they deliberately engineered delay into their
system. They were rewarded to delay. I have been on the other side of that
table, doing the exact same thing admittedly, so I know.

Would love to chat 1:1 too, just keeping the ideation here on the thread in
the spirit of the OP's goal.

------
echan00
While many comments ridicule the ideas in Kyle's post, I actually think it has
generated great discussion and inspiration for some others.

As a serial entrepreneur, I would very much be interested in seeing more of
these 'Startup Ideas' posts to sharpen my skills in identifying/weighing an
opportunity through a discussion with others.

------
onewland
Smart Pipe:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ)

------
Tomis02
This is what happens when you'd like to save the world (and earn the big money
and fame) but you unfortunately took the path of a CS degree (or worse, just
software/business school) and are incapable of solving real hard problems, so
you bet on the unlikely success of an useless startup. People have been
sharing visions and ideas of the future for at least one hundred years, such
as infinite lifespans, telepathy, artificial food, searching for life
throughout the galaxy, time travel, neural implants, artificial limbs and
organs, and so on. Unfortunately, since all that has been done already, the
only way a new startup can succeed is by inventing a (semi-)automatic baby
bidet or having adwords for outdoors.

Call me cynical but I believe that 99.999% of the startups are huge waste of
time (probably their only benefit is siphoning some money from the financial
industry and redistributing it to the rest of society) and a vast proportion
of software developers (maybe even the majority) would be much better suited
working in a different scientific field where they could actually help do
something useful for humanity.

~~~
a1exyz
I think you're right but at least startups incentivize trying really really
hard - as opposed to joining some big R&D firm. It challenges people to
wrestle again and again with the ideas of value and what we want this world to
be.

Trying and suffering leads to learning and progress.

------
HumanDrivenDev
My startup ideas are all much, much duller than these. Usually they're
inspired by existing products made by small teams that I feel fall short in a
few areas. They're more novel than a clone, but they certainly don't reach the
lofty heights of a canine AI.

I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing. Am I realistic or just boring?

------
ehnto
A social network for kids has such high risk and such a low reward. For one,
children need to be interacting in person and having real friendships in the
real world.

By the time it makes sense for kids to be using social networks at all they
may as well be using the real thing. Once it makes sense for them to use
social networks they definitely aren't going to use the one Mom or Dad can
peer into (and everyone else's mom or dad in the group).

If you are worried about the implications of social networks for your child
then don't let them use them at all, because it is next to impossible to
create a safe space online. Being safe online is more of a learned skill, than
an environment you can create, and by the time you should be let to wander the
web at all you should probably be old enough to be taught those skills anyway.

------
indescions_2017
>>> The Baby Bidet

Just wanted to say that I love this space. Smart products targeting ages 0-5.
As well as smart business models to reduce waste. And promote recycling of
baby products.

One example: Owlet smart sock monitor

[https://owletcare.com/](https://owletcare.com/)

~~~
dpeck
Baby Bidet is interesting, and anyone who has changed a diaper is probably
brainstorming as they read this.

I could see it being something at mounts over the top of a toilet and the baby
is covered around their waist with something like a kayak skirt. You'd need a
foolproof way to do temperature control, either requiring: \- a hot water
line, usually not far from toilet but requires plumbing which is out for most
people \- precision heater and needs to be plugged in and will probably make
people unhappy with its heat up speed unless its 220v

Good place to start prototyping might be to get a bunch of bumbo seats and
start cutting the seats out of them enough to allow water flow but still give
support so the little one isn't falling into the bowl.

Thinking about it more, step one for newborns that can't sit up yet could just
be a changing table with a nice padded surface that drains directly into a
toilet.

That could really be a great product, hope someone makes a run at that.

~~~
ballenf
As a parent of several kids, diaper changing really seems like a solved
problem. With a little practice it takes literally seconds for a wet diaper
and a couple minutes for poo.

The most time consuming part of it all is the clothing unsnapping, re-snapping
with winter clothing on.

Finally, the hardest part about the washing is getting the baby dry after to
prevent rashes, not getting them clean. A couple flushable, bio-degradable
wipes.

The last thing I want as a parent is another gadget that needs maintenance
and/or refills.

~~~
petercooper
As someone with a third newborn in the house right now, I agree. I can't see
how a "baby bidet" makes any sense. The stuff that comes out of a baby's butt
isn't something that makes sense to wash down a sink, especially once they're
on solids. No hose attachment would get one of _my_ turds down a sink, and the
kids are already giving me a good run for my money in that department. It
sounds way more disgusting than just dealing with it how we do now.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Eh, most of the turds go into the diaper, only what you can't wipe into the
diaper goes down the drain. Its a really good way to avoid diaper rash, at any
rate.

~~~
sjg007
Diaper rash is largely due to not changing diapers frequently enough and not
just cleaning after soiling. It's just excessive moisture / chafing The best
way to cure diaper rash is to expose the bottom to the air for a long period
of time.

~~~
GordonS
The worst thing for nappy rash is the precense of both excrement _and_ urine
at the same time, as ammonia is created.

------
kareemsabri
In the case of the AI for dogs, I wonder if the person who suggested this owns
a dog. If so, it seems rather bizarre. Dogs are not particularly cryptic.
They're relatively easy to read if you put your phone down and pay attention
to them. Humans and dogs have been communicating for thousands of years. The
idea that an AI would have greater canine emotional intelligence than a human
is dubious.

~~~
joseakle
Having it plugged into a security camera would be amazing though. It could
alert you when your dog is bored and wants to go out to play for example :) or
if it's feeling sick and needs to go to the vet :(

------
brianbreslin
I think the old request for startups post were more "impactful" and more in
line with the direction that I would hope Silicon Valley was heading. Buyers
remorse for art to me isn't a world changing idea.

[https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

------
pascalxus
Getting good ideas/big problems is VERY important, so I applaud that.

But, the more important question we should be asking is, are these problems of
customers who "have their hair on fire?". If not, then it'll probably go
nowhere. How much are customers willing to spend to have these problems
solved? This reminds of that Website that answered just that question. I just
can't remember what it was. does anyone else remember the name of that site?
It was on HN about 3 to 8 months ago, if i remember correctly.

~~~
wonderous
Are you talking about this website: [https://nugget.one](https://nugget.one)

~~~
pascalxus
no, there was another one, where people post problems along with a dollar
amount that they would pay for to have the problem solved.

~~~
ssijak
Ops daily

------
sulam
That moment when someone reveals a lot about what itches they're currently
scratching...

> Buyer’s Remorse Insurance Money back guarantee for art buyers: Buying fine
> art has a steep learning curve.

~~~
giarc
I thought the same thing. I wonder if Justin just bought a $400 million Da
Vinci only to find out it might not be real.... :)

------
ianstormtaylor
> Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising

> Billboards are still sold manually by sales teams. You literally cannot buy
> a billboard online. If people could buy them as easily as you buy an Adwords
> ad, maybe many more small companies would.

It's interesting how these ideas continually arise. And as described it seems
like a virtuous idea. By solving the scaling issues of the marketplace,
smaller and smaller companies can buy ads. Which is good because it evens the
playing field and reduces monopolistic behaviors, making the market more free.

But by solving those scaling issues, you'd also be making it easier for bad
actors to buy advertisements. (In this case huge billboards.) And without
collecting a _lot_ more data, or allowing a company to policy free speech,
there would end up being much less accountability for who is buying the
advertisements, and who is seeing them. You end up with the same situation
Facebook, Google and Twitter are answering for in Congress right now. [0]

I don't have a solution, other than to stop building these types of
marketplaces, but it is disconcerting.

We keep creating systems that have positive benefits, but at the expense of
rarer-but-huge negative consequences, that are often "solved" by infringing
more and more on our privacy to prevent the black-swan events from occurring.

PS. If anyone has interesting reading along these lines, I'd love to hear it.

[0]: [https://stratechery.com/2017/tech-goes-to-
washington/](https://stratechery.com/2017/tech-goes-to-washington/)

~~~
thefahim
All advertising is screened by the company that's putting up the advertising
and is not automated.

I'm co-founder of a company building exactly this – AdQuick.com. We're funded
by Initialized Capital/Garry Tan and other YC partners.
[https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/adquick-seed-
funding/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/adquick-seed-funding/)

------
plehoux
> With the arrival of autonomous drones, industrial drones, better sensors and
> better prediction we should be able do a better job saving our forests,
> cities and firefighters.

My wife is a forest engineer and a good friend of her works at detecting fire
at the Sopfeu [http://www.sopfeu.qc.ca/en](http://www.sopfeu.qc.ca/en).

Sopfeu moto:

> Optimize forest fire protection to ensure the sustainability of the forest
> environment for the good of the community, and to do so at the lowest
> possible cost.

Obviously, Quebec territory is massive, and most of it is forest land with no
inhabitant. So protection goals are not the same as in let's say California.

But one thing my girlfriend always tells me (and her friend) is that forest
fires are part of the natural cycle of all forest ecosystem (at least the
Boreal one).

You cannot prevent/fight fires in a natural ecosystem, you can only control
them to some extent.

To prevent fires, you need to actively manage a forest. Create natural barrier
(cut trees), remove combustible (death wood), etc.

Without those heavy interventions, there will be fire at some point. So
detection is only part of the solution.

------
segmondy
I was going to post when I saw this hours earlier but decided not to because
of the down-votes but fuck it.

I know for certain that I'm not the only one that applied to YC that got
rejected that's really ticked off at this list of @#$#$#$. But whatever.

------
chromaton
AR as a service is something I've been thinking about for a while. I was
thinking more "Stripe for Purchase Orders" though. I can definitely see my
business using this. It's a billion dollar business if done correctly.

~~~
chromaton
The "use blockchain" people are missing it. This is for dealing with companies
that handle purchases through the very traditional Quote -> Purchase Order ->
Delivery -> Invoice -> Payment system.

~~~
rficcaglia
EDIT: re-read the parent and I think I grok now. So why can't the
"traditional" quote to cash be embodied on ethereum?

~~~
chromaton
What does that get you?

~~~
rficcaglia
it gets me paid in a timely fashion, without human emotion from either party
mucking things up. isn't that the goal?

traditional: send PDF quote, go back and forth on quoted terms and cost 1..n
times, wait for signed PO, call 1..n times reminding them to sign the PO,
eventually get signed PO, do work, (at this point client is your BFF and calls
you every 5 minutes asking if the work is done yet!), deliver product/service,
get at least 100 bug reports on things that differ from the original approved
spec/quote but should have been "implied", fix "bugs", send PDF invoice 1..n
times, call buyer to remind them to pay invoice 1..n times, get runaround and
sent to various accounting people most of whom are on vacation 1..n times,
finally get told check is in mail 1..n times, wait 30 days per cycle,
sacrifice chicken, call back and find that check was never sent and invoice is
lost so repeat steps again, finally check arrives, deposit check in bank

eth: seller defines contract in solidity with various Oraclized callbacks for
spec acceptance, delivery of work product(s), final acceptance test execution,
and various failure modes that return eth back to the buyer's wallet if
necessary, buyer funds contract with eth, acceptance events (e.g. signed PDFs
in dropbox, or some git commit, etc) triggers payment to seller's eth wallet,
OR on failure cases returns money back to the buyer's wallet

lots of hand wavy stuff here but since we're just discussing ideas...so, in
all sincerity, what does this not get you that you are looking for?

EDIT: fix typo

~~~
52804375092485
That sounds like all the same problems with defining a "traditional" contract,
except now when things go wrong you have to explain what ETH is in civil
court, hope the volatility of ETH doesn't make things weird, and also hope
your solidity contracts don't include bugs that let people steal your money
(or if they do contain bugs, hope you have enough clout to cause a hard fork).

~~~
rficcaglia
Well I would argue it has all the same goals and steps of a traditional
contract, but automated and electronic. Your points are all valid today...but
I recall similar points about e-commerce and e-banking circa 1999. I can
hardly be considered a blockchain fanboy (I own precisely 1.0 ETH for
experimentation only). But I do sense that the problems you mention can and
will be solved by someone or several someones with enough time and money since
there are real pain points here. Maybe 5 years, or 15. But I think our kids
will find this post in the 2020s in their AR equipped Waymo and laugh at how
we did things now.

And the lawyers I know personally love to litigate new things in civil court.
Like robbing banks, that's where the money is!

------
Ice_cream_suit
Japan became the first country to mandate urine screening all infants for
neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous system primarily found in children
younger than age 5

The result was overdiagnosis, unnecessary treatment inflicted on infants,
infant deaths due to side-effects of treatment and no improvement in outcome.

A Halt to Neuroblastoma Screening in Japan
[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200405063501922#t=a...](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200405063501922#t=article)

------
baxtr
This list is so Silicon Valley cliche. I wish they started addressing the real
problems of this planet, like overpopulation, climate change, droughts, you
name it. But hey, why not help dogs talk

~~~
SamReidHughes
I'm waiting for your list of startup ideas to address these issues.

------
yters
The animal communication AI sounds really interesting. With enough video and
audio recording seems pretty doable, too. Imagine being able to interpret all
the bird tweets in the area.

------
jeremysalwen
_Low-Friction Lending Library_

 _Most people end up accumulating dozens or hundreds of items that they only
need a few times a year. In my case these are things like camping equipment, a
soldering iron, an electric drill, paper cutter, etc. — but everybody has
their own unique list. I’d much rather not have to keep track of all this
infrequently-used inventory and instead rent it on demand, especially since I
have limited storage space. Lending libraries for this type of stuff exist but
are too high-friction to be popular today — it’s substantially easier to just
buy something on Amazon than rent it from a local depot. I think with
automated inventory management and (potentially) sidewalk delivery bots the
cost and friction can be brought low enough to turn this into a popular and
defensible subscription business._

I know that my sentiment isn't original, but I can't help but feel sad that
this is essentially a startup idea that is only viable because it fills a hole
created by the atomization of American society. What happened to borrowing a
tool from your neighbor?

This is not to say that this is a bad idea, or that nobody needs this, or that
people who prefer not to borrow tools from their neighbors are bad people, but
it just feels like something is being lost.

~~~
jigginsNOW
Check out Selfless! We created it to serve just that need: lend/borrow from
people around you. We’re still very young but would love your support! ️

Web — [https://selfless.io](https://selfless.io)

iOS — [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/selfless-love-
something.-giv...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/selfless-love-
something.-give/id1140329334?ls=1&mt=8)

Android —
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.selfless](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.selfless)

------
thisrod
> Make Technology Relatable and Accessible

I've considered drawing up a directed acyclic graph of fault propagation in
Linux. E.g., an incorrect WPA key causes WiFi to be misconfigured causes the
physical network layer to be unavailable causes ... big tangled DAG ... causes
the web to be inaccessible causes Facebook to fail. This might be stored as a
bunch of files in /usr/consequences. Software packages would come with extra
files to model their usual failure modes.

The error message in the web browser would refer you to the "web inacessible"
node in the DAG. You would input that into a program that automatically tested
for faults and walked back though the causal links to find the mistyped WPA
key. The leaf node for a simple fault like that would suggest ways to fix it
(keys are printed on modems, take care with O and 0, etc.) and would link to
the relevant man pages.

I think that a tool like this would encourage people to start learning about
software. At least it would show them which small part of the big system they
needed to learn right now.

~~~
mikevin
That's brilliant. I guess you'd need a Wikipedia-like user community to manage
all the likely scenarios.

------
adamonkey
Smart Bathroom

These bathrooms don't necessarily need to be targeted at households. It could
make sense for office buildings, so that:

-costs/person can be kept low

-it is easier for the employer to handle connecting measurements to medical IDs (scan an app/employee ID)

-it is easier for employers to negotiate directly with providers to lower health insurance (I believe some companies already do this with Fitbits, e.g. John Hancock)

~~~
chmike
I bet companies would want that. They could detect if employee use drugs, etc.
But this might become a privacy problem if it goes too far.

------
wonderous
I will commit to doing the “Social Network for Children” if YC puts me in the
next batch; this is not a random offer, I have thought about this before and
have a solid idea of how to merge the parent’s role in oversight and the
child’s right to privacy. If YC has a baseline to reach before considering an
app for this topic, please let me know. Thanks!

~~~
lytol
I was a senior engineer at a startup that evolved into this space – basically,
we started as a browser for kids and slowly started adding more "social"
features. I thought I'd add a few notes in case you (or someone else) goes
down this road:

\- Monetization is hard. As much as parents vocally _desire_ a safe space for
their kids online, it doesn't translate to their wallet. If you end up going
for more indirect revenue (ads, branded experience, etc), you'll find yourself
in ethical gray areas quickly.

\- Read up heavily on COPPA. It is by no means insurmountable, but it adds
more work and restricts what you can/can't do.

\- Social interaction needs to either be severely limited or heavily
moderated, both of which have serious problems. You can't just throw a kid
into peer-to-peer chat rooms or private chat for obvious reasons. Likewise, a
kid gets bored quickly with a pre-determined set of "emotes" or canned text.
Finding a balance between the two is very difficult.

\- Parents care less than they think they do. Every parent, from casual
conversation to focus groups, will light up at the idea of a kid-safe
internet/social network. However, we found parent engagement to severely drop
after initial sign up, despite how active the kid might be. We did weekly
reports on kid activity and interests, ways to share content and engage with
your kid, etc – all of which was rarely used.

Granted, it's quite possible (probable) that we missed the mark, and that we
just didn't have the right timing/vision/execution, but there was enough
friction that I came out the other end with a strong bias against working in
the kids' space again.

~~~
jakobegger
If your product depends on parent supervision, it's not going to work. As a
parent, the last thing I want to do is spend more time looking after my kids!

If you work on a kid product, make sure that kids can use it on their own,
without supervision.

~~~
lytol
It's not so much parent supervision but just parent buy-in. If you're a game,
no problem, you just need to appeal to the kid. If you're trying to be a safe
portal to the wider internet, you probably need parents onboard.

------
bschne
>Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising

The Swiss outdoor advertising provider APG actually provides an online tool
for that [1] (link in German). As far as I know, you can also upload your ads
and let them handle printing.

1\. [http://www.posterdirect.ch/de/](http://www.posterdirect.ch/de/)

------
idlewords
This list is simply impossible to parody. There is way too much easy money in
this industry, chasing stupid ideas.

~~~
mino
Looking forward to see this thread here next week:

[http://n-gate.com/hackernews/](http://n-gate.com/hackernews/)

~~~
aptwebapps
This is really strange, but on Chrome, and only on Chrome and not in incognito
mode, that redirects to [https://www.apple.com/](https://www.apple.com/) . I
wonder if it returned a 301 at one time.

~~~
spatulon
It's nothing to do with the browser — the same thing happens in Firefox. The
site redirects to Apple when the referrer is HN.

~~~
aptwebapps
Hah, nothing to see here. ;)

~~~
mino
That's a nice Easter egg!

------
Darthy
Regarding the firefighting idea: why can't evacuate everybody, then have
drones hold up a temporary "tent" around a building, then fill the whole space
with a non-reactive gas? Such a system could be set up and work in minutes,
and also prevent the usual huge water damages.

~~~
neolefty
Prototype it? That sounds crazy enough to test out.

~~~
Darthy
Thanks :-) I've got another 500+ of similar ideas. If you need one, just
contact me :-)

------
dboreham
"Accounts Receivables as a Service"

Interesting one since I a) worked at a startup in this area long ago (they ran
out of money..for reasons see below) and b) I now run a company and have found
customers dislike for paying on time to be a significant irritation.

However, unless this proposed "AR Service" has a way to get a horse's head
into the bed of the late payer's CFO, how are they going to achieve anything?
In my experience simply asking for payment doesn't achieve much. They're
paying late because they want to and unless you have a way to force them to
pay (e.g. stop providing your services to them) and that seems hard to
outsource.

~~~
pjc50
There are definitely outsourced debt collectors and bailiffs who will recover
debts for you, up to and including getting court orders to seize property.

Strangely this doesn't overlap with the "happy path" of normal AR processing.

~~~
dboreham
This only works if the debt value is such that the costs of legal recovery
process are justified. It also only works if there is property to seize.

------
j_m_b
I've had this idea to find a way to connect landscapers and homeowners to
people seeking to buy yard waste for use in various composts and mulches. What
gave me this idea was that I had a tree cut down and chipped in my
neighborhood. By simply asking, the guys gave me a huge pile of wood mulch! I
gave them $50 as a tip. Had I gone through a mulching company, I would have
paid closer to $300. I feel like there are lots of opportunities like this
that exist.

Drawbacks: Very seasonal in temperate climates. Getting initial providers.
Fluctuations in supply/demand. Some communities process yard waste for free.

~~~
33W
I think I found this through HN a while back:
[https://getchipdrop.com/](https://getchipdrop.com/)

~~~
j_m_b
Hah awesome... idea has existed for years!

------
leot
Want to join a team with founded by neuroscience PhDs that has already had
considerable success developing technology for intelligently interacting with
dogs (and many other animals)? Send email to leo@clever.pet :)

------
sidcool
No one here seems excited about the Dr Dolittle tech. I would love to get one.

------
frankdenbow
> Accounts Receivables as a Service

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/kinder-gentler-debt-
collec...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/kinder-gentler-debt-collector-
trueaccord-raises-22-million/)

> Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising

ADstruc, ADquick

> Modern Firefighting

Really intrigued by this one. I would go further and say disaster relief in
general, as living in Puerto Rico showed me how ill-equipped we are to deal
with finding the status of people with no communications, and getting aid to
the right places.

~~~
rficcaglia
re: debt collection: just my experience in several small/startup companies...
Sending your biggest (only) customer to a debt collector, no matter how
gentle, might be counterproductive.

We often get a PO from a reputable, but disorganized or bureaucratic BigCo. We
want that to be a good relationship, and we want more business from BigCo. We
want positive reviews and testimonials from them. BigCo. is good for the
money...eventually... but like any BigCo. they have all the leverage and for
many reasons can delay payment until it is convenient for them. Meanwhile we
need to pay bills.

As such, a gentler debt collector is not really what we want since the person
we would nag (however gently) would likely be the person who needs to green
light future projects and be a champion in future discussions throughout
BigCo.

What we typically do in the worst case is tell them that it's been great
working with you, but we have employees and bills to pay, so if the invoice
isn't paid, unfortunately we will have to disable their account in X days. 99%
of the time we get paid the next day. The 1% we had to disable were likely
never going to be good customers so I am glad we fired them.

Granted, this only works in a SaaS like scenario, not in cases where the work
is one-time and handed over to the customer. In those cases, I would recommend
requiring pre-payment, at least partial pre-payment. I often pay programmers
on fixed bid projects 33% up front, 33% on release for acceptance testing, and
33% when final bugs are fixed. We both take risks, but if we have both done
due diligence, then there's rarely a problem.

A smart contract that auto-pays upon (phased) delivery, etc. could be useful,
and remove a lot of hassle/anxiety.

From what I've seen, can't that be done "out of the box" today with an
ethereum contract?

~~~
panamaniac
> A smart contract that auto-pays upon (phased) delivery, etc.

That's a solid idea in theory. We tried something similar but had a tough time
getting companies to be comfortable with the autopay feature (e.g. like your
comcast or cell phone bill) because most people think that the role of
accounts payable is to pay as slowly as possible without pissing off your
vendors. That means that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but to nag
politely is a nuanced art. The folks who do it the best manage the
relationships with the people that actually cut the checks super carefully.
They view it as the last step in their customer engagement cycle. Happy to
chat more about what we've learned or how we're approaching this:
carlos[at]tesorio.com

~~~
rficcaglia
Totally agree that AP is designed as interest free financing in most
companies, large and small. Though I don't know if a squeaky wheel solves
that, even with AI or social engineering, etc., precisely because delay is
explicitly incentivized.

I concede that you are in the "squeaky wheel" business, so you probably have
data showing me it does solve that!

But I would argue in some/many cases, not your cases naturally, I think the
squeaky wheel is a counterproductive social norm that actually signals I am OK
_not_ being paid. It tells the deadbeat customer, that 1) you haven't gone out
of business yet so they can still delay and 2) when things get serious you
will not be so subtle, and will start threatening real punitive action. Until
then continue delaying.

That's why most companies insulate the AR from the actual people involved in
negotiations and selling. You can always blame those "people in accounting"
and over drinks promise to "look into it" when all the while you are telling
that poor chap in accounting to sit on the invoice. Bad form I know, but
happens all the time.

I agree that if you have a special "insider" relationship curated with the 1
person in accounting that cuts the checks, you can sometimes circumvent the
accidental delays.

No one ever got a larger bonus for showing FASTER cash outflows in a given
quarter. So as long as that is true, line managers with PO authority will not
be squeaked into submission.

I think the trick to getting companies comfortable with "smart"-er autopay is
to show them a compelling reason why it works for them on the other side of
the equation. But since you are actually out there working hard in this space
I'll definitely defer to your experience. Maybe it is impossible, at least in
the short term. Being married to a PhD in psych, I know that changing human
behavior is SUPER DUPER HARD...of course she'd say the same about my domestic
behavior ;)

------
richiverse
Like the firefighting idea. Might as well throw policing in there as well. An
army of sufficiently smart drones should be enough to drastically reduced the
size of those labor pools.

~~~
atonse
Please, no. If we have learned anything from all this police violence, it's
that police are not interacting with their communities enough, and seeing
their fellow humans as even less human.

Making policing even less personal gets us further from that goal. We need
MORE community engagement, more handshakes, more of all that.

------
psergeant

        > Accounts Receivables as a 
        > Service
    

This is called invoice factoring, and it’s a competitive and mature market at
least in the UK.

------
echan00
Re Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising

While not the same exact idea, I have been kicking around an idea about
creating a marketplace for ad inventory consumers can offer. A marketplace
where businesses can connect with airbnb hosts, uber drivers, college
students, etc.. to place advertising in guest rooms, as bumper stickers or on
t-shirts.

It's not completely thought out yet. But I'd welcome discussion.

------
Hasz
Want a good idea?

Go talk to people. Figure out what their pain points are -- chances are, there
are other people like them, and if it's enough of a pain, they'll pay for it.

That being said, people are acutely aware of what pains them. They are not, in
general, able to come up with what they want (in terms of a solution). That's
your job.

So ask people what their pain points are; don't ask people what they want.

------
mceoin
> Billboard Advertising.

Adquick is a startup attacking this. Huge space though.

> Low-Friction Lending Library.

My friends use Omni for this, works out great actually, $5 for a delivery.

------
xyclos
On the topic of "Social Network for Children":

I worked for a while on something like this, although it was more of "Linkedin
for Children". It's stempremier.com. Our big idea was that there are tons of
kids being recruited (sometimes for somewhat early ages) for college and
professional sports. However, there aren't a huge number of kids being
recruited who aren't talented athletes. An example is a kid who doesn't
necessarily have stellar grades, but loves the outdoor and possibly has an
interest in electronics. These students are very sought after by telecom
companies as linemen, but it is exceptionally difficult to make the
connection.

One of the big obstacles we ran into was how to monetize. While I was there,
our approach was to have schools pay for per user licenses for students. It
was a hard sell.

I think there is potential if an app like this aims to help kids pursue a
quality education and find what they are passionate about. I however, am
skeptical about a kind of facebook just for kids that would likely seek to
exploit the kids to sell their data to advertisers and would be at best a
detractor from a child's education.

------
blang
> Low-Friction Lending Library I've thought about this one on and off for many
> years. I still think it's a great idea, but whenever I get to the liability
> part (both damage to person using a lended drill or hey you broke my drill)
> I get discouraged and stop thinking about it.

~~~
ccozan
You need to partner with an insurer and add a small amount on top of the
price.

However still not sure, since someone wanted to have the tool _now_ , if a
such shop would be open 24/7, in contrast of a library.

~~~
33W
For the 24/7 aspect, some version of an automat, perhaps with an amazon now or
uber eats delivery model.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat)

------
tootie
Design on Demand has been attempted. West Elm will match a Pinterest board to
products. Something more general purpose should be very achievable.

[https://pinterest-style-finder.westelm.com](https://pinterest-style-
finder.westelm.com)

------
martinni
I like the outdoor billboard idea. I'm actually surprised it doesn't exists
already!

~~~
blairanderson
it does! [https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/adquick-seed-
funding/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/adquick-seed-funding/)

------
crispytx
The "Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising" is a good idea. I once
looked into how much it would cost to buy some billboard space, and it looked
like it would be a pain in the ass (talking to sales people and whatnot).

------
perpetualcrayon
re: the "Modern Firefighting" idea. I wonder if anyone has ever analyzed the
cost / benefit of preventative fire fighting. ie. deploying moisture to dry
areas. You wouldn't need to dump buckets at a time. Instead more like a mist
you get at those water parks in Orlando FL.

Something like this, but attached to a helicopter / airplane flying over dry
areas:

    
    
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpSMRVngiQI
    

In a lot of cases you probably could source the water from wells you would dig
on an ad-hoc basis on those dry lands instead of from nearby water sources.

------
maliker
There is a pretty cool startup going after the smart bathroom idea:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ)

------
bguillet
Can't believe no one has cited Omni for "Low-Friction Lending Library". This
is exactly what they are doing.

I have no relationships or interests whatsoever with them, apart from being a
happy customer.

------
elwell
Re "Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising"

I thought Vistar Media (some of the Invite Media co-founders) was doing that
several years ago. It appears they pivoted, which might be a bad signal.

~~~
sjg007
My guess is the cost is too high. First Adwords is an auction. Then you have
to deploy to the billboard which requires an ad of suitable format and then
someone to design and put it up. Maybe electronic billboards would work? I
would think adwords inside video games would be good.. or live tv events (e.g.
soccer matches).

------
thecupisblue
Suddenly I don't really wanna be a part of YCombinator anymore.

------
yvsong
Is startup limited to _technology_ or _business_? The most urgent needs of the
world are political or social. Generally, promoting logical reasoning and
emotional control.

~~~
elechi
Business.

------
sjg007
Baby Bidet already exists if you have a pull out faucet on your sink..

That being said, wipes are pretty much standard here and if a baby has a full
on blow out they are usually going in the bath.

------
pjc50
> Renewable Energy from Engineered Microbes

This has been one of those things that's 5 years away for decades. Great if
you can make it happen.

> Social Network for Children

Club Penguin was quite successful for a while.

~~~
Uhhrrr
Club Penguin was indeed successful, until Disney bought it and killed it.

I suppose you could say that means it has a proven business model.

------
cubecul
> Low-Friction Lending Library

[https://www.beomni.com/](https://www.beomni.com/) is tackling this I think!

------
foxhedgehog
what if there was an ML to generate startup ideas and then you securitized
that on the blockchain

------
eshlomo
[https://outsense.co.il](https://outsense.co.il)

------
taurath
Re: dog detection - please don't train your neural networks by poking dogs
with sticks.

------
gowld
> Lending Library

[https://myturn.com](https://myturn.com)

------
sexydefinesher
Its like Über, but for elevators.

------
smoyer
"Social Network for Children" \- Not touching this one with a ten-foot pole!

------
simplicitea
The only important idea in that list is the last, firefighting tools

------
austenallred
Nobody cares about my asset securitization on the blockchain idea :(

~~~
louprado
> not only tokens but anything else that can be bought or sold.

Ownership is a combination of possession, control, and enforcement. Blockchain
solves the issue with tokens, maybe helps with digital assets, but _anything_
?

I _own_ my house, for example, because the county records show I own it. But
more importantly the county will enforce my ownership and also enforce any
related contracts using an armed sheriff.

All that said, I often find myself thinking about this quixotic problem.

~~~
austenallred
Yeah, don't take it too literally. I'm thinking equities, assets, debt
obligations, etc.

------
ahussain
I honestly cannot tell if some of these ideas are real or just parodies of
silicon valley, "avocado toast" tech culture: \- AI for Communicating with
Dogs \- Baby Bidet \- AR Debt Collector \- Buyer’s Remorse Insurance

Are these really the most pressing problems start-ups could be solving right
now? What about issues like cost of housing in cities, urban transport,
infrastructure in the developing world, fixing 'fake news', new (non-ads)
business models for the web, modern banking, helping refugees and displaced
persons, more energy efficient air-conditioning, voice-to-voice language
translation, collective decision making tools, reducing air pollution...

~~~
ductionist
Can't speak to AI for dogs and buyer's remorse insurance, but the AR collector
really spoke to me - I would hand over 5-10% of invoices to have someone else
deal with getting my enterprise clients to pay on time (and getting them to
pay interest when they don't). It might not provide much social benefit, but I
wish it existed anyway.

~~~
tech4all
Hasn't this been around for ages? "Factoring Accounts Receivable". All the
cool kids were doing it in the 80's.

~~~
dboreham
Since at least Roman times.

------
amgin3
...These are all shitty ideas.

------
bdz
>Social Network for Children

rip Club Penguin

------
rubberbandtight
Which of these ideas is good?

------
zapperdapper
Oh dear, the secret of Y-Combinator's success is finally revealed - blind
luck! ;)

Real ideas start with real problems.

Just off the top of my head...

1) Have you ever tried to debug an HPC program running on 700,000 cores? You
are probably using a patched version of GDB and it's darn painful!

2) Why are we still using a 1970s designed programming language in embedded
systems that almost guarantees baked in bugs around memory management and
multi-threading?

3) What do we do about data strangulation by the big players that is going on
in the web right now?

4) Why are we using presentational markup for the web rather than semantic?

5) How to bust up a travel industry that is basically a brutal cartel of the
big players?

6) And it would be really, really nice if I could get my repeat prescription
without having to phone both the surgery and the pharmacist, then drive to
town, pay for parking, find they can't issue my meds because the pharmacist
went off to do his xmas shopping, and wait for an hour until he gets back, and
then have to repeat these shenanigans the following month...

7) Why do so many applications, especially those in Python, fail to take
advantage of multiple cores, and what can be done about it? We live in a
multi-core world now folks...even embedded ARM chips are multi-core. Related:
how to solve the conflict between CPU-bound and I/O bound threads?

8) Why is there no really clean, simple way to write decent, scalable web
applications? Fotango tried this many years ago with Zimki and they were on to
something until Canon closed them down. There choice of JavaScript was not
ideal but the best choice at the time.

9) Why, when I am planning my next trip to Philippines can't I put in my start
point, and an end point and have the system generate a sample itinerary for
me? If I say "yes" my accommodation should be booked automagically for me
according to my budget preferences. As well as a web app there could be a
mobile app that points me to my next port of call on my journey.

10) Why oh why do we insist on using a general purpose, multi-tasking, multi-
user desktop operating system in applications it was never designed for - and
where a single user, single process, text-mode, lightweight, multi-thread OS
would be far superior?

11) Why is it when I book a flight online I feel like I'm being sneakily
ripped off? I would love to see more transparent pricing of flights, and
legitimate regulated price comparison.

12) Why is it that when you see a speaker give a presentation at a conference
they almost always have to struggle with the presentation system for five
minutes before starting?

13) Why is the US system of skilled migrant visas in such a sorry-arsed state
- and why aren't tech companies working together to get this sorted? Even a
basic site listing which companies would actually be prepared to fill out the
relevant form to sponsor you for would be a good start. Many big companies are
very vague on this point (I won't name and shame).

14) Why is the teaching of practical philosophy so shockingly bad? Book of
Life is one of the best sites out there on this, but could do with some
stiffer competition.

15) The baby bidet idea I liked - what comes out in the first few weeks after
birth can only be described as "alien toxic goo". To go with it, a mobile app
that, by emitting a cunning and mysterious range of coloured lights, weird
music, and bird-like tweets sends them off to sleep - I'd have bought it - AI
be damned!

... etc etc etc

Do any of these suggest possible solutions that solve problems? I'm not saying
the above are in any way potential business success stories, but hopefully
they point towards real-world problems.

I have a notebook filled with hundreds of such problems...

(p.s. finally, why is it easier for me, and more satisfying, to keep a paper
notebook of this stuff rather than electronically?)

~~~
GordonS
> what comes out in the first few weeks after birth can only be described as
> "alien toxic goo"

I think it's called something like 'meconium'. It's so sticky that I don't
think you could wash it off without relatively high pressure. I would also not
exactly be keen on having bits of this tar-like substance sprayed over my
walls!

It barely has any smell, and it's only there for a couple of weeks - it really
wasn't a big deal for me at least.

------
b1gnasty
This list sucks

------
659087
> Smart Bathroom

I'm just going to try to give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume
this was meant as a joke.

> Baby Bidet

Better make it "smart" too... because what could possibly go wrong? Maybe have
Google provide a wireless camera that "uses AI to verify cleanliness".

> Social Network for Children

Because it's best to start collecting data on them before they're old enough
to understand what they're giving up and make an informed choice about whether
or not they want advertising corporations to have an archive of their entire
life. Maybe we can even incorporate the data from the "Smart Baby Bidet" and
"Smart Bathroom" into the network!

------
nasirmaziz
Meh

------
Torai
"Ideas" is a broad concept. Those are not product definitions explaining it's
characteristics, what problem they solve and how the are bein monetized in
detail. Those are just paragraphs talking about markets with potential money.

I have a really great concept I had a week ago, and I'm now writing a detailed
document about it. I'm currently employed and I plan to kickstart it by means
of some contact in a group chat that is going to Thailand and there she has a
domestic friend who is successful at coding (I think) and is launching an
startup/product. I saw his product, the concept fails.

I have a $Billion+ idea, and I'm not exagerating. This is my realist side
talking about it. I already had been too optimistic about my ideas in the
past.

What I want to say is I would love to start working about it with an elite
tech team and some money behind it... But there is no way I'm posting it here,
explaining it as best as I can (the vision, the why's...) for the public. No f
__ __*g way.

Do you really think ideas are worth nothing? All the first intuition about a
problem you are trying to solve, that depends on parameters like motivation,
experience and (abstract-visual like) intelligence. All the market analysis
you can make about it. The detailing and identifying the core elements that
make your service great. And so on.

All of that is inside the definition of idea. So no, I don't think they are
worthless.

~~~
heartbreak
I have a multi billion dollar idea where everyone in the world gives me a
dollar for no reason. Want to invest?

~~~
Torai
No, cause:

\- The concept fails. People is not giving you money for no service.

\- Your answer lacks the creativity required for a person with good ideas.

~~~
akawry
whoosh

