
Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?  - derekc
So we've kept on getting threads like "Would this idea be cool?" on HN, and I've always thought that this wasn't the correct approach in creating a startup. The problem should be recognized first. So HN, what are problems that you face everyday that need to be fixed or remedied?
======
edw519
Enterprise software sucks.

We don't talk about it much here at hn, but think about it. Every man-made
object you encounter every day was manufactured somewhere. And moved, more
than once. Now add in all the sales, marketing, customer service, operations,
accounting, finance, human resources, etc., etc., etc. needed to support that
manufacturing and distribution. Next, add financial markets, healthcare,
energy, entertainment, etc., etc., etc. and you have tons of stuff. But you
don't see it and rarely think about it. Kinda like most of the iceberg being
underwater.

And all of this needs software. And most of what they have sucks. I mean
really sucks. Enterprise software is so bad that there are multi-billion
dollar industries devoted to consulting on how to use it, how to share it, and
how to store it in data warehouses and harvest it. It's so bad that lots of
people have to dump the data out of their enterprise systems and into
Microsoft Excel just to get anything done.

When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he said because that's where
the money is.

What banks were in the 1930's, enterprise IT is in the 21st century.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Another trend I noted after sitting in on a VC pitch: Look where people use
Excel as some sort of database/process management system because an existing
app isn't there or just sucks. That probably spells out opportunity. The
world's most used database isn't Oracle or MySQL, it's Microsoft Excel...

~~~
logicalmind
I work in enterprise software, trying to improve it one company at a time, and
the biggest niche I see for excel is bypassing existing security mechanisms or
procedures. We tend to expose data to users in a secure manner based on roles
or authorities. But once users can export the data into excel, all of those
security mechanisms are bypassed and they can send the data to other people or
take it home.

I've even seen instances where excel exports are used as disaster recovery
mechanisms.

~~~
joshu
Excel is perhaps the single largest development tool used (mostly by people
who don't think they are developing anything.)

I keep wondering what a next-generation replacement might look like?

------
fletchowns
We need to eliminate packaging waste. My laundry detergent ran out, so I had
to go get some more. Why am I throwing this big plastic jug back into the
recycling loop? Why can't I just take it back to the store and fill it up
again? I could use the same jug for years and years and years. How many of
those jugs do you think are just going into landfills every day?

I saw a link recently to a "bring your own container" type of grocery store
that was in NYC. It was so small though, and I've never seen anything like
that around where I live. We need something like that but on a massive scale
to invoke a fundamental shift in the way every single person does grocery
shopping.

I don't see it happening any time soon though, unfortunately. I mean, how are
plastic bags still legal in so many places? How are people still not using
reusable grocery sacs at this point?

It's just so frustrating to think about how many perfectly good containers are
being thrown away every second of every day. Why are we so damn wasteful?!

~~~
clistctrl
I agree completely with this! In addition look at beer bottles. Glass bottles
are very robust. Most have the potential to last several reuses. Yet recycling
them means smashing them, and remaking a bottle. That's never made sense to
me.

~~~
fletchowns
In other countries they clean and refill beer bottles. When you get a Corona
in Mexico you can tell the same bottle has been used many times before. I
guess we Americans are just too good to be drinking out of a beer bottle that
has been used before?

edit: interesting article related to this stuff
<http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/03/11/OldBottles/>

~~~
WarDekar
Same with Coke and other soda bottles in other countries. At least in Central
America, anyway, as I've spent a lot of time down there and the Coke bottles
are quite obviously several generations in. In fact you'll often see a
copyright notice from 10 years ago or whatever.

I didn't realize that didn't also happen in the states, though I guess glass
bottles in general are really only used for beer (though I'd imagine if you go
to the store and grab a 'Mexican Coke' you'll likely find it to be a recycled
bottle, or at a taqueria or whatever).

------
peteforde
As it turns out, humans are really bad at answering questions about what they
need. Often if they knew they needed it, we would be competing to provide the
best solution for it.

This is the difference between inductive and deductive analysis. Deductive
would be tasking a student with applying pattern matching to a known domain to
find an expected result. Inductive analysis is when you don't actually know if
there's an answer to be found. Obviously this is a bigger challenge with a
more interesting payoff, but I believe inductive analysis is a skill that can
be practiced.

Demand Media realized that humans were really bad at coming up with problems
to solve, so they started buying bulk search engine results and harvesting
queries where people did not find what they were looking for. They then farm
out these non-obvious (and often highly specific) needs to videographers to
produce low production value clips that nail these never sexy "how do I fix
the towel rack in my bathroom?" type questions.

They then dominate the search results advertising for the extreme long tail of
semantic Q&A on the web. Last I heard they are releasing thousands of videos a
day, and making hundreds of millions in revenues.

If you want to solve a big problem, apply the same inverse deduction logic to
the question of which start-ups are really needed (vs. the ones people keep
building over and over) and you will be the next Richard Branson.

~~~
stcredzero
_As it turns out, humans are really bad at answering questions about what they
need. Often if they knew they needed it, we would be competing to provide the
best solution for it._

I think today's problem is that people figured out the needs and figured out
how to satisfy them while making a profit. What's left are the needs that are
hard to fulfill or the ones that we weren't aware of before.

------
dsc
I think a problem that bugs me a lot is how I see lots of people wanting to do
lots of cool things, but they lack the appropriate guidance. We do that on a
day-to-day basis, but what about the other folks out there who don't know
about this place?

Usually forums, IRC, blogs help in getting immersed with anything, but I have
a feeling that a startup with the primary purpose of "Enlightening" its users
has yet to come.

edit: Basically what I'm shooting for is: how to get rid of the crappy forums
and allow a truly easy and fun way to go about learning new things.

People go to college to learn about how things should be, but not how they
are. Waste of time and money, sometimes.

~~~
imp
Would you mind commenting on my website, Curious Reef, which is aiming to help
people learn new things? I would love to hear if you think it's a solution to
that problem.

<http://curiousreef.com/>

~~~
JoshCole
Cool site, I've been looking for something like that for a while.

------
logicalmind
It depends on how big of a problem you want to tackle. The biggest problem I
have every day is that I get tired and have to go to sleep. This time spent
sleeping could be better used by doing more productive things. Finding a
solution to the "sleep problem" would be a huge win in many ways.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I had a conversation with a friend and asked him if sleeping was a disease. I
firmly believe that one day human kind will solve both the need to eat, sleep
and death.

Meanwhile you can stop trying to be more productive. It is really overrated.
Try taking a Saturday off and do nothing but read, watch good movies you have
been putting off, and just relax overall.

~~~
brg
Why would anyone who loves what they do stop trying to be more productive?
When I say more productive I mean I want to read more, have more
conversations, identify and solve more problems, write more papers. Taking a
day to 'relax overall' is the least appealing thing I can think of at this
moment.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I apologize. I thought you meant productive as in more work (you know more
code, more marketing etc..).

Maybe I am abnormal here, but there is nothing in this world I could enjoy
doing everyday for most of the day.

------
dpcan
Keys.

Note: This same question came up a few months ago. Said the same thing then. I
really want to gain some traction here :)

~~~
mkramlich
Can you elaborate? What about keys? Too many of them? The necessity of having
them at all? The fact that they can be stolen/forged, what?

------
steveklabnik
I live in Pittsburgh. We have a huge lack of talent at the moment. There are
tons of startups with funding that are looking to hire people, but a huge lack
of skilled people around. We've got companies paying $1,000 bonuses to anyone
who can get a hire. It's crazy.

I'm not sure how to properly attract and keep talent in the city.

~~~
shimon
1\. In Boston, ITA Software pays a referral bonus of $4000.

2\. Pittsburgh loses hackers because they prefer to live elsewhere. To fix
this make the culture, neighborhoods, or climate more attractive to hackers.
(Easy to say, but hard to attempt and perhaps impossible to achieve.)

~~~
nostrademons
$2k-$5k has been a typical referral bonus at places I've worked. I have
friends in the financial industry that got up to a $15k referral bonus (and
were correspondingly aggressive in trying to recruit me).

------
aitoehigie
I am new in a city, with few friends. I need information on stuff like
restaurants, library's, movie theatres, clubs, etc. I live in West Africa.

------
cmars232
Censored information can be distributed anonymously in the small, but in
practice, in the large, censorship still works to marginalize content to a
medium that is not readily accessible, save to a technically savvy few (Tor,
freenet, I2C). For 99% of the intended audience, it can still be effectively
censored.

Is it possible to have anonymity, security _and_ generally-usable
accessibility? Not necessarily speed -- latency can be acceptable when the
user isn't stuck waiting in real time on a spinning circular icon.

------
liangzan
Forum search. It's incredibly frustrating to sieve out the signal from the
noise. You need to spend so much time to read though all the conversations to
find information you need. The best Google does is a regex like word matching
search. It can be better.

------
nlh
I think there is a fundamental problem with the process of getting funding for
a new business. I'm not sure there's a simple or even reasonable solution, but
there's definitely a problem.

I know many smart, capable, enthusiastic people who have a very good business
ideas, would be totally capable of launching a new product/service/etc., and
would make fine entrepreneurs -- but who have absolutely no way to get their
ideas/product/services off the ground.

Every time someone approaches me and asks for direction on how to fund the
idea, the answer always seems to end up at "find a wealthy friend or family
member to invest in you." Some people have those connections. Most do not.

We all know that VCs only go for very specific types of high-growth products /
services. Places like Y Combinator have a very specific (and great!) niche.
Banks are entirely useless in 95% of cases. Even the SBA -- the government's
best effort in this area -- is still basically for businesses that have
already gotten off the ground.

There are a ton of great ideas - great products - great services - that aren't
necessarily VC-worthy but do deserve to be given an opportunity to be born.

~~~
kishorenc
I think this is where something like Kickstarter is cool. I really wish they
go international soon...

------
j_baker
A couple of things:

1\. Everyone I know has a few CRT TVs they want to get rid of. I don't know
how to solve this, but surely there's a startup idea in here somewhere.

2\. This thread establishes that there is a problem figuring out what problems
need to be solved, otherwise it wouldn't exist (maybe that one was too easy
though).

~~~
trafficlight
In my area at least, it costs me money to recycle CRTs as well as a lot of
other electronics. I'm just not going to pay $25 to throw something away. If
this was free, or even if the cost was built into the front end purchase
price, I would absolutely recycle old monitors and parts.

------
mechanician
The airport check-in security process.

~~~
orangecat
I wish, although it seems fixing that requires convincing several million
people that that terrorists are not actually hiding in every shadow. But
somewhat related: fix baggage handling. There's no reason you should have to
wait half an hour to get your bags after you get off the plane. Take care of
that problem and people will be more willing to check their bags, which in
turn will make boarding and exiting much smoother. Although airlines would
have to get rid of their idiotic baggage fees, the improved efficiency should
more than make up for it.

~~~
philwelch
On the contrary--if you _increase_ baggage fees, you could reduce the amount
of baggage (making it easier to handle) and have more $-per-bag to spend on
your fast baggage handling system.

------
pingswept
The industrial automation world (Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Mitsubishi, Fanuc,
and so forth) has missed the arrival of the internet. Uniformly, their
software is terrible-- ActiveX controls and weak, homegrown webservers, if
they even support TCP/IP. Trying to build modern web interfaces that have to
talk to hardware feels like inventing time-travel (but it's a one-way trip, 15
years back).

------
pingswept
Mechanical CAD software like Solidworks and PCB layout software like PADS is
expensive and sold through resellers. I can't compare prices between different
vendors without giving them my contact information, which results spam.

There are a few semi-exceptions (Sketchup for mechanical CAD and Eagle for PCB
layout) but neither is strong competition for the market leaders.

------
nradov
Problem: Businesses require too much working capital. This slows down growth
and reduces ROA / ROI.

Solution: Create a B2B network that automatically finds and eliminates cycles
in the A/R-A/P graph. For example, let's say that company A owes $100 to
company B, which owes $80 to company C, which owes $50 to company A. The
settlement network could tie into the accounting systems of all 3 companies,
identify the debt loop, and instantly apply the appropriate credits and
debits. It would need strong controls against fraud and some ability to stand
behind transactions that had to be unwound later.

~~~
nostrademons
That would be a wonderful way to solve the financial crisis, too. If everybody
knew who owed what to everyone else, we wouldn't be in this mess.

------
AmberShah
\- Work should be value based (productivity or ROI or something) rather than
paid by salary or by the house \- All people should be able to work from home
if they want to

Some of this is "company culture" but technology can help it along a lot more
than it currently is. There is a lot of software out there that addresses this
issue, but it's just not solved because it's NOT THAT WAY at 99.99999% of
companies. Great technology should be able to make this seamless.

This is not a spec for a software product because I don't know what spec would
solve the problem. That's what makes it valuable.

------
JesseAldridge
Healthcare is expensive.

~~~
orangecat
And it will continue to be until we institute severe rationing, or cure aging.
I vote for the second.

~~~
tjmaxal
"curing aging" would actually INCREASE the cost of healthcare to nearly
infinite.

~~~
orangecat
Please explain. The average medical expenses of a 30 year old are vastly lower
than for an 80 year old, and a successful cure for aging would give you the
health of a 30 year old indefinitely.

~~~
ErrantX
Over a long enough lifespan the chance of contracting cancer approaches one.
So we'd have to fix that too, for starters.

~~~
orangecat
Nah. Sure, even if you don't suffer from aging you'd still occasionally get
diseases, and eventually one would be fatal, but your medical expenses per
year would be far less than they are today.

~~~
ErrantX
Ok then, how about this. Obesity is a growing cause of illness. Removing aging
is unlikely to affect that, arguably it could compound the problem.

~~~
jeffcoat
Careful, here: this is exactly what the argument would look like if you'd
decided in advance what the right answer is, and you kept casting around for
reasons why that's so until you find one that seems to stick.

~~~
ErrantX
Not at all I'm offering reasons - all pretty solid ones - why fixing aging
wouldn't remove the cost of healthcare. The point was to show there are lots
of other healthcare costs unrelated to aging.

I'd argue it is the other poster who has become set on a theory. :-)

------
mainsequence
These may or may not be super-profitable or particularly solvable via
software:

Basic math and science literacy for a large percentage of people (in the US at
least, but I suspect many other places as well).

The pipeline from childhood to the ability to make something people want.

Access to the opportunity to gain economically valuable skills for those who
happen to be born in poor families, neighborhoods, cities, countries.

------
r0s
Key input on mobile or touchscreen devices still sucks.

Lots of progress has been made but something fundamental could really solve
this problem.

Here's a good idea that almost gets there:

[http://gizmodo.com/5047798/blindingly-fast-touchscreen-
text-...](http://gizmodo.com/5047798/blindingly-fast-touchscreen-text-entry-
system-gets-a-push-by-creator-of-t9)

------
pigbucket
It's graduation time, so I'm reminded that high school kids are horribly ill-
prepared for making the kinds of decisions they have to make and for
appreciating the consequences.

------
thunk
I posted this problem on "Intrinsic Motivation Doesn't Exist":

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1424520>

------
geuis
How do you configure gzip for certain urls on Akamai? This is a problem I just
can't find an answer to.

~~~
seiji
You don't configure it per URL, you configure it per MIME type. text/css,
text/html, etc. It's under Last Mile Acceleration in EdgeControl: "Apply to
content with Content-type: text/html, application/x-javascript, text/css"

If you're using the XML config it resembles:

    
    
      <match:response.header name="Content-Type" value="text/html* application/x-javascript* text/css*" value-case="off" value-wildcard="on">
        <edgeservices:lma.edge-browser>on</edgeservices:lma.edge-browser>
        <edgeservices:lma.incoming>on</edgeservices:lma.incoming>
      </match:response.header>

------
robfitz
Problem: most startups fail

------
mkramlich
We should make it much easier, and more pervasive, and accepted, for people to
be able to work from home or otherwise untethered to a central office. We
might not want or even be able to achieve this 100%, but the more we can do
this, we can reduce so much waste and pollution, and there would be so many
less car accidents, gas/oil demand, pavement area, etc. Those of us in the
software field are lucky in that many of us already do it, but there are still
a lot of software shops that do not, and many other industries where it is
still impractical or at least just not accepted and understood yet.

Less commute-to-cubicle-on-highways-9-to-5-pollution-lemmings-culture. More
home offices, craftsmanship, communal/village/nomad/informal/flexible
lifestyles.

~~~
robotempire
The Obama administration agrees with you.

[http://www.mnn.com/eco-biz/money-green-
jobs/blogs/american-c...](http://www.mnn.com/eco-biz/money-green-
jobs/blogs/american-companies-need-to-embrace-teleworking)

------
adrianwaj
Any chronic illness: fatigue, insomnia, pain, tinnitus. Mental disease.
Antisemitism, double standards against Israel.

------
CytokineStorm
Someone needs to prove that P != NP. Want to understand why that's important?
Read this: [http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/9/38904-the-status-of-
the...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/9/38904-the-status-of-the-p-versus-
np-problem/fulltext)

~~~
keefe
it's also extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to prove. This is a
problem for researchers, not people looking for ideas for startups.

~~~
larsberg
You could probably make some money on a "proof validation service" where you
charge all of the crackpots who think they've solved P!=NP to validate their
proof.

Or, if you just _happen_ to find an error, send that back. But the service is
free if you don't!

~~~
nostrademons
Why would a crackpot pay for this? Their incentive is for people _not_ to find
errors in their proofs, not for them to find errors.

~~~
larsberg
From talking to the mathy-side CS faculty in my department (UofC), the
crackpots all think they've solved it. Genuinely, honestly, and completely.

These faculty complain about getting e-mail spam and sometimes even visits and
phone calls out of the blue from people who claim to have solved it and want
their proofs checked.

