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Comment by kcorbitt | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I am probably in the minority here, but it seems that the impetus of most of the problems on this list is what would possibly make the most money, written as if that is the measuring stick of the most societally useful startup.

The top 5 problems in my city are more on the level of affordable housing, homelessness, drug use, over-incarceration and mental healthcare. I can't help but feel like we have enough gadgets and data, and there are enough products to buy out there for every single income level. As long as we are only solving small problems and doing arbitrage or rent-taking it feels like making a better society is the last thing on anyone's mind.

Drugs are easy, but you would have to be able to run books to fix it, maybe in Vegas. You set up a site where you post pictures and a bio of the drug addict. People then place wagers on how long you think they will stay clean and build odds based on that. Said drug abuser gets a cut of the house at 3 months, 6 months and a year and has to submit to drug tests during that period. This cut allows them to rebuild their life and gives them a hell of an incentive to get clean. If they relapse the remaining cut of the house goes into a pool and get's distributed to the rest of the drug addicts that are still on the road to recovery and ups their cuts.

It's a win-win, you don't feel like you are gambling if you loose because at least your money is going to a good cause, and if you do win well you still put money towards a good cause. As well you are building an incentiveised safety net for some of the most at risk people.

I'm sure you're joking, but in case you're not, an FYI: this fundamentally misunderstands the reason people use and abuse drugs, and especially why they don't get clean. It's definitely not that they don't have sufficient incentive.

This is an idea that I disagree with so thoroughly that I'm having a hard time articulating why. Every angle I can think of presupposes a world view which would not admit this idea in the first place.

So, to 'win' the bet, you give them drugs.

Could do the same thing for troubled repeat offenders. bet on how long they can stay out of trouble with the law!

This would be a great TV show.

The whole point of venture capital is to make money.

Whatever happened to changing the world :)

Changing the world is great! Just don't expect to use someone else's money if it's not likely to be profitable.

Appreciate the effort. My feedback is that it seems super random. On the one hand, you say that there is an abundance of ideas, on the other hand, you add more ideas, with the goal that more startups are started.

However, YC says that the idea doesn't really affect the outcome of a startup. It just is an indicator if the founders can have good ideas. In that case, giving out ideas and having people start companies based on that gives you zero information about if that startup is going to be successful.

Maybe we need something like a crowdfunding platform, but instead of the campaigns being organized by producers of products looking for customers, the campaigns could be organized by users who are looking for someone to solve a problem they have?

The customers could give grants to developers/entrepreneurs to work on a solution to the problem, sort of like the SBIR process. You'd need some sort of grant proposal vetting system -- perhaps the donors could individually approve whichever grants they want their money going towards, and if multiple grants are approved by a sufficient quorum of donors to meet their minimum funding threshold, then you could have multiple teams working on the same problem.

There would be a lot of details to work out, but this is starting to sound like yet another startup idea.

So, would this be a modification of a bounty system?

Hi Kyle. I agree that startup ideas are not scarce. With this abundance, it would seem like the value of this post is more in the yc-founder endorsements than the actual ideas themselves. I, and I'm sure many others, have dozens of our own ideas which at this level of detail don't seem much worse or better than what you've posted. Maybe a vehicle for rapid, qualified endorsements on ideas would be more useful for would-be founders.

This will fall prey to the fallacy of thinking that because someone is an expert in one area they will be an expert in other areas. Wish there was a formal name for it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

I think they're referring to: http://ask.metafilter.com/297591/Origin-of-the-term-Engineer...

Agreed. The natural followup to the endorsement is the opportunity for advisement, and I would imagine working founders would only care to advise on startup ideas they themselves cared about, taking us back to the original post's strategy.

I don't know about a formal name, but there definitely is an XKCD :-) https://xkcd.com/793/

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?

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.

For whatever reason, the culture in Silicon Valley has evolved to be relatively open about ideas and business plans. As you've discovered, this is a stark contrast with the norms in lots of other industries/parts of the world.

This culture of course has a powerful pro-economic side effect -- ideas that are shared have a chance to grow, evolve, be challenged and fork, ultimately coming out stronger and better-developed.

To answer your concrete question on how to persuade someone with a different background to open up about their ideas -- maybe share this blog post with them? A little bit of social validation that other successful people are willing to share their ideas can't hurt. :)

> 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.

That's definitely not my experience. "End users" and people without extensive startup expertise hold their ideas close, but the genuinely experienced founders and experts I know share freely.

I think this list isn't the way to go -- some (not all) of these ideas seem frivolous to me... solving first world problems at best, and just bad ideas at worst. Judging from the comments, I am not alone. But I don't know if I am in the minority or majority in these opinions... therefore, I think a more productive approach would be a small app for people to vote on ideas, letting the best ones bubble to the top of an interactive list.

If you really want to get crazy, the resulting list could be integrated into your application process -- "We're team A, with a proposal to solve Problem X, but also have ideas for problems Y and Z."

How about giving us a short article on how to propose new ideas to you, and what happens if we do.

Assuming a reader has a usable idea(s) - a best-case scenario but the only one worth providing information for - what would you like them to do to present it, how can they feel safe doing so, and what happens after they do and you like it.

What will you do when you like an idea? Give it to someone you chose already in YC or work with the person that has the idea?

You mentioned "problems that ought to be solved" but the list reads more like "ideas I think can make money".

What is the problem that a "social network for kids" is solving, for example?

I think it'd be much more useful to, frankly, disregard what other similar founders think might be a martketable idea and to instead find professionals in a variety of high capital spend industries and interview them about problems they face.

Kyle,

I applaud the concept of sharing ideas for entrepreneurs to tackle.

However, this list of ideas is dangerously bad, with nearly all of them suffering from either monetization challenges or huge execution issues. Anyone that sets out to solve these as-is will end up wasting a great deal of time, effort, and resources.

It's generally bad form to approach a startup idea from the perspective of "wouldn't it be great if XYZ existed?" Startup ideas aren't simply about identifying a problem to be solved - they are about identifying problems with achievable solutions that will make money. That's a lot harder to identify.

Having founders or investors speculate about "what would be cool" in a problem domain that they don't have much experience in is inevitably going to result in ideas that underestimate transactional costs or the shape of the problem itself.

A better approach might be to create a product similar to HN (or extension thereof), where users can post problems identified and/or solutions proposed, and discuss the issues thoroughly, as well as vote up problem/solution pairs that seem like good ideas.

This communal discussion should, with a broad enough user base, quickly sieve the problem/solution pairs that are feasible from the ones that are not.

I agree and I've wanted to build a dashboard like this for a while. Matching problems & people looking for building business around real problems. I'm having issues about clarity and upvotes though : how do you favor people who know the domain ?

You let the comments themselves have upvotes.

Look at any of the technical subreddits - typically domain experts end up being near the top comments naturally, because they lay out substantive comments.

Reddit "flair" is a solution as well. Ideally a platform like this would be able to connect to a LinkedIn profile, and display some relevant info from said profile.

I find Ask HN good source of new ideas, sometimes Show HN comments too.

Your approach flies in the face of the "scratch your own itch" piece of advice and I think it's time to move that advice to the trash can.

There are lots of non-technical domains that could benefit from the application of technology and if we only going around fixing problems we run into, we are going to miss out on some great ideas.

Might I suggest that rather than thinking about this as "I want to build a company that ___" and then trying to fill in the blank, it would be better to think about what inefficiencies exist in the world that could be improved or eliminated by the creation of a fresh solution. This is really what startups are doing. Without a core inefficiency, there is no need to build a startup.

I agree.

I actually started an Ask: HN thread a while back asking. "What problems in your industry could be a potential startup?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799007

what I learned from it ended up in this essay:

https://medium.com/black-n-white/the-problem-with-problems-4...

One of the most interesting things is how hard it is for "us" to focus on the problem and not immediately jump to the solution.

Today I always ask for problems rather than ideas it's much more useful and allow many more people to participate.

Is this a fake list? Several of these ideas sounded like clever attempts at jokes

Hey Kyle!

I have some experience in this space. I run a startup idea repository and newsletter.

In my experience, people really want to be put in touch with their first paying customer. As a rule, the more you can help assess the demand for each idea, the better.

I have some ideas on how YCombinator could do this at scale, and start founders in a more advantageous position, if that's of interest.

We're trying to find better ways to get prospective startup founders in contact with problems that really ought to be solved."

Ought is a loaded term there in my opinion because it depends on who you ask and what your goals are. A VC and a philanthropist are going to have wildly different answers.

80000 hours [1] has the goal of identifying the most pressing problems in the world [2] and then connecting people with jobs around those.

That should be your starting point.

[1] https://80000hours.org/

[2] https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/

> Ought is a loaded term there in my opinion because it depends on who you ask and what your goals are. A VC and a philanthropist are going to have wildly different answers.

Justin Kan's idea for buyer's remorse insurance on fine art really drives home that you're on point. It should speak volumes that YC is publishing the idea that "fine art purchasing sure is a difficult problem" with a straight face. Let’s put half the valley on that pressing issue.

Think about how that went down: oh, hey, Kyle. Great timing on your e-mail! I just bought a Manet and hate it on my wall; I have just the idea for your blog post.

I noticed that, but instead of jumping straight to "why should I make a service for rich fools?" I thought to myself "what other similar use-cases are there?"

If you buy an engagement ring and the proposal gets rejected, you get stuck with a depreciating asset which is hard to sell for anything, let alone for what you buy.

Still too high-net-worth for you? Insurance for used-car problems that you don't have to buy from the used car dealer that sells you the car. There's an inherent conflict of interest in a dealer selling you a car and then selling you the hedge against problems with that car.

I watched a Charlie Rose interview this week with a famous comic writer who was proud to work in comics, as opposed to painting. His logic was that average people feel dumb and that they are "missing something" if they look at a painting and "don't get it". When you look at a comic and you "don't get it", you are more likely to think the comic is trash and that there is nothing "to get". Similarly, I think the pretentiousness of art gallery sales people is a pressure tactic to get you to buy something you don't really value. I don't think insurance-after-the-fact solves the incentive mismatch for fine art.

80,000 hours is a great resource. My personal opinion is that the YC motto of "making something people want" (and will pay for) is mostly a subset of "making the world a better place." It's not a true subset -- there are obviously lots of products out there that people want that end up making the world worse -- but on average I think most good startup ideas end up making the world better.

Of course, there are also lots of problems that need to be solved but that aren't a good fit for a for-profit business. Those ones can be harder to tackle, but we do try -- that's why YC also funds non-profits.

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