What are the reasons?
lack of talent ? lack of funds ? lack of diversity ? less representation of older people and women ? Poor labour laws ?
On the other hand, if you find a problem that people are already spending money to deal with, and you can offer a solution that's better (faster, cheaper, more flexible, more convenient, etc.), then you're in the money. You don't need to be particularly brilliant or creative, just bold enough to try something different.
There will be a few that go for the exceptional route, but the generic startup is going to go for the generic product, for exactly the reason that it became a generic product in the first place.
Second, the problem may have existed for some period of time, but only recently has the technology developed to solve it. I'm sure when people had horses and buggies, some of them thought that it would be nice if they could just tell the horses where to go and then go to sleep in the back. That wasn't possible, and it similarly wasn't possible for early cars to have any kind of self-driving technology. Now we're at the point in terms of hardware and software that it at least appears to be a tractable problem.
Your second option is part of my second option - some new technological development may allow you to do what no one has done before, but you must still convince people that you have this capability. As we see with self driving cars, many have claimed that hardware had reached the point it was achievable only to realize the problem is harder than they thought.
I can't find evidence that they spent any more than a small effort, less than a quarter of a year of full time marketing, before they got serious traction.
They simply built and offered a better and compelling enough product that little to no convincing was needed.
I could say that not everybody is enough of a problem-solving leader, but realistically it's almost nobody who is enough of a problem-solving leader.
And those that are, they have been systematically blocked by an institutional structure overwhelmingly built & dominated by those having much less leadership ability, with most of the upper echelon having merely prevailed during occasions of good fortune through reactive financial manipulation as opposed to gifted visionary problem-solving.
Seems like it's now a majority around the world who are settling for a declining caliber of leader, lower than would have been acceptable when inherent greatness was more often a characteristic of top decision-makers.
Those hollow suits have really proliferated in recent decades, odds are getting worse that those who aspire strongest to organizational leadership are usually the least suitable for the job. Especially when it comes to problem-solving of any kind, much less groundbreaking progress like was seen so much more in the past.
And you would like to see novel problems being solved?
Major problems? Lol.
The system would have to be reversed dramatically just to overcome some well-recognized nominal snafus.
You can also learn what problems are worth solving by talking to people (ie: customers). How many customers have you talked to today?
That's why so many startup books talk about customer focus, customer acquisition, erc. Someone needs to buy it. Who is that someone?
Programming the thing requires a completely new set of tools, as there's no Von Neuman architecture to be found. It breaks my brain a little bit, every time I work on it. Completely writing new software isn't something we've had to do since the 1960s. We've always been able to bootstrap off of old ideas, and old code. Effectively, none of the tools normally used to develop software help.
The "impedance mismatch" of this thing is just too big for anyone to even think about making a startup around it.
Something that was a small improvement on FPGAs would be far easier to sell, but there's not much investment money in hardware, let alone ASICs.
A similar example would be the Jet Engine... nobody thought it could work, and it required a completely new way of doing things. Thus, nobody wanted to try to develop it.
Big changes require stable supplies of long term research and development funding. That's something the market just isn't equipped to handle, especially when driven to meet the quarter's numbers.
Many novel problems that would be worthy to solve don’t have a clear path to monetization. And novel problems are inherent risky since no one has implemented a successful solution before.
If its a novel problem, its harder to sell.
The problem is that a purely innovative technological change is usually tiny and incremental. Most existing technology is more than good enough for most people most of the time.
The really important problems that hold back progress, or oppress people's lives, cannot be solved by a quick-fix startup.
There is bureaucratic bloat, regulatory capture, crony oligopolies, over-regulation, vested interests, rent seekers, oppression by crisis, cover-your-ass management, negative sum legal action, nimbyism, planning quagmires, hyperactive enviromental zealots, bad zoning laws, silent majorities, corruption, luddite unions, private equity rape & pillage, dysfunctional politics at every level, propaganda, people that fervently believe propaganda, arrogant elites, useful idiots, incompetence as a badge of honor, capture of education/media, unaccountable globalism, sociopaths in power, aspirational victimhood, hypocracy, too much debt, economic obfuscation, government intervention, lack of common sense, too much individuality, lack of community, family breakdown, sustained irrationality, consumerism, distortion of the property markey, printing money, government setting interest rates, too many laws, too much surveillance, too many taxes, executive orders, two-party systems, deep state, military-industrial complex, nanny state, poverty trap, atomization of society, drug addiction, opiate deaths, over-incarceration, prison-industrial complex, war on drugs, espionage, excessive copyright protection, intellectual propety theft, nepotism, extrovert dominance, urban decay, litter, noise pollution, light pollution, modern architecture, processed food, particulate pollution, crumbling infrastructure, advertising billboards, did I mention too much debt? ...
... profit over truth, efficiency over beauty, feelings over facts, posture over competence, cheap talk over real commitment, do-what-I-say over watch-what-I-do, abstraction over practicality, focus groups over philosophical coherence, partisanship over leadership, and championing failure over success.
More fundamentally, there is the doom loop of democracies voting themselves more printed money for social welfare, while distracted by hedonistic bread and voyeuristic digital circuses.
Startups can't fix that.
P.S. Except maybe, er, bitcoin :)
Except for Silicon Valley VC slowdowns, I don't see major causes.
often the best returns are in taking things that already have a proven market and making them faster and or cheaper.
if you try to do something new or original you have a mountain to climb. don't listen to the customer.
Most founders of startups only want money. They do not care if they make other people's lives better or worse.
This started with ethics laws. Ethics only means following the law and making money.
Seeking the greatest good for the greatest number was aborted when ethics became mandatory.
Ethics literally turns people into sociopaths. They are legally prevented from considering the welfare of others if corporate profits are on the line.
I am NOT an ethical person. I am a moral person. I work for the greatest good for the greatest number.
It is not a lack of diversity. A homogenous group without women or older workers is still capable of trying to improve the world for everyone.
Having said that, cutting costs is a moral thing to do. That eventually improves everyone's standard of living. Capitalism is better at cutting costs than it is at anything else, and capitalism has pulled more billions out of poverty than any other economic system ever.
It is perfectly moral to disrupt an industry by introducing a better product at a lower price and driving the incumbents to innovate or go out of business.
I wish we taught morality in schools.
Ethics means following the rules, including laws and company policy.
Morals means doing the right thing, which means seeking the greatest good for the greatest number.