Hacker News Reader

Comment by hintymad | Hacker News Reader

Question: how likely is it that a number of 20-year olds have the passion of solving the problem of compliance auditing? I can hardly imagine that I'd even be interested in taking a look at the domain. It's just... so mundane. Or maybe the alpha-type overachievers don't care about the domain but the opportunity?

View on HN

Solving boring problems has been conventional startup wisdom for a long time. And a "mundane" startup might be more interesting than traditional high-paying jobs like finance/law/consulting. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/12/06/where-theres-muck-...

I work for a firm that develops custom software in regulated industries, and we have brilliant software & data engineers in their 20's working on compliance auditing, and more specifically "Compliance Management System health monitoring."

We've be able to use a lot of AI-assisted engineering and AI in the software to solve longstanding business challenges in this space.

I won't make assumptions about where you're located, but on the East Coast US it is big business among banks, utilities, healthcare, etc.

I think there are lots of 20 year olds with a passion for making money

I wonder if it's almost like a new version of management consulting. You hire/invest in a bunch of smart 20-somethings who seem generally intelligent with the idea that they'll "disrupt" an industry with their from-first principles approach. Do the 23 year old McKinsey consultants particularly care about their work? No, but the McKinsey name is a fast way to gain clout and access to executives. Ditto the YC name

> Question: how likely is it that a number of 20-year olds have the passion of solving the problem of compliance auditing?

It mentions that they had a medical scribe product and ran into HIPAA compliance issues with it, so it's not a leap to think someone might go "hey this stuff is what sunk us last time, I bet we're not the only people with that problem".

I also think this has to do a lot with storytelling and message in the company. Do you have someone that can motivate and etc. Many things are boring under the hood to someone and interesting to someone else, but a good story about why and how is what makes a difference.

The problem may not be "intellectually interesting" to them at all, but building B2B SaaS does appeal to them from a lifestyle/prestige/pedigree perspective and will probably get them an exit to become a Venture investor even if they fail.

I'm in the industry (albeit not a 20-year old), and agree that the domain itself is incredibly dry.

The tech is quite interesting, thankfully.

From a customer perspective it's interesting - compliance sucks so much that even a slight improvement/automation goes a long way

I’m currently working on a KYC compliance startup. Loads of fun both technically and also KYC in it self. Most things can be fun and interesting to someone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com