>My simple advice is to stop looking for ideas and to start looking for problems.

I concur, and add that HN could really help OP by complaining about random stuff here. Just complain about the first thing that comes to mind that's been bugging you, OP will really appreciate it!

Humanity is on a sure collision course with ecological disaster and potentially billions of deaths. Do something about climate change. Anything. Every new startup should be addressing the fact that we are on the Titanic and the iceberg is getting closer.

This is terrible advice. OP asks for concrete ideas and your answer is "the sky is falling."

Do you have a source for the 'disaster' and 'billions'?

There are mountains of evidence that we are on track for several degrees Celsius change by the end of the century. It's enough to make some large metropolitan coastal areas uninhabitable and huge swaths of farmland unusable. It will destroy the economy to uproot half the human population and move, and thus cause mass migration and starvation.

I hate to use labels but to believe anything else is to be a climate change denier.

What if you're wrong? I mean I don't see any of the evidence that you see, just a bunch of computer models that fit a curve.

I would recommend starting with Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet[1] by Mark Lynas which summarizes the research of many hundreds of scientists.

1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_H...

There is an all too common type of blog/post where the writer has said "[Large entity] has done something really dumb and all of my avenues for remedy have come to nothing".

The post goes sufficiently viral that it gains the attention someone within [large entity] who can actually do something about it. This is a terrible model. It's not really a model at all, it is the complete absence of any working model.

Make something that enables individuals to tell large entities that something needs to be done. Effectively turn input from many into a list of meaningful, actionable items that get delivered who have the capacity and desire to do something about it.

Though note that in that case the problems will mostly be techie problems - a useful way to find less crowded spaces is to ask people from different walks of life what their pain points are.

This is solid advice. Find people who aren't technically inclined but 'forced' to use the Internet to do something vital. They often have many things they would like automated.

Yeah these are the people I like to talk to. I've built some great apps based on things I've been told by these folks.

Finding these people is a big challenge in itself...

Yeah you know, it's a great way to catch up with old friends and family. Just tell them you'd like to know their technical problems, and ask them to describe them. Sounds weird at first, but people love talking about themselves and will see it as you being interested in their lives, which is the truth. My dad told me about a problem that I built an app for years ago, and he still talks about it like it was the most amazing thing in the world. And once they know you're interested, all those people will tell you their technical frustrations pretty much anytime you see them. Sounds weird, I know, but it's something everyone can relate to, them having a technical frustration that you can solve. They'll appreciate you asking.

Finding non-technically inclined people is a challenge?! Do you live in the ISS?

Try the local chamber of commerce or any non technical forum or Facebook group.

Here's mine: fix income inequality and the staggering inequality in the distribution of wealth worldwide.

How is that a startup? I dunno, maybe there's a small part of that big problem that you can start tackling. Maybe it has to do with some facet of the economy you're improving/making more efficient, maybe it has to do with influencing policy. That's for you to figure out.

Find a big, big problem, and then look for a manageable chunk that your team can execute an idea on. You're in this for the long haul, right?

People who start companies are typically looking to increase “wealth inequality”.

Think of it more as like a negative externality.

People that use a car are not "typically looking to increase the rate of global warming and actively pollute the environment".

Using a car is a means of getting from place A to B, in the process however, you create a negative externality (i.e. pollute the environment).

When you create a startup you generally want to solve a very specific problem X at a grand scale, when you are able to do this while making some profit/growing in value you inevitably contribute to "inequality" as an externality.

Not really, most companies are small and don't pay more than a decent income even for the founders. VC-funded startups are an exception, not the rule. Even among software companies, I'd say, if you look beyond the US.

But (One of) the ambition(s) is usually to make money, thereby increasing inequality. I have yet to find a startup with the ambition to pay everyone median salary and donate the rest to low-income households. Nothing wrong with that, just a fact :)

The company I worked for previously paid decent (but not extravagant) salaries, and profits in the order of the low dozens of thousands annually. Meanwhile, our job consisted of outbidding and replacing SAP and Oracle solutions costing $$$$.

Paying $10 to an SMB owner instead of $100 to Bill Gates et all reduces inequality, it doesn't increase it.

Let me guess: you had a heck of a time hiring qualified engineers.

Shocked that the idea startup people can “save the world” is still going strong in Q4 2027

Would have hoped the last year would have shook you all to your senses

Hah, good point. I don't like to rant usually, but this is for the good cause.

I'm annoyed I feel the internet is turning more and more hateful.

I'm annoyed writing and fixing tests takes half of my time when writing code.

I'm annoyed business people only see the difference of salary asked and not what experience brings when having to choose between a junior dev and a senior one.

> I'm annoyed writing and fixing tests takes half of my time when writing code.

Then just don't write tests and wait for what happens, when you find a bug 6 month into production. ;-)

TBH, that's what I do. Most of the time the bug is insignificant enough that it doesn't really matter. Every once in a while I am freaking out trying to get an update through the app store at 1:00 am. For me, it's worth the tradeoff.

Fair enough. I wrote integration code to get shipping info into distributed logistics software.

I would've never done this without TDD because I dreaded to have hidden bugs sending washing machines to the wrong customers.

There's got to be a solution between those two extremes :)

I've started writing only integration tests, this is cool because most of the time it only breaks during refactoring when there actually are regressions. I've also made myself a chrome devtool to record my interactions with browser and generate capybara tests out of it, so it's quite fast to write and rewrite, it never happens anymore that I think "oh, maybe that change is not worth it".

But the thing is, this only works for apps/features having a web interface. I do more and more system programming, and I have no idea how to do integration testing on this (I think about using docker, but this would be even slower than piloting a browser).

So yeah, anyone who can solve the tests burden problem while still making code as robust, I'm interested.

(btw, you'll still find a bug in 6 months in production with 100% test coverage ;) )

Yes, no one said TDD code is 100% bug free.

I'm also not a fundamentalist when it comes to TDD. It really depends on "What can go wrong?" and "How much time does each route costs?"

The other day I showed the guy I'm mentoring how to write tests in go to test some Go middleware code for HTTP BasicAuth. This was some example code he found on the internet. And guess what, it has a basic logic flaw where it doesn't test for correctness of user AND password, but for correctness of user OR password.

Using code like this and not writing tests is really stupid.

When I was in university, I also read lots of papers on TDD. There are many "we had 20 students trying to solve a 2 hour problem with and without TDD"-papers and only a few "IBM and Microsoft used TDD and no TDD to write hardware drivers, these are the results" papers. Guess who I'm trusting more.

I remember when those papers were hitting headlines. The opinion of anti-TDDs back then was : "yes, it's certainly a good thing for students learning how to code", following the idea that it forced them to consider architecture rather than jumping on adding lines of code, and that experienced developers don't need it as much (thus, the conclusion was that those studies were biased toward people learning to code).

The answer of pro-TDDs was that you always benefit it, even when already experienced. I agreed with them, back then.

I don't remember seeing those about IBM and Microsoft, though. What were their conclusions?

Nowadays, I do what I jokingly call "documentation driven development", as a follow up for "top down development" that cucumber and the likes introduced. I'll usually first write about the problem I'm solving, then generally write about how I solve it, then write about components needed to implement that solution, then what those components do in details, then I write function signatures, and I stop there. I give it a month going back to it from time to time and I always figure out problems with it.

Refactoring that is awesome : no tests to change, no application code to change, it's just manipulating pure architecture, and it's incredibly fast to change while still being able to keep everything in mind. Careful planning is kind of replacing for me what TDD used to do (for the part about designing proper architecture ; I do integration testing for the part about catching regressions).

But really, I feel today that the methodology doesn't matter much : agile or not, TDD or not, this or that, whatever. What matters the most is people. The same methodology will have opposite results depending on who is applying it. I guess some methodologies will be better than others for learning programming, but I have really no clue how to measure that :)

As a pedestrian walking in SF, I am almost run over in crosswalks daily, even while knowing that drivers will run right through them. Fix that and I’d subscribe to a companion app with a blank white screen for $5/month..

Maybe, a platform where people pay to have specific problems solved by arbitrary agents.

Visibly carry a brick.

Easily fixable phones and laptops.

My phones and laptops are small enough and lightweight enough.

Making them bulletproof is too expensive. But making them easier to fix, documenting the process and authorizing repair shops would do be great.

PS: I don't need to be able to hot-swap parts.

PPS: pro models from Dell and HP at least are often quite easy to disassemble and fix and I think you can often source parts from eBay for years after you buy them.

There are many phones out there that are easy enough to fix the common problems with the right tools (heat gun, opener tool, set of small screwdrivers and picks). Replacing a dead screen is about an hour's work for a beginner and there are enough tutorials on youtube that most beginners will get it right first time. Most parts for common phones are commonly available on aliexpress. Most other problems can be dealt with by replacing motherboard/daughterboards or battery rather than needing to bother with reflowing solder.

The real problem is that phones depreciate so quickly that replacement parts (especially displays - Samsung LED screens etc are notoriously expensive) are often more expensive than buying a new second-hand phone on eBay unless you're willing to go down the route of separating bonded LCDs from glass/touch sensors is economically viable but that is much more difficult to do right, even with the right equipment (temperature-controlled hotplate).

Buy a Thinkpad? I went from opening it for the first time to having the internal screen cable replaced and working fine in a couple of hours.

Move to Europe https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kwaa5/the-europe...

I love how my Raspberri Pi I can just swap out the SD card and have a completely different OS. As a software developer, it would be awesome if I could do that on my laptop or phone.

Phones not made by Apple are easy enough to fix.

Just replaced the screen on my Mi Mix for about $100 plus an hour or so of my personal time.

I think iPhones are among the easiest to fix, nothing is sealed no mess no glue. The cheap replacement screen for 5,6,7 cost around 20£ and takes around 20min to replace.

should have known this, since it seems like common sense in retrospect.

I'm projecting from impressions I'd made since the Mac book pro became harder and harder to modify and upgrade. I'd constructed a faulty assumption about the repairability of iPhones.

It's never been difficult for me to find someone to repair one of my old iPhones in the past, I just quit on iPhones last year and feel somewhat disappointed with them since the v7s. (I am a fairly recent switcher to Android.)

As a manager at a large corporate the process for incurring expenses drives me nuts. There is an annoying approval process, expenses have to be logged, I have to look up the expense policy, justify the expense, track it against budget etc etc. Often there is modest expense I want to incur and I know the business is generally in favour, but the expense process is just so cumbersome and confusing that I dont bother. There must be a better way. Even though I have a corporate credit card I still have to keep invoices and assign each credit card expense to the right spending code etc.. Arggg, its making my blood boil just writing about it, somebody fix this please.

Pain HN? Show HN Pain? Moan HN?

i like the idea - we just need a new tag

HN Pain Point:

that seems more like it

I guess that's the basic idea behind http://oppsdaily.com/ and similar.

I used to think Dane Maxwell of The Foundation was the crazy one, and all those infopreneurs with blogs were geniuses.

I’ve since realized how wrong I was. Dane’s big thing was about interviewing small businesses, finding a pain and then being paid to solve that pain with a saas product. Seems pretty logical to me now.

NationBuilder[1] immediately comes to mind. Not as fully featured as you are suggesting, but targeting the same demographic.

[1] http://nationbuilder.com/

I agree with your premise but the example problem already has many established companies including Engaging Networks, EveryAction, Salsa, and Luminate. As a startup your job will either be to completely replace their stack in one fell swoop (VERY hard as a startup with no track record) or to somehow integrate in with the existing stack and eventually push it out (also hard but doable).

Well in the particular case this charity had no stack at all. They had a 'friend of a friend' who could do a web site, the person who knew me asked me how email worked because they wanted email addresses from the charity website but didn't want to change their "real" email addresses. I did my best but felt like something which was more like WPEngine would be a good single point of contact and setup. I also looked that the county 'dba list' (this is the 'doing business as' list that the county publishes to indicate when someone is doing business as a company name) and there were several new charities there. Seemed like a supply of leads for 'free'.

I don't disagree that there are people in this space. The nationbuilder folks (mentioned elsewhere) and apparently there are a couple people who specialize in setting up church web sites etc.

From a go to market strategy I'd probably advise that the team interview the executive committee of several new charities, compile a survey of charity sites and rank them from great to garbage, pull out the common functional features of every site, then decompose charities into every activity they do from filing tax returns to holding black & white balls. Look at how they manage payroll, volunteers, and assets. Listen to the problems the treasurer, directors, executive director, and donors have with charities. Where are their pain points and what does their day to day look like. Then pull all of that together and identify where there is commonality amongst groups and where their is uniqueness, and for each uniqueness attribute do the stake holders think it adds value or do they just not know any other way.

Then I would mock some interfaces to the infrastructure from using a phone, a web site, and maybe a chrome book like device. Look at security, look at complexity, look at time to complete tasks.

And finally after I felt the set of problems that could add significant value were identified, and I had helped a couple of new charities get from zero to online. I'd pull apart where the service business added value and where it didn't and develop a business model that was cost effective for the charity and sustainable for the startup to grow it in a boot strap fashion while the company got its feet under it for running its own organization.

I strongly agree with this. It is not an uncommon experience for me while working on something (either for work or personal) and hit a problem or annoyance and then go to work looking for the solution.

Occasionally, I can’t find a solution or what I find is either not quite right, too expensive, etc. When I have the problem myself I am genuinely motivated to find the answer and when I can’t... Well - I put that problem on my little list (along with a description of what I’d like the solution to be).

My list is currently over a hundred items long. Most aren’t great - but some of them are quite good. I review the list from time to time and the good ones continue to develop in my mind. I’ve tried some my favorites, and a few have turned into something.

I have also tried (at length) to come of with ideas from the “solution” side (rather than the problem side). It hasn’t lead me to any material success and I feel like I end up mentally circling around remixes of ideas and products that are already well established.

Are you willing to share your list with us? Would be curious to see it.

Sounds good on paper, but a lot of people's pains are things that are Features, not products. So discern between those.

Heh, my friend works for exactly that kind of a company - services for nonprofits. It doesn't do all of those things you listed, but a subset of them. They seem to always have clients and are doing pretty well.

Do an idea funnel like a sales funnel

1st stage is pains

2nd stage is pains we can solve (don't underestimate the need of domain knowledge here)

3rd stage is what we have the competence to solve and can come up with a better way of solving it

You might check out Flipcause[1] - they do a lot of what you're describing

[1] www.flipcause.com

Cggy I'D W

i was the Lead Product Designer in this space - creating a marketplace for NGOs and remote digital talent ( all cohorts ). Its a noble space to be in. https://Catchafire.org — if you need a 15yr pro that has built solid products ( from ideation > UX > MVP > growth ) hit me up. Also happen to be doing some Ai UX in the DoD app space.

* You will also need a seasoned full-stack agile dev team that can hit the ground running with your CTO at the helm. I got that too for you -;)