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Ask HN: Where can I find “unsolved problems” for various industries?
As a developer, I'm interested in working on a problem in my spare time. However, most of the problems I've thought of over the years have already been addressed in my field. I'd like to consider other fields that have problems needing solving, but I'm not really sure where to start other than doing pretty generic Google searches.
- taprun 11y agoGo to an event for people in another field and ask people.
- ceedan 11y agoReach out to people who work in those industries.......... not google.
- nickthemagicman 11y agoIve found if youre really interested in a subject and read about it in your spare time, youll kind of know what problems exist and what have been solved. So just do something that interests you and let the problems emerge
- eswat 11y agoSee whom of your friends have a career on the fringes of what you do or know about. Grab them some coffee and ask what pain points they have about their job or the inefficiencies they see in their workplace. If you show enough enthusiasm and curiosity to solve the things they mention, they can connect you to others in that industry that can open more doors for you. I second not looking to Google to discover these problems. While you will see more bitching than praising on the internets, much of you see will be superficial symptoms of a more serious problem. To understand the true cause you need to talk to people directly and in a way where they can be vulnerable (managers may not say what unsolved problems their companies face if you’re just shopping around for solutions that could possibly benefit their competitors).
- garagemc2 11y agoHey, I applaud your approach. Only thing I would add is that don't just look for problems but for inefficient workflows as well. A person may have to do some same set of tasks everyday and not realise that they can do it faster or it is a problem at all. Perhaps go to random meetups or business networking events etc
- retroafroman 11y agoAsking people isn't likely to get you an answer, based on my experience. If you want to find a problem to solve, you'll have to actually see what they're doing that can be easily automated. They have blind spots and just do it, without thinking about how it can done differently.
- drallison 11y agoI don't think you'll find anything useful looking at "grand challenges" or other such lists. Problems get on such lists because they are hard to solve and because they require significant resources. A better approach might be to find a slightly technically backward field, learn about it in detail, and then apply modern technology to improve performance or lower cost. I remember meeting a guy, years ago, who had made a fortune inventing a new high-tech way to remove the casings from hot dogs. Finding an appropriate problem to solve is part of the problem.
- jeremysmyth 11y agoLet me turn that question around a bit. Part of the art of being a successful solution provider is having the expertise to identify a problem in the first place. Usually that comes from having a lot of experience in that industry already. I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but bear in mind that you have a bunch of saleable skills (otherwise you wouldn't have thought of this already) and you're willing to apply those skills in helping people who are willing to pay for them. Also, we have a tendency to ignore the things we're already good at in favour of the things we've most recently become good at, so when you start narrowing your focus and zoning in on problems you want to solve, you might ignore some of the things people might find most valuable in your skillset, however long ago and intellectually uninteresting to you those skills are. Remember, solving business-level problems is more about your overall viewpoint of the industry and how its bits fit together, not about tickling your own brain with this month's interesting JS framework. So, as a really bad example, you might have written a bunch of task scheduling/interleaving code to drive PLCs on a production line a few years back, and that might not be interesting to you anymore, and you might also have become really good at hooking Hibernate up to replace a bunch of badly-handwritten SQL after that, and again, that's not interesting anymore. But, if you really know automation and enterprise app ORM, you might suddenly find something that people are willing to pay for.
- Jemaclus 11y agoGreat way to think about it!
- bamie9l 11y agoThe best discussion I've read about this is in this reddit ama: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/13q8ja/iama_serial_inventor_with_120_patents_to_my_name/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/13q8ja/iama_serial_in... search for "On average how long does it take you to come up with an invention?" for a relevant section, but the whole thing is very interesting.
- klibertp 11y agoI skimmed the page, but am not familiar with Reddit at all. My question is: it appears that majority of commenters doubt the authenticity of the guy's claims. Was the proof/verification provided somewhere there and I missed it, or is it just not there?
- wandering2 11y agoWhat did you like about that AMA? As many of the comments expressed, most of the answers were very vague, and the whole thing was pretty much a tease. >Basically, it is a specialized method of learning faster and retaining knowledge more comprehensively. Think about it -- what percentage of what you learn do you retain? In all likelihood, you are losing information almost as fast as you are gaining. Second, assemble the information into a useful format within your mind. Then, find out where inventions emerge within the mind. Turns out, you won't like the answer. Your mind invents in a place you may not be able to access. Break into this space and you will be inventing quickly, methodically, and reliably. To solve the learning problem and the thinking problem will take some years. >I invent using a specific system that was developed by myself and a colleague when we were in college. The system allows one to invent in whatever field you want and methodically (you will definitely solve the problem more effectively than even the practitioners within the field). However, there are specific limitations. However, it is one of the few "systems" that is methodical and that can be taught. It is not random. My colleague has something like 60-70 patents and is also a successful inventor and intrapreneur. He did not like being independent so he has stayed at a large company. I went solo. Everyone wanted to know the details of these ideas, but the OP refused to provide any specifics, not even a very general overview. Despite this, there were a few interesting tidbits concerning patents and about how he generally approaches his career and problem solving. I'd really like to know more about his process though.
- JSeymourATL 11y agoI'd like to consider other fields that have problems needing solving> The odd thing about people in other industries; they may be perfectly happy with the status quo. So asking industry insiders might not yield anything more than how to tweak current processes. As an outsider, you are the person most likely to find true breakthroughs. What space frustrates you the most? The James Dyson story is instructive in this regard > http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/955045.Against_the_Odds http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/955045.Against_the_Odds
- JSeymourATL 11y ago> I'd like to consider other fields that have problems needing solving... The odd thing about people in other industries; they may be perfectly happy with the status quo. So asking industry insiders might not yield anything more than improving on their current processes. As an outsider, you are most likely to find the breakthrough. Look for problems from an end-user, client/customer perspective-- then reverse engineer the process. The James Dyson story is instructive in this regard > http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/955045.Against_the_Odds http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/955045.Against_the_Odds
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mynegation 11y agoThere is a dilemma that others pointed out: you need to know the industry pretty well to be aware of the pain points. On the other hand you tend to settle for things you get accustomed to, taking for granted that "things are the way they are". One way out of it is every time you find yourself slightly frustrated at something, but just continue schlepping, ask yourself: do things _really_ have to be that way? Is there anything that can be improved, any single aspect? Just to give you an idea from the area you know well: programming. It is not a secret that a lot of programming these days boils down to searching stackoverflow and copy pasting the code fragments. You switch from an editor to SO, do a search browse from comments, pick one, copy paste the answer, format it. As a developer you usually have a large monitor or dual monitors. What if you had an editor plugin that on a shortcut would open SO in the browser, searching on the question that you already typed in. Few other shortcuts give you the movement across answers, another shortcut copies nicely formatted code from the currently selected comment. Bonus points for automatic renaming of variables according to the type information if you have it. It shaves only seconds to minutes from the workflow, but imagine how many people are doing it how many times a day, and this might be an example of the problem totally worth solving.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoI don't think that the search+copy+paste is where all the time is; the time is spent on looking at the seven questions that almost ask how to solve the exact same problem you're facing, then reading the twelve answers (none of them marked as the correct one) that almost look like they might be what you're looking for, and then trying to figure out which one is the easiest one to start from and then cobble together with the others to actually fix the issue.
- grkvlt 11y agoOK, how about highlighting some error message in a log file, right clicking and choosing a menu option that googles for the string (filtering out dates, times, host/domain names and perhaps some filenames too) then opens a browser window with a tab for each SO answer? Now _that_ is definitely part of my debug workflow. Not sure its the next killer app though. Actually, I could probably knock it up in half an hour with AppleScript and Automator on OSX, as a new 'Services' menu item...?!
- demian 11y agoTalk with "domain experts". Your job is to identify and abstract domain problems into models that can be solved using your technical expertise.
- Jemaclus 11y agoI cross-posted this in another thread, but it's relevant here. Modified slightly: I think an interesting direction is figuring out how to leverage web tech (or just code in general) to interact with the real world. Consider companies like Uber and AirBNB. They've identified a real-world problem and set out to solve it using technology. A lot of the cutting edge stuff these days is figuring out how to take a real-world problem (genetics, taxis, mail), and writing some code to make it accessible, cheap, and easy to do. IMO to find interesting projects, a better idea is to look backward: what industries are still in the 20th century, and how can you help bring them into the 21st with modern technological advancements? What about farmers, truck drivers, construction workers? Why are they still driving tractors, trucks and bulldozers? Why aren't robots doing those things more widely? What about real estate agents and their legalese? Why are real estate agents still handing me stacks of paperwork? Can't you Zenefits the crap out of that process? What about community outreach programs and community centers? Why are community outreach programs still accosting me on the street and handing out fliers? Can't they do outreach digitally? Can't we automate scheduling basketball games and pick-up kickball games? What about having to fill out paper applications or stand in line at the DMV? (Shouldn't all that crap be automated by now?) What about having to actually hand your credit card to the cashier at the drive-thru at McDonald's? (Can't they just magically detect who I am somehow and charge me accordingly? Why do I have to hand some punk ass kid my card or cash?) What about planning weddings or raising kids? (Haven't enough people gotten married that planning a wedding should be as simple as browsing Amazon for a few hours? Haven't enough people had kids that we should have some solid data about what works and doesn't work?) (These two things aren't really tech-related, but man, if you could figure those out...) The best part about this approach is that pretty much any idea you come up with will be an improvement over the status quo. These are the things we're still doing the same way we did 50 years ago, before computers were even a thing. Can't we do better?
- nicholas73 11y agoYou are an idea machine!
- phkahler 11y ago>> You are an idea machine! Nah, he's just sensitive to things that waste a lot of time. His friends say he's a real whiner. No, that's a joke. I don't know him or his friends.
- mmwako 11y agoPartys. Just state you are a developer looking to solve problems. Not kidding.
- klibertp 11y agoBe prepared for tons of idiotic, impossible or simply not that interesting ideas in this case. If you hate parties and in general want your social interactions be as short as possible then it's not a good method for you. OTOH, if you can have fun while simultaneously maybe hearing something inspiring then it seems a really good solution.
- ams6110 11y agoAt the parties I go to, that's a good way to find yourself alone.
- nsheth17 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems These are mostly sorted by academic fields, but it's a good place to start.
- kepano 11y agoRelated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies
- rwhitman 11y agoIt's getting really hard to find simple problems that have software solutions in a niche that isn't already competitive. There are a lot of software companies out there and more talented developers with successful side projects floating around than ever before. 10+ years ago you could maybe just google around and find a niche business problem with a simple software solution in a wide open market. This is not the case today. As a developer your experience of the world typically overlaps with every other developer, so anything you can relate to by a few degrees of separation is pretty picked over and likely very competitive. Ditto for anything in a cash-rich industry. So really anything that's easy to solve with an MVP product that wouldn't require clawing for attention, is lurking deep in the trenches of an industry or hobby you've never heard of and wouldn't be exposed to without being embedded in that world for a long time. There may be some sort of very valuable software solution for a problem with wool production in patagonia but you'd never know if you weren't a patagonian wool producer. I think the best approach these days is pick out a very programmer un-sexy field, study it intensely and chat with as many people in that field as possible until something shakes out. Or just bite the bullet and go head first into a competitive market and try to make something that outshines the competition...
- mindcrime 11y agoThe thing is, it's not always about an "unsolved problem" per-se. I think looking for "unsolved problems", in a manner of speaking, is an overly simplistic idea. The question is more "where are the places where the introduction of some technological solution could (make some process more efficient | help somebody make quicker/better decisions | improve quality | reduce costs | drive revenue | etc). In most cases, firms have some kind of solution to their problems, they may just not have the best solution. I guess you could also say that this is arguing semantics, but they may also have places where things could be better using some new technology, but they don't think of it as a problem, since they don't know the technology exists, and therefore don't even think in terms of applying it to their "problem". Also, as somebody else mentioned, people tend to "normalize pain" over time, to the point that something can be painful but yet if you ask them "tell me about your pain points so I can help you", they don't even think of $WHATEVER (because it's become "normalized pain"). My point is, it's hard to just ask around for "unsolved problems" and find good stuff, even if you called up people in various companies and asked them flat out. And that's simply because they may not know what to tell you. I think the best way to really identify areas for improvement is to have a deep knowledge of how a particular company (or at least, companies in a given industry in general operate) and identify the problems spots based on your own knowledge. That, of course, is difficult for domains that you don't know much about. Unfortunately I don't think there are any easy answers to this. Probably the best answer I can offer is to say, build relationships with people in a given company / industry, spend as much time talking to them as you can, and bounce ideas back and forth until something seems to resonate. IF you can find a company that has "business process analysts" on staff, some of those people may be able to help you, since they spend all their time looking at business processes and trying to find ways to improve them.
- bobosha 11y agoMy thoughts exactly. find what they need, not what they want
- jerelunruh 11y agoOne option: get a part time job in an interesting industry. I discovered this by getting a contract (few days a month) doing onsite work for a small/medium size organization. I asked lots of questions about things that I perceived as broken and found out what processes and software they hated. Then I worked on a prototype (evenings, for fun) and showed it to them. Now a year or so later that organization is my first customer for a SaaS I saw that they needed. Also, make friends with other vendors while you're there. A company that already serves that industry can give valuable feedback and even market your app to their other clients if it integrates well with their solution.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- callmeed 11y agoI've had some level of success with the following 2 strategies: 1. Take your closest circle of friends and family. Cross off anyone who is also a developer. Among the rest, look at people who are professionals or small business owners. Take them to lunch. Ask if you can shadow them at work a bit. Take copious notes. Find out what the most annoying/tedious part of their business is. Also, if they rely on clerical/support staff, talk to those people too. 2. Pick an industry that you have an interest or curiosity in. Put a job posting in your local Craigslist for people in this industry (ex: mortgage brokers or elementary school teachers). Say you are looking for an advisor to discuss some startup ideas. You will get several responses. Have lunch with a couple people. You don't have to have ideas up front. Just ask them the same questions as option 1 above. Ask them if they'd be willing to beta test something you built. Protip: there are some industries I'd suggest avoiding. For example, restaurant owners are extremely busy and working in a very low-margin industry. They generally don't have time to meet or test things. Disclaimer: these are mainly B2B strategies. Most B2B problems really boil down to saving money, making more money, or saving time (time is money). If you can do any of those things for someone, they will pay you.
- howon92 11y agoThis is really good.
- vijayr 11y agoCraigslist idea sounds interesting. Do you have an example of a post that helped you? Which sub category did you post?
- callmeed 11y agoYes, at one point I was interested in the medical/healthcare space. I put an ad in our local CL (jobs => medical/health). I got responses from a few doctors and even the CEO of one of our local hospitals. While I never pursued anything in this space, I did get some interesting ideas and feedback. Keep in mind, I don't live in a large city or CL market–so, if you're in a metro, you'll probably get a lot of responses.
- 11y ago
- mellery451 11y agoyou can try looking at: https://www.reddit.com/r/somebodycodethis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/somebodycodethis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/ ...who knows, you might find something interesting to spark your imagination.
- karmajunkie 11y agoThere is a really easy way to evaluate ideas to see whether it would make a good niche startup: does it involve one or more complicated spreadsheets? If the answer is yes, and the spreadsheet is connected to a problem with currency attached, you've got a decent shot at building a better mousetrap, because the mousetrap they're using now sucks. If the answer is no, then its probably not a hard enough problem that people are willing to pay for it, or their current solutions aren't a pain point.
- problema 11y agoI have been told that this problem was a business problem in itself... I've been thinking about ways to gather a list of problems deemed worthy of being solved, and to actually make it a business. Or at least, a hobby. What kind of problems are you interested in? What kind of skills do you practice on a regular basis?
- vijayr 11y agowhat if someone (who has basic knowledge of programming) went around interviewing experts from other industries and posting the interviews? the interviews should be problem specific - what tasks they do daily, that can potentially be automated type of questions. How can this be a business though? this interviewer could probably become a consultant?
- problema 11y agoWell, I had ideas about how to make a business out of it, but I'll start with seeing if I can make a hobby first :) You are bringing good ideas to the topic at hands though - thank you for this!
- asantash 11y agoYellow Pages, or your local directory / ad compilation books. People post lots of advertisements for problems they need solved - en mass, some of those problem spaces may be disruptable.
- robodale 11y agoI picked a niche (US contractor-type businesses)...HVAC, builders, etc. I grabbed contacts off the Internet and started emailing and calling the owners. Cold calling if necessary. After about 55 successful calls, I documented 115 specific pains that I grouped into 12 "solutions" I could provide as a SaaS. I'm currently building the first one right now. Also try to find out where your target market hangs out. LinkedIn and Facebook groups are sources of very valuable information...just dont go into the groups and start posting "hey everyone tell me your painz!!!"...you'll be ignored. Build the rapport over time. Lurk for a while, then like some of the posts, then make a few comments, then make your own post in the group based off someone else's recent post and make sure you reference them.
- tuyguntn 11y agoCan you share other 11? :)
- Animats 11y agoThere are lots of unsolved problems. Unsolved problems which can easily be solved with appcrap and webcrap are getting scarce, though. Too many people in that space. Some medium-sized unsolved problems: - Solar panel installation. Installation is about half the cost of an installed system. Figure out how to get that down. Can solar panels be integrated into roof systems? And last for 40 years without leaks? - Police paperwork. Cops spend far too much time doing paperwork, which they hate. There's pressure for cops to wear body cameras, which they also hate. So come up with a system where the body camera images, audio, GPS info, and what you can pull from police files are used to put together most of the arrest report. Cops would like that. Start with something where a camera glance at an ID or license plate or face fills in much of the details. - Tablet based basic education - reading, writing, spelling, and basic arithmetic. Not just canned lessons, ones that adjust adaptively to the student's performance and errors. Ship on a $50 tablet. - Good $50 tablets. Some are good, some suck, some have weak points. Evaluate some, find the weak points, talk to the manufacturers in Shentzen about getting them fixed, and set up a distribution chain where they're sold in bubble packs in the back-to-school section of stores. - A rugged phone with no holes in it. No connectors, wireless charging only. Permanent battery. Hermetically sealed at the factory. - Intelligent HVAC for homes. The next step after "Nest", which can only turn heat and A/C on and off. Window fans and A/C with inside and outside temp, humidity, CO, and CO2 sensors. Outside air is used as much as possible. The whole system learns the house, self-adjusts, and doesn't need HVAC engineering. - Video from talks where the speaker image and slides are combined intelligently, with the system deciding when to emphasize what. - A PA system which absolutely cannot feedback. It's a simple DSP problem; why isn't it everywhere? Those are a few ideas to get you started.
- impendia 11y ago> - Video from talks where the speaker image and slides are combined intelligently, with the system deciding when to emphasize what. This, at least for chalkboards instead of slides, exists. And works surprisingly well. http://www.birs.ca/facilities/automated-video http://www.birs.ca/facilities/automated-video
- Animats 11y ago
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Mz 11y agoI think it is more complicated than just doing the tech. I have a certificate in GIS and worked in a completely unrelated department in a Fortune 500 company for over 5 years. They even had existing means to submit suggestions/new ideas. My GIS training was routinely helpful in doing my job that de facto involved working with various databases. It made me really talented at figuring out what the new glitch was when we had updates and we worked with a lot of geographically related info (addresses were a big thing). My GIS related suggestions were routinely ignored and dismissed. Only one guy at the entire company in the more than 5 years I worked there even knew what GIS was before I explained it to them. A lot of these problems remain unsolved because LA LA LA NOT LISTENING, not because "gosh, it's just a hard problem to solve and we have been trying and it just is so very hard." A lot of it is cultural and lack of understanding, etc. You won't get past that just by creating the latest, greatest technical solution.
- bendtherules 11y agoIrregular newsletter on problems submitted by users. http://probhunt.com/ http://probhunt.com/
- impendia 11y agoI am a professor at a university. Unbelievably, all the classes offered by our math department (with roughly 100 different teachers) are scheduled by hand. This takes a tremendous effort, and then when one class gets cancelled and one professor has to be reassigned to a different class, but she can only teach on Tuesday/Thursdays, it sets off a giant stack of dominoes... Seriously, the amount and sheer drudgery of thankless admin work in my department makes me want to cultivate a reputation for disorganization and irresponsibility.
- PopeOfNope 11y agoBut will your university pay for a better solution? Most small universities, public or private, won't shell out the cash to solve that particular problem. Same thing goes with small hospitals, high schools and probably dozens of other public and private institutions.
- impendia 11y agoI wouldn't trust my university. Their IT department has the collective IQ of a toad. But individual departments have their own budget. If one faculty member says "I'll do the scheduling if you pay $500 for this software", and everyone else says "I'm too busy", then that $500's gonna get spent.
- mrfusion 11y agoI'd be up for solving that with a web app. Drop me an email if you want to chat about it.
- lwall_mba 11y agoOne thing that is strikingly weak across the board in many industries is service. In the pursuit of profits, industries have automated, off-shored, etc. etc. etc. most things that have to do with customer interaction. I am having weekly examples of having to interact with services I buy, needing help with something, filing a claim, etc. where the space for improvement is huge. Anyone out there that makes services a core value generator of their business, and finds a way to scale it without leaving quality behind will make a ton of money. In other words, break the assumption that good service is for expensive services. My take is that most of the time, what lacks, is people on the other side (the customer service team) with the intention, will and ability to understand what is happening to the client. They are not paid to understand what the heck I need, someone pre-determined (offshoring agency?) what will happen to me and try to solve it as fast as possible. God forbids your scenario has not been through about by the geniuses when implementing the system! It is a shame to be living in the most advanced economy of the world and have to waste time on a phone trying to explain things to someone who doesn't care much, or can't even understand it.