3 ms·

There are plenty of companies who raise money to solve problems for the poor. Although if you want to be cynical you could dismiss it as them just trying to mak

There are plenty of companies who raise money to solve problems for the poor. Although if you want to be cynical you could dismiss it as them just trying to make money off the poor, they are businesses after all. Lendup is a good example of this, their goal is to provide loans to poor people that are better than pay day loans. Pretty impactful stuff if you ask me, but it doesn't seem to count in this article or in your comment. The article would much rather focus on an incredibly narrow band of startups that are easy to poke fun at and prove the point.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
I counterpointed this comment, too, but you might be going too far here: "The article would much rather focus on an incredibly narrow band of startups that are easy to poke fun at and prove the point." The article does narrow it a bit but it's overall claim appears to be true. Most startups seem to target either frivilous stuff, stuff useful for businesses, or stuff appealing to middle class and up. That's almost everything I see here and with other sites. That poor are a smaller, troublesome market might be decent reason for many to focus on another segment. It seems that they do from what sample of startups I've seen. I don't have hard data on the subject, though. I'm not sure how I'd even measure it outside maybe a survey of various startups' demographics of customers tracking what percent sell significantly to the poor. Success might be that hitting a certain percentage or going up over time.
- jdoliner 10y ago
  > Most startups seem to target either frivolous stuff, stuff useful for businesses or stuff appealing to the middle class and up. This is drifting pretty far from the article in my opinion which focussed almost entirely on frivolous stuff. The article only obliquely lamented that lower classes don't have enough focus put on them. It mostly seemed to be claiming that it's all frivolous stuff, these last 2 categories are the things I think the article narrowed it's sites to avoid.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

I counterpointed this comment, too, but you might be going too far here: "The article would much rather focus on an incredibly narrow band of startups that are easy to poke fun at and prove the point." The article does narrow it a bit but it's overall claim appears to be true. Most startups seem to target either frivilous stuff, stuff useful for businesses, or stuff appealing to middle class and up. That's almost everything I see here and with other sites. That poor are a smaller, troublesome market might be decent reason for many to focus on another segment. It seems that they do from what sample of startups I've seen. I don't have hard data on the subject, though. I'm not sure how I'd even measure it outside maybe a survey of various startups' demographics of customers tracking what percent sell significantly to the poor. Success might be that hitting a certain percentage or going up over time.

jdoliner 10y ago
> Most startups seem to target either frivolous stuff, stuff useful for businesses or stuff appealing to the middle class and up. This is drifting pretty far from the article in my opinion which focussed almost entirely on frivolous stuff. The article only obliquely lamented that lower classes don't have enough focus put on them. It mostly seemed to be claiming that it's all frivolous stuff, these last 2 categories are the things I think the article narrowed it's sites to avoid.