12 ms·

Requests for Startups Refreshed

175 points by craigcannon 10y ago

ckluis 10y ago
At some point in time - I would love to build a news site which had each article broken into facts & points of view (left, center, right). Ideally classifying/auto-linking to politicians statements/voting history automatically with machine learning.
- stevesearer 10y ago
  My favorite news app of all time was Circa which was broken into bite-sized facts. You could even subscribe to story and receive notifications when a new bit of information arose. Unfortunately they never charged money and it disappeared about a year ago :(
acconrad 10y ago
I've constantly racked my brain on the Underserved Communities and Social Services: my dad is a Vietnam vet and my mom (while we were growing up) fit that single mother middle-class type...how does technology help them? Part of the problem is they aren't tech savvy the way the HN community is - so what works for our community doesn't exactly work for theirs, or that they even use technology to the extent that we do (i.e. does technology even solve this problem?). The other problem is revenue/profitability...this population is inherently cash-strapped, so trying to create a technology solution that likely lies in the Tech-meets-Consumer Discretionary industry, well, who among these people can (and will) afford such services? It frustrates me to no end...because I want to help, but I can't seem to find a viable solution whenever I build something out. It's further a problem because it doesn't follow the general YC/Paul Graham rules for creating solutions - solving your own problems. Most techies aren't also veterans or single mothers, so while it was a problem I experienced second hand growing up, it's not something I live with today, other than my innate desire to help others. It's very hard to solve a problem you can't experience first hand. Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve these kinds of problems? Am I approaching it wrong?
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The first step is to articulate specific problems. The link does a little bit, but people with minimal savings don't actually care that they are unbanked; paying Walmart $3 to cash a check isn't that terrible a deal (Even if it isn't a great deal).
- Lordarminius 10y ago
  > I've constantly racked my brain...Am I approaching it wrong?... I don't think so and I have a similar problem as you. Certain problems have already been solved by other methods and wont yield to digitization. What is needed is simply a transplanting of existing tech to under served sectors.There are many businesses that are profitable without the need for extreme tech innovation. My peeve for instance, is that in my part of the world certain kinds of farming (rice, oil palm)yield decent and more or less assured profits (>500% over a decade) and there is no need for new technology other than that which already exists. This could logically fall under agriculture. The main barrier is relatively small amounts of capital (<200k - 1M usd) but try telling that to unicorn obsessed VC's looking for the next Snapchat.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Regarding the agriculture you bring up, the real issue here is contracts. Suppose you lend a bunch of Kerala palm oil orchards $1M, hoping to make $5M over a decade. Do you really trust the Communist government of Kerala to enforce your contracts and transfer wealth from poor local farmers back to the rich (likely foreign) capitalists who made them loans? That's the problem to solve. If you can solve it I don't see a reason why anyone wouldn't fund you.
    - Lordarminius 10y ago
      I would argue that solving the problem of contract enforcement is beyond the scope of any entrepreneur. However I do see your point and appreciate its merit. By the same token, if YC was unduly worried about that, they would never be able to fund (tech) companies that operate principally outside the west because the problem you allude to has never really been solved satisfactorily. But here's my point: as YC becomes larger and looks for growth outside its traditional areas, its model must evolve. Right now it does seem a bit scattershot. Is it a VC or an Angel? What is the place and relationship of charity and the entrepreneurs it sponsors? It claims to invest in founders predominantly over their ideas, but everyone I know who applies, does so with the thought at the back of their minds, that the de-facto situation is one in which an idea which cannot be a billion dollar company is best left at home. Whats wrong with funding a company that has the potential to reach 100M? I guess what I mean to say is: for the larger mission YC espouses, the funding model is broken; indeed the mission itself is unclear. For those like me who aspire to be funded this creates much frustration
the_watcher 10y ago
I'll be fascinated to see what Mass Media ideas come through YC. It's pretty obviously a problem, but I've honestly got no ideas at all about how to solve it (although, to be fair, there's a non-zero chance that the media has always been a problem of this magnitude, but the internet/echo chamber culture has simply exposed what was lurking all along).
- klinskyc 10y ago
  It's not going through YC, but Purple (https://getpurple.io https://getpurple.io) has done a good job, IMO, of having good coverage in a novel way (through facebook messages)
  - ryanSrich 10y ago
    TechCrunch does this. I wonder if they're using purple.
  - the_watcher 10y ago
    Thanks for the rec, will check it out.
vrdabomb5717 10y ago
I think funding mass media is less interesting than finding a way to have sustainable investigative journalism, both at the local and national levels. Investigative journalism, especially at the local level, has been hit hard by local newspapers getting shut down and the media forced to either pull out of unprofitable areas or focus on money-making ventures. Most media outlets are not the New York Times or Washington Post; they can't afford to send reporters out for months to put together enough evidence to run a long-form story. The end result though is that most media outlets focus on what attracts viewers and makes them money: partisan commentary, stories that spread FUD, and feel-good stories. The end result is that government and business officials can run amok without anyone holding them accountable. Let mass media focus on general-interest stories and slowly become reality TV for reality. If we instead focus on investigative journalism, we'll have a way for journalists to provide unbiased content without depending on the mass media to provide the funding to do so.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  I agree 100%. I actually have worried about this problem for a long time and I have come up with quite a lot of clever ideas (well I think they are clever) to solve this problem. Pity I don't have any time :(
  - fspacef 10y ago
    Pls do share.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      The ideas are a bit too long for a post here on HN, but if people are serious about wanting to pursue a startup in this area then get in contact with me [1]. I know there are lots of people wanting to start a startup who feel they don’t have any good ideas so if this is an area you are passionate about then I am happy to talk. I am in the lucky position of having the financial resources to fund a new startup, but because I am busy running my own business, I just don't have the time to do it myself. When I was younger I had lots of time and no money, now I am older I have the lots of money and no time :( 1. I am pretty easy to find and do a background check on.
ricw 10y ago
Farming is an interesting one, particularly with regards to the quoted statistic of 40%. From a technological perspective this has already been largely solved. Developed countries typically have 1-3% of the population working in agriculture. This is only possible because of large scale efficiencies, that allow 1-3% of the population to feed the rest. So am genuinely curious: what are you envisaging? How to market this technology to the world or make it more accessible? Or make agriculture even more efficient and even further reduce the number of people in farming?
- thruflo 10y ago
  > By 2050, we will need to feed more than 10 billion people, requiring a 70% increase in global food production. http://www.farm2050.com/ http://www.farm2050.com/ > We see the potential for Precision Farming to lift crop yields 70% by 2050 and create a $240 billion market for farm tech Goldman Sachs, July 16 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kbn7fmqcopmh2n/GSR_071416_172225.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kbn7fmqcopmh2n/GSR_071416_172225....)
- rojobuffalo 10y ago
  It's kind of a common misconception that farming in its current state is working. Farmers who run a factory model basically live on government subsidies. The ecological destruction that accompanies this model is also entirely unsustainable. Soil dies, water is polluted, species go extinct, crops and animals are highly vulnerable to pathogens (which leads to antibiotic resistance), greenhouse gas emissions are through the roof, etc. Also, it encourages a horrible diet of cheap grains and meat. Diet-related disease is the number one cause of human death; where we simultaneously have obesity and starvation. And flavor sucks. So I imagine YC's goal in adding this to the RFS is to promote companies exploring sustainability, quality, and fairness in food. Btw, this is the focus for my application.
  - awongh 10y ago
    this. The thing is that we've designed these systems (of governance, regulation and technology) that appears to have solved the problems of food, but we really haven't- bee population loss, inefficient subsidies, free-trade and over-protectionist trade, soil degradation, pollution, food contaminations, hunger, etc., etc. are still big problems. The thing is that the system is inordinately more complex than we had originally thought (not just about input/output sheer production volume of commodities, i.e., pork belly, orange juice concentrate) -it's about a system that is sustainable and non-exploitative in the big picture. I see the different factions currently working against each other for goals that should be synergistic. -decrease hunger => increase crop yield with industrial farming tech -non-gmo => grow only organic crops, anti-big business -fair-trade => crop specialization for export to 1st world But there's no reason why any and all of these groups couldn't be more aligned, and I think some of it is a question of scale and vision- no one has yet described to me the Elon Musk level vision of what a humanistically designed food system should look like and what all of humanity should be shooting for.
zappo2938 10y ago
Knight Foundation's single focus is media and journalism. For example, MapBox came out of a $200k grant they provided. I'm sure there are a lot of developers and start-ups they have or are currently are funding who can use more support. You might want to talk to them about what people are doing in the field.
- navd 10y ago
  Agreed, when I lived in Miami (last year) knight was funding so many awesome ventures. I wouldn't say they have many developers but they are very receptive to having people come in to pitch an idea and they also host many events to come in and request funding.
robertocarlos 10y ago
Definitely like the food and farming addition. Basic sustenance is still a very important issue for a significant portion of the human population. Worth investing resources into.
radicaldreamer 10y ago
Don't think flavor matters as much as yield -- at least not from the farmer's perspective. Plenty of flavorless vegetables and fruit everywhere, because they're mostly sold by weight, not by flavor or other qualities.
- rojobuffalo 10y ago
  It should be though -- flavor is a signal for nutrition, it almost always signals ecological health in it system of origin, and it makes life more interesting. We already produce 50% more food than gets eaten and huge portions go to livestock. We don't have a yield problem.
  - radicaldreamer 10y ago
    Yes, but farmers (especially subsistence farmers) just want to get the most yield they can. That's the only part of the chain they're involved in.
razvan_ro 10y ago
It would be interesting to see an analysis of the impact of the Request for Startups in YC applications (and the results / progress seen so far).
cheriot 10y ago
We've talked about "following the news" far longer than following anyone on twitter, but when I read an article that's clearly part of an ongoing story, there's no way for the author to send me updates. There needs to be a feedback loop between newsrooms and readers that's more substantive than click counts and more scalable than letters to the editor. Combine this with a newsroom that takes itself seriously as the first draft of history and 1) cites its sources better 2) compete's with wikipedia for those controversial topics that break wikipedias editor model.
- lifeisstillgood 10y ago
  This is similar to "editors picks". I think this is one tool that is not out there yet - a means for journalists / editors to say "this is worthy of interest" in a maintainable, curated manner of link pages (aka HN) and in producing their own work. I suspect this will look a lot like modelling software - as in this is how much trade is going between these countries in a nice graphic, but the raw data can be modelled / interpreted to show the editors world view.
lifeisstillgood 10y ago
On the mass media side of things, I am listening to the Audible version of "Algorthms to live by" (excellent) In it he comments on the explore/exploit trade off, when to stop exploring an area / industry / string of lovers and when to settle down. He suggests that the vast increase in derivative works in Hollywood cinema suggests a switch from explore to exploit - and may indicate the industry recognises it's time is limited. With absolutely no data points, I would like to conjecture "mass media" is similarly placed. In a world where a chatty guy with a Xbox gets ratings of 10billion views on YouTube, mass as in centralised broadcasting is dead. Mass as in watched by many is probably going to get a lot more massive (another 3 billion viewers to be born soon) So I don't think fixing mass media as in somehow improving the ownership incentives at NBC or BBC matter. What matters is giving small organisations and individuals tools to speak easily- we will discover them and they will become massive if we want them to. So focus on editing tools, creativity tools and weirdly, better search and ranking algorithms Big media is beyond saving
Mao_Zedang 10y ago
We need the spotify of media, where journalists are paid directly from their readers maybe an aportioned rev share model. People who want articles about the kardashians still get them and people who want to read about conflict in the middle east get theirs. No more editorializing based on the current trendy group think, no more editorializing based on what their rich billionaire owner thinks their next crusade is. The reason the media is so bad is because of economics, people have this bad habit of wanting to live in houses and feed themselves.
- habosa 10y ago
  Check out Blendle. It's pay-per-article news from all the big sources. NYTimes, WSJ, WaPo, Economist, etc. I use it a lot, paying between $0.09 and $0.59 per article. And at the bottom of each one is a "refund" button that's no questions asked.
  - Mao_Zedang 10y ago
    Paying per article would appear to me to be too much friction, I want something where I pay $10 a month and say 70% of my subscription is apportioned among the articles I read and maybe even a supplement patreon style addon or something in this vein. The trick to keeping me paying is to make me forget I am paying once you have convinced me. "NYTimes, WSJ, WaPo, Economist" big journalist engines like these are part of the problem, even with this new style market place we wont fix the real problem until the service is cutting cheques directly to the authors.
  - lint_roller 10y ago
    I really like Blendle and think it's great for people like me that consume a lot of high quality journalism and are willing to pay for it. The big question in my mind is how it will, or if it intends to, achieve mass appeal and bring high quality journalism directly to all as it does to us.
- nosuchthing 10y ago
  Brave browser will be including a micropayments system soon! https://blog.brave.com/braves-response-to-the-naa-a-better-deal-for-publishers/ https://blog.brave.com/braves-response-to-the-naa-a-better-d...
somekindaplan 10y ago
> Underserved Communities and Social Services This is the problem YC should be solving. Instead, YC is still patently and openly biased towards the Ivy League class, which is really just a bias against poor people. It's been a decade and still nothing predicts YC acceptance like the Right Background and Culture Fit. So get on it! Raise a billion dollars and fund every decent team founded by people from poor backgrounds. Stop giving money to people that don't really need it and don't really appreciate it. This could change the entire world.. Poor children could grow up knowing that someone would fund them if they try to make something of themselves. Initial funding is the roadblock. A simple proxy for "poor" in this case can be anyone who did not have parents who could buy them into a fancy school or send them around the world.
- Mao_Zedang 10y ago
  ``Stop giving money to people that don't really need it and don't really appreciate it.`` There are more than enough monied people who think this way in SV but they dont seem to be throwing angel money at people in this predicament why do you think that is?
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  Pointing fingers all the wrong directions. Hope it feels good to get it off your chest at least. A more productive discussion is methods for capital formation and how some methods can reduce inequality better than others. Judging from what you wrote, it doesn't seem like a search query you would ever have run yourself. There are some interesting things going on around the world on this issue.
  - somekindaplan 10y ago
    Feel free to disagree with any of what I've said. I think my suggestion for YC is far bigger than anything else being suggested. It may be controversial to say they're doing a bad job right now but that's what I think the truth is. YC is in the unique position of being able to fund thousands of poor people and yet they choose not to. Why? They don't believe poor people can be successful? They don't want to help poor people? What is it? Almost every poor person who got rich had some rich person's help. This is a fact of history going back thousands of years. There are very few exceptions. Trump had his father's help. Steve Jobs had Mark Markkula's help. Paul Graham had a rich lawyer's help. Sam Altman had Paul Graham's help. So what do poor people need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty? Help.
snerbles 10y ago
For ag-related hardware startups that may require frequent in-the-field testing, how will that reconcile with YC's relocation requirement?
- bpicolo 10y ago
  In San Francisco you aren't so far whole a whole lot of farmland
  - snerbles 10y ago
    It's a pain if you're relocating from said farmland, even if it's only in Modesto or Fresno.
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      Yeah. That said, there's certainly prior art here (Farmlogs)
      - vollmarj 10y ago
        Yeah, we (FarmLogs) did YC in Mountain View and realized that needing to get on a plane every time we wanted to visit a customer was just not worth it. We picked up and moved back to the Midwest after YC to be near our customers. You can either commit to getting on an airplane often, or find ways to test in simulated environments instead. My guess is you will need some combination of both.
Cromatico 10y ago
> This population has to navigate a world with substandard services, low quality housing, overcrowded schools, and crime in their neighborhoods. They are often unbanked and living paycheck to paycheck. Tiny houses, tiny schools, tiny cops and tiny banks can solve their problems, but there are legal hurdles.
Cromatico 10y ago
An idea for mixing AI with healthcare, using Tensor Flow with a huge image database of skin conditions so the user takes a pic on a phone and it determines the illness and the cure.
- sbuccini 10y ago
  I've looked into this. There are actually a couple of attempts that use basic heuristics for detecting melanoma such as color, symmetry, and size. However, it's harder here in the US since you have to get approved by the FDA in order to make a "diagnosis".
- TuringNYC 10y ago
  The technical aspects can be de-risked fairly quickly here -- check out the ISBI dataset http://biomedicalimaging.org/2016/?page_id=422 http://biomedicalimaging.org/2016/?page_id=422 and all the papers around it. The societal challenges will be a devil to defeat. FYI I actually quit my Wall St job several years ago, did something similar with diagnostic imaging, built a working classifier that is doctor-level sensitive (low false negative especially). For us it was near impossible to succeed in the US because the US healthcare system is designed from all directions to be inefficient. Our tepid success came from moving overseas temporarily and proving out the system in a smaller country with a forward-looking healthcare system with less conflicts of interest. We focused on a local problem (Tuberculosis.) Even then, I'm almost two years in and ended up acquiescing to a premature acquisition because the healthcare system is so difficult to navigate. My lockup is almost complete, the next startup, I'm going to focus on something easier like world peace. I don't mean to discourage you, but you would likely be a lot more successful if you have some "in" with a hospital system willing to work with you. IMHO, in healthcare, the technology is the easiest part. Incidentally...yes...we've built it on TensorFlow! And if you do wish to talk tech about this idea, feel free to reach out to me.
- spitfire 10y ago
  I'm doing this right now actually. The risk with using ML - in particular NN methods, in health care is that you have to be able to explain and support your conclusions. Also depending on the training set used you can get some VERY bad results. https://vimeo.com/125940125 https://vimeo.com/125940125
ryanSrich 10y ago
Somewhat related question. Has anyone searched for an idea, came across RFS and started working on an idea that eventually got them into YC?
rtpg 10y ago
For Underserved Communities, there are social aspects that also need to be tackled. Many many many many organisations target these kinds of communities to try and help them. People are often suspicious of the help, because there are also many many many organisations that try to exploit them! Misleading terms, much higher hidden fees, etc, etc. Many have almost no access to high-quality services, just misleading ones. Tackling this trust issue is essential to any success. In particular, I think that a 1099-style service like Uber is a bad fit for building trust. Though there are other ways to help someone apart from 'make them your employees'.
avivo 10y ago
I'm really happy to see YC putting attention toward the (increasing) market failure around media quality. It's a serious problem, with IMHO imperils governance and stability worldwide. I'm exploring a way to improve this dramatically, and fairly rapidly; essentially creating a stronger market for trust & quality, with resulting ranking rewards from FB, Google et al. If you are interested in learning more and perhaps being involved, let me know (yc@aviv.me). Experience with news organizations, partnerships, platform companies, moderation systems, or machine learning are all especially helpful.
avivo 10y ago
Why focus on "mass media"? As opposed to just "media"? It seems incentives are the key problem in an age where there are no real gatekeepers to "mass media." I'm curious the request isn't more like this: "What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our media better? Incentive systems that reward polarization, misinformation, passivity, and fear, are not improving society. We’re looking for ways to bring the average back up and improve media quality." (original: "What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our mass media better? Media outlets that rely on polarization, misinformation, passivity, and fear, are not improving society. We’re looking for ways to bring the average back up and improve mass media.")
ihinsdale 10y ago
"What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our mass media better?" I see Sequiturs (https://sequiturs.com https://sequiturs.com) as taking this problem on pretty directly. It's a tool for crowdsourcing the strongest arguments on a given topic. These arguments are presented in a format that is easily digested and encourages iterative improvement. Sequiturs can 'bring up the baseline' by serving as a reference for discussions to turn to, to gain clarity and avoid reinventing the wheel when considering the in's and out's of an argument. This includes serving as a reference for journalists, in informing the articles they write and the questions they ask of those in power. Disclosure: I'm the creator of Sequiturs--and would love to know what you think of it!
akhatri_aus 10y ago
Is there a poison and antidote? Reddit [yc backed] and <insert here> to raise the bar. The symptom is partially caused by YC.
fillskills 10y ago
I have worked on two of loosely related projects. Both of them are very close to my heart. Since I am heading another (3rd) project that has become a funded startup, I would like to share those ideas and see if anyone is interested in pursuing them. Would love critical feedback on these as these are my life goals as of now. 1) Food and Farming - iPlantTrees. The idea is to set up a platform where two kinds of people meet. One without the resources or knowledge but have a place to plant. Other side of people or organizations who have knowledge/resources to plant. I came up with the idea because when I moved to CA, we bought a house with an Orange tree. It gives amazing oranges so we no longer have to buy from the store. It would have been great if I could also get some Apple or other trees too but I have scant knowledge of finding -> planting -> maintaining plants. I could spend years doing so or someone could plant them for me. You could make money by partnering with Nurseries etc. In the end everyone would know a lot more about food plantation and have fresh home grown food to eat. 2) Path to middle class - FillSkills. My understanding of the problem is the barrier to entry to jobs. Which is being brought down tremendously by the internet. Even now though I meet people all the time who would like to become a Software Engineer or a Data Scientist or a Business Analyst etc but have no idea where to start. FillSkills would take a look at all job postings, show which jobs are in in demand or expected to be in demand. Think of a stock trading app but for Job data. So you can really see what is going on in the job market and make life choices accordingly. In addition it will be able to tell you specifically what you need to learn to get the job profile you like. Companies should also be able to post jobs directly with a string of challenges (courses, exams, interviews, projects etc using whatever tools) that if passed by a candidate, guarantees a job or at least an in person interview.
w_t_payne 10y ago
RE: Programming Tools "What comes after programming languages?" I think that this is the wrong question. How about these other questions instead: How can we encourage the spread of existing best practices? How can we lower the barriers to entry for people wanting to make safe and reliable software at scale? Can this be done in a way that is commercially sustainable?
jonwachob91 10y ago
Bye bye nanotech :( You'll be missed.
- tim333 10y ago
  Looking down the list the missing are 8 Internet Infrastructure 11 Science 22 Global Infrastructure 23 Nanotech vs http://web.archive.org/web/20160105095435/http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs http://web.archive.org/web/20160105095435/http://www.ycombin...
dang 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20160515000000*/https://blog.ycombinator.com/requests-for-startups-refreshed https://web.archive.org/web/20160515000000*/https://blog.yco...

175 points by craigcannon 10y ago

At some point in time - I would love to build a news site which had each article broken into facts & points of view (left, center, right). Ideally classifying/auto-linking to politicians statements/voting history automatically with machine learning.

stevesearer 10y ago
My favorite news app of all time was Circa which was broken into bite-sized facts. You could even subscribe to story and receive notifications when a new bit of information arose. Unfortunately they never charged money and it disappeared about a year ago :(

acconrad 10y ago

I've constantly racked my brain on the Underserved Communities and Social Services: my dad is a Vietnam vet and my mom (while we were growing up) fit that single mother middle-class type...how does technology help them? Part of the problem is they aren't tech savvy the way the HN community is - so what works for our community doesn't exactly work for theirs, or that they even use technology to the extent that we do (i.e. does technology even solve this problem?). The other problem is revenue/profitability...this population is inherently cash-strapped, so trying to create a technology solution that likely lies in the Tech-meets-Consumer Discretionary industry, well, who among these people can (and will) afford such services? It frustrates me to no end...because I want to help, but I can't seem to find a viable solution whenever I build something out. It's further a problem because it doesn't follow the general YC/Paul Graham rules for creating solutions - solving your own problems. Most techies aren't also veterans or single mothers, so while it was a problem I experienced second hand growing up, it's not something I live with today, other than my innate desire to help others. It's very hard to solve a problem you can't experience first hand. Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve these kinds of problems? Am I approaching it wrong?

maxerickson 10y ago
The first step is to articulate specific problems. The link does a little bit, but people with minimal savings don't actually care that they are unbanked; paying Walmart $3 to cash a check isn't that terrible a deal (Even if it isn't a great deal).
Lordarminius 10y ago
> I've constantly racked my brain...Am I approaching it wrong?... I don't think so and I have a similar problem as you. Certain problems have already been solved by other methods and wont yield to digitization. What is needed is simply a transplanting of existing tech to under served sectors.There are many businesses that are profitable without the need for extreme tech innovation. My peeve for instance, is that in my part of the world certain kinds of farming (rice, oil palm)yield decent and more or less assured profits (>500% over a decade) and there is no need for new technology other than that which already exists. This could logically fall under agriculture. The main barrier is relatively small amounts of capital (<200k - 1M usd) but try telling that to unicorn obsessed VC's looking for the next Snapchat.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Regarding the agriculture you bring up, the real issue here is contracts. Suppose you lend a bunch of Kerala palm oil orchards $1M, hoping to make $5M over a decade. Do you really trust the Communist government of Kerala to enforce your contracts and transfer wealth from poor local farmers back to the rich (likely foreign) capitalists who made them loans? That's the problem to solve. If you can solve it I don't see a reason why anyone wouldn't fund you.
  - Lordarminius 10y ago
    I would argue that solving the problem of contract enforcement is beyond the scope of any entrepreneur. However I do see your point and appreciate its merit. By the same token, if YC was unduly worried about that, they would never be able to fund (tech) companies that operate principally outside the west because the problem you allude to has never really been solved satisfactorily. But here's my point: as YC becomes larger and looks for growth outside its traditional areas, its model must evolve. Right now it does seem a bit scattershot. Is it a VC or an Angel? What is the place and relationship of charity and the entrepreneurs it sponsors? It claims to invest in founders predominantly over their ideas, but everyone I know who applies, does so with the thought at the back of their minds, that the de-facto situation is one in which an idea which cannot be a billion dollar company is best left at home. Whats wrong with funding a company that has the potential to reach 100M? I guess what I mean to say is: for the larger mission YC espouses, the funding model is broken; indeed the mission itself is unclear. For those like me who aspire to be funded this creates much frustration

the_watcher 10y ago

I'll be fascinated to see what Mass Media ideas come through YC. It's pretty obviously a problem, but I've honestly got no ideas at all about how to solve it (although, to be fair, there's a non-zero chance that the media has always been a problem of this magnitude, but the internet/echo chamber culture has simply exposed what was lurking all along).

klinskyc 10y ago
It's not going through YC, but Purple (https://getpurple.io https://getpurple.io) has done a good job, IMO, of having good coverage in a novel way (through facebook messages)
- ryanSrich 10y ago
  TechCrunch does this. I wonder if they're using purple.
- the_watcher 10y ago
  Thanks for the rec, will check it out.

vrdabomb5717 10y ago

I think funding mass media is less interesting than finding a way to have sustainable investigative journalism, both at the local and national levels. Investigative journalism, especially at the local level, has been hit hard by local newspapers getting shut down and the media forced to either pull out of unprofitable areas or focus on money-making ventures. Most media outlets are not the New York Times or Washington Post; they can't afford to send reporters out for months to put together enough evidence to run a long-form story. The end result though is that most media outlets focus on what attracts viewers and makes them money: partisan commentary, stories that spread FUD, and feel-good stories. The end result is that government and business officials can run amok without anyone holding them accountable. Let mass media focus on general-interest stories and slowly become reality TV for reality. If we instead focus on investigative journalism, we'll have a way for journalists to provide unbiased content without depending on the mass media to provide the funding to do so.

danieltillett 10y ago
I agree 100%. I actually have worried about this problem for a long time and I have come up with quite a lot of clever ideas (well I think they are clever) to solve this problem. Pity I don't have any time :(
- fspacef 10y ago
  Pls do share.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    The ideas are a bit too long for a post here on HN, but if people are serious about wanting to pursue a startup in this area then get in contact with me [1]. I know there are lots of people wanting to start a startup who feel they don’t have any good ideas so if this is an area you are passionate about then I am happy to talk. I am in the lucky position of having the financial resources to fund a new startup, but because I am busy running my own business, I just don't have the time to do it myself. When I was younger I had lots of time and no money, now I am older I have the lots of money and no time :( 1. I am pretty easy to find and do a background check on.

ricw 10y ago

Farming is an interesting one, particularly with regards to the quoted statistic of 40%. From a technological perspective this has already been largely solved. Developed countries typically have 1-3% of the population working in agriculture. This is only possible because of large scale efficiencies, that allow 1-3% of the population to feed the rest. So am genuinely curious: what are you envisaging? How to market this technology to the world or make it more accessible? Or make agriculture even more efficient and even further reduce the number of people in farming?

thruflo 10y ago
> By 2050, we will need to feed more than 10 billion people, requiring a 70% increase in global food production. http://www.farm2050.com/ http://www.farm2050.com/ > We see the potential for Precision Farming to lift crop yields 70% by 2050 and create a $240 billion market for farm tech Goldman Sachs, July 16 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kbn7fmqcopmh2n/GSR_071416_172225.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kbn7fmqcopmh2n/GSR_071416_172225....)
rojobuffalo 10y ago
It's kind of a common misconception that farming in its current state is working. Farmers who run a factory model basically live on government subsidies. The ecological destruction that accompanies this model is also entirely unsustainable. Soil dies, water is polluted, species go extinct, crops and animals are highly vulnerable to pathogens (which leads to antibiotic resistance), greenhouse gas emissions are through the roof, etc. Also, it encourages a horrible diet of cheap grains and meat. Diet-related disease is the number one cause of human death; where we simultaneously have obesity and starvation. And flavor sucks. So I imagine YC's goal in adding this to the RFS is to promote companies exploring sustainability, quality, and fairness in food. Btw, this is the focus for my application.
- awongh 10y ago
  this. The thing is that we've designed these systems (of governance, regulation and technology) that appears to have solved the problems of food, but we really haven't- bee population loss, inefficient subsidies, free-trade and over-protectionist trade, soil degradation, pollution, food contaminations, hunger, etc., etc. are still big problems. The thing is that the system is inordinately more complex than we had originally thought (not just about input/output sheer production volume of commodities, i.e., pork belly, orange juice concentrate) -it's about a system that is sustainable and non-exploitative in the big picture. I see the different factions currently working against each other for goals that should be synergistic. -decrease hunger => increase crop yield with industrial farming tech -non-gmo => grow only organic crops, anti-big business -fair-trade => crop specialization for export to 1st world But there's no reason why any and all of these groups couldn't be more aligned, and I think some of it is a question of scale and vision- no one has yet described to me the Elon Musk level vision of what a humanistically designed food system should look like and what all of humanity should be shooting for.

zappo2938 10y ago

Knight Foundation's single focus is media and journalism. For example, MapBox came out of a $200k grant they provided. I'm sure there are a lot of developers and start-ups they have or are currently are funding who can use more support. You might want to talk to them about what people are doing in the field.

navd 10y ago
Agreed, when I lived in Miami (last year) knight was funding so many awesome ventures. I wouldn't say they have many developers but they are very receptive to having people come in to pitch an idea and they also host many events to come in and request funding.

robertocarlos 10y ago

Definitely like the food and farming addition. Basic sustenance is still a very important issue for a significant portion of the human population. Worth investing resources into.

radicaldreamer 10y ago

Don't think flavor matters as much as yield -- at least not from the farmer's perspective. Plenty of flavorless vegetables and fruit everywhere, because they're mostly sold by weight, not by flavor or other qualities.

rojobuffalo 10y ago
It should be though -- flavor is a signal for nutrition, it almost always signals ecological health in it system of origin, and it makes life more interesting. We already produce 50% more food than gets eaten and huge portions go to livestock. We don't have a yield problem.
- radicaldreamer 10y ago
  Yes, but farmers (especially subsistence farmers) just want to get the most yield they can. That's the only part of the chain they're involved in.

razvan_ro 10y ago

It would be interesting to see an analysis of the impact of the Request for Startups in YC applications (and the results / progress seen so far).

cheriot 10y ago

We've talked about "following the news" far longer than following anyone on twitter, but when I read an article that's clearly part of an ongoing story, there's no way for the author to send me updates. There needs to be a feedback loop between newsrooms and readers that's more substantive than click counts and more scalable than letters to the editor. Combine this with a newsroom that takes itself seriously as the first draft of history and 1) cites its sources better 2) compete's with wikipedia for those controversial topics that break wikipedias editor model.

lifeisstillgood 10y ago
This is similar to "editors picks". I think this is one tool that is not out there yet - a means for journalists / editors to say "this is worthy of interest" in a maintainable, curated manner of link pages (aka HN) and in producing their own work. I suspect this will look a lot like modelling software - as in this is how much trade is going between these countries in a nice graphic, but the raw data can be modelled / interpreted to show the editors world view.

lifeisstillgood 10y ago

On the mass media side of things, I am listening to the Audible version of "Algorthms to live by" (excellent) In it he comments on the explore/exploit trade off, when to stop exploring an area / industry / string of lovers and when to settle down. He suggests that the vast increase in derivative works in Hollywood cinema suggests a switch from explore to exploit - and may indicate the industry recognises it's time is limited. With absolutely no data points, I would like to conjecture "mass media" is similarly placed. In a world where a chatty guy with a Xbox gets ratings of 10billion views on YouTube, mass as in centralised broadcasting is dead. Mass as in watched by many is probably going to get a lot more massive (another 3 billion viewers to be born soon) So I don't think fixing mass media as in somehow improving the ownership incentives at NBC or BBC matter. What matters is giving small organisations and individuals tools to speak easily- we will discover them and they will become massive if we want them to. So focus on editing tools, creativity tools and weirdly, better search and ranking algorithms Big media is beyond saving

Mao_Zedang 10y ago

We need the spotify of media, where journalists are paid directly from their readers maybe an aportioned rev share model. People who want articles about the kardashians still get them and people who want to read about conflict in the middle east get theirs. No more editorializing based on the current trendy group think, no more editorializing based on what their rich billionaire owner thinks their next crusade is. The reason the media is so bad is because of economics, people have this bad habit of wanting to live in houses and feed themselves.

habosa 10y ago
Check out Blendle. It's pay-per-article news from all the big sources. NYTimes, WSJ, WaPo, Economist, etc. I use it a lot, paying between $0.09 and $0.59 per article. And at the bottom of each one is a "refund" button that's no questions asked.
- Mao_Zedang 10y ago
  Paying per article would appear to me to be too much friction, I want something where I pay $10 a month and say 70% of my subscription is apportioned among the articles I read and maybe even a supplement patreon style addon or something in this vein. The trick to keeping me paying is to make me forget I am paying once you have convinced me. "NYTimes, WSJ, WaPo, Economist" big journalist engines like these are part of the problem, even with this new style market place we wont fix the real problem until the service is cutting cheques directly to the authors.
- lint_roller 10y ago
  I really like Blendle and think it's great for people like me that consume a lot of high quality journalism and are willing to pay for it. The big question in my mind is how it will, or if it intends to, achieve mass appeal and bring high quality journalism directly to all as it does to us.
nosuchthing 10y ago
Brave browser will be including a micropayments system soon! https://blog.brave.com/braves-response-to-the-naa-a-better-deal-for-publishers/ https://blog.brave.com/braves-response-to-the-naa-a-better-d...

somekindaplan 10y ago

> Underserved Communities and Social Services This is the problem YC should be solving. Instead, YC is still patently and openly biased towards the Ivy League class, which is really just a bias against poor people. It's been a decade and still nothing predicts YC acceptance like the Right Background and Culture Fit. So get on it! Raise a billion dollars and fund every decent team founded by people from poor backgrounds. Stop giving money to people that don't really need it and don't really appreciate it. This could change the entire world.. Poor children could grow up knowing that someone would fund them if they try to make something of themselves. Initial funding is the roadblock. A simple proxy for "poor" in this case can be anyone who did not have parents who could buy them into a fancy school or send them around the world.

Mao_Zedang 10y ago
``Stop giving money to people that don't really need it and don't really appreciate it.`` There are more than enough monied people who think this way in SV but they dont seem to be throwing angel money at people in this predicament why do you think that is?
cloudjacker 10y ago
Pointing fingers all the wrong directions. Hope it feels good to get it off your chest at least. A more productive discussion is methods for capital formation and how some methods can reduce inequality better than others. Judging from what you wrote, it doesn't seem like a search query you would ever have run yourself. There are some interesting things going on around the world on this issue.
- somekindaplan 10y ago
  Feel free to disagree with any of what I've said. I think my suggestion for YC is far bigger than anything else being suggested. It may be controversial to say they're doing a bad job right now but that's what I think the truth is. YC is in the unique position of being able to fund thousands of poor people and yet they choose not to. Why? They don't believe poor people can be successful? They don't want to help poor people? What is it? Almost every poor person who got rich had some rich person's help. This is a fact of history going back thousands of years. There are very few exceptions. Trump had his father's help. Steve Jobs had Mark Markkula's help. Paul Graham had a rich lawyer's help. Sam Altman had Paul Graham's help. So what do poor people need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty? Help.

snerbles 10y ago

For ag-related hardware startups that may require frequent in-the-field testing, how will that reconcile with YC's relocation requirement?

bpicolo 10y ago
In San Francisco you aren't so far whole a whole lot of farmland
- snerbles 10y ago
  It's a pain if you're relocating from said farmland, even if it's only in Modesto or Fresno.
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    Yeah. That said, there's certainly prior art here (Farmlogs)
    - vollmarj 10y ago
      Yeah, we (FarmLogs) did YC in Mountain View and realized that needing to get on a plane every time we wanted to visit a customer was just not worth it. We picked up and moved back to the Midwest after YC to be near our customers. You can either commit to getting on an airplane often, or find ways to test in simulated environments instead. My guess is you will need some combination of both.

Cromatico 10y ago

> This population has to navigate a world with substandard services, low quality housing, overcrowded schools, and crime in their neighborhoods. They are often unbanked and living paycheck to paycheck. Tiny houses, tiny schools, tiny cops and tiny banks can solve their problems, but there are legal hurdles.

Cromatico 10y ago

An idea for mixing AI with healthcare, using Tensor Flow with a huge image database of skin conditions so the user takes a pic on a phone and it determines the illness and the cure.

sbuccini 10y ago
I've looked into this. There are actually a couple of attempts that use basic heuristics for detecting melanoma such as color, symmetry, and size. However, it's harder here in the US since you have to get approved by the FDA in order to make a "diagnosis".
TuringNYC 10y ago
The technical aspects can be de-risked fairly quickly here -- check out the ISBI dataset http://biomedicalimaging.org/2016/?page_id=422 http://biomedicalimaging.org/2016/?page_id=422 and all the papers around it. The societal challenges will be a devil to defeat. FYI I actually quit my Wall St job several years ago, did something similar with diagnostic imaging, built a working classifier that is doctor-level sensitive (low false negative especially). For us it was near impossible to succeed in the US because the US healthcare system is designed from all directions to be inefficient. Our tepid success came from moving overseas temporarily and proving out the system in a smaller country with a forward-looking healthcare system with less conflicts of interest. We focused on a local problem (Tuberculosis.) Even then, I'm almost two years in and ended up acquiescing to a premature acquisition because the healthcare system is so difficult to navigate. My lockup is almost complete, the next startup, I'm going to focus on something easier like world peace. I don't mean to discourage you, but you would likely be a lot more successful if you have some "in" with a hospital system willing to work with you. IMHO, in healthcare, the technology is the easiest part. Incidentally...yes...we've built it on TensorFlow! And if you do wish to talk tech about this idea, feel free to reach out to me.
spitfire 10y ago
I'm doing this right now actually. The risk with using ML - in particular NN methods, in health care is that you have to be able to explain and support your conclusions. Also depending on the training set used you can get some VERY bad results. https://vimeo.com/125940125 https://vimeo.com/125940125

ryanSrich 10y ago

Somewhat related question. Has anyone searched for an idea, came across RFS and started working on an idea that eventually got them into YC?

rtpg 10y ago

For Underserved Communities, there are social aspects that also need to be tackled. Many many many many organisations target these kinds of communities to try and help them. People are often suspicious of the help, because there are also many many many organisations that try to exploit them! Misleading terms, much higher hidden fees, etc, etc. Many have almost no access to high-quality services, just misleading ones. Tackling this trust issue is essential to any success. In particular, I think that a 1099-style service like Uber is a bad fit for building trust. Though there are other ways to help someone apart from 'make them your employees'.

avivo 10y ago

I'm really happy to see YC putting attention toward the (increasing) market failure around media quality. It's a serious problem, with IMHO imperils governance and stability worldwide. I'm exploring a way to improve this dramatically, and fairly rapidly; essentially creating a stronger market for trust & quality, with resulting ranking rewards from FB, Google et al. If you are interested in learning more and perhaps being involved, let me know (yc@aviv.me). Experience with news organizations, partnerships, platform companies, moderation systems, or machine learning are all especially helpful.

avivo 10y ago

Why focus on "mass media"? As opposed to just "media"? It seems incentives are the key problem in an age where there are no real gatekeepers to "mass media." I'm curious the request isn't more like this: "What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our media better? Incentive systems that reward polarization, misinformation, passivity, and fear, are not improving society. We’re looking for ways to bring the average back up and improve media quality." (original: "What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our mass media better? Media outlets that rely on polarization, misinformation, passivity, and fear, are not improving society. We’re looking for ways to bring the average back up and improve mass media.")

ihinsdale 10y ago

"What can we do to bring up the baseline and make the vast majority of our mass media better?" I see Sequiturs (https://sequiturs.com https://sequiturs.com) as taking this problem on pretty directly. It's a tool for crowdsourcing the strongest arguments on a given topic. These arguments are presented in a format that is easily digested and encourages iterative improvement. Sequiturs can 'bring up the baseline' by serving as a reference for discussions to turn to, to gain clarity and avoid reinventing the wheel when considering the in's and out's of an argument. This includes serving as a reference for journalists, in informing the articles they write and the questions they ask of those in power. Disclosure: I'm the creator of Sequiturs--and would love to know what you think of it!

akhatri_aus 10y ago

Is there a poison and antidote? Reddit [yc backed] and <insert here> to raise the bar. The symptom is partially caused by YC.

fillskills 10y ago

I have worked on two of loosely related projects. Both of them are very close to my heart. Since I am heading another (3rd) project that has become a funded startup, I would like to share those ideas and see if anyone is interested in pursuing them. Would love critical feedback on these as these are my life goals as of now. 1) Food and Farming - iPlantTrees. The idea is to set up a platform where two kinds of people meet. One without the resources or knowledge but have a place to plant. Other side of people or organizations who have knowledge/resources to plant. I came up with the idea because when I moved to CA, we bought a house with an Orange tree. It gives amazing oranges so we no longer have to buy from the store. It would have been great if I could also get some Apple or other trees too but I have scant knowledge of finding -> planting -> maintaining plants. I could spend years doing so or someone could plant them for me. You could make money by partnering with Nurseries etc. In the end everyone would know a lot more about food plantation and have fresh home grown food to eat. 2) Path to middle class - FillSkills. My understanding of the problem is the barrier to entry to jobs. Which is being brought down tremendously by the internet. Even now though I meet people all the time who would like to become a Software Engineer or a Data Scientist or a Business Analyst etc but have no idea where to start. FillSkills would take a look at all job postings, show which jobs are in in demand or expected to be in demand. Think of a stock trading app but for Job data. So you can really see what is going on in the job market and make life choices accordingly. In addition it will be able to tell you specifically what you need to learn to get the job profile you like. Companies should also be able to post jobs directly with a string of challenges (courses, exams, interviews, projects etc using whatever tools) that if passed by a candidate, guarantees a job or at least an in person interview.

w_t_payne 10y ago

RE: Programming Tools "What comes after programming languages?" I think that this is the wrong question. How about these other questions instead: How can we encourage the spread of existing best practices? How can we lower the barriers to entry for people wanting to make safe and reliable software at scale? Can this be done in a way that is commercially sustainable?

jonwachob91 10y ago

Bye bye nanotech :( You'll be missed.

tim333 10y ago
Looking down the list the missing are 8 Internet Infrastructure 11 Science 22 Global Infrastructure 23 Nanotech vs http://web.archive.org/web/20160105095435/http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs http://web.archive.org/web/20160105095435/http://www.ycombin...

dang 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20160515000000*/https://blog.ycombinator.com/requests-for-startups-refreshed https://web.archive.org/web/20160515000000*/https://blog.yco...