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Ask HN: What startup WOULD be a good idea now?
Since this may be a moment when VC is realizing that startup investments need to be in something different than what they've invested in lately, I thought we could ask for things that we don't want to make, but would be willing to pay money for. Just in case anybody out there is listening.
- rossdavidh 7y agoI'll start: I would be willing to pay a small amount monthly for a search engine that was restricted to independent websites and news sources that don't have a problem with adblockers.
- freediver 7y agoWhat is a small amount monthly? Can you share a use case? Would you consciously go to that engine instead of Google for your daily routine?
- rossdavidh 7y agoLet's say something like $5. I would probably check it at least daily. It would also be something I would look for when trying to find, say "recipe for spinach quiche", where there will be a lot of ad-tastic and very spammy content. Or, "things to do in Prague", when I do not want Google to start telling the world to spam me about Prague. I just want to see websites of people who went, themselves, to Prague, and want to tell the internet about it. Or "how to build a bench", when I just want to see indie blogs where Joe Carpenter tells how he made a simple bench, without getting ads. Perhaps also date-sensitive, so that anything indexed in the last week with the word "Italy" would show up, or "monarch butterflies", or "garden". But not in social networks (esp. not Pinterest), and not in websites with a bunch of ads.
- freediver 7y agoCheck if you like this as a concept first https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21209358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21209358
- rossdavidh 7y agoI would also like to be able to send, say, an apple bought from the local farmer's market, to a lab, and get back results about its nutritional content. Then, compare it to what the FDA says that apples should contain. Same for non-apple foodstuffs, of course. Also, testing for lead and other not-nice stuff would be good.