3 ms·

Also boring businesses need attention. Loads of people would love to run a gym but you could make 10x more by selling toilet paper or paper clips.

Trufa 5y ago
I'm always looking for boring ideas, I'm a full stack web dev, and honestly my dream is to have some running side business that's extremely boring, I never seem to find good ol' boring ideas. Open to ideas from HN too :)
- maxwell 5y ago
  Property and casualty insurance. Work with the brokers (and reinsurers if possible) and go after the carriers. Follow the Zillow model instead of Zenefits. Edit, more: Businesses want to work with established P&C brokers, and brokers have ensured (in most states) that they have to anyway. Provide the right data-driven SaaS tool that gives brokers the power to sell/renew better. Offer it for free unless it converts but require reporting conversions, then charge a percentage. You could call up brokers and they would all try it out. Then focus on solving boring, mostly statistical, problems in an elegant way behind the scenes.
- wilde 5y ago
  The classic advice is to talk to people. Ask your friends in other industries what the most bullshit part of their job is. The most frustrated friend will probably have something. Especially if their answer is “eh, I have this Excel sheet that kinda does the job”.
jjk166 5y ago
I used to work for a machine shop that made lots of stuff - parts for cars, aircraft, medical devices, all very exciting. But the real money maker? Little clamps for holding sections of drill shafts together. Oil extraction companies go through literal tons of them every day and don't give a damn about cost. It was quite an eye opening experience.
Akronymus 5y ago
My new job is about porting an old legacy codebase in ABL/Progress/OpenEdge to c#. I feel safe to say that most people consider that boring work for a boring business. I personally don't need to work on "interesting" stuff.

Trufa 5y ago

I'm always looking for boring ideas, I'm a full stack web dev, and honestly my dream is to have some running side business that's extremely boring, I never seem to find good ol' boring ideas. Open to ideas from HN too :)

maxwell 5y ago
Property and casualty insurance. Work with the brokers (and reinsurers if possible) and go after the carriers. Follow the Zillow model instead of Zenefits. Edit, more: Businesses want to work with established P&C brokers, and brokers have ensured (in most states) that they have to anyway. Provide the right data-driven SaaS tool that gives brokers the power to sell/renew better. Offer it for free unless it converts but require reporting conversions, then charge a percentage. You could call up brokers and they would all try it out. Then focus on solving boring, mostly statistical, problems in an elegant way behind the scenes.
wilde 5y ago
The classic advice is to talk to people. Ask your friends in other industries what the most bullshit part of their job is. The most frustrated friend will probably have something. Especially if their answer is “eh, I have this Excel sheet that kinda does the job”.

jjk166 5y ago

I used to work for a machine shop that made lots of stuff - parts for cars, aircraft, medical devices, all very exciting. But the real money maker? Little clamps for holding sections of drill shafts together. Oil extraction companies go through literal tons of them every day and don't give a damn about cost. It was quite an eye opening experience.

Akronymus 5y ago

My new job is about porting an old legacy codebase in ABL/Progress/OpenEdge to c#. I feel safe to say that most people consider that boring work for a boring business. I personally don't need to work on "interesting" stuff.