5 ms·

I remember talking to a couple of tiny house builders few years ago. Rules for tiny houses vary wildly depending on the state and the county. There is no centra

by akudha 5y ago

I remember talking to a couple of tiny house builders few years ago. Rules for tiny houses vary wildly depending on the state and the county. There is no central place where the builders can look up the rules (at least that was case few years ago). In many cases they have to call the county office or go in person to get the latest rules, it is a hassle. They were willing to pay a few hundred dollars every month just to be able to access up-to-date rules in one place. I wonder how many of these compliance driven innovation opportunities (great term, btw) there are, thanks to bureaucracy.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
https://up.codes/ https://up.codes/ Carl Malamud, an open access advocate (among other roles), has been championing the cause of open building codes for almost a decade. https://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Malamud+open+access https://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Malamud+open+access https://www.eff.org/cases/publicresource-freeingthelaw https://www.eff.org/cases/publicresource-freeingthelaw
mywittyname 5y ago
>I wonder how many of these compliance driven innovation opportunities (great term, btw) there are, thanks to bureaucracy. Tons. I'd venture to say that the majority of B2B companies out there exist because they offer some form of assistance in dealing with compliance across the country/world. Even though we probably don't think of that as their primary service. Example: payroll services - the money transfers are the easy part, a company is really paying these services to do tax compliance. One of the problems with starting a company like this is finding all of the niches that exist. You kind of have to have worked in a sector to learn what some of the pain points are that can be eliviated.
- akudha 5y ago
  Maybe we could make a list. Tax filing, tiny house codes, building codes, customs fee at the borders… What else?
  - duncan-donuts 5y ago
    Zoning laws, probably a ton of stuff in agriculture
- specialist 5y ago
  This is why I believe Bill Gates' statement that "90% of software hasn't been written yet" is (perpetually) true. Alas, the Venn diagram of domain knowledge (for any given niche) and any measure of competence developing products is tiny. And the work just isn't interesting. A friend made good money writing property tax administration software for municipalities. Tried to recruit me for years. I helped on some stuff, enough to verify I wasn't well suited to that type of work. Older me could probably do it happily.
mc32 5y ago
One word, Sarbanes-Oxley. That's how you create parasitic jobs. It's not all bad, Manufacturing compliance for Drugs for example, make sense. Never the less, whether necessary (as in health) or primarily burdensome like SOX, they create tons and tons of high paying jobs. Small companies can't afford full timers so they make do with consultants who charge an arm and a leg. SOX means well, but it's not going to stop the hanky-panky except for the inept. Is the cost of compliance worth the return on having less of incompetent fiscal malfeasance?

by akudha 5y ago

toomuchtodo 5y ago

https://up.codes/ https://up.codes/ Carl Malamud, an open access advocate (among other roles), has been championing the cause of open building codes for almost a decade. https://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Malamud+open+access https://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Malamud+open+access https://www.eff.org/cases/publicresource-freeingthelaw https://www.eff.org/cases/publicresource-freeingthelaw

mywittyname 5y ago

>I wonder how many of these compliance driven innovation opportunities (great term, btw) there are, thanks to bureaucracy. Tons. I'd venture to say that the majority of B2B companies out there exist because they offer some form of assistance in dealing with compliance across the country/world. Even though we probably don't think of that as their primary service. Example: payroll services - the money transfers are the easy part, a company is really paying these services to do tax compliance. One of the problems with starting a company like this is finding all of the niches that exist. You kind of have to have worked in a sector to learn what some of the pain points are that can be eliviated.

akudha 5y ago
Maybe we could make a list. Tax filing, tiny house codes, building codes, customs fee at the borders… What else?
- duncan-donuts 5y ago
  Zoning laws, probably a ton of stuff in agriculture
specialist 5y ago
This is why I believe Bill Gates' statement that "90% of software hasn't been written yet" is (perpetually) true. Alas, the Venn diagram of domain knowledge (for any given niche) and any measure of competence developing products is tiny. And the work just isn't interesting. A friend made good money writing property tax administration software for municipalities. Tried to recruit me for years. I helped on some stuff, enough to verify I wasn't well suited to that type of work. Older me could probably do it happily.

mc32 5y ago

One word, Sarbanes-Oxley. That's how you create parasitic jobs. It's not all bad, Manufacturing compliance for Drugs for example, make sense. Never the less, whether necessary (as in health) or primarily burdensome like SOX, they create tons and tons of high paying jobs. Small companies can't afford full timers so they make do with consultants who charge an arm and a leg. SOX means well, but it's not going to stop the hanky-panky except for the inept. Is the cost of compliance worth the return on having less of incompetent fiscal malfeasance?