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Solve your first world problems
- marquis 14y agoStill no solution for ennui?
- SeoxyS 14y agoSoon, I don't think even Instacart will be able to help with my Twinkie cravings, considering Hostess just went bankrupt again, and stopped production.
- chacha102 14y agoIn my case, they can't solve my problem because they are only in Northern California. :(
- Dove 14y agoWe treated this as a quiz for how familiar we were with various startups. Got a good chunk of them right, too. I may need to spend more time working and less time on Hacker News.
- omarchowdhury 14y agoHere's another first world problem solved: http://getcoldturkey.com/ http://getcoldturkey.com/
- Firehed 14y agoJust added it, thanks!
- hayksaakian 14y ago'I have $36' - my favorite
- viraj_shah 14y agoThis is funny.
- azatris 14y agoI think this should be retitled to "Solve the problems you do not really have using a website that is as useless".
- saraid216 14y agoPretty sure that's what it says.
- sliverstorm 14y agoDon't be surprised, it's classic marketing. The easiest problems to solve are the problems your customer didn't know they had. The marketing pitches for such solutions always begin by introducing you to a problem you didn't know you had.
- mahesh_rm 14y agoI vote for this as best 2012 HN post.
- StuieK 14y agoHey guys Firehed and a bunch of us put this together. Feel free to submit a pull request if you want to add something :)
- prostoalex 14y agoTumblr is in NY!
- StuieK 14y agoAh you're right! Forgot about that, did I miss any others?
- z-factor 14y agoDid you consider just making it a list of links? If you want to hide the link targets you can do that with JS. Dropdown list is kind of unnecessary, I think.
- StuieK 14y agoYeah you're right, that would be a lot better. To be honest we kinda just threw it together in a couple hrs and forgot about it.
- T-R 14y agoIf I recall, I think the over-styled but less-usable drop-down list was a deliberate decision, much like the call to setTimeout. (I'm a housemate of StuieK and Firehed, and also contributed to the page)
- D_Alex 14y agoMine is "I can't even be bothered to fill out the sign-up forms for all these web sites you redirect me to".
- hayksaakian 14y agoi just went to the site to look for that option...
- prostoalex 14y agoLaunchrock needs to have a premium membership option.
- VoiceOfWisdom 14y agoThe entry for app.net is glorious. I should have known what it was just from the title.
- prostoalex 14y agoIt's a play on http://www.ihave50dollars.com/ http://www.ihave50dollars.com/
- w3pm 14y agoI am very close to donating! This describes exactly how I feel about the Silicon Valley publicized on HN. Surely there are plenty of start-ups solving real problems, hard problems -- what can we do to make sure those make the front-page more often? I guess all of the Instagrams getting acquired for hundreds of millions doesn't help.
- jaredsohn 14y agoA good start would be to name some of them in posts like this -- both those that are being solved and those that should be solved.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoHmm, Small business gets reamed on store fixtures and any sort of furniture. Creating a market for piece work (people working at home doing small assembly / sewing / Etc functions) with folks who want to do small production runs. Fasteners on demand, making the kinds of fasteners you want how you want them right now in reasonable quantities. Inventory management for one/two person shops. Phone customer support on demand. Essential network service (DNS/Email/Web/File/Fax/Media) for small businesses. (I did this once before but its becoming more relevant, could be a 'software only' solution these days)
- ivank 14y agoNot startups, but SIAI and FHI are solving the "make sure we'll be around in 100 years" problem.
- swlkr 14y agoSelecting each one of those things and being redirected was killing me. Here's a shortcut: problems = document.getElementById('problems'); for(i = 1; i < problems.length; i++) { console.log(problems[i].innerHTML + ': ' + problems[i].value) }
- Matt_Mickiewicz 14y agoToo many smart people spending a whole lot of time, effort & cash solving frivolous problems.
- sneak 14y agoRich people in the first world will pay a lot of money to have their trivial problems solved well. All business are solving the problem of "we don't have enough revenue". That's the only metric, here.
- greggman 14y agoHilarious. Maybe we could add * Entertain me because I actually have free time -> the movie industry * Entertain me at home because I'm too tired to go out -> the game industry * Make me dinner because I'm too lazy to cook -> the food service industry * Help be get where someplace in comfort -> the auto industry
- w3pm 14y agoI think you're missing the joke. Most of these apps are some nth-derivative of those industries. Instead of "make me dinner" it's "an app to aggregate apps that help me find someone to make me dinner, plus social networking." At some point the value-add is so small it's truly a "first-world problem."
- Rinum 14y agoHe definitely got the joke. The point is that you could apply this to anything. Most of what we have now went through some kind of value-add process. Isn't that how evolution works? That smallest "value-add" could make room for bigger change later.
- emrekzd 14y agoSo this is seriously #1 on HN right now.
- vojant 14y agoReally funny
- kevinconroy 14y agoFor everything else, there's www.globalgiving.org
- joejohnson 14y agoThe "my high paying job makes it hard to find a girlfriend" one is broken. I think there is a typo in the link: "wwww.sparkology.com".
- StuieK 14y agoFixed. Thanks!
- smcnally 14y agothe option value for sparkology.com has one too many ws <option value="http://wwww.sparkology.com>I http://wwww.sparkology.com>I graduated from a top university but my high paying job makes it hard to find a girlfriend</option>
- zmonkeyz 14y agoI love "I have 36 dollars".
- xugle 14y agoycombinator could sue you for stealing their business-model.
- jevin 14y agoHey, I think you forgot to remove Techcrunch's favicon. Otherwise, I really love the concept. Good going!
- gtirloni 14y agoI would be interested in a third world version of this website.