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(author here)

If your take here is that I'm interested in "rich-white-guy" problems, I'd encourage you to re-read the list from the perspective of emerging and frontier markets. Most of what I have listed there is actually more important in those places than it is in Silicon Valley. For example -- receiver-centric package delivery is a far bigger deal in places that don't have addresses than it is in the US (and billions of people around the world don't have addresses!). Ditto with energy, waste management, etc... even an open web platform is a bigger deal in India than it is here.

Personally, I spend more time these days focused on those markets (especially Haiti and Africa) than I do on the US.

3 comments

Receiver-centric package delivery is a great idea for location privacy and for people who are constantly moving. It's funny to imagine a package chasing a person all over, never quite catching up with them.

You also listed title insurance. That is a government problem, not a start-up problem. It has been fixed for many properties in Australia. There, the government's idea of property ownership is correct. Our trouble in the USA is that for purposes of legal ownership, the government doesn't even have that info. All the government has is a list of property tax payers and a sales transaction log, neither of which is legal evidence of ownership. (sales transactions do not provide this because you can't legitimately sell something you don't own, but that doesn't stop you from making a sales transaction) The solution here is to make government records definitive.

You mentioned air conditioning. If you'd like an efficiency gain, the Sandia Cooler may be what you are looking for:

https://www.energy.gov/articles/sandia-cooler-blows-traditio...

https://ip.sandia.gov/technology.do/techID=66

It should be Community-centric package delivery. A local place with people you know, that manages ordering, delivery, payments, returns and helps with selections. The local "store" should be a community asset where smaller, friendlier and closer are all better than discount big-box.

The key is having large scale services that the community store can manage. Deliver of large or expensive items as a service, like college movers. Instead of Amazon grocery delivery vs other grocery delivery, use the community store to manage the interaction -- they choose quality and price, or decide what combinations to offer. This is good for Amazon too: it lets them compete on the supply chain and outsource customer service.

Community stores wouldn't just have online prices, they could offer innovative things like local individual services (lawn mowing, computer repair) with local ratings and local trust. Clothing from online stores, where people try it on before buying, and the community store manages shipping and damage, etc.. in a relationship with the online retailer.

Creating open software that manages a market for the store/supplier B2B relationships would let the local stay-at-home person start small, a few neighbors, and grow into a larger service and eventually a community store.

Yes, we have these problems in Africa.