Request for Startups — June 2018
This tweet inspired me to put one of these lists again. Excited to get some feedback on new thoughts along crypto, biotech, banking, local marketplaces, and more.
On-Demand Biochip and Nanochip Manufacturing
There have been a few companies emerge in on-demand / distributed manufacturing for durable goods or hardware like Voodoo Manufacturing and Plethora. They allow builders to prototype and get to market faster and at a better price point.
Imagine if this was done at a much smaller scale. Pharmaceutical companies and startups actively need to purchase manufactured bio and nanochips for activities such as genomic sequencing. What if they could plug certain parameters into a web form and get prototypes manufactured in a cloud-connected facility?
Tools for Protocol Underwriting
As it has with many others, Joel Monegro’s Fat Protocols post has captivated me. A lot of value is going to be captured at the protocol layer, especially by those who are helping orchestrate the proper functions of the network. For example, acting as a reporter on the Augur protocol earns you some amount of REP (the native token). Similar to the ways one would underwrite a debt facility or real estate investment, you can play out a few scenarios for types of work or staking on the network and know how much token you would earn.
A powerful piece of underwriting software can help one answer the question: “If I spend X amount in computing power and Ether gas, how much token can I earn over Y time period?” Ultimately, all of this work assumes that these tokens are worth something at the end of the day.
Banking / Issuing Infrastructure
It’s fascinating that forward-looking financial services companies like Petal and Starship are platform dependent on old-school community banks like WebBank and Liberty Savings Bank due to regulations around banking licenses. What does the process of working with these locally-grounded institutions look like? How expensive is it?
I’m interested in businesses (similar to Plaid) that can abstract away the heavy-lifting fintech companies have to do to get their facilities set up in a compliant manner and hopefully, through an API. I would love to see it be as easy to launch a financial product as it is a software product.
Website Builder + Aggregator for Healthcare Providers
An unnecessary headache private health clinics and practitioners face starting their practice is setting up a legitimate web presence. They often deal with local development agencies who charge them an arm and a leg for essentially templatized websites. You could offer a free service to providers where they fill in a form with their basic information and pick a template, which would spit out a mobile-responsive, SEO-friendly site for them. You then upcharge them on certain features.
Because the basic tier is free, you could theoretically scale up your customer base pretty quickly and over time, build a data advantage through the aggregation of thousands of providers’ websites all over the country.
Lighting Design and Installation Marketplace
Just how companies like Laurel and Wolf and Showroom brought the interior design industry online, the lighting design and installation market needs a bit of a revamp as well. This space is highly fragmented with information siloed across local providers, who are also looking for ways to build their business).
Additionally, one can sell to a multitude of entities, from homes to construction firms to commercial real estate landlords and managers. I need to do more research, but think lighting is a pretty interesting space with characteristics that make it a little more distinct from the catch-all of interior design.
Curated Commerce Packages for Apartments
This concepts brings two questions together, which I’m assuming many young people in cities ask themselves: “What do I need in my apartment?” and “How can I earn passive income?” This idea is similar to Kit (which Patreon just acquired), but it’s more oriented around the action of moving to a new apartment.
I could imagine something working in the following way:
- Aspiring tastemakers or curators upload pictures of their apartment and ‘tag’ the products they’ve featured.
- These get assembled as packages for prospective customers to peruse and, ultimately, one-click purchase when they’re thinking about moving to a new city or place.
- The uploaders and the platform split the affiliate revenue on every purchase.
Health and Beauty Products for Seniors
There’s been so much done in the D2C space for the young, urban, millennial consumer. Yet, while we get Soylent, seniors get Ensure. I think a lot could be done simply by repackaging and rebranding existing health and beauty products for seniors. One could build a more creative brand online and distribute through elderly care facilities and innovative providers like Honor.
If any of these areas excited you or you're working on a solution in one in of these spaces, feel free to get in touch with me at aashaysanghvi[at]gmail.com.
