Billion Dollar Startups Save People Money
--
Sarah Tavel put together a great post and presentation on how successful startups save people money.
Here are a few more ways I think we can save people money and startups that are currently helping.
Housing
33% of consumer spending
Shelter
The biggest purchase you’ll ever make is tedious and expensive. Discovery is better but the transaction is far from seamless. Rent is expensive, especially for low-income.
- Open Listings: buy a a home and get money back.
- Opendoor: sell your home in a couple days.
- Haus: transparent offer platform.
- Plant Prefab: low-cost custom homes.
- Airbnb: book or host locally.
- Welive: cheap urban co-living.
Mortgage
Getting the best loan, gathering all your documents and getting the lender to close is painful and cost a lot of money. There should be alternative ways of liquidating equity in your house. Andreessen Horowitz had a good podcast on this.
- Landed: crowd-funded teacher loans.
- Sindeo: compare thousands of loans
- Point: sell a percentage of your home.
Utilities
Utilities are far from friendly. It’s tough to save when there’s no usage transparency. There should be more smart tools that help consumers save effortlessly.
- SolarCity / Tesla Roof: roofing that keeps the lights on.
- Nest: energy-saving thermostat.
- Google Fiber: cable provider you don’t hate.
- SimpleEnergy: energy-saving marketplace.
Maintenance
Enabling long-term relationships ( not just discovery ) between consumers and pros is key. It’s still more painful and expensive than it should be to get a good pro out to your house.
- Thumbtack, Takl, Zaarly, Amazon, Porch, Pro.com, Houzz, Redbeacon, TalkLocal, Handy, Home Depot: uber for home service.
Home Insurance
Home insurance is expensive, lacks personalization and traditional home warranties aren’t good.
Furniture / Equipment
Furniture is big, expensive and hard to liquidate. Appliances should track, predict usage to help you save.
Transportation
18% of consumer spending
Vehicle
Buying a car is expensive and a lot of work. It should get easier to find, buy and insure a vehicle. Also, people shouldn’t have to drive. The time-savings will be epic ( $160 Billion ).
- Uber: tap a button, get a ride.
- Beepi: buy a car online and get it delivered instantly.
- Tesla: the future.
- Metromile: pay-per-mile insurance.
Fuel / Maintenance
No one should have to go to a gas or charing station. Cars are idle most of the time. Maintenance should come to the car when it’s sitting around.
- Yoshi: fuel delivery.
- Fiix / YourMechanic: at home car maintenance.
Flight
The flying experience isn’t good. Security check-points, layovers and waiting in lines take a lot of time. It will, in many cases be quicker and cheaper to jump in your self-driving car.
- Boom: faster planes.
- Hipmunk: cheap flights.
- Jetsmarter: personal jet on-demand.
Food
14% of consumer spending
Eating at home
Figuring out what you’re going to eat is still hard. Meal plans, grocery lists and food delivery should work together to save food and time.
- Ando: Chinese takeout + Uber.
- Gobble: easy-to-make dinners in a box.
- Instacart / Shipt: grocery delivery.
- Soylent: meal replacement drink.
- Ibotta: coupons 2.0.
Eating out
Restaurant decisions are often made last minute. It should be easier for slow restaurants to connect with hungry consumers looking to save.
Pension / Personal Insurance
11% of consumer spending
Personal Insurance:
Life insurance is old, impersonal and difficult to understand. It should be easier to get what you need and much more flexible.
Healthcare
8% of consumer spending
Health Insurance
The future of health insurance is complicated and uncertain.
Medical Services
There’s little transparency in the services you consume. Finding a doctor and scheduling an appointment is still painful. Telemedicine should work better alongside your local doctors. Patients proactively research and have a good idea of what’s going on with their body. It should be easier for doctors and patients to work together.
- Healthcare Bluebook: save money on out-of-pocket expenses.
- Zocdoc: Opentable for doctors.
- Patientping: patient information sharing.
Drugs
Prescription drugs are expensive, lack personalization and cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. There should be more cost-effective options that are tailored for our health. Drug development should get cheaper. We also need to do a better job of building in safeguards to protect consumers from abuse.
- Pillpack: personalized prescription delivery.
- Atomwise: AI drug discovery.
- Affirm Health: preventive drug abuse.
Entertainment
5% of consumer spending — more facts here
Shows
Discovery is hard. Connecting consumers and creators should get better.
Music
Games
Console games are expensive. Casinos and lottery costs society a lot of money.
- Niantic: Pokemon GO
- Scions of Helios: AR mortal combat.
- DoubleDown Casino: free slots.
Communication
Communication is cheap but there still isn’t anything that beats face to face. AR/VR will help.
- FB, WA, IG: connect with friends for free.
- Snapchat: ^ + ephemeral.
- AltVR: hang out in VR.
Pets
Pet ownership is hard and expensive.
- Whistle: never lose your pet.
- Dogvacay: boarding and pet sitter.
- PrettyLitter: affordable cat litter.
- Vetondemand: live chat with a vet.
Toys
Toys should do a better job of incorporating popular themes ( Princesses / Heroes vs. Bad guys ) with learning.
Apparel
3% of consumer spending
Daily clothes cost a lot of time ( 16min per day ) and money. It should be more acceptable to wear the same thing or have an outfit chosen for you. Access to underutilized or special-occasions inventory should get better.
- StitchFix: on-demand outfit personalization.
- Rent the Runway: Rent designer clothes for less.
- The Black Tux: on-demand suit.
Cash Contributions
3% of consumer spending
Donations should be treated with the same level of scrutiny as investments. “What’s the roi and how big can this get?”
- New Incentives: donate an HIV-free newborn.
- Watsi: donate a medical treatment.
Education
2% of consumer spending
Student debt
Student debt in the U.S. is at $1.2 trillion and growing. The average student will graduate with over $30k in loans…
- Student Loan Hero: dashboard for paying off your debt.
- Earnest: student loan re-financing.
- LendEDU: kayak for re-financing.
Online learning
Certified online universities are expensive. Getting same level of recognition for MOOCs and online courses as traditional EDU should get better.
- Coursera: university of online.
- Duolingo: learn Spanish.
- Codecademy: learn to code.
Booze
1% of consumer spending
Drinking at home
Bottles are nice some nights but wasteful others. Single serve and replenishment should get better.
Drinking out
Every college kid wants to start a bar startup… Experience should get better for loyal bar customers. Maybe blockchain for your local pub? Enable everyone to own a piece of their pub.
- Beerme: no more waiting at the bar for a drink.
Personal Care
1.2% of consumer spending
Traditional products have big margins and lack personal experiences.
E-commerce should continue to provide 10x value for much less.
- Dollar Shave Club: affordable razors every month.
- Warby Parker: online eyeglasses.
- Phlur: Warby Parker for fragrance.
- Flex: a comfy and efficient alternative to tampons.
Reading
0.2% of consumer spending
Fake news is rampant, quality journalism struggles to coexist with ads and It’s tough to digest everything on the go. Someone will make affordable reading mutually beneficial to readers and writers.
Summary
Please comment below if you have ideas on how we can help people save or if your startup is tackling these problems.
Thanks for reading!
